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 GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS 
 
 A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 DONX PIATT 
 
 WITH CONCLUDING CHAPTERS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY V. BOYNTON 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
 
 1893
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1893, 
 BY ELLA KIRBY PIATT.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE 13 
 
 THE WAR INTRODUCTION 22 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Early life The Child is Father to the Man Home Life in Old Vir- 
 ginia West Point and what it did not Teach, but what Young 
 Thomas Learned 47 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 West Point and After Services Preceding the Mexican War Its Ori- 
 gin and Infamy Sam. Houston Distinguished Dash at Monterey 
 Resolutions and the Sword 63 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Thomas Announces His Allegiance to the Government Loyal from 
 the First Difference in Temperament that Made His Course the 
 Reverse of that of Lee Question of the Right to Secede 80 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Promoted Through Colonelcy to a Brigadier Generalship Skirmish at 
 Falling Waters " Stonewall " and "Rock" First Bull Run Vin- 
 dication of General Patterson 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Thomas Proposes to Sever the Main Artery of the Confederacy by 
 Taking Chattanooga Andrew Johnson's Potent Influence Buell 
 Placed in Command Battle of Mill Springs 106 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Proposed Campaign to Chattanooga, as viewed in the Light now 
 Given Us Fremont and the Gunboats he Furnished Capture of 
 Fort Donelson 129
 
 iv Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Nashville the Political Objective Point Shameful Surprise and Useless 
 Slaughter at Shiloh Reorganization of the Forces at Corinth 
 Thomas Given Command of the Right Wing Asks to be Relieved 
 and Reassigned to His Old Command Difficulties in the Route 
 from Corinth to Chattanooga McMinnville Army of Ohio Moved 
 Back to Louisville Thomas Appointed to Succeed Buell, but De- 
 clines Second in Command Perry ville 140 
 
 . CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Buell Court of Inquiry Thomas Shows that had his Suggestion of 
 Concentrating the Army at Sparta been acted on Bragg's Advance 
 would have been Checked 177 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Treason in the Head-quarters at Alexandria Preparations for the Re- 
 moval of McClellan Pope Put in Command of the Forces Defend- 
 ing Washington The Shameful Story of the Second Bull Run 
 The Fitz John Porter Case Lee's Invasion of Maryland McClel- 
 lan Relieved of Command 182 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Rosecrans given Command of the Army of the Cumberland Thomas 
 Protests against his Junior being placed over Him Takes Com- 
 mand of the Center Advance upon Chattanooga Battle of Stone 
 River Thomas opposes Retreat 196 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Immediate Effect of the Stone River Victory Review of the Opera- 
 tions During the Six Months following the Army of the Potomac 
 Burnside takes up McClellan's Cry of " On to Richmond "Disaster 
 of Fredericksburg Hooker Succeeds Burnside Meade put in Com- 
 mandInvasion of Pennsylvania and Battle of Gettysburg 214 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Campaign at the West Grant and Sherman Prepare for the Descent 
 , Upon Vicksburg Three Months Lost in Getting Rid of a " Politi- 
 cal General " Washburn's Support of Grant Sherman's Forces 
 Landed at the Mouth of the Yazoo Defenses of Chickasaw Bluff. . 230
 
 Contents. v 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Assault of Vicksburg from the River given up as Hopeless " Employ- 
 ment for Superfluous Troops " in a Campaign against the Vexatious 
 Waters of the Mississippi Details of Four Thousand kept con- 
 stantly at work in an attempt to change the River's Current The 
 Laborers exposed to Fevers, Dysentery, Malaria, and a deadly 
 Artillery Fire from the Enemy Deaths by Thousands in the 
 Ditches The Project a Failure Lake Providence Canal Scheme 
 Tried and Abandoned Co-operation with Banks 250 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Port Hudson Plan of Escape from before Vicksburg Running 
 Steamers Past the Batteries McClernand Forces the Evacuation of 
 Grand Gulf and Port Gibson Grant Fails to Follow up the Ad- 
 vantage, and Moves Off in a Raid on Jackson Pemberton Moves 
 Out of Vicksburg, Intending to Form a Junction with Johnston 
 and Attack Grant's Rear Bloody Battle of Champion's Hill 
 Pemberton Retreats into Vicksburg The Assaults and Horrible 
 Loss The Wounded Left to Die and the Dead to Rot Pemberton 
 Surrenders Fearful Cost of the Questionable Advantage 267 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Preparations for the Advance on Chattanooga Concentration and For- 
 tification of Supplies Impatience of the War Department at the 
 Delay Reinforcements and Supplies Forwarded Reluctantly 
 Treachery to Rosecrans in his Chief of Staff Testing the Front of 
 the Enemy Training Raw Recruits into Veterans 326 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Tullahoma Campaign Impatient Orders from Washington for an 
 Immediate Advance Catholic Influence Sustains Rosecrans The 
 Natural Defenses of Chattanooga Bragg Flanked Out Battle of 
 Chickamauga Thomas Holds the Center and Saves the Army 
 Retreat to Rossville In Possession of the Granite Gateway to the 
 South 352 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton, his Character and Temperament His Intense Dis- 
 like for Rosecrans and its Causes A Manly Remonstrance that
 
 v - Contents. 
 
 amounted to Insult-Bragg Changes his Intended Assault on Chat- 
 tanooga into a Siege-Rosecrans Relieved and Thomas put in Com- 
 maud 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Siege of Chattanooga-Terrible Suffering from Lack of Supplies- 
 Thomas Opens up a Route Affording Relief-A Brave Order Meant 
 only for Effect at Washington Thomas Commissioned Brigadier- 
 General, U. S. A. Burnside's Movements at Knoxville Sherman 
 and his' Forces Join Grant and Thomas-The Plan of Battle- 
 Attack Postponed from Day to Day-Thomas's Troops Take and 
 Hold the Enemy's Works on Orchard Knob Hooker Captures 
 Lookout Mountain Army of the Cumberland Takes the Heights 
 of Missionary Ridge The Gross Injustice done Thomas in Lying 
 Memoirs 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Ignorance at Washington Enlightened by General Grant The War 
 of Attrition Both Sides in the Conflict Running to Exhaustion, 
 Neck and Neck Failure of the Draft Thomas's Plan of Prose- 
 cuting the War to a Speedy and Successful Close 509 
 
 BOYNTON'S PRKFACK 515 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 
 
 General Thomas Preparing for a Spring Campaign Notified by Grant 
 that he Contemplated Marching through to the Sea Reconnoiters 
 Johnston's Position at Dalton Finds it Impregnable, but Discovers 
 Snake Creek Gap to the Right of it Undefended Proposes an 
 Atlanta Campaign with the Army of the Cumberland Sherman, 
 his Junior, Assigned to Command Thomas's Proposition to Turn 
 Dalton by Way of Snake Creek Gap Rejected A Direct Attack on 
 Dalton Decided on After some Days of Assaulting Precipices, Plan 
 Abandoned, and Thomas's Adopted Too Late, as Johnston, fully 
 Warned, was Able to Withdraw to his Works at Resaca, and After 
 Battle to Safely Cross the Oostenaula 516
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 From Resaca to the Etowah Thomas's Boldness Causes Johnston to 
 Retire to Allatoona The Enemy Flanked out of Allatoona Union 
 Advance to Kenesaw Sherman's Secret Attack upon his Com- 
 manders Ite Gross Injustice Shown by his own Dispatches 532 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Advance on Kenesaw Mountain A Needless Assault and Inexcusa- 
 ble Butchery General Logan's Story of the Reasons for It The 
 Way Open for a Movement on Either Flank A Final Flanking 
 Movement Dislodges the Enemy without a Battle 540 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Hood Relieves Johnston Put in to Fight instead of to Continue John- 
 ston's More Prudent Course Two Bloody Battles Follow at Once 
 Peach Tree Creek and the Battle of Atlanta of July 22d General 
 Thomas's Troops Carry the Works at Jonesboro Consequent Sur- 
 render of Atlanta General Thomas Proposes with his Army to 
 March through to Savannah, Releasing the Union Prisoners at ( 
 Anderson ville and Other Prisoners on the Way 549 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Hood Moves on Sherman's Communications Sherman Proposes Leav- 
 ing Thomas with Two Divisions in Tennessee and Marching Him- 
 self to the Sea Sherman's Anxiety to get Away from Hood The 
 Underlying Motive of Sherman's March to the Sea The Part of 
 the Plan which Sherman Originated Grant Misled as to the Force 
 left with Thomas 554 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The Armies of Sherman and Thomas Compared Thomas left with 
 Fragments and Invalids Sherman Marches to the Sea with no 
 Enemy in his Front Schofield's Good Work The Disastrous De- 
 feat of Hood at Franklin 558 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 General Thomas's Energy at Nashville The Completeness of his Prep- 
 arations An Effective Army Organized from Two Small Veteran
 
 Contents. 
 
 Corps, Invalids, Raw Recruits, and Citizens Crushing Defeat of 
 Hood Destroyed by a Vigorous Pursuit Impatience of General 
 Grant He twice Orders Thomas's Removal-Persistent 111 Treat- 
 ment of Thomas Completeness of Thomas's Victory Sherman 
 and Grant Saved from Themselves Hood's Army, as an Army, 
 Disappears from the Theater of War 567 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The Cavalry Corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi in the 
 Nashville Campaign 580 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 The Operations of the Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia 593 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, West Point, and Macon 618 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The Capture of Jefferson Davis The Summary of Wilson's Operations 
 and their Influence upon the Collapse of the Rebellion 636 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Thomas after the War His Rank Ignored in Assignments Persist- 
 ently Pursued Offered Grant's Place at the Head of the Army by 
 President Johnson, but Declines Refuses to have his Name Used 
 in Connection with the Presidency The Story of his Death ; it is 
 little less than the History of an Assassination 647
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 There is probably no political disturbance culminating 
 in an armed conflict so little known to the world as this of 
 ours that from 1861 to 1864 convulsed the people of a conti- 
 nent. Not only is its origin lost in obscurity, but the 
 actual events are so distorted that instead of history they 
 make a romance far more improbable than fictions evolved 
 from the brain of novelists and poets. To get at the reason 
 for this extraordinary condition, we have to remember that 
 war in its larger meaning was unknown to us when this 
 fearful one broke upon us. For two hundred years we had 
 been engaged in the conquest of a continent, reclaiming it 
 from the dominion of nature, and so earnest and industrious 
 had we been that we were lost to all else. The conflict of 
 arms that won us our independence was in truth a war be- 
 tween England and France, in which the thirteen colonies 
 did little but exhibit an indomitable will, animated by the 
 loftiest patriotism. We could have fought England single- 
 handed and alone if need were, and probably would have 
 been conquered, but France, for selfish purposes of its own, 
 did the fighting for us. The infamous invasion of a sister 
 republic, known as the Mexican war, was a small affair and 
 ended ere our people could learn aught of arms. Immersed 
 in labor, trade, politics, and speculation, we were suddenly 
 called on to consider the exigencies of actual war upon 
 the largest scale. To the masses it was novel in the begin- 
 ning and quite unknown in the end. All that the people 
 
 (13)
 
 14 Preface. 
 
 knew was that the households of the land were filled with 
 mourning and the cemeteries, the silent cities of the dead, 
 numbered their million. 
 
 We learn from early travelers that nothing is so prolific 
 of distortion as the unknown. Reputable explorers return 
 from unexplored lands and distant seas with accounts of 
 monsters that have existence only in the imagination, but 
 are accepted from the proneness of poor human nature to 
 welcome the improbable. The brave men who shouldered 
 their muskets and fell into line marched into the unknown. 
 Campaigns and battles were heard of but not understood. 
 We are not altogether alone in this. Historians who narrate 
 and artists who illustrate great fights are among the class 
 that never witness what they put to record. The result is 
 that truth gives way to dramatic effect. As probably there 
 never was a campaign executed as it was planned, and as 
 every battle is an accident as to how it is fought and how it 
 comes to be finished, we can see the play given to the mili- 
 tary fancy of the generals in their reports and the wide field 
 of imagination open to more legitimate reporters. As there 
 seldom was an official report that did not sacrifice the truth 
 far more fearlessly than its author did his foes, so there never 
 appeared a pictorial illustration of a real battle. All the 
 fierce charges, crossed bayonets, hand-to-hand encounters in 
 the whirl of a terrible conflict, are the work of the imagina- 
 tion. If the historical journalist and artist could know that 
 the element counted on by officials in their calculation of 
 chances is fear, and not courage, they would be saved much 
 absurd work. 
 
 "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
 
 Preface. 15 
 
 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 do n't run away, we do." 
 
 Reports of battles, then, were to the people as much 
 stories from the unknown as Stanley's tales of a dark conti- 
 nent. Not only this, but the hearers had no information by 
 which to test their truth or probability. A most ludicrous 
 instance of this occurs when General Sheridan's army was 
 surprised and defeated by General Early. The commander 
 was asleep in bed at Winchester, twenty miles away. He 
 would have been called to account for thus absenting him- 
 self from the front at a time of great peril to his forces from 
 the immediate presence of the enemy, and had to answer to 
 a court of inquiry or a court-martial, but for a crazy poet 
 and a patriotic actor. The very dereliction of duty was 
 made the basis of a rhymed eulogy, and instead of being 
 tried for willful absence, he was glorified by the mob and 
 promoted by the administration. The returning general is 
 pictured as galloping back to the roar and rumble of a ter- 
 rific fight and meeting his entire army in full flight. Ac- 
 cording to the wild fancy of the rhymester, he alone rallies 
 the panic-stricken thirty thousand and turns them back to 
 victory. The prosaic fact is, that General Wright had re- 
 formed the broken lines and was actually moving into battle 
 when Sheridan returned. The fight was made and won 
 without half of the army knowing that General Sheridan 
 was present. 
 
 We are not asserting that General Sheridan might not 
 have exculpated himself had a court been called, but we do 
 claim that it was a case where a court should have been 
 called instead of a crazy poet and a patriotic dramatist. The
 
 !: Preface. 
 
 story told that Sheridan was on his return from Washington, 
 where he had been summoned by Secretary Stanton, needs 
 confirmation. Secretary Stanton was not given to calling 
 commanders from the front, and one naturally demands the 
 record at the department of so important an emergency. 
 
 If so absurd a story as this can pass into history, what 
 are we to expect from the bulk of matter accepted by the 
 masses as facts. Fictitious heroes have been embalmed in 
 lies, and monuments are being reared to the memories of 
 men, whose real histories, when they come to be known, will 
 make this bronze and marble the monuments of our ignor- 
 ance and folly. 
 
 There is yet another reason for the popular distortion of 
 public events, that is found in the fact that our disturbance 
 was political, and the politics did not die with the war of 
 arms. The fame of certain generals came to be a political 
 quantity to be claimed and built upon as much as the soldier's 
 vote left over from the conflict. Any attempt, then, to in- 
 vestigate the career of a political general, and question his 
 right to the eminence awarded him is furiously resented by 
 his partisans. Fortunately for us, these partisans make but 
 a small part of the population of the civilized world. The 
 truthful recorders lie mainly outside our borders, and while 
 we have the truly great under epaulets in the persons 
 of Thomas, Eosecrans, Buell, McPherson, Pope, Logan, 
 Schenck, McClelland, and Wallace, we should hasten to re- 
 adjust the record and make our history. There is danger 
 that pilgrims to the shrines of famous heroism may pass 
 monuments now being erected at the north to place their im- 
 mortelles on the shrine of one, whose purity of character, 
 heroism of resolve, and great devotion to a cause that was a 
 lost cause at its beginning, makes such a powerful appeal to 
 the world's sympathy. It is well for us that we have one
 
 Preface. 17 
 
 man whose higher qualities must, when better known, win 
 to us the admiration of the world. No marble gleams, no 
 bronze defies decay above his narrow grave, but he was great 
 in deeds, and grand in character. Thanks to him, we not 
 only won the fight, but we won the glory of that terrible 
 conflict. 
 
 Another source of error in our records comes from the 
 press facilities, that edited events on the wing in the con- 
 fusion of great fights. These editings are now strangely re- 
 garded as history. We had some new features in our war 
 unknown to those of other lands in the past. We had rail- 
 roads, telegraphs, iron-clads, and the press. This last was 
 the most novel, and in some respects, embarrassing. True, 
 the London Times, during the Crimean war, gave an instance 
 of press interference, when that journal took the manage- 
 ment of the conflict from an imbecile department, and carried 
 it out to a triumphant close. This, however, was an excep- 
 tion. The European press contents itself with a report of 
 events sanctioned by the military. But with us, all move- 
 ments in the field had to receive the sanction of the press. 
 Campaigns were freely discussed when planned, and ap- 
 proved or condemned as the editorial mind saw the proposed 
 advantages or defects. Every head-quarters from those of 
 a colonel to a major-general's had its press reporter who slept 
 and ate with the officer in command, and never left his side 
 until it was necessary to go to the front to get the facts. It was 
 a startling innovation, and fiercely resented by West Point. 
 The editorial fraternity was sneered at, but these stern dis- 
 ciplinarians accepted services so necessary to their personal 
 popularity with the people. Like the ancient Pistol, they ate 
 their leek, but grumbled as they ate. There was good in this 
 innovation, for it not only infused a needed quantity of in- 
 telligence in the conduct of the war, but it went far toward
 
 18 Preface. 
 
 making it acceptable to the people. The brain of our 
 country is in its press, and on this occasion that brain was 
 animated by the highest and purest patriotism. We fought 
 the war out by volunteers, and how much we owe to the press 
 and the pulpit for the enthusiasm that grew stronger over 
 disasters than victories can never be fairly estimated. For 
 over two years we had little but shameful defeats and 
 fearful slaughter, and yet the heavy reinforcements kept step 
 to the music of the Union, that had for its refrain, " We are 
 coming, Father Abram, a hundred thousand more." 
 
 These were the advantages of a powerful and patriotic 
 press. But it had its defects, and the more prominent is in 
 the so-called history that it has made. There is nothing 
 more fatal to a correct perspective than an electric light. Of 
 this sort was the light thrown on events by the press. What 
 it shone on was exaggerated ; what it failed to exhibit was 
 entirely lost in the gloom of night. The very effort to sus- 
 tain the government in its military management distorted 
 events. Incapable men in command were made great cap- 
 tains of until some terrible calamity made indorsement im- 
 possible, when the pens that had so liberally praised as 
 fiercely consigned their hero to oblivion. 
 
 The best illustration of this uncertainty of report and 
 record is to be found in this volume. The war offered upon 
 the Potomac was accepted by our side, and from the begin- 
 ning to the end, attention was devoted to that arena, and it 
 escaped public knowledge that the campaign which carried 
 the fortunes of an empire to a triumphant close was at the 
 west. So little was known of the march of the Army of the 
 Cumberland from Nashville to Chattanooga, that when Gen- 
 eral H. V. Boynton published his admirable series of articles 
 devoted to its history, it read to the public like a history of 
 a war never heard of before.
 
 Preface. 19 
 
 There is much in this volume that students of newspaper 
 history will protest against. That we have not confined 
 ourselves to the personal achievements of George II. Thomas, 
 but given briefly a statement of military movements else- 
 where, will be a subject of complaint, but we submit that 
 without this view of the entire field of military operations, 
 the reader can not clearly comprehend or appreciate what 
 was accomplished by our general. Indeed, the story of his 
 life during the four eventful years in the field is a history of 
 the war. It is impossible to separate what he proposed do- 
 ing and what he did from contemporary events that made or 
 marred his work. There is, for example, no event that so 
 clearly illustrates his masterly knowledge of the situation as 
 the plan of a campaign he submitted in the beginning of the 
 war, that was adopted in the end, and in its adoption made 
 that end not only possible, but a fact accomplished. We 
 refer, of course, to that plan submitted to the government 
 of moving a column of twenty thousand men through Cum- 
 berland Gap to East Tennessee and Chattanooga. This was 
 offered the War Department when he was ordered to report 
 to General Robert Anderson at Bowling Green, Ky. We 
 can not comprehend the value of this without taking in 
 view the entire field. 
 
 In every war there is what military men call an objective 
 point, which, if secured, will go far toward ending the armed 
 conflict. With the Confederates this was Washington, for 
 the capture of that capital meant the armed intervention of 
 European war powers. In less than thirty days after the 
 fall of Washington, the combined fleets of England, France, 
 and Russia would have been upon our coast, and the repub- 
 lic of the fathers, a dream of the past. Our objective point, 
 on the contrary, was the capture of Chattanooga. As the 
 Confederate government had gathered, with a heavy cost it
 
 20 Prefniv. 
 
 could illy bear, its one geat array about Richmond, the losa 
 of Chattanooga would have rendered their proposed field of 
 operation untenable, and turned them from a defensive posi- 
 tion when attacked to an attacking force to drive us from 
 where our presence menaced their interior where they 
 lived. This was as important in the commencement of the 
 \vur as it was when Lee hurried Longstreet with the flower 
 of his army to aid Bragg that they might retake the great 
 gate-way to the South at all hazards. 
 
 Throughout the war, with one exception, our military 
 men on both sides seemed to be groping in the dark. They 
 marched without a purpose and fought battles without other 
 result than slaughter to their troops. The continuous vic- 
 tories of Lee's army are not pleasant to remember, and it is 
 only a grim satisfaction given us to know that we owe our 
 triumph at least to his lack of ability. He never could 
 realize on his successes in the field that were after all defeats 
 in the end. The newly formed government could riot bear 
 the awful drain of men and. means. He brought about the 
 condition that enabled the iron-willed Stanton to say: "We 
 no generals to maneuver, but we have men to fight, and 
 1 will crowd them in until this treason is stamped out. We 
 <-an give three men to their one and win." 
 
 From this view of the dark side of our conflict we can 
 turn for consolation to a memory of an heroic people that 
 never hesitated for a moment in a high resolve to restore the 
 Tnion. We can take pride in the able statesmen at Wash- 
 ington, found in Lincoln and his cabinet, who, through the 
 darkest hours, when shattered armies were drifting back 
 through the capital, and they expected to hear the artillery 
 of Lee that would have been minute guns over the* grave of 
 tho republic, yet never lost heart, and held the people and 
 armies and foreign powers to the line of duty till the cause
 
 Preface. 21 
 
 was won. Arid above all we can unite in doing justice to 
 the memory of the one hero, who, neglected by the govern- 
 ment, led into peril by the blunders of his superior officers, 
 had yet the power to render great service to the republic and 
 UMNO us victories unmarred by wanton slaughter, untainted 
 by selfish ambition. 
 
 Our work herein is not in justification of history. That 
 will in time care for itself. Nor is it for George H. Thomas. 
 He is gone from our midst. 
 
 "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well ; 
 Treason has done his worst ; nor steel, nor poison, 
 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
 Can touch him further." 
 
 We seek to. hang immortelles upon his tomb, not for 
 him, but for ourselves. His great life is a lesson and an ex- 
 ample to the living an example and a lesson to the noble 
 youth of our land for all time to come. From the career of 
 the great soldier, they can learn the true worth of a high- 
 toned integrity and a keen sense of honor that never faltered 
 and never for a moment forsook him. We know how his 
 sensitive nature suffered from the slights unjustly put upon 
 him and met no retort save that of a dignified remonstrance. 
 We know how he longed for command, feeling within him- 
 self the power to rectify blunders, bring order out of con- 
 fusion, and lead our brave men to victory without great loss ; 
 and yet when that command was to be reached over the un- 
 merited disgrace of a comrade, he resolutely declined. He 
 loved his country much, but his honor more. And yet we 
 see how his very virtues are used to deface his memory. It 
 is for the true chroniclers of those troublous times to pass 
 the dear memory of the dead hero from the hearts of his 
 soldiers, where it has so long been treasured, to the hearts 
 of all the people, that he may live forever as he was.
 
 THE WAR. 
 
 I NTHODUCTION. 
 
 Histories are the annals of war. The dramatic effects 
 found in campaigns and startling results of great battles 
 alone go to record. The historian caters to the taste of hia 
 patrons ; and as the subtle origin of armed conflicts found in 
 antagonistic elements of popular impulse are obscure and 
 make dull reading, they are neglected or ignored. The 
 active movements of armed bodies, the quick decisions and 
 dash of gold-braided and full-feathered commanders, attract 
 the attention of the many and charm the few. The artist pict- 
 ures only the breakers coming along the shore the thought 
 of the league-long roller that comes in from a storm a thou- 
 sand miles out at sea, or the unseen gathering of sands 
 built up from depths below the ocean, make no part of his 
 picture. The oak felled by the woodsman loses in the thun- 
 dering crash of its fall all thought of the slow growth 
 through centuries on the one side, or the slower growth of 
 civilization on the other that brought the ax to its trunk. 
 
 The historians of to-day are only the troubadores of the 
 past, who sang great deeds of arms to please the ears of their 
 patrons. "We have whole libraries devoted to campaigns and 
 battles that made but a third part of the conflict between 
 the North and the South. The statesmen at Washington 
 
 o 
 
 who held the people through frightful disasters to the bloody 
 issue, who warded off foreign intervention, and so managed 
 our finances as to arm, clothe, and feed a million of men in the 
 field, are all forgotten in favor of the full-breasted captains 
 
 (22)
 
 Introduction. - 
 
 whose defeats make us shudder as well as ashamed. Nor is 
 one thought given to the cause of this apparently unnatural 
 and senseless fight. The ready chroniclers either ignore the 
 subject or seize on the nearest and most popular, as a chorus 
 to their drama of blood. This cause, accepted at home and 
 recognized abroad, is slavery. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln never uttered more wisdom in fewer 
 words than when he said at Springfield, in 1861, that no 
 community ever arose in wrath to grasp at each other's 
 throats on an abstract political proposition all violence 
 originates in an antagonism of feeling and not in an intel- 
 lectual difference. Few are aware of the fact and their 
 number proves the assertion that thought has little to do 
 in shaping human events. The dim-eyed delvers in libraries 
 who get faint glimpses of humanity through dust-covered, 
 cobwebbed windows, labor under the strange delusion that 
 the leaders of men are the kings of thought, and that 
 knowledge heads the- civilization of earth. With a self-com- 
 placency that amuses, we are solemnly warned against errors 
 of judgment, and given in books histories of errors that 
 come from false teachings. We are told, for example, that 
 the great French revolution has its origin in the works of 
 Rousseau, Voltaire, and other intellectual iconoclasts of the 
 libraries. When one remembers the great mass of ignorance 
 that arose in its wrath and smote down in blood the social 
 and political fabric about it, one is struck with the absurdity 
 of the proposition. The true student turns from the imme- 
 diate violence, to trace back through a thousand years of ill- 
 usage and abuse awarded labor, as if the laborers were 
 beasts, until it culminated in blind violence that was as 
 senseless as the tyranny had been cruel. Thus, when Paris 
 was swept in a night and day by the mob on barricades and 
 with wild cries, it means not that Paris has been led astray
 
 24 The War. 
 
 by communistic doctrines, but that Paris is starving. The 
 hungry masses, like the blind Samson, seize on the pillars 
 rinm-st them, and hurl into common ruin not only the po- 
 litical but the social structure. 
 
 Our blessed Savior, in his mission of mercy, made no 
 appeal to the intellectual processes. He could easily have 
 demonstrated his divine mission to the few, by unfolding to 
 scientific eyes the subtle mysteries of nature ; but, putting 
 science behind him as a vain Satan of temptation, he ap- 
 pealed to the feelings of the masses and won their love 
 through miracles of mercy, wherein the sick were cured, the 
 cripples made perfect, and the sorrowing consoled. 
 
 He sought no schools for philosophers, but selected his 
 apostles from among the ignorant tent-makers and fishermen 
 of Judea. The anxious student searches in vain through 
 the annals of the period for a trace of the Messiah. Art, 
 science, and literature are alike silent. And yet the divine 
 power spread and gathered strength until culture came in to 
 put to record what it had no hand in creating. 
 
 The currents, drifts, pools, and eddies of human events 
 have their laws, as all other movements of creation have. 
 There is no chance, and these efforts of our intellects, upon 
 which we so pride ourselves, are but the white-caps of 
 troubled waves swelling to a break from causes far above 
 and beneath them. 
 
 We seize on some one event, some one man, to date our 
 worry from, as two-thirds of the good people hold Jeff. 
 Davis responsible for the late civil war. They can not com- 
 prehend that this Jeff. Davis was bom some three centuries 
 since, in the troublesome times of England, and was as much 
 beyond his own or our control as any other wave that indi- 
 cates a current. 
 
 To one who doubts what is here asserted, because new
 
 Introduction. 25 
 
 to 6ucb doubters, let him consider that of this sixty millions 
 of people filling our continent from sea to sea, there are only 
 about three millions who read books. Indeed, it may be 
 doubted whether there are live millions of the sixty who read 
 at all. Newspapers so widely spread are, as their name in- 
 dicates, but vehicles for news, and tell in the briefest phrase 
 what has happened and give us the facts without the slight- 
 est attempt at the reasons for them. They make the mirror of 
 passing events. As mediums of advertising for the business 
 classes upon which they prosper, they are careful to please, 
 and thoughtful speculations as to the busy world are not 
 pleasant. 
 
 It is the pet craze of the day to believe in evolution, and 
 this teaches that humanity is slowly evolving within itself a 
 higher plane of thought and feeling. This may be true, but 
 it is a mere speculation based on a very slender thread of 
 fact. Our life on earth has been very brief and is without 
 a record, and brief as it is, we are forced to remember that 
 from the death of Christ to the invention of printing, this 
 great vehicle of thought and knowledge, nearly all there is 
 of Christian civilization made its spread and gained its hold 
 on humanity. How much art and its product of huge 
 libraries are doing for Christianity, let Darwin, Spencer, and 
 Huxley answer. In their answer we would learn that this 
 much vaunted engine of knowledge serves rather to arrest 
 then to advance the cause of Christ. 
 
 What, then, is humanity moved by ? It is moved by its 
 stomach mainly and much by its instincts, but of these come 
 the feelings. By these the masses, as such, are influenced. 
 Thought, the high product of knowledge, is the smallest 
 motive power of all. The church, built on the wants and 
 weaknesses of the human race, has, through centuries, made 
 its appeal to the Christian feelings. The candles, lit by
 
 26 The War. 
 
 human hands about the altars, have illumined our temples of 
 worship, and no cold star-eyed goddess of science; and poor 
 humanity finds relief, not in being lifted into dreary regions 
 of thought, but in grasping at the divine sympathy of Him, 
 who, taking on the semblance of man, shared his sufferings 
 ami sought through these to bring heaven to earth. 
 
 It has gone to record in libraries and newspapers at 
 home and abroad, that the system of slavery was the im- 
 ini-liate cause of our civil conflict. To appreciate the ab- 
 surdity of this, one has only to remember that slavery was 
 not confined to the South. The entire people of the United 
 States held the negro in the bondage of legal enactment to 
 his unrequited toil. The horrible system was more popular 
 at the North than in the South. The North realized enor- 
 mously in moneyed gain on the labor of the slaves. Cotton 
 was king, but the master only made what the merchant ac- 
 cumulated, and to attack the iniquitous system was to dis- 
 turb the business of the country. 
 
 Few obstacles are so fatal to reform of evils as this busi- 
 ness relation. Our Blessed Savior was crucified, not because 
 of his heavenly teachings, but for that he disturbed the busi- 
 ness relations of Judea. He drove the money-changers from 
 the temple and denounced the greed of gain through which 
 one man accumulated the luxuries of life while thousands 
 starved. Through all time the money-changers have held 
 the temple and cried out lustily against the fanatics who 
 sought to disturb the business relations. How property en- 
 ters into all our affairs of life, the woful history of poor hu- 
 manity tells us. Our principal business on earth is to gain 
 u livelihood from, its surface. The struggle for life is an in- 
 stinct, the lust of gain its abuse. A clever author has called 
 our attention to the fact that so long as sacred shrines re- 
 main such, the roads hither are marked with human bones.
 
 Introduction. 27 
 
 When such shrines become marts of trade, the highways are 
 made safe and the bones disappear. Property is dearer to us 
 than life itself. The iniquity of Mormonism never struck 
 our religious sense so forcibly as when the polygamous fol- 
 lowers of Brigham Young became possessed of rich mines 
 and vast stretches of valuable lands. We murder the In- 
 dians we have degraded in the name of Christian progress, 
 and persecute the Mormons in the name of God. 
 
 The delvers in the deep, rich soil of the West found a 
 ready market for their products at the South, which slave 
 labor returned in cotton that, sold in Europe, returned to all 
 great wealth. To disturb this business relation by cries of 
 " shame " was simply abominable, and had its origin in the 
 disordered brain of fanatics. The press praised what the 
 pulpit blessed. 
 
 Abolitionists, hung if caught at the South, \v< -re 
 mobbed out of Faneuil Hall, at Boston, and the same 
 audience of respectable business men that applauded Yancey 
 at Cincinnati, hissed, hooted, and rotten-egged the eloquent 
 Wendell Phillips into silence a few nights after, and that 
 only a short time before the firing on Sumter. 
 
 The moral sense of a community that could fight the 
 extension of slavery to the territories and speak with bated 
 breath and uncovered heads in presence of the guarantees 
 of the constitution that held the sum total of all villanies 
 sacred in the states nay, made such community slave 
 hunters over their free territory for the masters when the 
 poor wretches escaped is so thin that it provokes contempt. 
 Let the blistering shame go to record, that we may be pun- 
 ished for our sins in recognition of the fact that to call a 
 man an Abolitionist was to condemn him in popular esti- 
 mation to the. level of thief and murderer combined. 
 
 The truth is, slavery was more popular at the North
 
 28 The War. 
 
 than in the South. This not only on account of the success- 
 ful husim-ss relation above referred to, that had in the 
 Northern man a stronger instinct and a wider development, 
 but IH-< -aiiM- tin- North had all the benefits without any of 
 the evils that afflicted the Southern planter. 
 
 Wrong can not be made right, though sanctified by cus- 
 tom and sanctioned by constitutional enactment. The 
 justice of God makes the criminal code the same throughout 
 the earth. The wrongdoer makes his fight against the law 
 of our being and feels instinctively that retribution follows 
 on the track of crime with unerring certainty of light after 
 darkness. Fraud breeds violence as surely as poisoned at- 
 mosphere from swamps sucked up breeds the storm. The 
 master at the South felt instinctively that he was allied with 
 hell in the fear of that most horrible of all violence, known 
 as servile insurrection. At the hearthstone in the night sat 
 grim danger that could not be shut out, for in the household 
 itself lurked the treacherous animosity of the oppressed. 
 The master ate his meals in fear of poison and got sleep 
 from the soothing presence of his revolver under his pillow. 
 This may be denied, but we remember the frightful atrocities 
 of the Nat Turner insurrection and the fear that paralyzed 
 all Virginia when Ossawatomie Brown with only thirty 
 men held Harper's Ferry. And yet, as the subsequent war 
 demonstrated, no people ever gave proofs of a higher courage 
 than those same Virginians. 
 
 Again, if the system of slavery was the immediate cause 
 of the civil war, how did it happen that the border slave 
 states were so indifferent to the cause that they only sympa- 
 thized with a cause they would not fight for? They were 
 the immediate sufferers from abolition aggressions. It was 
 from these border states that slaves escaped, and in them 
 were the facilities of the underground railway that stretched
 
 Introductio n. 29 
 
 from slave territory to Canada. The remote cotton states, 
 and rice and sugar plantations, where slavery was secure, 
 took the lead in an appeal to arms, and fought the fight out 
 to the bitter end. 
 
 In addition to all this, the fact is of record that when 
 the war did come, the government forces marched into the 
 South, not to free the negro, but to restore the Union. For 
 nearly two years the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac 
 were engaged in restoring to the masters the wretched slaves 
 that took refuge in our camps. We burned dwellings, we 
 robbed farms and towns, we laid waste wide fields ; and yet, 
 obsequiously returned the slaves, when we would not give 
 back a horse, or even a chicken. "As between the alligator 
 and the negro," cried Stephen A. Douglas, while the storm 
 was brewing, "I am for the negro," " as between the negro 
 and the white man, I am for the white man." Abraham 
 Lincoln, the wisest of all, summed up the situation in one 
 sentence, which he wrote to Horace Greeley, that if to save 
 the Union slavery had to be maintained, slavery would be 
 maintained ; if to save the Union slavery must be destroyed, 
 slavery would be destroyed. And when at last the emanci- 
 pation proclamation was promulgated, it freed slaves where 
 the government could not reach them, and held the negro to 
 his unrequited toil where the government had power to set 
 him free. 
 
 We were Union savers, not abolitionists. The South 
 plunged into an armed conflict to win its independence from 
 a hated Union, and the North accepted the issue, although 
 Chase, Seward, Greeley, and nearly all the abolitionists cried 
 aloud, "Let the erring sisters depart in peace." In the 
 lierce contention of arms that followed, slavery went to 
 pieces. It is pitiful now, in face of these facts, for us to 
 claim a lofty philanthropic intent, and " Praise God from
 
 The War. 
 
 whom all blessings flow," that we had the manhood to knock 
 the shackles from four millions of slaves. 
 
 To get at the real origin of our civil war, we have to go 
 back some distance in the history of our country. The 
 cause, although remote, is not obscure. 
 
 It was brought to our shores mainly in the cabin of the 
 Muvflower, and all that was left for transportation came in 
 crafts that carried adventurers to Virginia. The fierce civil 
 wars of England, between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, 
 in which the dissolute Swashbucklers of Charles I were 
 driven into holes by Cromwell's Puritanical Ironsides, were 
 bequeathed to us when the pirates sought for plunder in Vir- 
 ginia, and the Puritans found refuge on the coasts of New 
 England. We, their descendants, have transformed the one 
 into holy pilgrims seeking freedom of worship, and the 
 other to blue-blooded aristocrats in search of adventure. 
 The truth is that our Puritans were bigots in rebellion to a 
 prescribed form of religion, who immediately made their 
 form law, and hanged and burned all who dared follow their 
 example in resisting the law. Many of the boasted Cava- 
 liers were criminals escaping conviction, and convicts es- 
 caping punishment. This, however, does not militate against 
 the claim of blue blood in the fugitives. 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell on these unpleasant facts of 
 history. We refer to them merely to show the origin of the 
 two peoples, differing in the first instance so materially, and 
 growing more widely apart as time went on. 
 
 In this same history, we learn that state rights originated 
 in chartered privileges that enabled the Puritans to hang 
 and quarter their theological opponents, and gave monopolies 
 to the middle and southern communities that were as 
 precious to them as persecutions were to New England. 
 From abstract political propositions they came, in time, to be
 
 Introduction. 31 
 
 superstitions, underlying the social and political structure. 
 How these rights weakened as they widened among homo- 
 geneous communities and held their own against aliens, how 
 after the revolution, and in the seventy-five years of a com- 
 mon government, the communities making the eastern, mid- 
 dle, and western states, came to be one, while the south 
 grew into another, the annals of the country tell us. 
 
 The intolerant bigotry of New England that sought to 
 drive certain theological dogmas down the throats of other 
 than their believers, was strengthened by -the hardships that 
 made life itself so barren and insecure, that it was well to 
 keep heaven in view as a refuge. Reading the Bible of the 
 Hebrews for lessons as to how they might, through fraud and 
 cunning, get the advantage, and then the extermination of 
 their first enemies, the Indians, they in the service of a just 
 God as readily exterminated their religious foes. Their 
 force of character was strengthened by the hardships they 
 endured. 
 
 It was the building of a strong race from the ground up, 
 and the belief that they were not only God's chosen, but the 
 select instruments of his vengeance, added to the sturdy self- 
 reliance of a, race in a region where only the stronger born 
 survived to manhood. It is little to be wondered at that 
 such a people impressed itself upoii a civilization that, run- 
 ning along Mason and Dixon's line, filled the wide borders 
 of a vast domain with all that makes the material life of to- 
 day a marvel to the more thoughtful. 
 
 Gradually nature reasserted herself, and the warped and 
 twisted form of intolerant bigotry of the Puritans disap- 
 peared, leaving the better strains of manhood in full force. 
 Slowly but surely poor distorted humanity returned to that 
 health which regards in its true light the fatherhood of God 
 and the brotherhood of man, and is the true foundation of
 
 The. War. 
 
 religiou. The perils and hardships of early settlements in a 
 m?\v country developed a kindly dependent feeling among 
 the settlers. Such was the history of emigration to the wild 
 West. The pioneers, in groups, exhibited a helpful disposi- 
 tion that found exercise in the building of each others' log 
 cabins, clearing away the forest, and hewing the logs, fight- 
 ing Indians and oiitlaws, while administering to the sick 
 HIM! burying the dead. 
 
 At a later day the immense stream of emigration from 
 Europe helped on the great work. Within the memory of 
 the living man, the vast continent given over to savage na- 
 tives was swiftly reclaimed. The tramp of millions was 
 heard scaling mountains, felling forests, spreading our 
 plains until the song of the wild bird and the cry of savage 
 beasts breaking the silence of wide solitudes, were changed 
 to the busy hum of human industry, and the great wilder- 
 ness bloomed into civilized life. 
 
 Over all, through all, animating and leading, went the 
 spirit of Puritanism. It was a marked and distinctive civil- 
 ization. Its sturdy independence and force of character were 
 equaled only by the ingenuity that molded and manipu- 
 lated dead matter until it was a living, and seemed a think- 
 ing agent. 
 
 This civilization, as we have said, was checked at the 
 border of the Southern States. It fretted at without passing 
 this barrier. The bold adventurers who conquered without 
 peopling the South were no silken aristocrats. At no period 
 in the world's history have such been known to emigrate or 
 lead emigration. The only title the early settlers of that re- 
 gion had to such appellation was in their loose morals and 
 plundering habits. 
 
 There was, in fact, too much manhood in these hardy 
 first settlers for the blood that is claimed for them. Starting
 
 Introduction. 38 
 
 originally from a point widely differing from that which 
 originated the Puritans, they had that easy-going religious 
 belief which tolerates a difference in others; and while 
 recognizing God in a denunciation of sin, has a kindly feel- 
 ing for Satan in their love of the sinners. Blessed with a 
 deep rich soil and a pleasant climate, they were not driven 
 to hopes of heaven by the hardships and uncertainties of life 
 on earth. 
 
 To these conditions, in which a nationality was molded, 
 came the system of slavery to further stamp distinctive traits 
 upon the people. Slavery had originally held all the colo- 
 nies, and, after, all the states. It was being wiped out from 
 economical considerations as a sort of labor found to be un- 
 profitable when the inventions of the cotton gin and spinning- 
 jenny by two ingenious Yankees arrested further emancipa- 
 tion by making the worthless negro a valuable slave. New 
 England rum and Virginia tobacco had worked in common 
 to keep alive the slave trade, and it was no conscientious 
 scruple that left tobacco and cotton to continue their dealing 
 in human flesh. The system, however, strengthened the 
 South in its peculiar civilization, and made its people more 
 clearly and positively a distinct and separate race from that 
 of the North. 
 
 Devoted to agriculture, it had no basis in that toil which 
 goes to make a nation of laborers and is the true foundation 
 of a state. No country on earth had such an impassable 
 gulf between capital and labor aa the South. Before the 
 master and the slave, the sturdy laborers that go to make a 
 people disappeared. The poor whites were regarded as a 
 nuisance by the masters and despised by the slaves. They 
 were spoken of by the one as "white trash," and by the 
 other as " greasy mechanics " and " mud-sills." The life was 
 3
 
 U4 The War. 
 
 more patriarchal than that of the Arabs and ae stationary as 
 that of the Turks. Divided into huge plantations, the mas- 
 ter and his family dwelt on each as old barons of Europe 
 were wont to do, each the head of a home and a law unto 
 
 himself. 
 
 It is singular, looking back to days before the war, to 
 note how little social intercourse existed between the North 
 and South. The masters and their families sought eastern 
 cities and fashionable resorts in summer, where they were 
 welcomed for their courtly manners and lavish expenditures 
 of money; but the Northern people seldom reciprocated the 
 visits, and intermarriages were still more rare. There was 
 nothing in common between the two extremes. 
 
 The planters despised their Northern neighbors for their 
 economical habits and love of money. The Northerners re- 
 taliated by laughing at the wasteful habits and rude life of 
 the South. Culture may grow out of oppression in cities 
 and densely settled districts, for the splendor that makes dis- 
 tinction as such finds expression in architecture, sculpture, 
 and painting, and develops music, eloquence, and poetry. 
 But in the isolation of a planter's life there was no such 
 competition. The generous hospitality that distinguished 
 the slave states had its origin in the easy life gained from a 
 new soil and unrequited labor. At the North, where a living 
 was wrung by hard toil, money gained its full value and hos- 
 pitality a cold form of duty that nearly destroyed its fascina- 
 tion. Charity at the South was impulse, at the North a re- 
 ligious obligation. The first found expression in spasmodic 
 gifts from individuals, while the second took a business form 
 in combinations, or, if in individuals, it expressed itself in a 
 monumental shape that did its good while perpetuating the 
 name of the donor. 
 
 This is not altogether just, although true to some extent.
 
 Introductivn. 35 
 
 Human nature is iafter all about the same in all extremes. 
 Long training through generations gave impulse to one sec- 
 tion, while a widely different process replaced it by a sense 
 of duty in the other. At the South, the stranger was seized 
 on and made welcome to all the master could reasonably part 
 with. On the contrary, if in any part of New England the 
 wayfarer were seized with a sickness, or, falling down, broke 
 a leg, he would be taken in, tenderly nursed into convales- 
 cence from a sense of duty, and yet he could not borrow five 
 dollars or a horse in any part of New England with which 
 to get away. A story is told illustrating this difference. 
 During the war, a family from New Jersey, living in North 
 Carolina, had their house burned and farm despoiled by the 
 Confederates. A captain of volunteers, coming upon them 
 in their distress, not only kindly shared his rations and tents 
 with the distressed women and children, but furnished means 
 of transportation to get them to a place of safety. The 
 father sought the first opportunity to thank the Good Samar- 
 itan under epaulettes for his kindness. The recipient of this 
 kindness was not surprised nor offended to have a bill pre- 
 sented him, in which not only the money expended, but the 
 time lost, was duly claimed. Not long after, this same 
 officer, stricken down with fever, was carried by his com- 
 rades to a wretched log-cabin. and given in charge to a shoe- 
 less, half-clad woman. When this ill-clad nurse, however, 
 was offered money to repay her for the care of the sick 
 enemy, she drew herself up indignantly and informed the 
 amazed men that her father waa a gentleman. 
 
 It was, however, in the material difference between the 
 sections that one found the two races most distinctly marked. 
 With but a river or an imaginary line parting them, on the 
 one side the observer saw the fierce competition of labor that 
 crowds the hungry generations down, and one looked at
 
 36 The. War. 
 
 turnpikes, canals, railroads, telegraphs, while the very air 
 was tremulous with the ceaseless motion of machinery. On 
 the other, note the profound quiet of primitive rural life, 
 disturbed only by the mirth from the idlers about a country 
 store, or the cries of indolent slaves at slow-moving oxen. 
 The wide difference, however, can be summed up in a single 
 sentence: on one side a dollar represented a hard day's toil, 
 on the other, ten mint juleps. To comment on the advan- 
 tages or defects of either civilization, forms no part of our 
 effort here. We might dwell upon the pleasant social life of 
 the South and contrast it with the hard, money-getting 
 spirit of the North. On the other hand, we could call atten- 
 tion to the intellectual as well as the material progress of a 
 people who gave us all the science and literature of which 
 we can boast. Our one purpose in tracing to its origin the 
 cause of the war, is to show the union of states held in its 
 embrace two separate peoples, born and reared under two 
 separate and antagonistic civilizations, and that a conflict be- 
 tween the two was sooner or later inevitable. 
 
 We can see that, when the rupture occurred, as a great 
 field of ice cracks and separates from a ground swell, the 
 shallow causes for a difference rapidly disappeared. The 
 South, making a loud acclaim in behalf of states' rights, re- 
 solved itself into a single military despotism with its head- 
 quarters at Richmond. 
 
 The North, holding the doctrine of state rights high 
 treason, fought the war out through state organizations. 
 These were the white-caps of a vexed sea, and not the cause 
 of the commotion. 
 
 Another cause for the civil war, and one entirely over- 
 looked, is to be found in the fact that our form of govern- 
 ment afforded no tribunal to which the contestants could
 
 Introduction. 37 
 
 appeal for a fair settlement in a peaceful way out of their 
 contention. An appeal to arms was a necessity. 
 
 In a pure despotism, there is a power that, appealed to 
 under any exigency, settles all disputes. 
 
 In a constitutional monarchy there is a sovereign power 
 lodged in the government, that administers through a min- 
 istry subject to the popular will. This power, lying back 
 and above the administration of its functions, holds all con- 
 stitutional provisions in perpetual trust, and forms a tribunal 
 from which there is no appeal. 
 
 This is not our condition. The fathers meant that it 
 should be such. It was their intent that the executive 
 selected through a delicate, intricate electoral college should 
 be as far removed from popular or, as it is now called, 
 political control as possible. The president thus selected 
 was to be the monarch, and as to popular or political con- 
 trol utterly colorless. The office itself was to be sovereign, 
 and the incumbent, in the fact that he was to be taken from 
 the body of the people and return to the condition of citizen 
 at the end of his term of office, was a republican feature. 
 The legislative department was tempered by a senate, com- 
 posed of representatives from the states. It was to be our 
 House of Lords, differing from that body and made repub- 
 lican in form, as the executive was, by selections from the 
 citizens and rotative in office, instead of born legislators, as 
 in England. To this was added a judiciary appointed for 
 life, or good behavior. All this was tempered by one demo- 
 cratic feature found in the House of Representatives with its 
 members returned every two years. 
 
 This scheme of government had its origin in the fertile 
 brain of Alexander Hamilton, who modeled it upon that of 
 England, in his estimation the most perfect government on 
 earth. He was aided in his efforts by two elements then
 
 38 
 
 War. 
 
 potent in the minda of the fathers. One was the jealousy 
 of the states, that parted reluctantly with their power, and 
 that only sifter guarding the compact of states, as it was then 
 railed, with the most stringent and positive recognition of 
 state sovereignty. The other was a fear of the people that 
 haunted the minds of the government builders. The polit- 
 ical fabric that was to be " of the people, for the people and 
 by the people," was to be guarded by a breakwater of gran- 
 ite and cement against the people. 
 
 This form of government lasted through the administra- 
 tion of George Washington. The hold of that great man 
 upon the people of the United States was so powerful that 
 his clear, cool intellect, purity, and force of character silenced 
 all factional opposition and popular discontent. For eight 
 years we had, pure and simple, the government of the fath- 
 ers. This remarkable man saw, or felt, perhaps, our danger, 
 and in his farewell address he warned us against parties 
 factions they were then called as one of the great perils 
 that threatened our government. He little dreamed that 
 within a brief period, measured by his life, that this govern- 
 ment would come to be a government of the very factions 
 he denounced. 
 
 After the termination of Washington's service as presi- 
 dent, the delicate fabric, with its nicely adjusted guards and 
 balances, went rapidly to pieces. The political parties came 
 to the front. Under Adams the Federalists organized to be 
 <{>]>osed by the Democracy under Jefferson, and the presi- 
 dent that was to be a potent and impartial executive of all 
 the people, resolved himself into the president of a party, 
 and such he remains to-day. 
 
 This was natural, and not only to be expected, but a 
 political necessity. All issues agitating a people must find 
 expression in the government, or the power of the people, is
 
 Introduction. 39 
 
 set at naught and the agitation is without avail. The 
 trouble with us is that there is no sovereign power in per- 
 petual existence, holding the government as a high trust, 
 administering its functions for the good of all. And above 
 all there is no high court of appeal, nor impartial tribunal 
 to determine the vexed questions under the constitution. 
 
 When Alexander Hamilton modeled his government on 
 that of England, he omitted the one significant feature found 
 in a ministry subject to the House of Representatives. This 
 would have left our executive colorless as to politics, for the 
 president, elected for a term of years by one party, might 
 find himself called on to administer the government in ac- 
 cord with the will of his political opponents. This is a 
 feature in the constitutional monarchies of Europe, that 
 makes their constitutional despotism more democratic than 
 our boasted republic. 
 
 As it is, we have fastened upon us a cast-iron, immovable 
 concern that is further removed from popular control than 
 any government on earth. 
 
 A president elected for four years is hedged about by a 
 senate representing states returned every six years, and 
 against the barriers the House of Representatives, a great 
 unwieldy body, may beat in vain. It has come, in fact, to 
 be a dependency on the executive and the senate through 
 despotism of official patronage. 
 
 Now, if our divine Creator had so made the human 
 mind that it should be open to change every four years, this 
 strange government of the people, for the people and by the 
 people would have been subject to the people's will. This 
 not being the condition, popular agitation of a policy for the 
 better government of a country, and in accord with a major- 
 ity under the constitution, is in vain. The impulses of a peo- 
 ple, unless crowned with immediate success, are short lived.
 
 40 The War. 
 
 It is only at long intervale that a presidential election 
 meets some great demand, and when it does, the day after 
 the inauguration the demand may cease or change sides the 
 majority, however great, may swing from under the admin- 
 istration, and yet it is there, fixed, heavy and immovable for 
 four years. 
 
 If this resulted in the death of all parties, it might be 
 well, although in such case we would remain stationary 
 without progress through all time. But the result bears this 
 defect in a worse form. It is the nature of human beings to 
 lose in an organization itself the purpose for which it was 
 organized. This obtains in politics as in religion. Sects 
 survive in great vigor of existence when the dogmas on 
 which they were founded cease to exist in the minds of the 
 members. A man will fight for the mere name of his sect 
 when the simplest proposition upon which it was founded 
 can not even be stated, much less explained by him. This is 
 the same in the political arena. There is no question but 
 that the two parties now dominating the country had their 
 origin under Hamilton and Jefferson on grave issues, affect- 
 ing the nature of government and the relations of the 
 people to the political structure. Hamilton held the gov- 
 ernment to be a thing apart and above the people, that was 
 parental and perfect, when it gave benefits to the governed. 
 Jefferson guarded it simply as a trust, held in obedience to 
 the popular will, and good only so far as it insured equal 
 rights under the constitution to all. We have the country 
 to-day divided between two hostile camps, and yet a micro- 
 scope would fail to detect the difference in principles between 
 the two. A man can be a republican and hold any political 
 opinions he pleases, provided he stands by the camp and 
 votes the ticket. This is the like condition of the demo- 
 cratic organization. Instead of views being promulgated as
 
 Jjitroduction. 41 
 
 a test of party fealty, they are avoided or concealed. Suc- 
 cess depends on the number of votes obtained, and as opin- 
 ions are apt to offend, they are hidden or ignored. Nothing 
 is so amusing as a platform, as it is called, solemnly pro- 
 claimed at intervals. 
 
 The evil of all this is that parties degenerate into fac- 
 tions a party means an organization called together to sus- 
 tain certain principles. A faction is the same body that for 
 mere success in obtaining power, or putting some man or 
 men forward, holds together under a name only. We are 
 called upon to note in sharne that while European communi- 
 ties in their political contentions are moved by the greatest 
 questions affecting human progress, our elections turn on a 
 personal feeling with an abuse that would taint our pages 
 even to mention them. 
 
 However, it forms no part of this essay to exhibit the 
 evils of our system. We might call attention to the fact 
 that the deplorable civil service under which we suffer is no 
 abuse, but the natural development of the government 
 itself. The government is the party, and in popular esti- 
 mation, and properly so, the vote that elects a president 
 elects the humble applicant for a cross-roads or water-tank 
 post-office. Public office is a public trust, but the success- 
 ful party, in the eyes of the people, as in fact, is the trustee. 
 
 Now there is no tyranny so oppressive, cruel, and in- 
 tolerant as that of a majority in a popular vote. To believe 
 that this may be restrained by conscience or a paper consti- 
 tution, is to set aside all that is taught us through experi- 
 ence, made plain by the history and character of humanity. 
 A paper constitution is an attempt to legislate on a knowl- 
 edge of the past for all future exigencies and wants of a 
 people. To make it perfect is to call a halt on progress and 
 deny to the future what is relied on in the past, and that is
 
 4 o The War. 
 
 experience. The fathers, for example, sought to destroy the 
 aristocracy of a class by wiping out primogeniture and entail. 
 Th.-y could not see that the corporation would come in and 
 toe the old evil with additions that made the wrong de- 
 stroyed a light affair. The constitution legislates no remedy 
 against incorporated power and privilege that has come to 
 be, not an abuse of the government, but the government 
 itself. It is the power behind no throne, for it is the throne 
 
 itself. 
 
 So long as differences among the people were confined 
 to abstract political propositions of no grave importance in 
 their results, the government of the fathers worked easily. 
 When, however, a great interest affecting the nation in its 
 very existence came to be considered, each side felt that 
 truth and justice, be what they might, the contention had to 
 be settled by numbers. The tribunal for eventual decision 
 was one party or the other to the contention such as a bare 
 majority might secure. 
 
 The first grave symptom of this diseased condition was 
 manifested in a tariff for protection, when John C. Calhoun 
 made his appeal in behalf of a more perfect union in his 
 plan of nullification that gave a veto power to each state 
 when its constitutional rights were involved. The Demo- 
 cratic party, under President Jackson, denounced this as 
 treason, and but for the compromise measure of Henry Clay, 
 that reduced protection to revenue, the war that followed 
 years after would have been then precipitated on the people. 
 The government virtually accepted Mr. Calhoun's principle 
 of nullification by a prompt reversal of its policy in the 
 presence of an appeal to the states. 
 
 The government, therefore, was not framed, nor is it 
 fitted, to handle a great national question agitating the 
 minds of the people. In such contention, the successful
 
 Introduction. 43 
 
 party becomes the government, and from it there lies no 
 appeal. What would be said of a case in court where the 
 tribunal consisted of the number of witnesses and not the 
 weight of evidence, where, having taken a vote, the party 
 possessed of the larger number of witnesses should ascend to 
 the bench and decide the case? 
 
 All the laws ever enacted, all the decisions ever put to 
 record, and supposed to govern the court thus constructed, 
 would not make the losing side content. This was our con- 
 dition that brought on the clash of arms. The losing side 
 appealed from the brute force of numbers that made a court 
 to the brute force of bayonets. 
 
 This is the lesson of the war, and unless we can find 
 some remedy in reconstruction of our government, we must 
 expect to have the evil of violence repeated when a like exi- 
 gency occurs. Had we a colorless executive put in power 
 to administer under the constitution with even-handed jus- 
 tice the power of the government, and under this a ministry 
 subject to the popular will as demonstrated in a majority of 
 the House, we would have our court of appeal with its judge 
 unbiased by political feeling to admonish and restrain parti- 
 san zeal and abuse. We might yet suffer from the tyranny 
 of ;i majority, but such majority would be based on an appeal 
 to reason, as we see in Europe, that educates as it agitates, 
 and so escape a senseless contention for mere power that en- 
 ables the successful party to inflict on the land a standing 
 army of inefficient and dishonest office-holders. The queen 
 of England is said to reign but does not rule. This is true 
 only so long as rights under the constitution are respected 
 by the party in power. Let these be invaded, and the queen's 
 rule begins. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, in his admiration of the British 
 rule that gave us our government, omitted the saving clause
 
 44 The War. 
 
 tiiut makes the government more of a republic than our own. 
 IVrhapB that accounts for the omission. 
 
 The successful party with us becomes the government, 
 and it is not only despotic, but its displacement, since it has 
 come to be hedged in by all the material interests of the 
 country, depends on casualties, not to be counted on in the 
 ordinary contest. The Democrat votes the Democratic ticket, 
 the Republican in like manner supports his organization ; 
 and under this condition, the Republicans, having driven out 
 the Democrats at the point of the bayonet, might have re- 
 mained the government till the end of our political structure, 
 .but in the reconstruction of the South, it, unfortunately for 
 itself, appealed not to the governing power of the South, 
 found in its intelligence and force of character, but to the 
 ignorance and imbecility of the slave populations. The gov- 
 ernment gave the late slave the ballot with a carpet-bagger 
 and a bayonet, and thus inaugurated not only a war of races, 
 but a war on civilization. 
 
 When the civilization of two different races made their 
 appeal to the government at Washington, they found there 
 the case decided and judgment rendered, based solely on suc- 
 cess at the polls. An appeal from the brute force of numbers 
 to a brute force of arms was a necessity. We could not help 
 ourselves. The unseen but not silent antagonisms of nearly 
 three hundred years culminated in a storm no earthly wis- 
 dom could avert. Our government is a success only so long 
 as it remains untried. We are slow to learn the lessons of 
 the past. It feeds our vanity to be considered philosophers 
 and philanthropists, with our actions based on the purest 
 reason and our motives animated by the highest patriotism 
 and goodness. Such conceit blinds us to our faults and ren- 
 ders all reform difficult, if not impossible. Before the
 
 Introduction. 45 
 
 physician can prescribe, he must truthfully diagnose the 
 disorder. 
 
 To the more thoughtful and patriotic, the dangers that 
 menace our great republic cause deep concern. The seeds 
 of disorder and death planted in the system itself remain to 
 plague us. It was arranged by the fathers to have the sov- 
 ereignty rest in the people, with full power to settle all ques- 
 tions, but we fail to see that this will cut off from all expres- 
 sion through the cast-iron, invisible condition of the trusts 
 called a government. 
 
 We have a government of parties without process 
 through which the party can find expression. The result 
 is most deplorable. Elections no longer turn on a diversity 
 of opinions or a difference of policy, as to how the govern- 
 ment may be controlled, but upon a fraudulent use of money 
 at the polls. Of course, the capitalists thus investing in pol- 
 itics, seek to recoup themselves through a use of the govern- 
 ment they control as official agents. 
 
 In this condition, what are we to expect when again a 
 grave question such as slavery was, seeks solution at the 
 hands of the government. The bayonets that drove the slave 
 power from the capitol will, we fear, be once more in demand. 
 
 However, our pen is with the past, and not the future, 
 and it is pleasant to turn from these dark forebodings to the 
 brilliant achievements that yet live to strengthen our self- 
 respect, pride, and patriotism, as a people.
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. . 
 
 Early Life The Child is Father to the Man Home Life in Old Virginia 
 Wfefit Point and what it did not Teach, but what Young Thomas 
 Learned. 
 
 The brightest name upon the darkest page of our 
 country's history, gives title to this book. The story of that 
 life in the four years of a war that made such a crucial test 
 of vitality in the great republic, is the true history of our 
 country. From his first fight to his last great battle, we 
 have a succession of victories in strange contrast to the cam- 
 paigns of disaster and bloody defeats of others, above whose 
 graves are being built lofty monuments, while that of George 
 Henry Thomas remains almost unmarked. 
 
 In one campaign, thajt from Nashville to Chattanooga, 
 and back to Nashville again, his army carried the destinies 
 of our great republic to the front, and its eagles swung 
 through the smoke of terrible battles to victories that won, 
 finally, the empire of a continent. About his name cluster 
 all glories that the republic can boast of in the way of 
 military ability and achievement, and yet so far his memory 
 holds its monument only in the hearts of the soldiers he led 
 on to victory. It is well for us then, who love our land and 
 seek to transmit its deeds for the love, admiration, and ex- 
 ample of the coming generations to gather up from the thin- 
 ning ranks of veterans the memory of our hero. 
 
 All that we have to relate is of record, but a record ob- 
 scured, if not distorted, by partisan prejudice that will at 
 any time sacrifice truth to an ignoble success of party. 
 
 (47)
 
 4g Life of Thomas. 
 
 Probably we are .not yet far enough removed from a terrible 
 ,,'mflict to correct or destroy the false that like clouds from 
 swamps sucked up, are glorified by the sun, but we are near 
 enough to great deeds themselves to build our monuments to 
 the truly great. The slow but sure decay that eats into and 
 destroys error, however plausible and popular, leaves un- 
 touched the truth that grows brighter and stronger as time 
 wears on. The monuments built of bones and cemented by 
 the blood of butchered men in terrible disasters, however 
 foolishly called victories, will be the first to crumble, and 
 men will hasten to forget the memories of shame. To cling 
 to such is to condemn our race as not only ignoble, but im- 
 becile. 
 
 It is true that some defeats have in them higher merit 
 than many victories, but the merit in this instance is not in 
 the generals who won disaster through their inability, but to 
 the men under muskets who closed up undismayed their 
 thinned ranks, and to the spirit of a heroic people that de- 
 feat excited more than victory, and after each disastrous 
 campaign sent a hundred thousand more of their sons to the 
 slaughter. For the one Quintus Curtius sacrificed in the 
 chasm, we gave half a million to save our great republic. 
 
 There are two types of eminent men we are frequently 
 called upon to study. In one we are amazed at the man 
 having achieved what was claimed for him; in the other we 
 are astonished that he did not accomplish more. In this 
 last class George Henry Thomas stands conspicuous. There 
 was a reserve force about him that impresses one as does the 
 deep undertone of Niagara that dominates the swash and 
 roar of waves in that falling sea. One can not contemplate 
 General Thomas and not pass from his brilliant achievements 
 that made the victory at Mill Springs, our first prestige to 
 Union arms ; from his saving our army at Stone River, again 
 at Chickamauga, and the nation at Nashville, to the thought 
 of what might have been spared us in blood and treasure had 
 he been put in command of our army at the beginning of the 
 conflict. 
 
 The impression he made upon the great men then in
 
 Early Life. 49 
 
 control of our government waa in advance of any achieve- 
 ment that demonstrated his capacity. The strange, silent, 
 solitary man carried his God-given commission in his pres- 
 ence, but he was a native of Virginia, and, so intense was 
 the feeling at that time, that both Lincoln and Stanton dis- 
 trusted a Southern soldier of West Point who would offer 
 his sword in defense of the Union. " Let the Virginian 
 wait," said Lincoln, and what that waiting cost us we are 
 now called upon to count. 
 
 To the real student of our war history, who, lifted above 
 partisan feeling, sees events in their true light, next to the 
 fools who mistook vanity for genius and so forced them- 
 selves to the front that they might learn war through de- 
 feat; the most exasperating are those who since the war have 
 gone about with their button-holeing memoirs claiming vic- 
 tories when they suffered defeats, and begging the world to 
 believe them great men. Now this differs from the great 
 man who blushed like a girl when praised and with calm 
 dignity sought his grave in silence, leaving his deeds to speak 
 for themselves. 
 
 No man is a truly great man who courts applause and 
 seeks to bnild a monument to his own memory. The con- 
 sciousness of power carries in itself its own reward. The 
 breath of popular acclaim is but a breath, vain, uncertain, and 
 fleeting, while all the marble and bronze monuments of 
 earth are to the dead less than the dust they seek to com- 
 memorate. The applause of multitudes the praise of the 
 world falls unheeded upon the cold, unhearing ears of death. 
 The mortal remains molder silently and swiftly into dust, 
 while the spirit has passed into another existence so far re- 
 moved from the brief, vain life of earth that it ceases to claim 
 attention or even, probably, a memory. When one is born 
 the world begins, and when one dies the world ends. It is a 
 weakness and not a strength that makes one long to live in 
 memory after the grave claims its own. Nothing has more 
 marked the character and career of our great soldier than his 
 dignified indifference to the opinions of others as to what he 
 had achieved. 
 4
 
 50 Life of Thomas. 
 
 We have said that our story of heroic effort is of record. 
 It is history and a matter of deep regret that it should deal 
 with this great man purely in his public capacity. It was a 
 peculiar trait of his strong character to remove himself from 
 public recognition as far as possible. He denied his private 
 papers to his would-be biographers while living, and leaving 
 all such to his dear wife after his death, she carefully obeyed 
 his injunctions. "All that I did for my government," he 
 said, " are matters of history, but my private life is my own, 
 and I will not have it hawked about in print for the amuse- 
 ment of the curious." 
 
 We refer to this, we say, with regret. It was a weakness 
 in General Thomas, as there was absolutely nothing in his 
 private life from which he should shrink; there was no 
 reason why he should disappoint the world that sought to 
 know, and knowing love, the man so much admired. When 
 speaking of the neglect he experienced in the wrong done 
 him by the misrepresentations of the envious, he said : 
 "History will do me justice." He did not reflect that in re- 
 fusing for record his private life, he, to a great extent, made 
 his public career obscure. How much of Washington's life 
 is known from his voluminous letters, and how clearly we 
 come to know McClellan through the free, but unfortunate 
 missives sent almost hourly from the front to his wife. It is 
 the man off parade we must see to know, and in knowing 
 him we can the more correctly judge as to his work. While 
 General Thomas was singularly reserved he was neither cold 
 nor austere. 
 
 Undemonstrative as he was under all circumstances, he 
 had the quiet of a deep, calm current quiet because deep. 
 No mere mannerism could conceal the sweetness, the kindli- 
 ness of his nature, and while he stood before his superiors in 
 rank or moved among his associates in a way to repel 
 familiarity of manner, he had that which won to him in- 
 stinctively the sympathies of dogs, negroes and children. 
 While his brother officers were held at a distance by his 
 quiet manner, the humblest private would unhesitatingly ap- 
 proach him with his petition or grievance, and would receive 
 the kindest and most patient attention.
 
 Early Life. 51 
 
 All this would appear in words and act? if we had access 
 to his private papers, but, as it is, we must content ourselves 
 with such as come to us well authenticated outside the 
 records we long for. Among these is a story told us by a 
 southern woman, a lady of high social position and culture, 
 who tells of a meeting between Generals Thomas and Hood 
 after the war. These great captains found themselves by 
 accident in the same hotel. At the instance of Hood, this 
 lady sought and asked Thomas if it would be agreeable for 
 him to meet the Confederate he so signally defeated at 
 Nashville. 
 
 "Certainly, my dea.r madam," responded Thomas, "I 
 shall be most happy to meet General Hood. Will he come 
 to my room?" 
 
 The minister of peace carried her message to General 
 Hood, and they returned together. Entering the corridor 
 that led to Thomas' room, Hood clattered along on his 
 crutches without speaking, and as they approached the door 
 it was suddenly thrown open, and, Thomas appearing, threw 
 his arm around Hood and helped him in with a tenderness 
 that was touching. The kind mediator left the two to- 
 gether, and when an hour after she saw her friend, the 
 bravest fighter of all the Confederate forces had the trace of 
 tears in his eyes and voice. 
 
 "Thomas is a grand man," he said, in a tone full of emo- 
 tion, "he should have remained with us, where he would 
 have been appreciated and loved." 
 
 Of a deep religious nature that approached Puritanism 
 in its observance, he kept his faith strictly, as all else of a 
 personal nature, to himself. But no exigencies of camp life, 
 that at times destroy privacy, kept him from prayers taught 
 him in his childhood, that brought him rest at night. ^ 
 
 He differed strikingly from his brother officers in being 
 entirely free from profanity. "An oath weakens an order," 
 he once said, " for it is an expression of excitement, and 
 takes from instead of adding to the force of a command, for 
 it lowers the officer in the eyes of his men." 
 
 This religious feeling in General Thomas came from his 
 Huguenot blood on one side, while his Welsh temperament on
 
 52 Lif<' of 
 
 the other gave him control of himself. This was singularly 
 
 marked. Under no circumstances was he known to lose the 
 
 ealm manner that was his striking characteristic. At 
 
 Stone River, when utter defeat seemed surging through his 
 
 I, he was forced to change front in the face of the enemy, 
 and he was as cool as if on parade. Again at Chickamauga, 
 when the entire right wing was crumbled away, leaving the 
 road open to his rear, and the bulk of the Confederate forces 
 were pounding on his front, a most perilous condition, Gen- 
 eral Qarfield found the great commander in the pauses of the 
 attack as cool and quiet as if no monstrous disaster to our 
 anus were impending. 
 
 There is a striking illustration of truth in heredity pre- 
 sented us by the Huguenot blood to which we have referred. 
 There is probably no history of a class or race in which blood 
 is more distinctly marked than in that of the men driven 
 from France in the early part of the seventeenth century to 
 the American continents. Wherever found, the same strong 
 characteristics and high traits manifest themselves. A New 
 England Puritan was a fierce propagandist. The Huguenots, 
 on the contrary, had no creed to crowd down the throats of 
 others. Their religion was a confidential matter between 
 God and themselves. They resented the despotic interfer- 
 ence in their worship, not because it was blasphemous, as the 
 Puritans held, but for the reason that it was an insult to 
 their manhood. It was a degradation they protested against 
 with their lives. After all we are slow to learn that it is the 
 man and not the creed that creates the religion*. The negro 
 makes a fetich of the most elevated and refined religion, 
 while the Huguenot, holding the darkest dogmas that ever 
 depraved humanity, lifted his belief into the highest plane 
 of brotherhood on earth and Fatherhood in heaven. 
 
 Be that as it may, the Calvanistic creed of predestined 
 damnation was but a surface indication of a sturdy manhood 
 that resisted interference, and lapsed back most generally into 
 the mother church after the pressure was removed. 
 
 So far as religious belief extends, the Huguenots of the 
 United States are such only in character. In a majority of 
 instances they are either Catholics or agnostics, and illustrate
 
 Etirly Life. 53 
 
 the truth of the old maxim that "the blood of the martyrs 
 is the seed of the church," and makes persecution the cause 
 of growth. 
 
 It is not the creed that is strong, but the human nature 
 that is obstinate. General Thomas was an Episcopalian, 
 with a character that forced itself into an acceptance of truth 
 whenever taught or found. His perfect temperament, gener- 
 ous impulses, and kindly nature transmuted the narrowest 
 creed he might accept into the broadest plane of Christian 
 excellence. 
 
 George Henry Thomas was born in Southampton county, 
 Virginia, 31st July, 1816. Of Welsh extraction, as the name 
 indicates, on one side, he was French, as we have said, on 
 the other. The well preserved annals of the family and 
 their good sense saved them from the weak pretensions of so 
 many American families to aristocratic origin. There were 
 no cavaliers in the Thomas family and not the remotest trace 
 of the Pocahontas blood. This fact has not prevented one 
 of his biographers from referring to the cavaliers in a hazy, 
 speculative way. The fact is, however, that the early settlers 
 of our continent were hardened and, let us hope, honest 
 laborers. The aristocrats never emigrate. They may be 
 driven out by political or religious controversies, but in such 
 case they rapidly disappear. The down-trodden laborers, 
 inured to privation and toil, faced the dangers of an unknown 
 deep, and a struggle for life in an almost untrodden wilder- 
 ness, to better their condition. The aristocracy had no such 
 incentive to change. The life of ease and luxury they led at 
 home neither trained them to bear privation nor made any 
 other mode of existence than their own attractive. 
 
 The zeal with which we hasten to dishonor the graves 
 of our ancestors is pitiable. All the parade of imaginary 
 pedigrees and emblazoned coats-of- arms, stolen from families 
 fallen into decay, shame us as a people. There may be little 
 romance in our conquest of a continent, but there is much 
 honor. We owe our all to the hard hands and bowed backs 
 of honest toilers, before whose high manhood and indomita- 
 ble will a howling wilderness was changed to sunny fields of 
 industrial life, and a new people came into existence, to rank
 
 54 Life of Thomas. 
 
 among the foremost nations of civilized 1 humanity. There 
 is more true pride in such ancestry than any to be found 
 in tracing our lineage back to thieving barons, whose only 
 mission on earth was to oppress and kill. 
 
 George Henry Thomas had none of this false pride in 
 his nature. He was wont to tell with glee how when a boy 
 he made a saddle for himself, an article he was unable to 
 purchase, by watching the saddler day after day construct 
 i UK-, he following at home the lesson learned at the shop 
 until the saddle was completed. That he would have made 
 a first class mechanic we can well believe, for he had that in 
 him which would have insured success in any walk of life. 
 
 The early youth of our hero was as quiet and uneventful 
 as his later years were full of tumult. He retained to the 
 last that quiet self-poise which reminds one of the eagle 
 balancing his pinions on the storm-cloud, while all else is in 
 the hurried confusion of seeming destruction. 
 
 The home life of old Virginia, in its patriarchal sim- 
 plicity, was exceedingly beautiful. One acquainted with it 
 can picture the quiet old mansions gleaming white amid 
 their oaks, rude enough in. their architecture, but so home- 
 like in their calm. Generations of intermarriage had made 
 all akin, while the ties of family strengthened the domestic 
 bond that found something nearer and dearer to live for than 
 the mere pursuit of wealth. Their homes were full of sweet 
 human gossip, and proud, yet kindly, they lived out the 
 quiet lives of brave men and chaste women, in striking con- 
 trast to the money-getting world around them. 
 
 Whether it is our peculiar climate or some other subtle 
 cause that develops the nerves at the expense of all else, we 
 are a restless, moving race, without that sense of home 
 which so distinguishes Virginians. We are Arabs in boots, 
 and our resting-places in life are no better than tents, giving 
 us shelter and wanting in all those sweet associations that 
 make of a locality a fairyland. And yet in the home itself is 
 planted all that makes a people really great. In it a mother's 
 love and a father's care train good citizens and give stability 
 to government that is secured by no other process. We are 
 enthusiastic over common schools and public institutions,
 
 Early Life. 55 
 
 and firmly determined to make the pedagogue do the duty of 
 the parent. We build houses, not for homes, but as show 
 places to sell and build again. Our very cemeteries are pub- 
 lic parks, in which the sacred memories of the beloved dead 
 are lost in the exhibition of grand avenues and costly monu- 
 ments. We cart our wealth to the verge of the unknown 
 land, and leave its evidence to the living in a stunning monu- 
 ment. The mourners hurry back to business, to keep the 
 dead man's notes from protest. How this sort of life is 
 marring our destiny as a people, is manifest in the frightful 
 increase of insanity and crime. 
 
 The perfect and beautiful influences of home life as 
 practiced in old Virginia, make one of the noticeable inci- 
 dents of the late civil conflict. 
 
 Virginia, the cradle of patriots, presidents, and states- 
 men, was not remarkable for either her wealth or intellectual 
 life. But few authors were born to her, no great books were 
 made, no millionaires larded the lean earth with their ill- 
 gotten gains ; but the standard of manhood was on an aver- 
 age so high, the love and respect for the old commonwealth 
 so strong, that the entire war centered around her capitol. 
 When Virginia fell, the cause was lost. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this subject, because in the home 
 training of George Henry Thomas may be found so much 
 that in subsequent years made him famous. He was a man 
 of such sterling integrity, so frank, brave, and truthful, so 
 tender in his nature, generous in his impulses, so sensitive to 
 the calls of honor, and so true to duty, that we are forced 
 back to the early years when such qualities were impressed 
 upon the plastic nature of youth. What a mother, what a 
 father General Thomas must have possessed. 
 
 George H. Thomas graduated at the Southampton 
 Academy, and had entered upon the study of law, when the 
 genial John Y. Mason offered Mr. Rochelle, George's ma- 
 ternal uncle, a cadetship at West Point. The place was left 
 to the young man to take or refuse, and it was promptly ac- 
 cepted. Having passed the examination, George returned 
 home by way of Washington to thank the Hon. John Y., 
 then his member of Congress, for his kind patronage. The
 
 56 Life of Thomas. 
 
 honorable official Baid to the youth : " No cadet appointed 
 tr.un our district has ever graduated at West Point, and if 
 you fail, I never want to see you again." He spoke to one 
 whose lexicon contained no such word as fail. Could the 
 genial John Y. Mason have known what that appointment 
 meant to the future of Virginia, he would have rejoiced at 
 the youth's failure. A bon vivant who found content, as 
 Benton said of him, in a good dinner, and a full hand at 
 poker, he had in common with all Virginians, a blind infatu- 
 ation in favor of things southern, that changed wrong into 
 right, and made good out of material that filled other men 
 with horror. The Hon. John Y. Mason, after holding many 
 high offices with credit to himself, and of benefit to his gov- 
 ernment, died in the volcanic eruption that buried state 
 sovereignty and human servitude in one common ruin. 
 
 He left, however, a nation of fanatics, who resisted 
 the world's progress, and fought statistics as an insult to 
 their peculiar civilization. 
 
 WEST POINT. 
 
 This little school upon the Hudson is popularly supposed 
 not only to give instruction in the so-called art of war, but 
 to supply through such process the lack of brains found in 
 many of its graduates. 
 
 As war is not an art, reduced to rules, one is naturally 
 puzzled to know how it can be taught, and if taught, how it 
 is that instruction supplies the ability that seeks to be in- 
 structed. The books devoted to military formulas are few, 
 and when applied to actual war, practically useless. All 
 the axioms left by great captains can be counted on one's 
 fingers, and, while the condensed wisdom of long and varied 
 experience by master minds, are quite useless when applied 
 to a school. Take for example, the greatest given us, which 
 says : " War is a calculation of chances." How can such 
 chances be known to a school ? They cease to be such when 
 they become sufficiently known as to be taught. 
 
 When we come to analyze the institution, we find it dif- 
 fers from others devoted to education, in the fact that the 
 students are trained to the drill and discipline of private
 
 West Point. 57 
 
 soldiers. Take this out and nothing of a military nature re- 
 mains. Now, while training and teaching may make a pri- 
 vate, there is nothing whatever in it to make an officer of a 
 grade necessary to the command of a brigade. What is 
 aimed at in creating armies has nothing in common with 
 what goes to make the general. To have a body of men so 
 drilled and disciplined that the mass 'move efficiently to the 
 command of one mind is possible to a drill sergeant. But to 
 create the mind capable of such command, does not lie within 
 the province of an academy. Government makes the private. 
 God alone creates the capable general. 
 
 Even in universities devoted to teaching exact science, 
 it is supposed that a brain able to receive such instruc- 
 tion is on hand. But war is not an exact science, as we 
 have said. It can no more be taught than thinking, and ca- 
 pacity in that direction defies instruction. If we analyze 
 this military ability carefully, we find that very little of it is 
 intellectual. The qualities that go to make a successful 
 leader of men, either armed or unarmed, are not intellectual, 
 but matters of temperament. The self-reliant force of char- 
 acter that never hesitates and gives to others the confidence 
 felt by its possessor, is not the product of brain. On the 
 contrary, thought antagonizes action. The more we know, 
 the less confidence we have in our knowledge, and doubt, the 
 offspring of study, creates distrust. In the calculation of 
 chances one must be quick to act. The road to military suc- 
 cess is lit by flashes of lightning on scenes that shift as rap- 
 idly as the sea, and, no time is given the leader for thought 
 and study. The prompt action that sends fools in where 
 angels fear to tread, sometimes leads on to victory. There 
 is no place in such a field for 
 
 " The kings of thought who wage contention with their time's decay, 
 And of the past are all that will not pass away." 
 
 Given an army well equipped for service, and a clear, 
 quick eye to the topography of a country to a man so con- 
 fident that he will risk an empire in a campaign and a cam- 
 paign in a battle, and we have the higher qualities of a gen- 
 eral. In this we find a solution to a mystery that has puzzled
 
 ;,8 Life of Thomas. 
 
 men through the history of all the wars, and that is, that in 
 the host of men killers from Cain to Moltke two only have 
 gone to record as thoughtful men. These two are Julius 
 Csesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. The one left us the Code 
 Napoleon which he did not compose, the other his com- 
 mentaries. These throw gleams of thought upon the brutal 
 kill'm " that rendered them famous. We claim a like dis- 
 tinction for our hero, George H. Thomas, who so permeated 
 his work with intellectual excellence that from this alone he 
 won his place upon the page of history. 
 
 There is a popular superstition, prevalent among the 
 masses, so strong that even intellectual leaders hesitate to 
 attack it, and that is that the processes of instruction create 
 the mind that it only helps develop. While recognizing in 
 actual life the inequality so varied and wide-spread that no 
 two men are alike in capacity, we yet insist upon the ex- 
 cellence of a machine that is claimed to lift all to a common 
 level. This in the face of the fact that after graduating a 
 thousand, one only is found capable to take his place as a 
 leader among men. No man selects a merchant, physician, 
 or lawyer because such has graduated at any college or uni- 
 versity. In the keen test of merit in the world's arena, such 
 indorsement goes for naught. 
 
 True education means that development of the intel- 
 lectual qualities which facilitates thought. Popular educa- 
 tion is a mere exercise of the memory. To store away facts 
 without the power to assimilate them is the grand elevating 
 process that is to lift our youth by platoons to the same 
 plane. Now memory, however necessary it may be in its 
 normal condition to assist in securing information, is not 
 mind. On the contrary, when made monstrous by over use 
 and stimulation, it eventually destroys the intellectual facul- 
 ties it was meant to aid. Popular education means an abuse 
 to the memory. The net purport and upshot of success in 
 the schools is to make it abnormal. They turn us out the 
 learned fool. The impatient child of genius who doubts or 
 disputes the fact given him to swallow, is plucked and ex- 
 pelled, while the dull, plodding fellow who pigeon-holes
 
 West Point. 59 
 
 away a vast store of facts he can not comprehend is grad- 
 uated. 
 
 Our great republic solemnly decrees that this graduated 
 dullness shall command its armies. As we have said, the so- 
 called art of war is not taught and can not be taught at any 
 school, and we have, therefore, at West Point that only 
 which makes the private. When the war came, all that is 
 taught through training at this school was turned over to 
 civilians, while that which is not found at West Point, the 
 ability to command, was monopolized by the graduates. 
 The officers from civil life saved both sides from immediate 
 disaster. Learning at night what they taught next day with 
 a facility peculiarly American, they lifted the armies North 
 and South from armed mobs to a plane of efficient discipline. 
 If the graduated dullness could have responded with like 
 readiness to the high commands so abruptly given them, we 
 would have been saved.the horrible slaughter and shameful 
 defeats that make up in the main the history of our four 
 years' war. 
 
 These, however, are not the worst failures of our mili- 
 tary system. It is copied after that of the English, where a 
 born aristocrat makes the officer and a peasant the private. 
 As we have no aristocracy of birth, we strive to make one 
 by commission. This is extremely difficult, and depends 
 mainly on the haughty mein of the officer. He must treat 
 the private as a peasant or his rank is endangered, if not 
 lost. This is called discipline. The old definition of prompt 
 obedience to military orders is shifted to the humble deport- 
 ment of an inferior to a superior being. What makes this 
 difficult and at times melancholy, is the way in which the 
 cadets are selected. The appointment is given to members 
 of the House of Representatives at Washington, and as it is 
 so much political patronage in the hands of politicians, it is 
 used as such. The member takes his young man from the 
 family of the constituent having the most political influ- 
 ence, and as this is often a saloon-keeper or head of a corner 
 grocery, we get little or no aristocracy in the selection. 
 From this class we look for our recruits, and it has happened 
 that from the same family that gave the aristocratic officer
 
 Life of Th&mas. 
 
 came the peasant of a private. It is no uncommon event for 
 some loving old mother or father to seek for and worship 
 naval or army aristocrat of her or his household, and to re- 
 turn humiliated by the discovery that the boy was ashamed 
 of his parent. 
 
 All this is foreign to our form of government, and antag- 
 onistic to the nature fostered through generations of demo- 
 cratic teachings and traditions. An army is of necessity a 
 despotism, but it is possible here as in France to eliminate 
 the social difference that is the more odious. It is possible 
 to maintain discipline on duty and be comrade when off. 
 When an officer can not only enforce military obedience upon 
 the private but menial service at all times, the army becomes 
 odious, and no self-respecting American will enlist. This 
 opens the ranks to a low order of foreigners or Americans so 
 debased that they are really what the system seeks to create, 
 social inferiors. Whether the epaulets adorn a gentleman or 
 not the muskets are carried by servants. 
 
 The result of this condition is that desertions, at the 
 present rate of increase, will soon equal the number recruited. 
 The remedy is in putting the officers and men on an equal 
 social footing. To do this instead of graduating a cadet into 
 a commission send him into the ranks to serve one year as 
 a private. At the end of that time, if he is qualified, make 
 him a corporal. After two years' service as a corporal he 
 will probably be eligible to the post of sergeant. From the 
 sergeants select the officers. 
 
 We learn little from our own experience and nothing 
 from that of others. An army means a mass of men so 
 trained as to respond to an order as one man. For a thou- 
 sand years the war powers of Europe have been perfecting 
 the private, leaving the Almighty to furnish the captain. 
 We, on the contrary, devote all our energies and means to 
 making the officer. The way we make him as shown is 
 grotesque. But when done we point with pride to the 
 product and cry: "Behold our army." 
 
 What George H. Thomas gained from West Point was 
 Hot what the academy professed to teach. He accepted the 
 drill and discipline, and resumed the studies upon which he
 
 Wesf Print. 61 
 
 had graduated at the Southampton Academy. But his 
 thoughtful mind turned instinctively to the real meaning 
 underlying a military system, and that he grasped at once. 
 He saw that what West Point was giving him as the forma- 
 tion of an officer really belonged to the private, and the 
 ludicrous lack of a logical sequence between the premises 
 and conclusion gave him a clear view of what had to be done 
 in a military way to be practical and effective. His subse- 
 quent career in the great civil war illustrated and demon- 
 strated the soundness of his conclusions that he did not get 
 from West Point, because West Point did not teach them. 
 
 " To what, General," asked the late President Garfield, 
 " do you attribute your uniform success ?" 
 
 The question brought a blush to the cheek of Thomas, 
 but it also brought a reply that should be engraved over 
 every door at West Point. 
 
 " To my men. I made my army and my army made my 
 success. I learned at an early day that a good army with a 
 poor commander was better than a good general with poor 
 men. Now, most of my associates in the service seem to 
 think that when one received his commission that he re- 
 ceived an army, and he planned campaigns without the force 
 to make the campaign effective. I took my commission as 
 an order to find an army, and I began from the first to 
 organize, drill and discipline the men upon whom after all 
 falls the real work of the war. We had splendid material, 
 quick to learn and ready to obey; one has only to win their 
 confidence to secure that staying power that makes it neces- 
 sary to kill a man to effectually dispose of him. I began 
 with a brigade and ended with the army of the Cumberland. 
 The brave fellows of that noblest military force the world 
 ever saw made the Rock of Chickamauga, not I. On that 
 sunny September afternoon as they stood in a half circle 
 facing the enemy that again and again poured a superior 
 force three lines deep upon our front, not a man of them but 
 knew that our right had been shattered and our left dis- 
 organized, and yet the brave fellows plied their guns cool, 
 firm and determined. They made success possible under all 
 circumstances."
 
 62 Life of Thoma*. 
 
 lie taught in the field all that he had thought out in the 
 academy, unaided by the drill sergeants, called professors, 
 of that sickly imitation of a bad original. The lesson writ- 
 ten in blood and of record in the acres of graves in the 
 national cemeteries that tell of bloody defeats and shameful 
 disasters remains unheeded. We are building mighty monu- 
 ments to heroes of defeat and leaving bronze and marble to 
 make our imbecility conspicuous to an amused world for all 
 time to come. Were war to be declared to-day, our govern- 
 ment would again call upon the cotton-breasted, full-stomached 
 young men of West Point to leave their drill rooms and be 
 great generals by the grace of God and the magic process 
 of a commission.
 
 West Point and After. 6<i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 West Point and After Services Preceding the Mexican War Ite Origin 
 and Infamy Sam. Houston Distinguished Dash at Monterey Reso- 
 lutions and the Sword. 
 
 George H. Thomas entered the Academy of West Point 
 let June, 1836, and graduated in June, 1840. His standing 
 is recorded as that of twelfth, and to demonstrate the value 
 of this, Wm. T. Sherman is marked as sixth. Thomas is 
 remembered by his associates at the academy for the same 
 qualities that marked him through life. He was reserved 
 without being shy, silent and undemonstrative yet not of- 
 fensive, earnest and studious with yet enough quiet humor 
 to make him companionable. The more impetuous qualities 
 of a healthy youth seemed to have exhausted themselves in 
 his earlier years, and although he had none of that unpleas- 
 ant condition known as an old head on young shoulders, he 
 seemed self-poised and strangely quiet in all his ways for one 
 of his years. 
 
 He passed from West Point to service as second lieuten- 
 ant in the Third Artillery. In November of 1840, he was 
 ordered with his company to Florida, where we seemed to 
 have an endless war with a handful of Seminole Indians. He 
 saw the end of that absurd affair when a few blanket savages, 
 aided by swamps and malaria, had put the army of the 
 United States at defiance. Having taken part under Major 
 Wade in the capture of seventy Seminoles, he was bre vetted 
 first lieutenant for gallantry and good conduct. In January, 
 1842, he and his company were transferred to Fort Moultrie, 
 South Carolina. In December of 1843, he was assigned to 
 Company C, stationed at Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Pro- 
 moted first lieutenant 30th April, 1844, in October he joined 
 Company E, at Fort Moultrie. He left Fort Moultrie 26th 
 June, 1845, with his command, under order to report to Gen- 
 eral Zachary Taylor at New Orleans, and on the 24th July,
 
 64 Life of Thomas. 
 
 under command of General Taylor, sailed for Texas, the 
 advance ordered for the invasion of Mexico. 
 
 Thus the first real military service that Geo. H. Thomas 
 was called upon to perform came to him in the war of inva- 
 sion, that sent an armed force to the conquest of Mexjco. 
 That war was a shameful affair, of interest to this narrative, 
 for it made the war of secession possible. A people can no 
 more lower its standard of morality and justice without the 
 evil consequences that follow the taint of character than can 
 an individual. Neglected wrongs in a nation breed violence, 
 but a premeditated national wrong lives through generations 
 and seems to be without end. The story of this infamy can 
 be briefly stated. 
 
 The slave power that poisoned our social existence for 
 two hundred years and dominated our government for over 
 half a century demanded new lands to render barren, and 
 gave truth to the manifest destiny which meant that slavery 
 could not be limited and live, and called for the conquest of 
 a continent. The spirit was as cowardly as it was criminal. 
 When we encountered a power such as Great Britain, or even 
 Spain, our manifest destiny weakened to polite demands and 
 humble negotiations ; but when it met an inferior, the wanton 
 aggression was not covered with even a flimsy pretense of 
 right. This last is what happened in the Mexican War. 
 Texas, a part of Mexico, had been opened on liberal terms 
 to emigration, and with such emigrants went a small body 
 from our Southern States led and controlled by Sam. Houston. 
 No more picturesque and purely American figure than Hous- 
 ton ever appeared upon our historic page. Born in the 
 wilderness, he was bred by Indians to all the ways and 
 habits of their free hunter's life, and through all the tumult 
 of his stormy career carried the intense personality that 
 grew in him from his blood and early training. When but 
 eighteen years old, he stood six feet in stature, a splendid 
 specimen of physical manhood. Adopted by an Indian 
 chief as a son, he developed into the soldier of fortune, and 
 when he returned to the borders he carried with him primi- 
 tive, half-savage views, with a force of character that not 
 only assimilated such views with his rough existence, but
 
 Sam. Houston. do 
 
 made him a noted leader. Returned to Congress, he carried 
 to Washington the reserved, dignified manner of the Indian 
 that made him conspicuous in his silent, solitary ways. The 
 fact that, subsequent to a long service in the House, he beat 
 a member of that honorable body nearly to death for per- 
 sonal comments on Houston's conduct as agent of the Chero- 
 kees, surprised no one acquainted with the assailant. While 
 governor of Tennessee, he married a lovely girl in January 
 of 1829, and hearing that in the marriage she had been sac- 
 rificed to the ambition of her parents, he resigned the gov- 
 ernorship, parted abruptly with his wife, and returned to his 
 savage life among the Cherokees. 
 
 Three years after this strange event, we find him in 
 Texas, leading the revolt against Mexico caused immediately 
 by the Mexican government enforcing its laws against slav- 
 ery, the emigrants from the South having taken their slaves 
 to the territory the masters had been invited to occupy. The 
 war that followed was the most savage ever witnessed upon 
 our continent, and through it all this remarkable man ap- 
 peared as leader. The end came in a signal defeat of the 
 Mexican forces and the capture of their president. 
 
 The events that followed uncovered the treacherous char- 
 acter of the entire movement from its first conception. Our 
 government was swift to recognize this bastard of its own 
 shame as a new power. Then, of course, followed annexa- 
 tion, and as soon as convenient the war with Mexico. This was 
 claimed to have originated in a disputed boundary. All that 
 strip of territory lying between the rivers Nueces and the 
 Rio Grande Del Norte was declared part of our country upon 
 a shadowy claim that it was part of the annexed state. It 
 was inhabited by Mexicans. From side to side along its en- 
 tire length there was not a solitary citizen claiming allegiance 
 to the government of the United States. This small body of 
 so-called emigrants from our country, armed and supplied 
 openly by our citizens, although victorious in their rebellion, 
 had no more right to settle a boundary line with Mexico 
 without recognition than had the Czar of Russia or the 
 Emperor of China. 
 5
 
 66 Life of Thomas. 
 
 However, we were not nice. Possessed of the nature 
 and impulses of the bully, we who had negotiated boundary 
 lines with Great Britain with assurances of profound respect 
 and a submission to the result in a truly Christian spirit, at 
 once declared war and moved our armies to the disputed 
 boundary of a weaker power. This war ended in a peace 
 dictated at Washington, in which, under a pretended pur- 
 chase that had but one party to the contract, a large part 
 of the Mexican territory, with all the people therein con- 
 tained, was added to the United States. 
 
 We have dwelt upon this war with Mexico at greater 
 length probably than our main theme warrants, but, as we 
 have said, this unholy war was the pioneer wrong that opened 
 the way to the war of secession. We who sought to make trea- 
 son odious forgot that we in that Mexican affair made treachery 
 acceptable. The people of the seceding states were no more 
 bound to their allegiance as citizens of the general govern- 
 ment than were the emigrants subjects of the power that 
 had kindly invited them to become citizens. But while 
 commending the one we condemn the other, forgetting that 
 example is more potent than precept, and armed Confeder- 
 ates only presented to our lips the cup we had held to the 
 mouths of the sickened Mexicans. 
 
 The field afforded the young lieutenant of artillery was 
 not wide, and save the record of a prompt discharge of duty 
 and quiet coolness under fire there is nothing to indicate 
 the high qualities which subsequently made him so conspicu- 
 ous. He seems to have been of the command under Gen- 
 eral Taylor that first occupied the soil of Texas, and, sub- 
 ordinate to Major Brown, made part of the garrison of the 
 fort opposite Matamoras that for a week was besieged by 
 the Mexicans. A fearful bombardment of five days resulted 
 in the killing of Major Brown and one private. After this 
 achievement the siege was raised in consequence of victories 
 won by General Taylor at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. 
 
 It was at this bombardment that an incident occurred 
 singularly illustrative of our heroes thoughtfulness and qual- 
 ity of calm observation. When the enemy opened upon the 
 little garrison from over the river with artillery the garrison
 
 Dash at Monterey. t)7 
 
 promptly responded. While merrily loading and firing at 
 tlu> toe in the distance the officer in immediate command 
 turned to a young lieutenant seated upon a keg looking on 
 with a calm indifference that contrasted strangely with the 
 excitement of his associates. 
 
 " "Well, Tom," he asked, " what do you think of our 
 service; good, eh?" " Service excellent," was the quiet re- 
 sponse ; " but I am thinking that we will need after awhile 
 the ammunition you are throwing away." 
 
 The hint was taken, and the next day proved the wis- 
 dom of young Thomas' suggestion. The garrison was em- 
 barrassed by a lack of the ammunition they had been so active 
 in wasting. 
 
 Subsequently in the battles about Monterey young Thomas 
 was brevetted captain for " gallant and meritorious services," 
 and one general, J. P. Henderson, in his enthusiasm, goes 
 so far as to say, after complimenting young Thomas and his 
 men for their " bold advance," that. "when ordered to retire, 
 he reloaded his piece, fired a farewell shot at the foe, and re- 
 tired under a shower of bullets." George II. Thomas was a 
 young man at the time when this extra shot was contributed 
 to the poor Mexicans, and it may be that for once in his life 
 he exhibited a force of impulse ever after so foreign to his 
 nature. We are inclined to believe, however, that the noble 
 general of volunteers drew on his imagination for this ques- 
 tionable act of individual audacity. The fame of the young 
 officer thus made conspicuous by General Henderson's ac- 
 count of "another shot" and the unpleasant "shower of 
 bullets " reached the home of Thomas, and the citizens 
 thereof were much excited. A meeting was called at 
 Jerusalem and Captain James Magill was selected to pre- 
 side. "Colonel Wra. C. Parker," the rural press of that 
 locality informs us, " in his naturally eloquent and happy 
 style, proceeded to deliver a spirit-stirring eulogy upon the 
 character and conduct of our hero." He then proposed " the 
 following resolutions, which were adopted by acclamation," 
 and are so dignified and forcible that we copy them entire : 
 
 "Resolved, That whilst we glory in the unfailing fame 
 which our heroic army in Mexico has acquired for herself
 
 68 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and country, our attention haa been especially drawn to the 
 military skill, bravery, and noble deportment of our fellow- 
 countryman, George H. Thomas, exhibited in the campaign 
 of Florida, at Fort Brown, Monterey, and Buena Vista, in 
 which he has given ample proof of the best requisites of a 
 soldier patience, fortitude, firmness, and daring intrepidity. 
 
 "Resolved, That as a testimonial of our high appreciation 
 of his character as a citizen and a soldier, we will present to 
 him a sword, with suitable emblems and devices, and that a 
 committee be appointed to collect a sum sufficient for the 
 purpose, and cause to be fabricated a sword to be presented 
 to the said George H. Thomas, through the hands of his 
 noble and heroic commander, Major-Gcneral Z. Taylor." 
 
 Fourteen years after this presentation of a sword, 
 Thomas' neighbors, friends, and relatives were startled by 
 his adhesion to the cause of the government in the war which 
 broke with such violence upon the country. Their grief waa 
 only rivaled by their wrath and indignation. 
 
 Of course nothing reached home about young Thomas 
 save the report that claimed for him the highest courage. 
 All the higher qualities that subsequently made him famous, 
 were quite unknown. On the contrary, the enthusiastic 
 brigadier had given him a dash which he did not possess, 
 but the bravery was sufficient. This was the one, and about 
 the only quality popularly believed to be essential to men so 
 ignorant of real war, that recruits armed themselves with 
 revolvers and huge bowie-knives, firmly believing that the 
 conflict was to be fought out in personal encounters, when 
 the pluck of the individual was to tell in the result. This 
 was especially the condition in the South, and after the first 
 few months of actual service, their revolvers and knives 
 thrown away as useless incurnbrances, marked the location 
 of every deserted camping ground. 
 
 The resolutions, handsomely engraved, and the " fabri- 
 cated sword," were duly forwarded to the young Virginian. 
 The sword in itself was well worth preservation, aside from 
 the kind motives that proposed its presentation. "We get a 
 description of it from the Philadelphia Bulletin, while the 
 weapon was on public exhibition : " The pattern of the
 
 Meritorious Conduct at Buena Vitta. 69 
 
 Baber,'* we are told, " is that used by the United States 
 dragoons. The blade is of the truest and prettiest steel, fin- 
 ished in a manner that defies superior workmanship. The 
 scabbard is of solid silver, standard value, beautifully en- 
 riched with engraved scroll-work encircling military trophies 
 with the words ' Florida, Ft. Brown, Monterey, Buena 
 "Vista/ and an engraved vignette of the battle of Monterey. 
 The hilt is of basket form, very elaborately chased. The 
 grip is solid silver, also enriched w r ith engraved scrolls. The 
 pommel is of gold, grasping an amethyst, and the rings and 
 bands in bas-relief, and upon the grip is engraved an ele- 
 phant." 
 
 In the battle of Buena Vista, 22d and 23d July, 1847, 
 Lieutenant Thomas was brevetted major " for gallant and 
 meritorious conduct on the field." General Taylor, in his 
 official report said in reference to the subalterns of the artil- 
 lery, including Thomas by name : They were nearly all de- 
 tached at different times, and in every situation exhibited 
 conspicuous skill and gallantry." 
 
 Captain T. W. Sherman reports: "I was directed to 
 take my battery back to the plateau, where I joined Lieuten- 
 ant Thomas, who had been constantly engaged during the 
 forenoon in the preservation of that important position, and 
 whom I found closely engaged with the enemy, and that, too, 
 in a very advanced position. Lieutenant Thomas more than 
 sustained the reputation he has long enjoyed in his regiment, 
 as an accurate and scientific artillerist." 
 
 General Wool gave to the artillery the credit of having 
 gained the, signal victory over a force far superior to ours in 
 numbers. He says in his report: "I also desire to express 
 my high admiration, and to offer my warmest thanks to Cap- 
 tains Washington, Sherman, and Bragg, and Lieutenants 
 O'Brien and Thomas, and their batteries, to whose services 
 at this point, and on every part of the field, I think it but 
 justice to say we are mainly indebted for the great victory so 
 successfully achieved by our arms over the great force op- 
 posed to us more than twenty thousand men and seventeen 
 pieces of artillery. Without our artillery we could not have 
 maintained our position for an hour."
 
 70 Life of Thomas. 
 
 There is good ground for doubt as to the numerical su- 
 periority of the Mexican force. It has been learned through 
 fxpi-riem-e in our late civil war, that this numerical superi- 
 ority oreatly depends upon which side furnishes the report. 
 Tin "re was not much credit to be gained to our little army 
 iu its Mexican war if the estimate of Mexican capacity in 
 .ampaigns, and courage in the field, is to be accepted from 
 official reports on our side. In this the army does itself an 
 injustice. It marched triumphantly from coast to capitol, 
 dfU'ating these same Mexicans who subsequently so gallantly 
 held their own against the power of the French army. 
 
 The battle of Buena Yista terminated tbe services of 
 George H. Thomas in Mexico. After that war he was on 
 duty at Brazos Santiago until 1st of February, 1849. After 
 he served at Fort Adams until 12th of September of the same 
 year, when the interminable Seminole war breaking out 
 airain, he was ordered to Florida. There was not much 
 fame to be garnered from such a war, and yet the young 
 officer gained all that was to be gathered in the province 
 given him by his superior officers. Any work calling for 
 prompt execution with an accompanying responsibilty of a 
 separate command devolved upon him. The traits of char- 
 acter that subsequently rendered him famous were early well 
 developed. There was no claim on his part for service or 
 promotion. He was not the man to shoulder his way 
 through life, for he was not only without the selfish motive, 
 but without the necessity. His devotion to duty, his solid, 
 sterling sense that made his superiors first consult and then 
 employ, brought to him as his right what others had to 
 struggle for. No soldier ever .lived who had a deeper, 
 stronger sense of the discipline that is the soul of the 
 service, than George H. Thomas. That he could be advised 
 with by his officer in command and then ordered to execute 
 what probably he had suggested without impairing the deli- 
 cate, yet well defined, relation between the two, was a rare 
 excellence that all felt who came in contact with him. He 
 lived his life upon a high plane that had in it no vanity, no 
 self-assertion, and was guided first by his keen sense of per- 
 sonal honor, and second only to that by his pride of pro-
 
 Marriage. 71 
 
 fession that made his calling as sacred to him as if it were 
 his religion. It was more a matter of temperament, per- 
 haps, than intellectual conviction. The fine, delicate and 
 yet healthy, compact fiber that made his manhood held him 
 to what he was. He had the strongest personality ever 
 given a man, and it was built up through generations of the 
 best our American life could give. The serious earnestness 
 that he shared with the Indian was modified by a quick 
 adaptibility gained through two generations of life when 
 each generation takes from our American individuality some 
 new trait in its peculiar environments. 
 
 An instance of this prompt seizure of responsiblity is 
 given at the time we treat of. In a voyage from Charleston 
 to New York in a vessel carrying the lieutenant's troops, a 
 violent storm arose and Thomas's attention was attracted to 
 the inebriate captain of the sloop. The wild orders of this 
 man that the crew obeyed were endangering the safety of 
 the vessel and all on board. The first officer under the cap- 
 tain admitted this to Thomas, but said that he had to obey 
 orders or be punished for mutiny. Thomas promptly took 
 the responsibility of imprisoning the captain in his state 
 room, and, turning the command over to the first officer, 
 saved the vessel. 
 
 On the 7th of November, 1852, George H. Thomas was 
 united in marriage to Miss Frances L. Kellogg, of Troy, 
 New York. That it was a love match goes without saying. 
 The youthful lieutenant, if aware of the social privileges per- 
 taining to his commission that enables so many poor officers 
 to marry into wealthy families, set such aside and attached 
 himself for life to the accomplished and beautiful woman 
 whose grace and dignity were such fitting additions to his 
 own noble life. Mrs. Thomas was robbed of much of the 
 happiness due such an admirable union by her husband's ab- 
 sorbing devotion to military duty. But their lives or 
 rather their life for it was one in both, proved prosperous 
 in the tenderness, devotion, and confidence that gave a rest 
 from turmoil of life to our hero and a home to both. 
 
 During the administration of President Franklin Pierce 
 with Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, 3d March, 1855, two
 
 72 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 regiments of cavalry and two of infantry were added to the 
 regular army. To the second cavalry George H. Thomas 
 was promoted from a captain to the position of major. The 
 fact that this second regiment was officered by Jefferson 
 Davis from the Southern States impressed General Thomas 
 that the Secretary of War anticipated at that time the armed 
 conflict over the Union that afterwards broke out, Thomas 
 was in error about this. While Jefferson Davis saw at an 
 early day that secession was inevitable, he saw no war, nor 
 conld he be made to believe that such a dread calamity would 
 ever occur. In common with all prominent men of the 
 South, he thought the business instincts and peaceful habits 
 of the North, together with the sympathy so freely bestowed 
 in behalf of the slave-owners, would force the free states to 
 submit to a peaceful separation. It was the misfortune of 
 each side to be profoundly ignorant of the other. While 
 President-elect Lincoln laughed and jeered at the belief that 
 the South meant war, Davis, Toombs, Yancey, and Stephens 
 sneered at the Northern people, the millions of merchants, 
 mechanics, and farmers offering to fight if the South once 
 moved out of the Union. 
 
 It is well for us, however, that such was the condition. 
 Had the gift of prophesy fallen either upon Lincoln or Davis 
 after the presidential election that gave the administration 
 to the Republicans, the one would not have sat calmly at the 
 new capitol of the South waiting for Virginia to pass her act 
 of secession, nor would the other have given his time to a 
 consideration of a million claims to office. Jefferson Davis 
 could and would have seized Washington, and President 
 Lincoln, at Philadelphia, would probably have been negotiat- 
 ing for a peaceful settlement of a broken Union. No, for- 
 tunately for us and for all, the clouds of war were hid behind 
 a dim horizon and the Southern leaders were listening en- 
 tranced to the cry that gathered strength from the conserva- 
 tives and abolitionists of " let the erring sisters depart in 
 peace," when the gun at Sumter caught its echo in the 
 roar of a people's wrath and the leaders on both sides were 
 stunned. Jefferson Davis wakened to the fact that he had 
 lost his golden opportunity when with a regiment of raw
 
 West Pointers go South. 73 
 
 militia he could have taken the national capitol, while Presi- 
 dent Lincoln turned from his horde of hungry office seekers 
 to accept the regiments that poured into Washington to fight 
 for the Union. 
 
 As for West Point, Jefferson Davis believed that there 
 was no necessity to fill offices of regiments from Southern 
 States for secession purposes. He claimed to have all West 
 Point. He openly boasted that he could " have his pick in 
 case of civil war of West Point," and it was no idle boast. 
 A majority of West Pointers went South, and, as the world 
 believes to-day, the ablest lot. It is not difficult to under- 
 stand that this was from honest sense of duty. In our 
 anxiety to create an aristocracy from which to select our 
 pfficers, in imitation of the. English army, we have secured a 
 sort of aristocracy without getting the officers. The 
 Almighty haa not seen fit to endow the graduates with niili- 
 ta,ry qualities, to say nothing of his refusal to give that little 
 school a monopoly of military talent. The consequence is, 
 that it had come to be in President Lincoln's time, and is 
 for that matter yet, a social affair. Now, previous to the 
 late war, all our aristocracy pertained to the South, and 
 with that class West Point sympathized. An abolitionist in 
 the eyes of both was a low, scurvy fellow, not to be tolerated 
 for an instant. President Lincoln in their eyes was a vulgar, 
 plow-born rail- splitter, and his mass of followers no better 
 than socialists, to use the mildest terms. 
 
 TRUE REFORM Is NEVER RESPECTABLE. 
 
 "These men are not gentlemen," said a disgusted dame 
 from the Fabourg St. Germain, after being introduced to the 
 conspirators who overthrew the republic of France to make 
 way for the empire. 
 
 " My dear," was the significant response of the brilliant 
 woman who took part in that infamy, "we do not make rev- 
 olutions out of gentlemen." 
 
 Wrong ever sits crowned with jewels under its silken 
 canopy, and smiles with dignified contempt upon the hungry 
 and naked wretches who would demolish the throne to get 
 at the treasure of which they have been robbed. And they
 
 74 Life of Thomas. 
 
 who are not yet deprived of all and able to destroy the im- 
 pudent usurpation are cowed by epithets. When our Savior 
 left his divine mission on earth to win its way alone, to be 
 rulK'd a Christian was to become lost under a loathsome ava- 
 laiu-he of tilth that buried civil rights and character together. 
 It seems strange even now that to be an abolitionist previous 
 to the late war was to not only lose cast socially, but subject 
 the poor philanthropist to a suspicion of dishonesty. He was 
 regarded as a negro thief, although his larceny gave no other 
 return than to be egged in Boston and hanged in South 
 Carolina. 
 
 To become a soldier of West Point one ceases, so far as 
 political rights are concerned, to be a citizen. The blind 
 obedience to the powers that be taught at the academy leaves 
 nothing to the graduate but his social privileges, and of 
 course these become precious. It has since the war, under 
 the domination of trade instincts of greed, been discovered 
 that cadetships were sold for money. The interesting part 
 of the result was the market value of a cadetship. This 
 amounted to five thousand dollars. Now, when one remem- 
 bers that in time of peace the graduates can never hope in a 
 long line of service to be more than a captain, the value de- 
 pends on some other privilege than rank and pay. It is the 
 social standing that is paid for. Seats in the Senate are on 
 m.irket for the same purpose. There is money, however, in 
 both. A cadet can marry a rich girl and generally does so, 
 and the Wall street operator who buys his chair in the Senate 
 as he buys his seat at the Stock Exchange gains confidence 
 from his senatorial robes that are thus made to cover transac- 
 tions dangerously near theft. 
 
 To be fair and just to the little military school, we must 
 remember, as we have said, that patriotism is as little taught 
 as the art of war. That blind obedience which is considered 
 essential to a soldier precludes political instruction, and 
 without that patriotism is a blind impulse, and it -is small 
 wonder that the poor officers were puzzled between the 
 claims of state and their allegiance to the government. 
 They solved the to them troublesome problem by clinging to 
 old associations and following the familiar and pleasant social
 
 Slaveholding Experience. 75 
 
 lights. The case of General Robert E. Lee is one in point. 
 This leader of the Confederate armies hung doubtful be- 
 tween a sense of duty to his government and the loving asso- 
 ciation of family and friends that the claim of his native 
 state held on his heart. He could not continue in the service 
 and so make war on his own people. He shrunk from offer- 
 ing his services to a cause that he knew and confessed in 
 writing to be so uncalled for as to be treasonable. He could 
 not resign and retire to private life while ringing in his ears 
 were the cries of his own kin and people for aid in a death- 
 struggle. He ended by laying down the sword of a subordi- 
 nate and taking up that of a leader in behalf of a state 
 against a nation. How differently a clear brain and a 
 stronger character solved this same question we will consider 
 directly. 
 
 An event occurred about this time that throws a strong 
 side light upon the character and convictions of George H.. 
 Thomas. While in Texas, finding that he could not have a 
 servant for his family, he bought a colored woman. When 
 recalled from Texas economy dictated that he should sell 
 again the human chattel he had purchased. This he could 
 not bring himself to do. He might buy, " but he could not 
 sell a human being," to use his own words. Opposed to 
 slavery he was not an abolitionist, for he recognized as sacred 
 the guarantees of the constitution that he was so soon to 
 assist in tearing from the national charter with bayonets. 
 While true to himself he was conservative to all others, and 
 in the consideration of all moral questions gave to his fellow 
 the same freedom he reserved to himself. As it was a mat- 
 ter belonging exclusively to himself and his God, he recog- 
 nized in his fellow-men the same responsibility and, the 
 same security from human interference. While always for 
 reform he had in him nothing of the reformer. He had lit- 
 tle patience with the man who, not content with walking 
 himself in the direction of the sunlight, sought, as a special 
 agent of God, to drag others into the same path. He would not 
 sell the woman, and there was nothing left but to take her with 
 him at an expense he could illy endure to his home in Virginia. 
 Her subsequent history illustrates the difficulty attending the
 
 Lift of Thomas. 
 
 Mtt-mpt to lift a race of slaves, made such through genera- 
 tions of servitude, to au equality of freedom with the master 
 in one gem-ration. Major Thomas had really liberated the 
 slave he purchased. To make her free, however, was diffi- 
 cult. When the war sent the poor creatures out to struggle 
 for a subsistence they had not been trained to meet or make 
 possible, this poor woman persistently clung to the man who 
 had bought her but would not sell again. She came, not 
 only herself, but with husband and children. Major Thomas 
 made kindly and with patience many efforts to throw the 
 poor family on their own resources and train them to live 
 independently in their new condition. It could not be done, 
 and the family remained dependent upon him so long as he 
 was alive to meet their pitiful demands. 
 
 The Second Cavalry, of which Thomas was major, went 
 to Texas under orders, and he joined his command in that 
 stiiu- May the 1st, 1856. In 1859, the Texas reserve Indians 
 being assigned to the Indian Territory, Major Thomas com- 
 manded the escort. Under orders he explored the region 
 lying about the head-waters of the Canadian and Red rivers. 
 His turn for study, and the long habit of close observation, 
 made the service of great benefit to the government. In- 
 deed, the records of the War Department give a singular 
 history of explorations and study on the part of this accom- 
 plished officer in whatever new country his services found 
 him. They prove him to have been well versed in botany 
 and geology. The boy who could make his own saddle and 
 shoes had developed into the man who not only could but 
 would utilize evepy occasion for investigation and thought. 
 The department found this habit so available in its excep- 
 tional major of cavalry that in 1860 he was sent to ex- 
 plore the sources of the Concho and Colorado rivers. 
 The work of this single officer contrasts strikingly with 
 the expedition sent subsequently to triangulate unknown 
 regions, made up mainly of Congressional dependents, such 
 as sons and friends of members who voted heavy appro- 
 priations to pay the expenses of these scientific picnics. We 
 have at this writing a huge bureau at Washington held
 
 77 
 
 together and perpetuated by a system of lobby triangulation 
 far more effective than that in mythical canons. 
 
 In this expedition Major Thomas received his only 
 wound in life. In a skirmish with the Indians an arrow 
 passed through his chin, pinning it down in a most pain- 
 ful manner to his* breast that it had entered. He quietly 
 drew the arrow from the wound and continued the pursuit. 
 As this gives us the only instance of a wound received by 
 our hero, although ever at the front and in peril when pres- 
 ent in an engagement, we reproduce from his report an ac- 
 count of the affair. It is an extract from his report of Au- 
 gust 31, 1860 : 
 
 "I have the honor to submit for the information of the 
 department commander, the following report of the opera- 
 tions of the expedition under my command, to the head- 
 waters of the Concho and Colorado rivers, during the 
 months of July and August. . . . On the morning of the 
 25th inst., about fourteen miles east of the mountain pass, 
 one of the Indian guides discovered a fresh horse trail cross- 
 ing the road. As soon as the packs could be arranged and 
 our wagons dispatched with the remains of our baggage to 
 the post, with the teams (two sick the hospital steward and 
 a private of the band too sick to ride) I followed the trail 
 with all the remainder of the detachment and three guides, in 
 a west-north-west direction for about forty miles that day, 
 traveling as long as we could see the trail after nightfall. 
 
 " On the 26th, about 7 A. M., the Delaware guide dis- 
 covered the Indians, eleven in number, at camp. He and 
 their spy discovered each other about the same time, and 
 giving mo the signal agreed upon, the party moved at once 
 in a gallop for a mile and a half before coming in sight of 
 their camp, which was located on the opposite side of a deep 
 ravine (running north, and, I presume, into the Clear Fork), 
 impassable except at a few points. Here we lost consider- 
 able time searching for a crossing, and only succeeded, finally, 
 in getting over by dismounting and leading our animals. In 
 the meantime, the Indians, being already mounted and hav- 
 ing their animals collected together, had increased their 
 distance from us by at least half a mile. As soon a& the
 
 78 Life of Thomas. 
 
 crossing was effected and the men remounted, we pursued 
 them at full speed for about three miles and a half further, 
 pushing them so closely that they abandoned their loose ani- 
 mals and continued their flight, effecting their escape solely 
 from the fact that our animals had been completely ex- 
 hausted by the fatiguing pace at which th'e pursuit had been 
 kept up. As we were gradually overhauling them, one fel- 
 low, more persevering than the rest, and who still kept his 
 position in the rear of the loose animals, suddenly dismounted 
 and prepared to fight, and our men, in their eagerness to dis- 
 patch him, hurried upon him so quickly that several of his 
 arrows took effect, wounding myself in the chin and chest, 
 also private William Murphy, of Company " D," in the left 
 shoulder, and privates John Tile and Caspar Siddle, of the 
 band, each in the leg, before he fell, by twenty or more 
 shots. ... By this time the main body of the Indians, 
 who were mounted on their best animals, were at least two 
 miles from us, retiring at a rapid pace, and it being impos- 
 sible to overtake them, on account of the exhausted condi- 
 tion of our animals, the pursuit was discontinued." 
 
 In October, 1860, Major Thomas solicited a leave of ab- 
 sence. It was his only request for such indulgence in 
 twenty years active service. This devotion to duty con- 
 tinued throughout life. There was no political significance 
 in this asked for leave of absence, but Major Thomas came 
 North possessed of the knowledge that General Twiggs and 
 the main body of officers under him were unfriendly, to use 
 the mildest terms, to the government that had so unex- 
 pectedly passed to the control of what was considered at the 
 South the abolition party. 
 
 Now, although the Southern leaders meant mischief and 
 were loud in their threats, we have to bear in mind that the 
 main body of Southern people were loyal to the old Repub- 
 lic. It was with extreme difficulty that the ordinance of se- 
 cession was passed through any legislature, and in some this 
 was done fraudulently. There is no question that had the 
 proposed secession been put to a vote before the bombard- 
 ment of Fort Sumter, it would have been defeated. What 
 changed this condition we will refer to hereafter. But the
 
 A Notable Accident. 7f< 
 
 impression made upon Major Thomas's mind by General 
 Twiggs's utterances and the vaporing talk of officers about 
 head-quarters is scarcely worth remembering. 
 
 It was during this leave of absence while journeying 
 from Richmond to Washington by rail that Major Thomas 
 met with an accident that gave color to and was felt through 
 all his subsequent career. In stepping from a railroad train 
 in the dark, he was thrown into a ditch with such violence 
 that his spine was so effected that for months after it ap- 
 peared as if he was shut out from active life. This must be 
 borne in mind, for it becomes strongly significant in consid- 
 ering George H. Thomas's attitude toward the government 
 when secession was rapidly developing into war.
 
 80 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Thomas Announces His Allegiance tp the Government Loyal from the 
 First Difference in Temperament that Made His Course the Reverse 
 of that of Lee Question of the Right to Secede. 
 
 The wrath aroused iu the Southern mind at so distin- 
 guished an officer as this one of Virginia birth remaining 
 steadfast in his loyalty to the Federal Government, found 
 expression in an impugnment of his motives. The Southern 
 impulse ran largely on sentiment. That one should coldly 
 reason out his duty and calmly abide by the result, in the face 
 of affection on one side and an abstract political doctrine on 
 the other, was quite beyond the comprehension of the hot- 
 headed rnen w)io plunged us into the cruelest war that ever 
 afflicted humanity. 
 
 It is generally safe, in considering the conduct of a man, 
 to consult his character as well as career. However conflict- 
 ing, even to positive inconsistency, may be his conduct, a 
 study of his temperament and intellectual qualities will 
 throw light upon his motives and solve what at first sight 
 seems a profound mystery. We know what Thomas inher- 
 ited in his Huguenot blood on one side and Welsh-English 
 on the other. Slow to determine, he was steadfast in his re- 
 solve. Whatever may have been his intellectual lights, he 
 was guided by them and not by his feelings. 
 
 To appreciate this, let us take Robert E. Lee. The dis- 
 ruption of the Union was to this eminent leader very pain- 
 ful to think of. Every drop of his blood came from heroes 
 of the Revolution. He had been reared to the high patriotic 
 regard, born of Virginia soil, for the great Republic that a 
 host of immortal dead had given all their days and many 
 their lives to build above him. A. soldier by profession, a 
 patriot by his birth, he had followed the flag of his fathers 
 through all his youth, ready to die fighting for its honor. 
 We know this ; no man questions it. He has left proofs strong
 
 Lee. fijtit 'J'/>om"s. 
 
 as those of Holy Writ of his inner consciousness when the 
 time came to test his patriotism. It was a crucial test. He 
 saw on one side the great Republic that as a soldier he had 
 sworn to defend against all comers in the true spirit of the 
 knights of old, sanctioned by the noblest appreciation of the 
 best men and sanctified by the fame of Washington, Jefferson, 
 Madison, Patrick Henry, and a host of heroes Virginia born ; 
 and on the other, the dark horde of armed men gathering to 
 strike down all that he held dear. But they were his people. 
 He knew that they were wrong indeed criminal, but they 
 were his people. He could no more resist this appeal to his 
 heart than he could cease to be Robert E. Lee. This feeling 
 dominated his intellect, and from the kindliest motives he, 
 in common with all of such temperaments, moved down the 
 road to sin, for such he regarded a war against the Union, as 
 his letters written at that time clearly prove. 
 
 Now let us consider the case of George H. Thomas from 
 the same point of view. To him came home precisely the 
 same call upon his conscience, the same appeal to his feel- 
 ings. But in his case the mind reigned supreme and held 
 these feelings under strong control. All the sweet associa- 
 tions of youth and manhood, all the sacred ties of home and 
 kin, were tugging at his heart, but these emotions were held 
 under the clear. brain and indomitable will of one who could 
 never consent to wrong tainted by dishonor and cloaked un- 
 der a bastard patriotism that ran its limits along state lines 
 and left out all the fathers had fought for. He knew that 
 the cry that came up to him was not that of his people. It 
 was known to him, as it was patent to the world, that the 
 scheme of secession, from its first inception to its final de- 
 velopment, came not from the people, but from the hot- 
 headed, ambitious men chance and slavery had made leaders. 
 The Virginia ordinance of secession was a fraud. It won its 
 way with difficulty through a faithless legislature, that knew 
 that a fair submission to the people would have voted it 
 down by an immense majority. 
 
 Geo. H. Thomas could no more have clasped hands with 
 these conspirators than Robert E. Lee could resist their ap- 
 6
 
 82 Life of Thomas. 
 
 peals. The one followed his heart into an unholy cause, the 
 other obeyed the dictates of reason and the high call of pa- 
 triotic duty in remaining firm to the flag of the fathers, a 
 soldier of the cross and a soldier of the great Eepublic. 
 
 There is yet another state of fact bearing on the trial of 
 Thomas in this respect that settles the question beyond doubt. 
 Two letters are published, in which it is claimed that at one 
 time the then Major Thomas hesitated and hung doubtful 
 between the cause of our government and that of .the Con- 
 federates. We reprint both. The first reads as follows : 
 
 "Colonel Francis H. Smith, Supt. Virginia Military Institute, 
 
 Lexington, Va. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In looking over the files of the National In- 
 telligencer this morning, I met with your advertisement for a 
 commandant of cadets and instructor at the institute. If not 
 already filled, I will be under obligations if you will inform 
 me what salary and allowances pertain to the situation, as 
 from present appearances I fear it will soon be necessary for 
 me to be looking up some means of support. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient' servant, 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, Major U. S. Army." 
 
 The second letter, found not long since, among the 
 etored-away archives at the state capitol, is here given : 
 
 "NEW TORE HOTEL, March 12, 1861. 
 To His Excellency, Gov. John Letcher, Richmond, Va. 
 
 DEAR SIR: I received yesterday a letter from Major Gil- 
 ham, of the Virginia Military Institute, dated the 9th inst., 
 in reference to the position of Chief of Ordnance of the 
 State, in which he informs me that you had requested him to 
 ask me if I would resign from the service, and if so, whether 
 that post would be acceptable to me. As he requested me to 
 make my reply to you direct, I have the honor to state, after 
 expressing my most sincere thanks for your very kind offer, 
 that it is not my wish to leave the service of the United 
 States as long as it is honorable for me to remain in it, and, 
 therefore, as long as my native state (Virginia) remains in
 
 For the Union from the Firtt. 83 
 
 the Union, it is my purpose to remain in the army, unless re- 
 quested to perform duties alike repulsive to honor and hu- 
 manity. I am very respectfully your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE H. THOMAS, 
 
 Major United States Army."- 
 
 This last letter is a complete vindication, if such were 
 needed, to the claimed treachery of the first. On January 
 18, 1861, Thomas applied for a situation at the Virginia Mil- 
 itary Institute, a private school, differing from others only in 
 the fact that the pupils were called cadets instead of students, 
 and were subject to the drill and discipline of private sol- 
 diers. How he could join the confederacy through that, 
 confounds the understanding. But let that pass; the officer 
 contemplating a division of the government to take service 
 in the confederacy, and actually, it is said, seeking such 
 service, on the 12th of March of that same year is offered 
 precisely what it is claimed he sought, and he promptly de- 
 clines. 
 
 The later letter settles the reading given the first. If 
 any other evidence were necessary, it is near at hand. It 
 will be remembered that Major Thomas was gravely hurt in 
 alighting from a railroad train at night, and believed for 
 many months that he was shut out from further active service 
 in the army. Being a poor man with a dear wife dependent 
 upon him, he sought employment outside the army, and in 
 the direction his studies and experience had made available. 
 
 As for that part of his letter which refers to his remain- 
 ing in the army so long as Virginia remains in the Union, we 
 must remember that the time had not come for Thomas to 
 make his decision. As well hold Chase, Greeley, and other 
 prominent republicans, to the cry of " Let the erring sisters 
 depart in peace," as to place any grave meaning upon 
 Thomas's reference to secession. At the time this letter was 
 written, not a man could be found in the United States who 
 seriously believed any war would grow out of the political 
 agitation following the election of Abraham Lincoln. At 
 the North it was believed to be a game of bluff indulged ic 
 by the democracy ; at the South the leaders seriously thought
 
 84 Life of Thomas. 
 
 that when actual war was tendered us, the business habits 
 and timid nature of the northern people would come in aid 
 of the then democracy, and secure a peaceful separation. 
 
 The gun at Sumter, fired 12th of April, 1861, caught in 
 its echo a roar that startled the world, and changed the face 
 of all things. Up to that hour, all had been speculations 
 and dreamings. Ninety days after, the land was white with 
 tents, the roll of the drum penetrated the most sequestered 
 glens, and men were arming and falling into line to battle to 
 the death. The movement at the North stimulated the 
 masses at the South, and a people that but a short time be- 
 fore would have voted down the secession ordinance, now 
 sprang to arms to resist invasion. The unexpected war was 
 on, and George H. Thomas was called abruptly to make his 
 decision. 
 
 The prompt decision came from him at Harrisbnrg, 
 Pennsylvania, where the news from Sumter reached him. He 
 immediately telegraphed his wife at New York, and his sis- 
 ters in Virginia, his resolve to be found true to his flag, and 
 then quietly obeyed the orders from the War Department, 
 at Washington, that led so soon after to the invasion of Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 This question of loyalty and purpose, if any remain, is 
 settled b} r the great man himself. Colonel A. L. Hough, 
 after the death of General Thomas, gave to the press a state- 
 ment brought out by a printed assertion over the name of 
 Fitzhugh Lee, to the effect that Thomas had sought a posi- 
 tion in the Southern army. We quote from Colonel Hough's 
 letter : 
 
 "As a confidential staff officer, one of his aides-de-camp, 
 I had the privilege of having many conversations with Gen- 
 eral Thomas upon matters relating to the war. The most 
 important of these conversations I made notes of at the time, 
 with his knowledge and consent. Among them is one on 
 the subject of Fitzhugh Lee's letter, which I copy from my 
 note-book. A slander upon the general was often repeated 
 in the Southern papers during and immediately subsequent 
 to the rebellion. It was given .upon the authority of prom- 
 inent rebel officers, and not denied by them- It was to the
 
 For the Union from the Fir.^t. 85 
 
 effect that he was disappointed in not getting a high com- 
 mand in the rebel army he had sought for, hence his refusal 
 to join the rebellion. In a conversation with him on the sub- 
 ject, the general said : ' This is an entire fabrication, not hav- 
 ing an atom of foundation ; not a line ever passed between 
 him and the rebel authorities; they had no genuine letter of 
 his, nor was a word spoken by him to any one that could 
 even lead to such an inference. He defied any one to pro- 
 duce any testimony, written or oral, to sustain such an alle- 
 gation ; he never entertained such an idea, for his duty was 
 clear from the beginning. These slanders were caused by 
 men who knew they had done wrong, but were endeavoring 
 to justify themselves by claiming their action to be a virtue 
 which all men should have followed, and by blackening the 
 character of those who had done right. It was evident they 
 were determined that no southern-born man, who had re- 
 mained true to his country, should bear a reputable char- 
 acter, if continued and repeated abuse could effect a stain 
 upon it.' " 
 
 The error into which the friends of this silent, unob- 
 trusive man had fallen is in the hasty conclusion that his re- 
 solve to sustain the government under which he had grown 
 to mature manhood was arrived at without much hesitation, 
 anxiety or pain. That there was no question from the start 
 as to his duty we well know, but when it came to performing 
 that duty there is no loss of true manhood to find between his 
 reason and feeling a painful conflict. When secession was 
 mere talk a talk. foreign to Thomas' experience and ordi- 
 dances were being passed with the pompous style peculiar 
 to the political South, he could treat the matter with the 
 same indifference that marked the people of the North. As 
 we have said, it was regarded as bluster. It was this same 
 contemptuous indifference that made President Lincoln turn 
 from the voice at the South to consider the hungry demands 
 for office at the North. But when the awful fact presented 
 itself to the world in all its naked deformity, the decision 
 of our great captain was promptly announced and from 
 that out lived up to with all the stern firmness that so strik- 
 ingly marked his character.
 
 gg Life of 
 
 We would do our subject a great injustice were we to 
 assert that when at last he made his resolve as to his course 
 in the emergency so cruelly presented he did so without re- 
 gret over or worry at the shock he gave his feelings. Mas- 
 culine and masterful as Thomas was his fine delicate temper- 
 ament was permeated and moved by the finest sensibility 
 that ever elevated a man. In illustration of this we have 
 the fact recorded in his subsequent career that, although 
 ambitious as such a man was forced to be, believing that he 
 had that in him which, if given a trial, would be of the 
 largest benefit to his cause and country, yet, when tendered 
 the command he longed for, we know that he put the 
 tempting ofler calmly to one side because in its acceptance he 
 felt that he would be doing a grave wrong to a brother officer. 
 To measure a man of this sort by the common rule of a 
 military tailor is to shut our eyes to all that is worth 
 knowing. 
 
 On the 12th of March, 1861, while ill at the New York 
 Hotel, with war apparently as remote as the farthest fixed 
 star in the heaven, he could well write : " It is not my wish 
 to leave the service of the United States as long as it is 
 honorable for me to remain in it, therefore as long as my 
 native state remains in the Union it is my purpose to remain 
 in the army unless requested to perform duties alike re- 
 pulsive to honor and humanity;" and at Harrisburg, on the 
 13th of April following, telegraph his wife at New York, 
 and his sisters in Virginia, that he would be found thereafter 
 in the military service of his country. In firing on Fort 
 Sumter the South had invaded every loyal state of the 
 Union. Fort Sumter, built to defend our country, was as 
 much the soil of Massachusetts as of South Carolina. The 
 handful of soldiers who saw the works crumble about them 
 as they vainly sought to defend them against the impious 
 shot and shell directed against our flag were as much at 
 home as if they were the defenders of the remotest town 
 upon the northern border of Maine. 
 
 There was no appeal to the reason in behalf of this war 
 of secession that did not excite the contempt and indigna- 
 tion of George H. Thomas. Even the weaker mind of Lee
 
 For the Union from the First. 87 
 
 recognized the fallacy and wickedness of this cause. The 
 cry of state sovereignty that carried in it the right to se- 
 cede, so vehemently urged by the leaders of revolt, was the 
 veriest bosh ever ottered sensible men. Of it the Southern peo- 
 ple knew little and cared less. They were aroused to tight out 
 a bloody issue to the bitter end, because, as they saw it, 
 their homes were being invaded by armed men. As for the 
 proposition, it is the rottenest ground-rail of a Virginia 
 worm-fence. We have sought to trace this colonial super- 
 stition to its birth in the origin of the war. Without consider- 
 ing events so remote, however important, we will look at 
 them from the stand-point taken by George H. Thomas. 
 
 State sovereignty was born of a colonial superstition 
 that divided one race into many different peoples, each seek- 
 ing to be a nation in itself. They were thrown together 
 through the emergencies of the Revolution, very like many 
 people crossing a stream in a ferry-boat. The passage ef- 
 fected, the passengers immediately separate, going each his 
 own gait in his own way. To sustain the proposition that, 
 as they were traveling the same road, they should therefore 
 continue the lately enforced association, is difficult. The 
 various colonies on our continent were not only jealous of 
 each other, but that jealousy was deepened by diverse busi- 
 ness interests and religious beliefs. The fierce fanaticisms 
 that drove nearly all from Europe to the wilds of this conti- 
 nent were as varied among themselves as the settlements 
 they made, and were as intensely bitter as the feeling that 
 forced perilous emigration across unknown seas. They who 
 fled, claiming the right to worship God in accordance with 
 the dictates of conscience, scarcely effected a landing before 
 they went to persecuting each other precisely as the Church 
 of Rome and Church of England had persecuted them. 
 This religious fervor was strengthened by that egotism 
 which is born of greed. 
 
 There was no sense in these differences, but they had 
 grown up into that second nature that is always more pow- 
 erful than that which first comes from our born instincts and 
 impulses. There was, however, a layer of common sense in 
 the jealousy, and fear felt by the weaker for the stronger
 
 88 Life of Thomas. 
 
 colonies. That of Rhode Island, for example, could preach 
 toleration to the Puritans of Massachusetts or the Quakers 
 of Pennsylvania, and yet shrink from a political or trade al- 
 liance that would submerge their little community into the 
 larger that then held the one harbor on the Atlantic coast 
 that bade fair to be the gate- way of commerce for a conti- 
 nent. 
 
 The framers of our constitution, the fathers of the Union 
 that under the carefully prepared contract in writing knit 
 the old thirteen states together, had the condition above 
 stated to encounter. It is a singular fact that the first con- 
 vention was made possible not by political but trade necessi- 
 ties. These were stimulated into active life by the claims 
 held by creditors against the old Federation, that had fallen 
 apart like a rope of sand, leaving all its just debts unsettled. 
 The delegates met to harmonize all their trade differences, 
 and ended in a political union that had consequences of which 
 they little dreamed, or the fabric would never have been 
 completed. No impartial student of our constitutional his- 
 tory can doubt for a moment that each state ratified that union 
 under the firm belief that at any. time it could withdraw. 
 
 We have said that the delegates assembled for one pur- 
 pose and ended by accomplishing another. This was not the 
 case with all. A small number, whose patriotism extended 
 beyond the limits of their several states, had from the start 
 the political purpose they succeeded in bringing about. Led 
 by Alexander Hamilton, while loudly recognizing the state 
 rights, they adroitly took from the states all that made their 
 independence possible. As sovereignty means that power in 
 a state from which there is no appeal, these framers of our 
 constitution established that power, and carefully took from 
 each separate commonwealth not only the essence, but all 
 and every attribute of sovereignty. All that was left was 
 but thirteen empty shells. So anxious were these early 
 statesmen to consolidate and strengthen their structure, that 
 they gave us, under the name of a republic, a government 
 more powerful and despotic than that of England, which 
 they sought so closely to imitate. 
 
 Had it been possible for the old thirteen states to have
 
 The National Sovereignty. 89 
 
 remained as they were when the Union was formed, there 
 would be a show of reason in the exercise of a right not yet 
 imposed or effected by the legitimate consequences of the 
 compact. But an immediate change of conditions followed. 
 The general government went to making states. The curious 
 part of the transaction lies in the fact that this had reference 
 more to territory than to the people inhabiting the same. 
 Thus the North-west was devoted, not to the inhabitants 
 that were or would be settled thereon, but to the general 
 government. The true significance of state sovereignty lies 
 in that which goes to make a people. There is not only a 
 community of interest, but those interests which make the 
 community. One, to be a citizen of the soil, must not only 
 be born upon it, but born through many generations, and 
 inherit thereby the feeling that makes the patriot. When 
 Virginia ceded the North-west Territory to the central gov- 
 ernment, that immediately opened that region, not to Vir- 
 ginians only, but to citizens of other states and the world at 
 large. The citizenship was at once shifted from the locality 
 limited to state lines to the country bounded by the authority 
 of the general government. This was so clearly recognized 
 as to leave no question when we purchased Louisiana from 
 France. In that, the government bought not only the terri- 
 tory, but the people inhabiting that country, and that with- 
 out their consent. If secession were a right, the people of 
 Louisiana thus purchased would return in their allegiance to 
 the French government. 
 
 The same view obtains in the acquisition made in a con- 
 quest from Mexico. We not only purchased sovereign states 
 and the people therein, but we conquered and controlled 
 them by bayonets. This in the face of our favorite axiom 
 that all governments derive their only title to rule from the 
 consent of the governed. No one suggested nor dreamed of 
 saying to the people of Louisiana or Mexico : " We have 
 bought you or fought you from under the sovereignty of 
 France or that of Mexico ; now we leave you free to select 
 your own government, in accordance with our great axiom." 
 
 How completely and entirely the doctrine of states'
 
 90 />'>" oi Thomas. 
 
 rights and that of secession under them disappears before 
 these facts of history. 
 
 This, however, is not all. It is not half. As we have 
 said, all compacts carry with them their legitimate conse- 
 quences. The rights that come into existence as a legiti- 
 mate result of a contract make, of course, a binding part of 
 the agreement. Thus, for, example, had the Siamese twins 
 formed their union in the ligament that held them together 
 while separate and free to do so through the will of both, 
 that ligament could not be severed if in such operation the 
 life of one or both would be lost in the surgical operation, 
 even if they were not aware when they united themselves 
 that such would be the result. The states formed out of the 
 ceded Virginia territory known as the North-west had their 
 boundary under the Union on the sea. After secession, 
 their boundaries would fall back to state lines, and they 
 would be shut out from the high seas and be dependent on a 
 commerce that involved their staples and, therefore, their 
 prosperity to the good will of alien governments. The great 
 North-west, therefore, gave bond and security by being in 
 existence to keep open the Mississippi river to the gulf. 
 This theory gives place to condition, and what was once a 
 right resolves itself into a wrong so palpable that the weak- 
 est mind can not fail to recognize the evil. 
 
 Written constitutions are after all only so much legisla- 
 tion built on the past and binding on the present. The body 
 politic is subject to the same changes that effect all earthly 
 bodies, and with those changes come new wants, new losses, 
 and new obligations. We can as well fit the garments of a 
 boy to the wearing of a man as to frame a constitution from 
 the past that is to serve all future generations. The state 
 sovereignty that was so clearly in view to the fathers of the 
 old Republic has given way to home rule, which means the 
 right of all communities to control their local interests in 
 harmony with the sovereignty of the nation, expressed 
 through C9iistitutioual powers that are as clearly defined as 
 common safety demands. 
 
 The tendency of poor human nature to swing from one 
 extreme to another is, we fear, being illustrated in these
 
 The National Sovereignty. 91 
 
 revolutionary tim^. The same patriotism that incited us to 
 rally to the armed support of the Union that we might save 
 the nation now calls for a like movement in the opposite di- 
 ivction to save the people. While the oppressed communi- 
 ties of Europe are struggling for the recognition of home 
 rule, we are concentrating powers in the central government 
 that must end sooner or later in an intolerable despotism. 
 However, it is with the past and not the future that we are 
 dealing.
 
 92 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Promoted Through Colonelcy to a Brigadier Generalship Skirmish at 
 Falling Waters" Stonewall " and " Rock "First Bull Run Vindi- 
 cation of General Patterson. 
 
 . 
 Major Thomas got the startling news from Sumter at 
 
 Harrisburg while in execution of an order from the War De- 
 partment. He continued without pause in the line of his 
 duty. The silent, thoughful man had no confidence with the 
 public. All he may have written to his sisters in Virginia is 
 not known. Nor is such information necessary to the fame 
 of our great soldier. His duty was clear to him and he was 
 the last man to swerve from that, let the consequences to 
 himself or others be what they might. His state had seceded 
 by ordinance that would have been harmless, but for the 
 declaration of war that came in the mouthing roar of Con- 
 federate artillery at Sumter. The entire cordon of slave 
 states was eager for the war. Having aroused their people 
 to arms, the leaders were naturally in fear that some propo- 
 sition would be made by the government at Washington 
 they would be forced to consider if not accept. " Give us a 
 white sheet of paper to write our terms upon," said one of 
 the more distinguished, " and we will return it to you un- 
 soiled by ink." 
 
 The resignation of Robert E. Lee gave Thomas his 
 place, and it is strange that these two men, each the greatest 
 of his side in the war that followed, should have held so 
 much in common. They both were natives of Virginia, and 
 represented, one through family and the other from force of 
 character, the better element of the state they adorned. 
 While writing this, amid the roar of cannon, the swell of 
 martial music, and the cheers of thousands, a noble monu- 
 ment to the honor of Robert E. Lee is being unveiled at 
 Richmond. To that monument, a memory in bronze, will 
 come pilgrims from distant lands beyond the sea to lay im-
 
 Thomas Stands Alone. 93 
 
 mortelles at its base in honor of one who lifted a frenzied, 
 senseless revolt to the dignity of a great war, and through 
 the purity of his own character made a people's crime ap- 
 pear a patriotic cause. There can be but one monument of 
 our own, and that remains as yet unbuilt, that will check 
 and hold for our side the admiration of the world. No man 
 knowing our late conflict can pass by the tomb of Thomas 
 to render homage to that of Lee. The one forsook his 
 country for his state; the other forsook his state for his 
 country. In all the traits that make great men dear to us 
 they were blessed alike, and it is only in measurement of in- 
 tellectual qualities that the soldier of the Union towers 
 above the military leader of revolt. How clearly this i.s 
 coming to be recognized we learn when a distinguished 
 soldier of England, having claimed for Lee the admiration 
 of the world as the greatest of both sides in our civil war, 
 the man who was as much responsible as any other for the 
 banishment of George Henry Thomas to an unmarked grave/ 
 was forced to invoke the memory of his neglected dead in a 
 challenge to the British admirer of Robert E. Lee. The in- 
 vocation ended the controversy. There is no monument 
 that can be built on this continent as the marble or bronze 
 history of some man made prominent in the late war which 
 will not be saved from the contempt that preceded oblivion 
 by the haunting shadow of this silent hero of a nation's sal- 
 vation. 
 
 The disintegration of the West Point part of the regu- 
 lar army was so extensive that the promotion of Thomas 
 came rapidly. " The Virginian " did not have to " wait." 
 He stood alone. Of all the faithless he was faithful still. 
 And as the old system of promotion had not yet been dis- 
 turbed by petty intrigues and government demands, Major 
 Thomas got rapid promotion. It is well to bear this in mind. 
 If the government had sought to hold him to his allegiance 
 through tempting favoritism in the way of pay and rank, 
 there might have been ground for doubt. But instead of 
 this, we well know that his adhesion to the Union was so 
 striking as to be without a parallel, for his Southern asso- 
 ciates nearly all threw up their commissions and carried
 
 94 Life of Thomas. 
 
 their swords to the side of the Confederacy. This, strangely 
 enough, only made the government more suspicious, and 
 even when he carved his way to confidence a full reward was 
 denied him. The Confederacy did offer him both confidence 
 and a commission, but all that he got from his own govern- 
 ment, was gained in hard-won victories upon the field. 
 
 On the 1st of June, Colonel Thomas, then at Carlisle 
 Barracks, received orders to report with four companies of 
 the regiment he commanded, and the First City Troop of 
 Philadelphia, to Major-General Robert Patterson, at Cham- 
 bersburg, Pennsylvania. He was assigned to the command 
 of the First Brigade of the Army of Pennsylvania. On the 
 2d of July he marched his brigade over Maryland to 
 Williamsport, crossed the Potomac, and fought the Battle of 
 Falling Waters in Virginia, if we may call such a skirmish 
 by that name. It was significant in the fact that George H. 
 Thomas commanded on one side, and Thomas T. Jackson on 
 the other. " Stonewall " Jackson and the " Rock of Chicka- 
 mauga " met in that sharp little affair, and gave a short pro- 
 logue to the mighty drama that was to have them its chief 
 actors. No two men were so much alike in two respects, 
 and so dissimilar in all others. Both had convictions so deep 
 and strong that they controlled their actions, but Jackson's 
 was the emotion of his temperament, while Thomas, as we 
 have seen, got at his conclusions through an exercise of the 
 highest reasoning. Jackson was a fanatic, a Puritan who, 
 through the force of his own fierce personality, appropriated 
 God to himself. It was a God of vengeance, one to worship 
 in war and fear in peace. He escaped West Point with his 
 instincts unimpaired. This narrOw, bigoted mind accepted 
 without question the doctrine of blind obedience in a soldier 
 to the powers that be as it took in that of predestination for 
 a religion. The one no more shut out the true religion of 
 our gentle, forgiving Savior than the other closed to him all 
 political information. He never questioned the divine right 
 of slavery any more than he questioned the divine right of 
 God, in his estimation, created both, the first for the 
 comfort of the elect on earth, and the last as a place ot pun- 
 ishment for sinners foreordained through all eternity to auf-
 
 Stonewall Jai'kson and Thomas. 95 
 
 fer in everlasting flames. Of a coarse, tough fiber, he was 
 without culture. His manner was as brusque as his sympa- 
 thies were contracted. 
 
 To speak of two such men as having any thing in com- 
 mon seems monstrous. But history will hold, so long as the 
 story of our late war is told, that these two men were alike 
 in being its grandest soldiers. They were commissionea by 
 God to be the leaders of men, and each won his way to rec- 
 ognition through the control he had over the masses he led. 
 " Stonewall " and "Rock" got their significance from the 
 staying power of their men in the hour of deadliest peril. 
 Jackson had from instinct what Thomas gained through 
 thoughtful study. They led to the same end. Stouewall's 
 brigade of " Foot Cavalry," that made such forced marches, 
 and struck such telling blows, were the same sort that stood 
 by Thomas in the outflanked center at Stone River, and 
 again at Chickamauga. 
 
 After all, this art of war is a very simple thing to 
 comprehend as an art, and grows difficult, like all art, only 
 in its application. The stupidest man alive can get for ex- 
 ample a thorough knowledge of law or medicine, but when 
 the rules come to be applied in practice, mere memory is of 
 no avail, and brain alone is successful. The calculation of 
 chances in war spoken of by Napoleon is predicated not on 
 courage in the force, but upon fear. Courage is an ex- 
 ceptional virtue, fear is common to all. On this account it is 
 the unexpected that tells. To have the foe appear unexpect- 
 edly upon one's flank or rear, is to demoralize a far larger 
 force than the one so mysteriously advancing from an un- 
 known quarter. This was the secret of Stonewall's success. 
 It made no difference to him what the superiority of the op- 
 posing force might be, provided he could strike him unex- 
 pectedly. But he had men with whom to strike. They 
 might fall in the blazing beat of a summer sun, or they 
 might fall from the enemy's bullets, but so long as he led, 
 and they could move, they were with him. 
 
 Said General Banks to the writer of this narrative in 
 the Shenandoah Valley : " The only disposition you can make 
 of Stonewall Jackson is to kill him."
 
 [)t Life of Thomas. 
 
 What a field of speculation opens upon the suggestion 
 that if it had pleased God to open the eyes of both Federal 
 and Confederate governments to a knowledge of the men so 
 that these two colonels of the skirmish at Falling Waters 
 could have been called to command both armies, what a dif- 
 ferent war would have gone to record. As it was, but for 
 Lee, Stonewall would have made European recognition, our 
 great fear, a certainty, by putting Jefferson Davis in the 
 White House at Washington. That was the one great ob- 
 jective point of the Confederate army. The capture of our 
 capitol would have brought upon our coast the* combined 
 fleet of France, England, Russia and Spain, and ended the 
 war in thirty days. Lee marched his victorious forces in 
 sight of the city ; indeed, the thunder of his triumphant 
 guns several times woke echoes along the fretted ceilings 
 of the capitol. He saw the dome, but he could not see 
 what it covered. He was contented to win great victories, 
 but these victories were curses in disguise. The prolonged 
 fierce war exhausted the resources of the Confederacy. The 
 brave men whose uniform was filthy rags, who marched 
 without shoes, slept without tents, fought without food, and 
 when forced at last to fall back retreated on the same sort 
 of victories they ever won and made the march of their foes 
 a highway of human bones. These brave fellows, numbered 
 by the thousands at first, came to be numbered by hundreds 
 at last, while Robert E. Lee fought his great fights and 
 saw after each the thinned ranks close up and the doom of the 
 lost cause loom as the end of all this useless slaughter. Ah ! 
 yes, he was a mighty captain, and so was our Grant, arid 
 they deserve their monuments, only the material should be 
 changed. Instead of bronze and marble they should be 
 made of half a million skulls in token of the slaughter their 
 stupidity made immortal. 
 
 There was a grim, iron-jawed, spectacled man at Wash- 
 ington, with short upper lip continually on the curl, as if to 
 show his teeth a man a head and shoulders above all his 
 associates save one who said : " We have no general, but 
 \ve have men; we can lose five to their one and win, and I 
 will crowd on until we stamp out this cursed treason."
 
 Ball Run. 97 
 
 He saw the South being exhausted, and yet, after the 
 victory of the second Bull Run, after that of Chancellors- 
 ville, and that of Fredericksburg, Lee could have marched 
 into Washington and driven that man and his master out, 
 never to return. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson would have taken Washington, not 
 because he saw more clearly, or saw at all, but instinctively 
 he would have fought for what the foe evidently considered 
 his most precious possession. The Southern leaders saw the 
 administration risk the Army of the Potomac on the Chick- 
 ahominy rather than uncover Washington, and if they failed 
 to comprehend the significance of its capture they must 
 have re-cognized the tenacity with which our government 
 clung to its capitol. It was the fate of both sides to have a 
 war of instruction thrown away on generals incapable of 
 being instructed. The tierce fighting qualities of Lee's men 
 were for him all that now make his monument appropriate, 
 while on the other side the million of men under muskets 
 saved us the Union through disasters and defeats. 
 
 Colonel Thomas reported to General Patterson and was 
 with that officer until the defeat of the first Bull Run, when 
 public indignation forced the government to withdraw this 
 commander from the field. General McDowell in risking 
 a general engagement with Bean regard on Bull Run, west 
 of Centerville, counted upon Patterson holding the forces 
 under General Joseph E. Johnston in his front. Instead of 
 this being done, the Confederate army under Johnston arrived 
 on the battle field at the moment almost that Beauregard was 
 penning his order to retreat. 
 
 The writer of this made one of the armed mob that 
 McDowell manoeuvered, or thought he did, upon that sum- 
 mer Sunday, and well remembers how stationary the hot sun 
 seemed as the promiscuous fights by regiments at intervals 
 and the artillery of both sides all the time went on. It was 
 approaching 3 P. M., of the longest day the writer ever ex- 
 perienced, when the tumult died down, and the stillness was 
 broken by the song of birds recovered from their fright. A 
 group of officers belonging to General Dan Tyler and Scheuck's 
 7
 
 9* L(ff. of Thomas. 
 
 command were wiping their foreheads and exchanging can- 
 teens under tho impression that the enemy was in full retreat. 
 VT,' were mm-h in Dogberry's condition when he bade the 
 watch in the rear of a retreating army to "take no note of 
 him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch 
 toother ami thank God you are rid of a knave." We 
 were together for that identical purpose, when suddenly the 
 silenced butteries of the foe opened again more furious than 
 before. It. seemed as if the first round shot given was aimed 
 at our group, for it killed four men directly In our front, 
 and then from right to left swept down the rebel yell, fol- 
 lowed by the rattling fire of musketry. 
 
 The unexpected had happened. At no time of the day 
 had our army been either confident or eager. The cessation 
 of resistance impressed only a few. with the fact of victory, 
 and now the tight was renewed with all its old tumult. Our 
 men retreated before any order could be given to that effect, 
 if anv was ever issued. The enemy seemed as willing to let 
 us go and thank God for the riddance as we had been, for 
 there was no pursuit, and in less than an hour the fields and 
 woods of Bull Run again had their silence broken only by 
 the song of birds. 
 
 In justice to General McDowell and his motley mob, we 
 must confess that Bull Run was lost to us more through de- 
 fective arms than the accession of General Joseph E. John- 
 ston and his fresh troops. When the demand for muskets 
 was made by our government in the unexpected opening of 
 the war, certain well known knaves high in the confidence 
 of the War Department bought up in Belgium a vast quan- 
 tity of condemned muskets, which they sold at an immense 
 profit to our government. They were light pot-metal things, 
 far more dangerous to those handling them than to the 
 enemy tired at. It was an infamous shame that poor fellows 
 should be led into a death struggle with such arms. But 
 Simon Cameron was Secretary of a War Department honey- 
 combed with fraud. 
 
 Why General Patterson did not hold the enemy to the 
 front, or, failing in that, follow him to the field at Bull Run, 
 has never been satisfactorily explained to the world. He
 
 The Vindication of Pattcr.vw. 99 
 
 had a complete defense, but it was never made public. So 
 soon as General George II. Thomas appeared as Patterson's 
 defender, all inquiry as well as charges ceased. A "West 
 Pointer at that time WHS an oracle in the popular mind, and 
 when Thomas said Patterson was in the right, the confiding 
 public considered judgment entered and the case closed. 
 General Thomas was prompt in appearance when called on 
 to give his verdict. He gave it in his own words, addressed 
 to one of General Patterson's staff. 
 
 "CAMP NEAR HYATTSTOWN, MD. S August 25, 1861. 
 DEAR COLONEL : Your note has just been handed me. I 
 had a conversation with Newton yesterday on the subject of 
 General Patterson's campaign. He was on the eve of writing 
 to the general, and asked me what he should state was my 
 opinion as to the general's course. I told him that he could 
 say that, if I was situated as he was, I would make a state- 
 ment of all the facts to the general-in-chief or the Secretary 
 of War, fortifying it with copies of the orders, etc., and de- 
 mand justice at their hands; and if they were not disposed 
 to give it, I would then demand a court of inquiry. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 GEO. II. THOMAS. 
 
 P. S. I think, however, that time will set the general 
 all right, as I see the papers are much more favorable to him 
 than at first." 
 
 Justice was awarded General Patterson by the govern- 
 ment, so the court of inquiry was not called. Had it been, 
 the responsibility would have been shifted from Patterson's 
 camp to the cabinet at Washington", or rather, to the head- 
 quarters of General Winfield Scott. This elderly officer was 
 one of the most magnificent parade captains ever uniformed. 
 The hero of two wars, he had learned nothing from either 
 but a deportment that made his tall, commanding figure a 
 most impressive affair. He saw more marching of a light 
 sort to less fighting than any other man of his time. His 
 popular title was " fuss and feathers," which did great injus- 
 tice to his solemn, dignified deportment. But the infirmities
 
 100 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of old age were upon him when the civil war began, and the 
 poor old man, as pure a patriot as ever breathed, was sorely 
 afflicted by the event. He was the author of the proposition 
 to " let the erring sisters depart in peace," that had scarcely 
 gained favorable utterance from certain prominent abolition- 
 ists when it was drowned by the popular roar the guns from 
 Sumter awakened. Owing to his infirmities, he was care- 
 fully watched at Washington until General McClellau, a 
 younger parade captain, crowded him from power. It is, 
 therefore, scarcely just to hold him responsible for the blunder 
 at Bull Run. 
 
 It seems that, when Patterson was ordered into Virginia, 
 General Thomas, who had become his commanding general's 
 confidential adviser, got him to petition Lieutenant- General 
 Scott to order their forces over the Potomac at or near Lees- 
 burg. This, Scott, from some unknown reason, refused, and 
 ordered him to cross at Williamsport. General Thomas's 
 ground for the move he suggested was to place Patterson's 
 army and the forces in front of Washington within support- 
 ing distance of each other. Scott's order, when executed, 
 left Johnston and Beauregard on an interior line to support 
 each other, and McDowell and Patterson so wide apart that 
 such conjunction was, if not impossible, so difficult as to 
 amount to the same thing. General Scott had in mind a 
 menace to Johnston's communications and the evacuation of 
 Harper's Ferry. But the same result would have followed 
 had the crossing been effected at Leesburg, while the addi- 
 tional advantage would have been gained of enabling Pat- 
 terson to reach McDowell before Johnston could get to 
 Beauregard. 
 
 True it is that Joseph E. Johnston and his army were at 
 Patterson's front, and if resisted in force would have demon- 
 strated this fact. But that would have brought on a general 
 engagement, and that phrase was well known at Washing- 
 ton before McClellan arrived to change it into " Beware of 
 a general engagement." The condition made it easy for 
 General Johnston to leave a light line of pickets behind an 
 army that was led by the roar of the enemy's guns and 
 hastened to the fight. Perhaps it was better as it happened.
 
 Thomas to Patterson. 101 
 
 Had General Patterson made a demonstration in force, the 
 probability is that we should have had two defeats to mourn 
 instead of one. The inside history of the unhappy affair, 
 however, is of interest, as it shows at this early stage the 
 capacity of our general to recognize the condition with that 
 ability which ever rises to an emergency. He was ever 
 master of the situation. In a letter written long after, vin- 
 dicating General Patterson, it appears that even after the 
 execution of Scott's blunder, such mistake could have been 
 remedied had General Thomas's advice been followed. We 
 give the letter entire 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, 
 BEFORE ATLANTA, GA., August 8, 1864. 
 
 MY DEAR GENERAL : Your favor of the 16th of July 
 was only received a few days since, owing, doubtless, to the 
 irregularities of the mails to the front. In the council of war, 
 at Martinsbuvg, I in substance advised an advance toward Win- 
 chester, at least as far as Bunker Hill, and if your information, 
 after the army reached Bunker Hill, led you to believe that John- 
 ston still occupied Winchester in force, then to shift our troops 
 over to Charleston, as tint >//o/v it-ould place our communications 
 with our depot of supplies in safety, and still threaten and hold 
 Johnston at Winchester, which I understood was all that you 
 were expected or required to do. I should have advised a 
 direct advance on Winchester but for the character of the 
 troops composing your army. They were all, with the ex- 
 ception of a couple of squadrons of the Second U. S. Cavalry 
 and two batteries of the regular artillery, three months men, 
 and their term of service would expire in a few days. 
 Judging of them as of other volunteer troops, had I been 
 their commander, I should not have been willing to risk 
 them in a heavy battle coming off within a few days of the 
 expiration of their service. 
 
 I have always believed, and have frequently so expressed 
 myself, that your management of, the three months' cam- 
 paign was able and judicious, and was to the best interests
 
 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of the service, considering the means at your disposal and 
 the nature of the troops under your command. 
 With much respect and esteem, 
 
 I remain. General, very sincerely and truly yours, 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, Major- General U. S. V. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT PATTERSON, Philadelphia, Pa." 
 
 The italics above are our own. They call attention to 
 the ever ready mind of a man who was said to be so slow as 
 to be useless. His tenacity of purpose in executing his plans, 
 taken in connection with the fact that he was slow to leave 
 the field, can scarcely be considered defects. This letter lets 
 light in on General Thomas's estimate of the three months' 
 men. To understand this we must know that the fighting 
 element of a community is but a small part of the entire 
 number. This element is not found among those who or- 
 ganize companies in the hour of peace for mere display. 
 They are soldiers in peace and apt to be citizens in war. 
 With the French, the greatest war power on earth, this 
 fighting element is sifted out and put together after con- 
 scription that takes all. In this way certain brigades and 
 regiments are put forward when desperate valor is called for 
 and the great mass left to ordinary service. 
 
 When our civil war came on, the South got at its fight- 
 ing element in the start. Our government did not. The 
 call for seventy-five thousand men for three months brought 
 out an army of roisterers that acted as if they were on a 
 summer excursion, or ; as they generally expressed it, on a 
 picnic. At the end of the ninety days these forces melted 
 away some of the regiments, as McDowell said, " moving 
 to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon." They dis- 
 appeared to give place to the war element, the stalwart men 
 under muskets who saved for us our Union. It is not pleas- 
 ant to know that the seventy-five thousand are reappearing 
 in great force upon the pension roll. George H. Thomas, 
 who loved the real soldier, saw no material in the peace 
 parade contingent and so was ready to absolve Robert Pat- 
 terson from all blame. 
 
 It is to General Robert Anderson, of Sumter fame, that
 
 Sannul J. Ha ml all. Rttornrnends Thorn -it. 103 
 
 we owe the promotion of Thomas to the position of brigadier- 
 general of volunteers. General Anderson, having accepted 
 command of the government forces in Kentucky on condi- 
 tion that he should have the privilege of selecting four 
 brigadier-generals to serve under him, chose "W. T. Sherman, 
 Don Carlos Buell, and O. M. Mitchell. He was in doubt as 
 to the fourth, thinking to tender it to the man who it seems 
 had done h/is best to get Kentucky out of the Union, Gov- 
 ernor S. B. Buckner, when his nephew, Lieutenant Thomas 
 M. Anderson, of the Fifth Cavalry, who knew the facts, 
 called his uncle's attention to them and suggested the name 
 of George II. Thomas. " One of the very best officers in the 
 army," exclaimed General Anderson, and the name went in. 
 
 This promotion was helped on by no less a personage 
 than Samuel J. Randall, subsequently Speaker of the House 
 of Representatives, and through life an active leader of the 
 Pennsylvania Democracy. His letter of recommendation is 
 valuable from the fact that it comes from one who, without 
 remarkable quality of brain, and with a lack of cul- 
 ture, rose to eminence from sheer force of character, and 
 clear, keen knowledge of human nature. Mr. Randall had 
 three months in which to study the character of the man he 
 recommended. What he said that day of Thomas has since 
 been written in acts more memorable than bronze, which is 
 that he had the capacity to command, and the confidence of 
 the men he commanded. There is George Henry Thomas in 
 one sentence. Samuel J. Randall, possessed of Republican 
 opinions he was pleased to treat as convictions while posing 
 as a Democrat, left little in his political career one 
 cares to remember. In this, however, he has gained the ma- 
 terial for a monument. He saw what Lincoln, Stanton, and 
 Chase failed to see in the Virginia colonel, a man worthy 
 the utmost confidence and highest command. "We give his 
 letter: 
 
 "SANDY HOOK, MD., August 3, 1861. 
 Friend Scott : 
 
 I hear you are the Assistant Secretary of War. Rest 
 assured that no man delights more in your high position 
 than I do. I notice that the government is now considering
 
 104 /'"'' of Thomas. 
 
 the appointment of proper persons to be brigadier-generals. 
 In the name of God, let them be men fully competent to dis- 
 charge the duties of the positions to which they may be as- 
 signed, inefficiency is the evil of the hour. This opinion is 
 1 up-.n observation ..f nearly three months. Most of 
 the time, in fact nearly all of the time, \ve have been under 
 tin- command of Colonel George II. Thomas, now command- 
 ing one of the brigades here. He is thoroughly competent 
 to ho a brigadier-general, has the confidence of every man in 
 his command, for the reason that they recognize and appre- 
 ciate capacity which to them, in every hour of the day, is 
 so essential to their safety. Now, let me, as a friend of this 
 administration, in so far as the war is concerned, and the 
 preservation of the Union is involved, urge upon General 
 Cameron to select Colonel Thomas as one of the number of 
 proposed brigadiers. This appointment would give renewed 
 vigor and courage to this section of the army. I am, as per- 
 haps you know, a private in the First City Cavalry, of Phil- 
 adelphia, and I never saw Colonel Thomas until I saw 
 him on parade, and our intercourse has only been such as ex- 
 ists between a colonel and one of his soldiers; hence, you 
 see, my recommendation comes from pure motives, and en- 
 tirely free from social or political considerations. I speak 
 for and write in behalf of the brave men who, in this hour 
 of our country's peril, are coming forward and endangering 
 their own lives, and, perhaps, leaving those most dear to 
 them without a support. I write warmly, because I think I 
 know the necessity of the case. You will do the country a 
 service by giving my letter a serious consideration. I hope 
 to be in Washington some time about the 1st of September, 
 when I shall try to see you. Will you please present my re- 
 gards to General Cameron, and if he has time to read this 
 letter, hand it to him? Yours truly, 
 
 SAMUEL J. RANDALL." 
 
 That President Lincoln distrusted George II. Thomas 
 because of his birth, we can well understand, and this is 
 made more evident from the fact that President Lincoln had 
 seen little and knew less of the man he doubted. Had they
 
 T]>omas Assigned f f\'i-)>f>/i.-ky. 105 
 
 come in contact, Abraham Lincoln, as good a judge of men 
 as the Hhon. Samuel J. Randall, would undoubtedly have 
 given his confidence to the dignified and taciturn Virginian 
 from the start. As it was, he acted upon the advice of others, 
 and sent him his commission of brigadier-general, and Lieu- 
 tenant Anderson carried a letter from his uncle to Colonel 
 Thomas, along with the following order: 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE ARMY, t 
 
 WASHINGTON, August 24, 1861. 
 
 The following assignment is made of the general officers 
 of the volunteer service, whose appointment was announced 
 in General Orders No. 62, from the War Department: 
 
 To the Department of the Cumberland, Brigadier-Gen- 
 eral Robert Anderson, commanding: 
 Brigadier-General W. T. Sherman. 
 Brigadier-General George H.'Thomas. 
 
 By command of Lieutenant-General Scott* 
 E. D. TOWNSEND, 
 
 Assistant Adjutant-General"
 
 1 00 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Thomas Proposes to Sever the Main Artery of the Confederacy by Taking 
 Ch:ittanooga Andrew Johnson's Potent Influence Buell Placed in 
 Command Battle of Mill Springs. 
 
 President Lincoln's administration had many pnantoms 
 that went far to mar success. One of these was the apparition 
 of a Napoleon from West Point. Another manifested itself 
 in a conquest of territory instead of armies. Yet another 
 was a solemn belief that in some place unknown in the border 
 states were large bodies of Union men looking earnestly to 
 the old government for recognition and aid. This, compara- 
 tively speaking, was a harmless delusion, for, with the excep- 
 tion of Tennessee, no great effort was made to hunt down 
 the mythical Union men. It is singular that such a delusion 
 should have found place in the brain of able men. We well 
 know that before the sacred soil of Virginia was invaded, there 
 was a powerful Union feeling pervading the entire South. But 
 after that, the people of the slave states rose in a great wrath 
 never before shown by the masses. There were but few 
 Union men after that. There yet existed the Union man, a 
 conscientious, thoughtful citizen, found at long intervals, 
 who saw that the war had been plunged into by the South 
 without reason and, of course, without moral justification, 
 and such a man turned in anger from the leaders of their 
 people ; but they had no love for the government that had 
 taken up the challenge so promptly and was marching, 
 armed to the teeth, upon their homes. No people ever pre- 
 sented a more solid front or a deeper devotion to their cause. 
 In every other war of record we have traitors. In that of 
 our Revolution, the Tories nearly equaled the patriots in 
 number, and Arnold, one of the bravest and most capable of 
 our officers, gave a synonym to infamy more expressive and 
 significant than the original word. But in the four years of
 
 Early Situation in Kentucky. 107 
 
 an awful struggle, iiot a man was found base enough to 
 barter bis honor for his cause. 
 
 It would have been better for themselves, and their 
 country, had these thoughtful, dbngcientioua men given ex- 
 pression to their convictions and open action to their faith. 
 That Generals Anderson and Thomas and many others born 
 of the South did so with added luster to -their names goes 
 far to prove that it is right to serve the right under all cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Kentucky was not so promising a lield to these searchers 
 for Union men as West Virginia and Tennessee, but it had its 
 claims in that direction, so that in the selection of Anderson 
 and Thomas, two men of Southern birth, it was thought to 
 conciliate the enemy and win the wavering by people of 
 their own blood. A greater error could not have been com- 
 mitted. Anderson and Thomas were hated with an intensity 
 difficult to express because of the very fact that gained their 
 commission. As for Thomas, traveling alone a?id without 
 escort, he narrowly escaped with his life. 
 
 The situation in Kentucky in September, 1861, did not 
 differ much from that in any other border stat;e. When the 
 war came on, the active element among the secessionists, im- 
 patient at the delay involved in Ordinances of Secession and 
 eager for the field, hastened to enlist in Richmond under Lee. 
 All that was left to the state made up a sentiment that, while 
 sympathizing with the Southern cause, was of a conservative 
 turn. Although Kentucky had suffered far more from the 
 Abolitionists than South Carolina, her people were better ac- 
 quainted with the vast resources of the North, had a trade 
 and social intercourse far in excess of the more belligerent 
 states, and so, after the hot heads had left, the leading citizens 
 begun to negotiate for an armed neutrality. They had no 
 stomach for a war that would have its contention about their 
 very homes. The trouble attending such an attitude was its 
 treatment from both sides. Each army marching into Ken- 
 tucky felt at liberty to live on the country as one belonging 
 to the other side. 
 
 On the 12th of September, 1861, having reported to 
 General Robert Anderson at Louisville, Thomas was assigned
 
 108 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to command at Camp Dick Robinson, in place of Lieutenant 
 William Nelson, of Kentucky, a volunteer from our naval 
 B< ; vice. He arrived at his post on the 15th of September, 
 ami found six thousand troops, much disorganized through 
 lack of discipline and equipment. Nothing daunted by the 
 depressing appearances, he went, as was his wont, actively to 
 work. All Kentucky, including the mythical Union men, 
 protested with more profanity than politeness against this 
 .uizing a force in the very heart of the state. It was the 
 general opinion that sooner or later there would be a suspen- 
 sion of hostilities for the purpose of negotiating a settle- 
 ment. The belief, born at military head-quarters on the 
 Potomac, that we were fighting for a boundary and not the 
 conquest of the South, permeated all Kentucky. The leaders 
 of a state that, next to Virginia, had produced more able 
 men in a political way than any other of the Union, had no 
 mind for any move that would throw their dark and bloody 
 ground into a Northern alliance. 
 
 While Thomas clearly comprehended all the political bear- 
 ings of the situation, he-' treated this talk of fighting for a 
 boundary and an eventual settlement with contempt. " The 
 longer the war goes on," he said, " the wider the difference, 
 and the more intense the feeling. We end the conflict either 
 at Boston or New Orleans there is no boundary between." 
 An eminent statesman in Europe said during the armed con- 
 flict between Russia and the allies, that " war is disorganized 
 diplomacy." Certainly in the appeal to brute force there is 
 no more diplomatic negotiation. The ultimatum of the 
 campaign has more force but less reason than those of the 
 cabinet, and the first makes the last impossible. 
 
 Putting all the political considerations away from him, he 
 devoted himself to his military work. The little army under 
 hU command called for his immediate attention. His first 
 tli ought, ever the same throughout the war, was for the 
 pmpor sustenance and equipment of his men, the next their 
 drill and discipline. He made earnest and incessant appeals 
 to the War Department for clothing, blankets, tents, and all 
 other material necessary to an army in the field. The 
 responses in promises were profuse, but the supplies came
 
 Thomas' First Plan of Campaign. 109 
 
 slowly. The truth is, the War Department had been de- 
 moralized by its chief, Simon Cameron, the man of whom it 
 was told that when applied to for funds to win a legislature 
 at the polls, responded that it would be cheaper to purchase 
 the legislature. Whether this ever occurred we can not say, 
 but that it was generally believed to have happened, gives 
 the man's reputation and through that his real character. 
 This condition of the department sent as many thieves to 
 the war to plunder as brave men to the front to light. 
 
 In and about the old brick building, from which the w;ir 
 was conducted, thronged a crowd whose faces, fairly enameled 
 in guilt, were saved from the dead blank of brutal outlook 
 by an expression of greed enlivened by cunning. They 
 shouldered and elbowed each other in their eager pursuit of 
 plunder. Enormous fortunes were made through the sale of 
 contracts given political favorites and bartered away to more 
 adroit rogues. While these scoundrels were fattening on 
 their spoils, our poor fellows were marching without shoes, 
 shivering without overcoats, and sleeping under tents that 
 were rotted before they were sent to the field. Had Simon 
 Cameron continued at the head of the War Department, 
 Jefferson Davis would have dictated terms of peace in the 
 old Liberty Hall at Philadelphia. 
 
 While thus eirgaged in duties to his command; General 
 Thomas gave much of his mind to a study of the military 
 condition. He knew that it was a war of resources. Now, 
 while at the North these seemed inexhaustible, and at the 
 South they appeared limited, this very fact told against us. 
 Our abundance made us wanton in our extravagance, while 
 at the South every expenditure was made with the utmost 
 caution, and an enforced economy prevailed to which men 
 and officers submitted with a cheerful content that was with- 
 out parallel. How to cripple the resources already meager 
 of the enemy was the problem our military men were called 
 upon to solve. In a study of the map, General Thomas found 
 the solution. The war had developed itself in Virginia, and 
 was being fought out to an end between Richmond and 
 Washington. This was on the eastern verge of all the 
 territory under control of the Confederacy, and to supply
 
 110 /. '' of Thomas. 
 
 the-foreea thus dispersed, there were two lines of railway, 
 the one running along the Atlantic cost, and the other con- 
 necting the northern parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and 
 Georgia, and all of Tennessee, with the armies about Rich- 
 mond. General Thomas elaborated the plan of a campaign 
 through Cumberland Gap, that would enable him to sieze 
 and hold the more northern line of railroad while threaten- 
 ing that upon the coast. This he submitted to the War De- 
 partment. 
 
 The War Department was pleased to accept this bold plan 
 of attack, especially as it was approved by those Union men 
 south, so dear to the heart of the administration. The de- 
 partment accepted promptly the move that had it been exe- 
 cuted as Thomas suggested, would have changed the char- 
 acter of the war and shortened the conflict, and handed it 
 over to another officer to execute. He received a letter from 
 Brigadier-General O. M. Mitchel, commanding the depart- 
 ment of the Ohio in which General Mitchel said he was in- 
 formed that the War Department had ordered him to Camp 
 Dick Robinson, to prepare the troops for an advance on 
 Cumberland Gap, and thence into East Tennessee. 
 
 To say this treatment of Thomas wounded him deeply, 
 would but feebly express the indignation at such an uncalled- 
 for rebuke. His long and well-tried service in the army had 
 won for him, at least the right to respectful treatment. At 
 head-quarters he stood the peer, if not the superior of the 
 men whom General Scott recognized, and the department 
 intrusted with its confidence. Had any one possessed the 
 courage, or held the familiar intercourse necessary to tell 
 General Thomas that he was distrusted by the government 
 on account of his birth, he would have been better prepared. 
 The blow came without warning. He resented it promptly, 
 and in answer to General Mitchel's letter, wrote as follows : 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS, CAMP DICK ROBINSON, 
 
 GARRARD Co., KY., October 11, 1861. 
 BRIGADIER-GENERAL O. M. MITCHEL, 
 
 Commanding Department of the Ohio, Cincinnati, 0. 
 GENERAL : Your communication of the 10th inst. was
 
 First Protest against Injustice. Ill 
 
 received to-day at the hands of Governor Johnston. I have 
 been doing all in my power to prepare the troops for a move 
 on Cumberland Ford and to seize the Tennessee and Vir- 
 ginia Railroad, and shall continue to do all I can to assist 
 yon until your arrival here; but justice to myself requires 
 that I ask to be relieved from duty with these troops, since 
 the Secretary of War thought it necessary to supersede me 
 in command without, as. I conceive, any just cause for so 
 doing. 
 
 I am, General, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 Brigadier-General U. S. A. Commanding. 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS, CAMP DICK ROBINSON, 
 
 GARRARD Co., KY., October 11, 1861. 
 BRIGADIER-GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN, 
 
 Commanding Department of the Cumberland, Louisville, Ky. 
 
 GENERAL: I received an official communication to-day 
 from Brigadier-General 0. M. Mitchel, informing me that 
 he had been ordered by the Secretary of War to repair to 
 this camp and prep.are the troops for a forward movement, 
 first to Cumberland Ford, and eventually to seize upon the 
 Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. As I have been doing all 
 in my power to effect this very thing, to have the execution 
 of it taken from me whqn nearly prepared to take the field, is 
 extremely mortifying. I have, therefore, respectfully to ask 
 to be relieved from duty with the troops on the arrival of 
 General Mitchel. 
 
 I am, General, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 Brigadier- General U. S. A. Commanding. 
 
 October 13, 1861. 
 GENERAL GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 
 Commanding Camp Dick Robinson. 
 You are authorized to go on and prepare your com-
 
 11 -J Life of Thomas. 
 
 iiiiind for active service. General Mitchel is subject to my 
 orders, and I will, if possible, give you the opportunity to 
 complete what you have begun. Of course I would do all I 
 can to carry out your wishes, but feel that the affairs of Ken- 
 tucky call for the united action of all engaged. 
 
 W. T. SHERMAN, 
 
 Brigadier- General Commanding Department 
 of the Cumberland. 
 
 The author of this treatment of an able and patriotic 
 officer was Governor Andrew Johnson. This man, destined 
 to perform so prominent a part subsequently in our national 
 affairs, was loyal to the government, not from any love of 
 the Union, but from an intense hatred of the governing 
 class at the South. Born of the poor white trash and bred 
 a tailor, he grew to manhood without being sufficiently 
 schooled to write his name. That from such a beginning he 
 should struggle up to a national recognition as a prominent 
 leader, would be to his credit were it not marred and tainted 
 by methods that were as low as they were unscrupulous. 
 There had been in Tennessee from its earliest history an 
 element made up of poor whites that was in deadly hostility 
 to the wealthy slave-owners. This would seem to be a nat- 
 ural condition in any part of the South, for the slave-owners 
 had no use for the poor white laborers, but Tennessee was 
 alone in possessing such a class. To this Andrew Johnson 
 appealed and on it he rode into office, reaching the highest 
 honors in the gift of the state. Through all his official 
 career he remained Andrew Johnson. Possessed of a re- 
 markable shrewdness, a volubility of speech and great force 
 of character, he had no breadth nor culture of mind, and 
 would have passed back to the obscurity from which he had 
 arisen but for the opportunity he seized on when secession 
 from the Union came. As he could not accompany the 
 Southern senators in their exodus from the Union, he made 
 a merit of necessity, and from his place in the chamber he 
 uttered a loud denunciation that was more vituperative than 
 logical or severe. The Northern people failing to compre- 
 hend that the act was more from a hatred of the masters
 
 About Andrew Johnson. 113 
 
 than a love of the Union, accepted him at once as a pure, 
 high-toned patriot, and his influence thenceforward at 
 Washington, always mischievous, was ever potent. We 
 say he would have accompanied Jeff. Davis, Robert Tombs, 
 and the other Southern leaders had they permitted such as- 
 sociation, but they " scorned to own him as a slave." What 
 he was capable of his subsequent career demonstrated. The 
 only man on earth who could have saved us from the infamy 
 of Mrs. Surratt's execution, he hurried on the cruel death 
 from feeling of fear, for " in the lottery of assassination," he 
 had drawn the highest prize at the hands of his boon com- 
 panion, the assassin. While mouthing his high resolve to 
 make treason odious, the South came weak, bleeding, and 
 humbled, and he was so delighted to have it in his power to 
 aid this ruined aristocracy which had formerly ridden over 
 him rough shod, that he swung from the extreme North to 
 the extreme South, to the astonishment and disgust of his 
 Union supporters. 
 
 An old Scotch proverb tells us " that a mean sinner 
 makes a mean saint." This bit of condensed wisdom of a 
 shrewd race is applicable to other conditions than that of re- 
 ligion. Not only a man may do great acts without himself 
 being great, but his very defects may shine like the phos- 
 phorescent glow of decay. 
 
 Andrew Johnson instinctively hated a gentleman, and 
 from this feeling alone we , find a motive for his subsequent 
 hatred of Don Carlos Buell, whose military career he sud- 
 denly terminated, and his immediate hostility to General 
 Thomas. 
 
 Thomas, after a close study of the military situation ? 
 saw the true objective point. Jefferson Davis, in threatening 
 Washington with the great mass and best organized armies 
 of the Confederacy, made, as we have said, the two railroad 
 lines of vital importance, not only to success, but to subsist- 
 ence. The Southern States menaced by Thomas's projected 
 move was the belly of the Confederacy and its tenderest 
 part. To strike at this successfully would end the war. 
 Two years after, the capture of Chattanooga and the grave
 
 114 Life of Thomas. 
 
 consequence* that followed proved the wisdom of the 
 scheme. 
 
 While this military project was being developed, Andrew 
 Johnson had a political scheme based on this same military 
 move. Indeed, it may be well understood that but for 
 Andrew Johnson's eager desire to get at tbe supposed loyal 
 men of East Tennessee, and between sucb an element and 
 the army of the United States set up a loyal government at 
 Nashville, Thomas's proposed campaign would never have 
 been considered at Washington. It was a time when every 
 prominent politician at the North took a hand in the conduct 
 of the war. This was done sometimes with the sanction of 
 the administration and sometimes without. There was, of 
 course, a political side to the conflict, and it was by no means 
 an unimportant one. Our able administration saw not only 
 the field of armed conflict in its front, but the great danger 
 of a political loss in the rear, where a sympathy with the 
 South, of old Democratic cultivation, upon which the Con- 
 federate leaders had counted, and which, although quiet, yet 
 lived. In a government of parties such as ours, it is difficult 
 to teach the minority that it is treasonable to promulgate 
 any opinion in opposition to the government, which means 
 the party in power. That war involved a new question that 
 had no reference to how the government should be adminis- 
 tered, but one of whether we should have the present form 
 of government or not, had no effect on such men as Vallan- 
 digham and others more or less outspoken, who, believing 
 the South could not be conquered, awaited the hour when 
 the people, weary of the useless slaughter and heavy taxa- 
 tion, would rise up in an opposition at the polls and drive the 
 Abolitionists, as they were called, from power. Another 
 matter of no less importance was the threatened intervention 
 of European powers. Almost the first acts of a stupid con- 
 gress, when the South withdrew its members and left the old 
 Whig element in control, were the passage of acts clogging, 
 and in some instances prohibiting, trade under the name of 
 protection. This disturbance in trade, which, accompanied by 
 a loss of the cotton that had been mainly supplied from the 
 United States, brought great embarrassment to capitalists
 
 Thomas Moces Forward. 115 
 
 abroad and positive distress to the laborers. Angered thus 
 by senseless and unpatriotic meanness, we lost all the sympa- 
 thy we might have counted on as the opponents of slavery. 
 Louis Napoleon was open in his opposition, and, failing to 
 secure the co-operation of England, entered into a secret al- 
 liance with Russia that sent a fleet to our shores, while the 
 French army invaded Mexico, to be in striking distance 
 when the hour to strike should arrive. 
 
 We state these facts because no history of the war, no 
 biography of a soldier, is complete or comprehensive without 
 them. It was these, to the multitudes unseen, sides of the 
 conflict that gave men like Andrew Johnson such influence 
 at Washington. The administration, as we have said, be- 
 lieved in the mythical loyal men of the South as seriously as 
 did Andrew Johnson, so when he approved heartily of Gen- 
 eral Thomas's proposed move, it was easy for him to select 
 the officer to lead the command. 
 
 It will be observed that Sherman, to whom Thomas ap- 
 pealed, refused to relieve him, and the hurt officer continued 
 his active preparation for what he had so much at heart, 
 although the honors of leadership were given to another. 
 But while preparations were being hastened, another obstacle 
 appeared in the way far more potent than the politicians at 
 Washington. This was the enemy. The authorities at 
 Richmond were not blind to the dangers the gathering of 
 troops under Thomas threatened. To meet this, troops were 
 being pushed forward from Cumberland Ford, Barboursville, 
 and Thompkinsville. To resist this counter movement, Gen- 
 eral Thomas marched his best troops forward to Rock Castle 
 Hills, with such support as his unprepared condition would 
 admit of. This was accomplished none too soon. While 
 the movements of other Confederate columns left our general 
 in some doubt as to their design, it was clearly developed 
 that the force facing Colonel Garrard's Third Kentucky In- 
 fantry at Rock Castle Hills under General Zollicoffer was 
 the one to be met, and General Thomas hurried forward 
 Brigadier-General Schoepf with three regiments and a bat- 
 tery. 
 
 Whilst thus engaged, our general had another taste of the
 
 116 Life of Thomas. 
 
 restless and somewhat inebriated Andrew Johnson. Like 
 Sancho Panza, the latter was in search of his, at the time, 
 impossible governorship, and his impatient demands found 
 an echo in certain Tennessee Union soldiers in the camp at 
 Crab Orchard. Andrew Johnson, in common with other 
 civilians, and many of our officers, believed that all that was 
 necessary to a forward movement was an order to make the 
 same. Such order carried in it all that was necessary to suc- 
 cess. Horace Greeley's incessant cry of "On to Richmond," 
 was of this sort. Andrew Johnson not only echoed the pop- 
 ular demand in his pursuit of a governorship, but when not 
 promptly responded to, invariably charged the delay to the dis- 
 loyal condition of the officer in command. General Thomas 
 was not the man to be influenced by any such senseless 
 clamor. From his first campaign to his last, he looked to 
 the means necessary to make his march fortunate. No gov- 
 ernor in the beginning, nor commander-in-chief in the end, 
 could affect by impatient demand, this quiet, self-possessed 
 man in the discharge of his duties. It was to this indiffer- 
 ence to ignorant interference that he got the reputation of 
 being slow. He was slow to the unnecessary slaughter of 
 his own troops, and left behind him no Cold Harbor atrocity 
 or Kenesaw Mountain murder to make the land shudder and 
 the government ashamed. Heroes of these disasters have 
 left the record that Thomas was too shiggish for a subordi- 
 nate, and too timid for a separate command. " Judge riot 
 lest ye be judged," is a prudent passage of Holy Writ that 
 it would have been well for these commentators to have 
 heeded. 
 
 The trouble given General Thomas in his own camp is in- 
 dicated by the following letter : 
 
 "HEAD-QUARTERS, CRAB ORCHARD, 
 
 November 7, 1861. 
 GOVERNOR ANDREW JOHNSON, 
 
 London, Ky. 
 
 DEAR SIR : Your favor of the 6th instant is at hand. I 
 have done all in my power to get troops and transportation, 
 and means to advance into East Tennessee. I believe Gen-
 
 Thomas to Andrew Johnson. 117 
 
 eral Sherman has done the same. Up to this time, we have 
 been unsuccessful. Have you heard by what authority the 
 troops from London were to fall back ? Because I have not, 
 and shall not move any of them back, unless ordered, for if I 
 am not interfered with, I can have them subsisted there as 
 well as here. I am inclined to think the rumor has grown 
 out of the feverish excitement which seems to exist in the 
 minds of some of the regiments, that no further advance is 
 contemplated. I can only say that I am doing the best I can. 
 Our commanding general is doing the same, and using all his 
 influence to equip a force for the rescue of East Tennessee. 
 If the Tennesseeans are not content, and must go, then the 
 risk of disaster will remain with them. Some of our troops 
 are not clothed, and it seems impossible to get clothing. 
 
 For information respecting the organization of regiments, 
 1 send you General Order No. 90, War Department. If the 
 gentlemen you name can raise regiments agreeably to the con- 
 ditions and instructions contained in said order, the govern- 
 ment will accept them, and I hope will have arms to place 
 in their hands in the course of two or three months. 
 
 In conclusion I will add that I am here ready to obey or- 
 ders, and earnestly hope that the troops at London will see 
 the necessity of doing the same. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE H. THOMAS, 
 
 Brigadier- General U. S. A." 
 
 "HEAD-QUARTERS, CRAB ORCHARD, 
 
 November 7, 1861. 
 BRIGADIER- GENERAL SCHOEPF, 
 
 Commanding Camp Calvert, London, Ky: 
 GENERAL : I find it necessary to reply to Governor John- 
 son's letter in the foregoing, which I send to you for your 
 information. It is time that discontented persons should be 
 silent, both in and out of the service. I sympathize most 
 deeply with the East Tennesseeans on account of their natural 
 anxiety to relieve their friends and families from the terrible 
 apprehension which they are now suffering. But to make 
 the attempt to rescue them when not half prepared is
 
 118 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 culpable, especially when our enemies are perhaps as anxioua 
 that we should make the move as the Tennesseeans them- 
 selves, for it is well known by our commanding general that 
 Buckner has an overwhelming force within striking distance, 
 whenever-he can get us at a disadvantage. I hope you will, 
 therefore, see the necessity of dealing decidedly with such 
 people, and you have my authority and orders for doing so. 
 We must learn to abide our time, or we will never be success- 
 ful. Respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE H. THOMAS, 
 
 Brigadier- General U. S. A." 
 
 It was not long, however, before Andrew Johnson 
 learned that the obstacle to an immediate advance was not 
 the distrusted Virginian, but no less a personage than Gen- 
 eral W. T. Sherman. General Sherman was subject to 
 panics, and at a time when the Confederate authorities were 
 straining every resource to present a defensive line to our 
 forces in Kentucky without weakening the army of Rich- 
 mond, Sherman satisfied himself that there was a heavy 
 force at his front on the eve of a forward movement. He 
 knew from some unknown source that General Albert Sid- 
 ney Johnston, with an army of forty-five thousand men, was 
 about to advance between Crab Orchard and Nolensville on 
 the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, with Louisville and 
 Cincinnati their objective points. Under this delusion he 
 ordered Thomas to hold his force in readiness to fall back 
 of Danville, leaving a part of his troops at Rock Castle Hills. 
 Thomas did not sympathize with his commander in these 
 grave apprehensions. He had been at some labor to collect 
 reliable information from scouts and other sources, and was 
 satisfied in the first place that the Confederates had no such 
 force as Sherman counted at their front, and in the second 
 that the interest of the Confederacy was to be found in the 
 necessity of keeping open their lines of supply, and that 
 this could be better secured by a defensive instead of an ag- 
 gressive move, looking to the possession of Louisville and 
 the capture of Cincinnati. Lee carried the title of the Con- 
 federacy at the bow of his saddle, as Wendell Phillips ex-
 
 Thomas Ordered to Retreat. 119 
 
 pressed it, and so long as that famous Confederate rode at 
 the front, the war hung doubtful. The authorities at Rich- 
 mond had no men to spare for offensive movements on the 
 Ohio. 
 
 However, General Thomas obeyed the order to retreat. 
 It seems that he was as unprepared for this as for an advance. 
 There was in Sherman's impatience a heavy loss of material 
 and a serious loss from sickness. The newspaper cor- 
 respondents, of course, gave the facts of the deplorable con- 
 dition to the world, and General Thomas was held, under a 
 storm of abuse, to the responsibility. This silent, self-com- 
 posed man of destiny paid no heed to this unjust denuncia- 
 tion. It might, however, have relegated him to the rear as 
 it had others, but for a diversion that drew public attention 
 from the subordinate to his commander. It is so ludicrous 
 that history might lay aside her dignity for a laugh while 
 putting it to record were it not that it is a historical event 
 with grave consequences. 
 
 General W. T. Sherman, in common with many other 
 military men, had not only contempt for the journalists who 
 sought to plan campaigns and fight battles, which contempt 
 a majority of his brother officers were careful to conceal, but 
 he had a wrath against them which could not be controlled. 
 In a fit of anger he seized upon two of these enterprising 
 wielders of the pen and thrust them from his lines. It would 
 not have added to the ignominy had he drammed them out 
 as camp followers and thieves were. The gentlemen had 
 been guilty of no other wrong than holding Sherman to the 
 responsibility of his own acts. 
 
 The mythical bull that in horning a locomotive under- 
 full headway is held to be a happy illustration of courage 
 without discretion, was happier than General Sherman, who 
 did not attack one locomotive but all the locomotives of the 
 land. While the press fraternity is given to a wholesome 
 abuse of each other, it presents an unbroken front of porcu- 
 pine quills to an outsider who tries the same game against 
 any one of them. Sherman was open to assault. Whatever 
 may be the question as to his ability, it was so incrusted 
 with egotism and marred by eccentricity that his warmest
 
 120 Life of Thomas. 
 
 admirer shivers in doubt half the time as to whether this 
 great general was of sound mind. The correspondents were 
 not slow to seize on these defects, and General Sherman was 
 made to assert that a million of men would be needed to 
 invade Tennessee successfully. He was thereupon pro- 
 nounced insane. This view of the general's condition was 
 so generally entertained that the government relieved Sher- 
 man and gave the command to General Don Carlos Buell. 
 
 This new commander resembled General Thomas in his 
 silent reserve, but he was like Sherman in his exaggerated 
 belief of the enemy's superiority as to numbers and resources. 
 With fifty thousand men under his command, he was held 
 in check by Albert Sidney Johnston with a command of 
 only fourteen thousand. True, our government, using all 
 its energies and resources to supply and strengthen the 
 army of the Potomac, failed we can scarcely say neglected 
 to afford our forces in Kentucky the equipment necessary 
 to an aggressive movement. As General Thomas wrote, it 
 seemed impossible to procure clothing. However, Buell, 
 when compared to Sherman, was, as subsequent events 
 demonstrated, the more capable commander of the two. 
 Don Carlos Buell was the beau ideal of a West Pointer. 
 Small of stature, he was so soldierly of bearing that he 
 seemed of full height while his handsome face and well de- 
 veloped head were impressive, and gave their owner prom- 
 inence in advance of achievement. He had the courage of 
 his temperament, a manly one of fine but tough fiber that 
 was in strange contrast to the caution of his convictions 
 that amounted almost to cowardice. Never shrinking from 
 responsibility, he did shrink from its use in the calculation 
 of chances. And yet his utter disregard of Sherman's ad- 
 vice to move leisurely in his march to a junction with the 
 Union forces at Shiloh saved our army under Grant from 
 utter annihilation in that inexcusable surprise and unneces- 
 sary butchery of our brave men. General Buell's cold, 
 austere manner was extremely unfortunate for him and for 
 us, as his fine abilities were neutralized by this hauteur in 
 his command of volunteers and association with their 
 officers. It is not necessary to success, as the career of
 
 Buell Succeeds Sherman. 121 
 
 Thomas demonstrates, for a man to ever conciliate adverse 
 feelings, but it is well for him to avoid antagonizing such. 
 The press, that great controller of public opinion and a 
 power at Washington owing to the political condition, ac- 
 cepted and sustained a general the moment he demonstrated 
 his capacity to command. But Buell, as slow to move for 
 the same reasons as Thomas, was more cautious in his move- 
 ments and permitted the golden opportunity to swing by in 
 which to show that capacity the country was eagerly in 
 search of. He unfortunately not only increased the hos- 
 tility of Andrew Johnson, but that of one of the most potent 
 of the Northern war governors, Oliver P. Morton, of In- 
 diana. 
 
 Buell's accession to command was signalized by a change 
 of plan with which he is discredited. The fact is, the project 
 of marching our fifty thousand men to Nashville as an ob- 
 jective point, instead Of through Cumberland Gap to Chat- 
 tanooga, originated at Washington under the malign influ- 
 ence of Andrew Johnson. General Buell was too clever a 
 soldier to select as an objective point a place that had no 
 strategic significance whatever. To seize Nashville and 
 hold it was of no damage whatever to the Confederacy, and 
 of but little advantage to us. To halt there was to maintain 
 an enormous army at a heavy expense for no practical pur- 
 pose, and out of this it could be moved, as it eventually 
 was, only by a serious menace in force upon its'lines of sup- 
 plies. Nashville was only a station at which to gather mate- 
 rial for a movement on Chattanooga, the key of that theater 
 of operation, as we have asserted and will prove as our story, 
 progresses. 
 
 Before Buell could get his campaign under way, the 
 enemy concentrated a strong force under Zollicoffer at Mill 
 Springs. Sidney Johnston had sent the latter merely to 
 watch the river at that point, which Johnston intended 
 should be done from the south bank. But Zollicoffer, very 
 like Grant and Sherman at Shiloh, established his camp on 
 the north side of the Cumberland, " with the enemy in front 
 and the river in his rear." . General George B. Crittenden, of 
 Kentucky, a graduate of West Point who had seen service in
 
 1 -22 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Mexico, was appointed to the command, with head-quarters 
 ut Knoxville. Early in January, Crittenden was sent by 
 Johnston to secure the safety of Zollicoffer's command and 
 get it back to the south side of the river. 
 
 General Johnston, still anxious for the safety of his 
 blundering general, sent General Hindman with a division 
 of troops to feel the Federal position and to make a diversion 
 in favor of Zollicoffer. In making the movement, Hindman 
 encountered the troops under Thomas at Columbia, had his 
 advance checked, and so he reported that Thomas's command 
 was intact and Zollicoffer in no danger. 
 
 In the reorganization of the army under Buell, Thomas 
 was assigned the command of the first division of the 
 Army of the Ohio, composed of some sixteen regiments of 
 infantry, a regiment and a company of cavalry, with three 
 batteries of artillery. One of the brigades was commanded 
 by General Albin Schoepf, a Hungarian patriot, who was on 
 outpost duty watching Zollicoffer. In the latter part of the 
 year 1861, Buell countermanded his former orders to Thomas, 
 which were not to reinforce Schoepf, and directed Thomas to 
 concentrate his entire command and drive Zollicoffer from 
 the state. 
 
 The condition of the country roads in midwinter was 
 such that Thomas was not able to reach the point of concen 
 tration Logan Cross Roads until the 17th of January. 
 Here he went into camp and awaited the arrival of his en- 
 tire command. This point was ten miles from the encamp- 
 ment of the enemy. 
 
 General Crittenden had been making every exertion to 
 get Zollicoffer across the river, but had been delayed by not 
 having boats to transfer the troops until the 17th, when he 
 heard of the advance of the Union forces under Thomas. 
 Crittenden then determined to take the initiative and force 
 the battle. At midnight of January 18th, in the discomfort 
 of a heavy winter rain, the Confederate army moved out. 
 After six hours' marching through mud and rain, the ad- 
 vance struck our cavalry pickets at six o'clock in the early 
 gray of a winter morning two miles in front of the Federal 
 camp. The cavalry pickets fell slowly back, reporting the
 
 Battle of Mill Springs. 123 
 
 advance of the enemy . The report reaching Thomas, he or- 
 dered the infantry advance to hold the Confederates in check 
 until lie could place his command in line of battle. This he 
 accomplished in ten minutes, and both sides were soon 
 actively engaged in heavy fighting, which was continued for 
 nearly an hour. 
 
 General Thomas then sent a strong force to attack the 
 enemy on the right flank, which caused it to waver. The 
 heavy firing was continued in the center to keep that part 
 engaged. With these dispositions, General Thomas then or- 
 dered the Ninth Ohio Infantry to charge the left flank with 
 fixed bayonets, which turned the flank and drove that part 
 of the enemy's line from the field. The entire command 
 then gave way, retreating in disorder to their intrenchments 
 at Beach Grove, where the enemy manned the works and 
 checked the advance of our troops. General Thomas in- 
 vested the encampment on the land side, keeping up an artil- 
 lery fire the entire night, in order to prevent escape of the 
 enemy in their boats. During the night, preparations were 
 made by Thomas for a general assault on the works in the 
 morning. The enemy, however, abandoned every thing 
 during the night, and by daylight his entire command was 
 across the river, excepting the wounded and the stores. The 
 boats used in the movement were burned to prevent pursuit. 
 Many prisoners were captured and twelve pieces of canon 
 with caisons filled with ammunition. Over one hundred and 
 fifty wagons, and more than one thousand horses and mules, 
 with a large amount of camp and garrison equipage, were 
 left behind and fell into our hands. 
 
 General Thomas had in this engagement eight regiments 
 of infantry with two batteries of artillery, some six thousand 
 troops in all. Opposed to him was a command of over nine 
 thousand of all arms. The enemy made the attack under 
 the delusion the Southern troops cherished at the outbreak of 
 hostilities, that " one Southerner could whip five Yankees." 
 With all the advantages in their favor, the little Southern 
 army suffered a demoralizing defeat, after it had made a 
 gallant attack, splendidly sustained until the disposition of
 
 124 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 the forces against it by Thomas drove it in rout from the 
 
 field. 
 
 From the very opening of the engagement to its close, 
 for every movement of the enemy Thomas was fully pre- 
 pared. There was no surprise on this field of battle for our 
 troops to be slaughtered in. The cavalry pickets met the 
 first advance and gave swift warning to the infantry, and 
 these were able to hold the advance in check until the Fed- 
 eral line of battle was properly formed. The troops under 
 Thomas were veterans only in being thoroughly drilled and 
 disciplined, yet he held them in line under heavy fire until^ 
 by the skillful maneuvering of his command, he won the 
 first. Federal victory in the West. 
 
 While the battle of Mill Springs, in the number engaged, 
 in the killed and wounded, and in its strategic consequences, 
 was of small importance, in ' another point of view it was 
 an event of grave results. The stunning blow given our 
 ninety days' militia at Bull Run had not only disheartened 
 the people at the North, 'but had gone far to confirm the 
 superstition at the South that in the one great qualification 
 of the soldier courage we were the inferiors. This not 
 only robbed us of the morale so necessary to an army, but 
 gave that quality to our foes. This feeling was so strong 
 upon us that our untried young Napoleon, McClellan, was 
 organizing his huge army about Washington, in sight of the 
 Confederate flag at Munson's Hill and so close on rebel guns 
 that their roar disturbed his army reviews, with but one or- 
 der of not to bring on a general engagement, and the com- 
 forting report each morning of " all quiet on the Potomac." 
 
 This repose was broken by the victory of Mill Springs. 
 In that engagement the troops of both sides were fairily 
 pitted against each other. To the dash of the Confederates 
 Thomas opposed not only the cool courage and staying 
 quality of our men, but a capacity for handling that enabled 
 him to pass from fights by a regiment or brigade at a time 
 to throwing in the entire force on the weakest point of the 
 enemy. General Thomas organized victory by organizing 
 his force. Recognizing the fact that the larger part of the 
 drill is for mere display, he simplified it to the actual neces-
 
 The Lessons of Mill Springs. 125 
 
 sities of the service, HIM! 30 molded the raw recruit into an 
 accomplished soldier in less than sixty days. He was greatly 
 aided in this by the singular adaptability of the American 
 men. These men could not only fall into line, touch elbows, 
 keep step, wheel like a machine, load and fire, but they 
 could repair bridges, open roads, fell trees, and construct 
 fortifications with a dexterity that was both admirable and 
 amazing.' 
 
 The victory of Mill Springs impressed the South in a 
 more subtle manner than it did the North. It was felt that 
 a new element was being developed that might put a new 
 face on the condition. The jnore turbulent populations of 
 the seceding states, where every citizen was his own police- 
 man and carried his commission in his hip pocket, took to 
 war more kindly than our peaceful, money getting people at 
 the North. Leaders of the slave states had improved on 
 Napoleon's axiom that " a race of shop keepers made a na- 
 tion of thieves " by adding " cowards." This decisive vic- 
 tory was a startling revelation. These peaceful mechanics, 
 farmers and tradesmen had not only stood unmoved by the 
 rebel yell, but returned the fire from their center, while the wing 
 swung round upon the enemy's flank with the precision of 
 veterans. This meant war in its highest sense, and bade fair 
 to build up an army of veterans from the raw recruits of 
 the strained emergency. The lesson taught by this sharp 
 fight and brilliant victory that went home to the Southern 
 mind seemed lost upon the great bulk of our own officers. 
 The example set by Thomas was followed by none. McClel- 
 lan had his head turned by the high place and extraordi- 
 nary powers conferred upon him, and his organization con- 
 sisted in a continual call for troops that were thrown into 
 brigades and divisions as rapidly as they arrived and enough 
 capacity of movement got to enable the commander-in- 
 chief to gallop down the lines accompanied by his staff of 
 princes and rich men's sous. The men were splendid in 
 the^r new uniforms, white gloves and burnished arms, but 
 as a shrewd observer said to the late Colonel Tom Key, 
 " they appear well and march with a precision that is re- 
 markable for ra\v recruits, but I look in their faces arid I do
 
 Life of Thomas. 
 
 not Bee fight." Small wonder when for nearly a year this 
 army was trained to an awe of the unknown that lay be- 
 yond Munson's Hill. And the Army of the Potomac never 
 completely recovered from the effect of this training. The 
 writer of this narrative, passing from the Army of the Po- 
 tomac to that of the Cumberland, was amazed at the differ- 
 ence. He seemed to get another sort of men, and breathed 
 a more tonic atmosphere. After hearing the foe spoken of 
 with bated breath it was refreshing to note the contemptuous 
 indifference of these western men. 
 
 The clarion cry of joy rang out north and north-west 
 over this victory and congratulatory orders reached the lit- 
 tle six thousand. But none came from the government at 
 Washington. General Buell issued the following : 
 
 " HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, 
 
 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, January 23, 1862. 
 
 General Orders, No. 40. 
 
 The general commanding has the gratification of an- 
 nouncing the achievement of an important victory on the 
 19th inst., at Mill Springs, by the troops under General 
 
 under General George B. Crittenden and General Zollicoffer. 
 
 The defeat of the enemy was thorough and complete and 
 his loss in killed and wounded was great. Night alone, un- 
 der cover of which his troops crossed the river from his in- 
 trenched camp and dispersed, prevented the capture of his 
 entire force. Fourteen or more pieces of artillery, some fif- 
 teen horses and mules, his entire camp equipage with wagons, 
 arms, ammunition and other stores to a large amount, fell 
 into our hands. 
 
 The general commanding has been charged by the gen- 
 eral-in-chief to convey his thanks to General Thomas and 
 his troops for their brilliant victory. No task could be more 
 grateful to him, seconded as it is by his own cordial approba- 
 tion of their conduct. 
 
 By command of Brigadier-General Buell, 
 
 JAMES B. FRY, 
 A. A. <?., Chief of Staff. 9 '
 
 The Organizer of Victory Ignored. 127 
 
 The President of the United States also issued a com- 
 plimentary order : 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE ARMY, 
 
 WASHINGTON, January 26, 1862. 
 
 The President, commander-in-chief of the army and 
 navy, has received information of a brilliant victory achieved 
 by the United States forces over a large body of armed 
 traitors and rebels at Mill Springs, in the State of Kentucky. 
 
 He returns thanks to the gallant officers and soldiers 
 who won that victory, and when official reports shall be re- 
 ceived, the military skill and personal valor displayed in 
 the battle will be acknowledged and rewarded in a fitting 
 manner. 
 
 The courage that encountered and vanquished the 
 greatly superior numbers of the rebel force, pursued and 
 attacked them in their intrenchments, and paused not until 
 the enemy was completely routed, merits and receives com- 
 mendation. 
 
 The purpose of this war is to attack and destroy a re- 
 bellious enemy and to deliver the country from the danger 
 menaced by traitors. Alacrity, daring, courageous spirit, 
 and patriotic zeal on all occasions and under all circum- 
 stances will be expected from the Army of the United States. 
 
 In the prompt and spirited movements and daring battle 
 of Mill Springs, the nation will realize its hopes, and the 
 people of the United States will rejoice to honor every soldier 
 and officer who proved his courage by charging with the 
 bayonet and storming intrench rnents or in the blaze of the 
 enemy's fire. 
 
 By order of the President, 
 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, 
 
 Secretary of War." 
 
 While the legislature of Ohio could pass a vote of 
 thanks to General Thomas and his men, the President passed 
 the greatest and most capable of all his officers silent as to 
 commendation and only noticed by his one sentence of con- 
 demnation, which said, "let the Virginian wait." Fortun-
 
 128 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ately for President Lincoln and fortunately for the country, 
 George H. Thomas could wait. He could bide his time, but 
 while so doing the great river of blood flowed on from 
 shameful blunders of incompetent generals defeat for us 
 followed every great battle, and our silenced guns gave way 
 to the cry of mourning in the desolated households of the 
 land and shame to us all. The one competent man was 
 waiting, by order of Abraham Lincoln.
 
 Proposed Campaign to Chattanooga. 129 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Proposed Campaign to Chattanooga, as Viewed in the Light now 
 Given Us Fremont ahd the Gunboats he Furnished Capture of Fort 
 Donelson. 
 
 Before entering upon the changed condition of affairs 
 when the plan of campaign elaborated by General Thomas 
 was abandoned, and General Buell marched or* Nashville, we 
 will consider the possibilities of that proposed move through 
 Cumberland Gap. Upon leaving Washington for the West, 
 General Thomas had submitted to the President and Sec- 
 retary of War, his projected campaign. It was thought 
 favorably of, but not approved until Governor Andrew John- 
 son demanded that it be acted on in behalf of the loyal citi- 
 zens of East Tennessee. The President and Governor John- 
 son saw only the patriotic and political side of the proposi- 
 tion, and did not bother themselves as to the military aspect. 
 President Lincoln's practice at that time was to refer all 
 military matters to the military. It was no unusual sight to 
 see the President of the United States and his Secretary of 
 War, Simon Cameron, waiting in the ante-chamber of Mc- 
 Clellan's head-quarters for the privilege of an interview. 
 President Lincoln got over the delusion he labored under in 
 the beginning, that his commission could furnish the country 
 with all that was needed for military success, and bringing 
 his capable mind to a common sense view, assumed a quasi 
 command. When, therefore, General Thomas dwelt on the 
 fact that if Chattanooga could be captured and held, Rich- 
 mond would be untenable that instead of striking at the 
 head, where the enemy invited attack, because it was stronger 
 there, it was better to assail the belly, where the enemy was 
 vulnerable the words beat on heedless ears. McClellau had 
 all that under consideration. Looking that far back now we 
 are amazed and irritated at the blindness of the really able 
 9
 
 130 . Life of. Thomas. 
 
 men then in control of our government. Had the proposed 
 campaign through Cumberland Gap been prosecuted under 
 Thomas, a far different history of thc> war would have gone 
 to record than the one we are called on to write. It is true 
 that General McClellan, urged by the President, suggested 
 that General Buell should consider the project. But General 
 Buell had plans o'f his own, and incurred the wrath of Andrew 
 Johnson by his brusque treatment of that politician. Gen- 
 eral Thomas was soon given to know that his grave propo- 
 sition was abandoned. 
 
 Events shortly after occurred to give a show of reason to 
 Buell and Halleck's change of objective. 
 
 Before treating of that, we will, with the lights now given 
 us, consider the practicability of General Thomas's proposed 
 campaign. The Army of the Cumberland, then called the 
 Army of Ohio, was being rapidly augmented by the best ma- 
 terial ever put under muskets. "Within a short time, Gen- 
 eral Buell found himself at the head of fifty thousand men, 
 and the number on the increase. This large army, accumu- 
 lated to conquer and hold Tennessee for Andrew Johnson 
 and the loyal men thereof, was receiving better attention 
 from the War Department than had been given the little 
 force of poorly armed and worse clad soldiers General 
 Thomas at first commanded. Although knowing that his 
 scheme of an offensive campaign was neglected, and eventu- 
 ally abandoned, he continued his care of his men. drilling 
 them continuously, and infusing into his force that military 
 spirit without which an army is a mob. He could at any 
 time appointed have selected twenty thousand and marched 
 through Cumberland Gap to Chattanooga. 
 
 It is of interest to learn what force the enemy had at that 
 time to resist so grave a movement. For some time before 
 the battle of Mill Springs we had twice the number of men 
 the enemy could have brought into the field. General John- 
 ston, we now know, had but twenty thousand of all arms, of 
 which eight or ten regiments were under Zollicoffer. After 
 the battle that dispersed Zollicoffer's force, the way was as 
 open to an advance as was that of General Sherman when 
 he went through Georgia to a support of the sea. Of course
 
 The First Chattanooga Campaign. 1U1 
 
 this condition of the enemy was unknown to our side. If 
 .we except General Thomas, there was not a prominent of- 
 ficer in our armies anywhere who did not exaggerate the 
 numbers of the Confederate armies in a way that would be 
 ludicrous were it not so lamentable. General Thomas knew 
 the South thoroughly as to resources and men, and having 
 no fears to consult, was never at a fault. Where McClellan, 
 Sherman, and Buell saw millions of armed men, he looked 
 down thinned ranks of ill-clad thousands. We read a justi- 
 fication of General Thomas's belief in the lately published 
 life of General Albert Sidney Johnston. That brave and 
 brilliant soldier we find, wrote from Columbus, Ky., on the 27th 
 of September, 1861, to the Secretary of War, at Richmond: 
 " I suppose a change of the plan of operations has been 
 made, and that the force intended for East Tennessee will 
 now be combined with the force on this line, making an ag- 
 gregate strength of probably more than 50,000 men, to be 
 arrayed against my forces here. 
 
 " If the forces of the enemy are maneuvered, as I think 
 they may be, I may be compelled to retire from this place to 
 cover Nashville with the aid of the volunteer forces now be- 
 ing organized, which in that way could be brought into co- 
 operation." 
 
 And, on the 8th of December, he wrote from Bowling 
 Green : 
 
 " With the addition of Nelson's and Rosecrans' columns, 
 their force on this immediate line I believe ought to be esti- 
 mated at over 65,000 men. Our returns at this place show a 
 force of between 18,000 and 19,000, of which about 5,000 are 
 sick (about 3,600 at Nashville), and our effective force is un- 
 der 13,000 men." 
 
 And, on December 25th, he wrote : 
 
 " The position of General Zollicoffer on the Cumberland 
 holds in check the meditated invasion and hoped-for revolt 
 in East Tennessee, but I can neither order Zollicofter to join 
 me here, nor withdraw any more force from Columbus, 
 without imperiling our communications with Richmond, or 
 endangering Tennessee and the Mississippi Valley. This I 
 have resolved not to do, but have chosen, on the contrary,
 
 132 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to post my inadequate force in such a manner as to hold 
 the enemy in check, guard the frontier, and hold the Barren 
 until winter terminates the campaign, or if any fault in his 
 movements is committed, or his line exposed where his 
 force is developed, to attack him as opportunity offers." 
 
 After his right was broken, he wrote, page 426, Jan. 22d : 
 
 "A successful movement of the enemy on my right 
 would curry it with all the consequences which could be 
 expected by the enemy here, if they could break through rny 
 defenses. If I had the force to prevent a flank movement, they 
 could be compelled to attack this position, which, we doubt 
 not, can make a successful defense. If force can not be 
 spared from other army corps, the country must now be aroused 
 to make the greatest effort it will be called upon to make 
 during the war. No matter what the sacrifice may be, it 
 must be made and without loss of time. Our people do 
 not comprehend the magnitude of the danger threatened. 
 Let it be impressed upon them." 
 
 Our headless armies moved blunderingly along. Presi- 
 dent Lincoln, with his mind dwelling solely on the political 
 aspects of the field, recommended in a message to Congress 
 the building of a railroad from Kentucky to Knoxville that 
 could have been done by the Army of the Ohio in a few 
 months. This was unheeded by a Congress busy with the 
 schemes of taxation that were dictated by a greed of capital 
 which lost us, as we have shown, the sympathy of Europe 
 by making it known that the money power of the North 
 thought more of filling their individual pockets than the 
 vaults of the treasury. In this we mean that sympathy 
 born of interest. There is none other in a nation that can 
 be counted on. The provincial simplicity, so pronounced in 
 our people, which speaks of this race, of that government 
 being friendly or unfriendly to us, should be relegated to 
 the things that amuse. 
 
 There was, of course, a strong anti-slavery feeling in 
 both France and England. This was especially strong in 
 Great Britain, where in the emancipation of slaves in the 
 West Indies a man got a cheap character for philanthropy 
 by freeing another man's slave. But this sentiment rapidly
 
 Fremont Commanding Attention. 133 
 
 disappeared from a show for our side when we riot only pro- 
 claimed a blockade of the Southern ports, reinforced by 
 sinking vessels laden with stone in their harbors, but es- 
 tablished a like blockade of Northern ports in the form of a 
 high tariff. Such a Congress had no time for the considera- 
 tion of such measures as the one suggested by President 
 Lincoln, that would probably have brought the one eminently 
 capable military man to the front, shortened the war by two 
 years, saved us the lives of two hundred thousand men and 
 a war debt that the centuries of toil will inherit. 
 
 All this is vain speculation, delving idly in the dead 
 past, and only worth recall in the way it shows how the 
 sagacious mind of George H. Thomas saw the situation as it 
 was, and carried from Washington to the West the key that 
 would have opened easy victory to our government. When 
 McClellan's army under Grant won through defeat its cap- 
 ture of Richmond the war ended; not because Richmond 
 h}nl been taken, but that Thomas's scheme of 1862 had at 
 last been made a fact accomplished in the seizure of Chat- 
 tanooga, and Lee's armies had no country to fall back upon 
 and subsist. 
 
 About this time occurred a series of unexpected events 
 that not only changed the current of military affairs, but the 
 minds of military men having control of the Army of the 
 Cumberland, then called the Army of the Ohio. General 
 John Charles Fremont had been quite ostentatiously put in 
 command of our forces in Missouri, with head-quarters in St. 
 Louis. The public mind at the North had instinctively turned 
 to this remarkable man as the one to command our armies 
 in the conflict so suddenly thrust upon us. He had been 
 made the first candidate for the Presidency by the Free Soil 
 organization, subsequently the Union and then the Repub- 
 lican party, because of his prominence as an explorer. He 
 was a picturesque figure, with a tinge of romance in his ca- 
 reer that won the popular heart. He failed in his race for 
 the Presidency because of the pro-slavery feeling of the 
 country North and South. He went down, politically, fight- 
 ing gallantly for a principle, and was, therefore, rather stronger 
 for his defeat. The administration yielded in form to the
 
 i;]4 Life of Thomas. 
 
 popular demand, and gave General Fremont a high command 
 on paper, but denied him the substance that is found in a 
 cordial support. He was a major-general in command of a 
 great department, but without supplies to feed, arm, to 
 equip, or transportation to move his ragged legions. And 
 yet he received almost daily premonitory orders from the 
 War Department to do something. If this something, what- 
 ever it was, could have been accomplished by the general 
 and his stafl', a great success of/ some sort could have been 
 counted upon. He had a staff larger and more gorgeous 
 than that of any other general of the army. His staff was kept 
 busy issuing and executing orders. Among those orders was 
 one looking to the immediate emancipation of the slaves. 
 
 Now, while President Lincoln at that time left military 
 matters to the military men, he very properly retained all 
 the politics under his own control. He saw that the thou- 
 sands thronging out to carry arms and offer their lives to 
 their country did so to save the Union and not to free the 
 slaves. All reformers are rendered odious by epithets made 
 offensive through their offensive use. The word abolition 
 had been hurled at the abolitionists until it had become a 
 term of reproach in the popular mind. As well call a man 
 a thief or a murderer. The poor fellow convicted of this 
 philanthropic impulse could be stoned in Boston and hung 
 in South Carolina with popular approval. President Lin- 
 coln well knew that if the belief among the people could 
 once obtain that this was a war in behalf of the negroes, re- 
 cruiting would cease and the administration itself soon feel 
 the effects of lost confidence on the part of the public. Gen- 
 eral Fremont was publicly censured and not long after re- 
 lieved of his command in Missouri. 
 
 Soon after leaving St. Louis, however, the Pathfinder 
 did a piece of illegal work that eventually made U. S. Grant 
 President of the United States. General Fremont was a 
 thoughtful man given to original views with the striking 
 fact to a thousand vagaries. The fact that had such por- 
 tentous result found embodiment in iron-clads for Western 
 waters. He conceived the idea that if boats were made 
 shot proof by heavy iron armor, the Confederate country
 
 Secret of Success on Western Rivers. 135 
 
 could be pierced and conquered by every navigable river 
 penetrating the interior. He, therefore, ordered a fleet of 
 these iron-clads. The illegality of the transaction was in the 
 fact that he had no authority from the War or Navy De- 
 partments and no appropriation from congress. A number 
 of contractors caught at the work and the boats were soon 
 afloat. These were ordered into the service by General 
 Fremont, and a number of them, under Commodore Foote, 
 aided by a laud force, shelled and captured Fort Henry. 
 The infantry and artillery on shore had .little to do with 
 their success. The fort was so near the shore of the river 
 that the gunboats found no difficulty in reducing the place. 
 
 This victory stimulated the commodore and his allies to 
 make a like attack on Fort Donelson. Putting his men in 
 light marching order, General Grant moved across country, 
 while Foote's gunboats steamed around by water. It, was 
 the intent of general and commodore to take Donelson by 
 surprise, but the garrison was on guard, and gave our naval 
 and land forces such a warm reception that it struck the 
 assailants that they were in trouble instead of the Con- 
 federates. Commodore Foote saw that the fort was at such 
 an elevation his guns could be of no efficacy, and Grant per- 
 ceived that to take the place by an assault was out of the 
 question. To invest the place and starve the enemy into 
 submission was not to be considered, for the army had 
 moved in light marching order, the weather had come on to 
 be bitterly cold, and the besiegers were suffering more from 
 the start than the besieged could be made to experience. 
 Under this deplorable condition of affairs, General Grant 
 wrote Commodore Fqote an earnest request that he would 
 make another demonstration under which the army could 
 retreat. And then the unexpected happened. 
 
 General Floyd, in command of Fort Donelson, was not 
 in a condition of mind to appreciate the situation. Instead 
 of realizing the fact that he was safe from assault, and had 
 only to bide his time when the forces threatening him would 
 vanish in ignoble retreat, he took counsel of his fears. 
 Firmly believing from his acquaintance with Northern feel- 
 ing, as expressed by the federal press, that if taken prisoner
 
 136 Life of TJiomas. 
 
 he would be immediately hanged as a traitor to the govern- 
 ment while in President Buchanan's cabinet, and greatly ex- 
 aggerating our forces about the fort, he resolved with the 
 main body of his army to cut his way out. Leaving Gen- 
 eral Buckner with a thin line to hold the fortifications, on 
 the morning of February 15th, the sortie in force was made 
 striking with irresistible force the Union troops under com- 
 mand of General McClernand. The assault drove our forces 
 back, and would have made an easy victory but for the in- 
 trepidity of General McClernand and his officers in re-form- 
 ing their lines under fire and fighting stubbornly, although 
 forced to fall back. This unequal conflict continued from 
 early daylight until 5 P. M. of the same day. The other two- 
 thirds of our arrnyatDonelson commanded by Generals Smith 
 and Wallace at first took no part in this conflict, although 
 freqpently implored to furnish reinforcements, because Gen- 
 eral Grant the night before issued orders that no move 
 should be made, except at his command. It was a short 
 winter's day, and yet it seemed interminable to the three 
 subordinates who sent again and again to head-quarters for 
 orders to have their aids return with the astounding informa- 
 tion that the general commanding was not at head-quarters, 
 nor could aide or orderly there tell where he was. 
 
 The fact is, that some time during the night Grant had 
 gone to Commodore Foote's gunboat and was discussing 
 with that officer the perilous condition in which they found 
 themselves while the desperate fight went on. This council 
 of war was set to the music of musketry and canon that 
 rang in unheeded to the cabin where Grant sat, smoked, 
 drank, and discussed the emergencies of the hour. 
 
 At about 5 p. M., when McClernand's little force was 
 nearly exhausted, Generals Smith and Lew Wallace, of their 
 own motion, moved in to the relief of McClernand. The relief 
 came none too soon, but although General Floyd and all his 
 force not killed or wounded escaped, General Smith was met 
 by a proposition to surrender, instead of a deadly resistance. 
 The flag of truce from the fort carried the question, " On 
 what terms may we capitulate?" "Unconditional surren-
 
 The True Story of Donelson. 137 
 
 der," was the prompt response, "and unless immediately 
 complied with, I will move upon your works." 
 
 Before that could be complied with, General Grant ar- 
 rived upon the field, and General Smith submitted to him an 
 account of the interview under the flag of truce. General 
 Grant not' only approved but accepted, his gallant subordi- 
 nate's bold demand as his own. He had unquestionably as 
 much right to the authorship of "unconditional surrender,'' 
 etc., that carried him to the head of our armies and into the 
 presidency, as he had to the credit for the fight that day and 
 the capture of the fort. This is the true story of Fort 
 Donelson. 
 
 After the battle, the War Department could obtain no 
 reports of Grant's strength, though it repeatedly called for 
 them. Ilulleck, after investigation, telegraphed that Grant 
 had " resumed his old habits," and in reply, was authorized 
 to remove him. Halleck, however, relented, and Grant was 
 saved. 
 
 Although General Geo. H. Thomas had no part in the 
 affair, it had a marked effect, not only upon his subsequent 
 career, but npon the war itself. We gained Fort Donelson 
 at a heavy loss to the Union side, and instead of a blessing it 
 proved a grave calamity to our cause in the field. From that 
 out, all thought of Thomas's wise plan to hit the Confederacy 
 where the Confederacy was vulnerable disappeared. Andrew 
 Johnson found himself in possession of the state capitol at 
 Nashville, and the administration soon learned that the loyal 
 sentiment of East Tennessee was of about the same use to it 
 as the supposed sympathy of Russia. 
 
 The war went blundering on with the fate of an empire 
 resting on the shoulders of the men of the muskets, who fought 
 and fell by thousands that imbecility under epaulettes might 
 win monuments and a renown that shames us before the 
 world. The administration at Washington was fighting not 
 only a war of arms, as we have said, but a war of opinions in 
 the political field upon which rested its authority. At any 
 time it might be called upon to face an adverse House of 
 Representatives, and with the war ended, to vacate its place. 
 President Lincoln had been not only a minority President,
 
 138 Life of Thomas. 
 
 but he was not popular in the party that elected him. Nom- 
 inated by a local influence at Chicago, lie was elected from 
 necessity. The old Whig party that claimed to be all the 
 decency in the land had no confidence in the vulgar rail- 
 splitter " the poor white trash spawned in Illinois," as 
 Wendell Phillips called him, while the hot gospelers sus- 
 pected him of sympathy with the slave-holders, so that he 
 had not only to hold down the copperhead organization of 
 the North, but to conciliate his own party. Aided by the 
 ablest and most patriotic men ever called to a cabinet, his 
 administration grows in renown as its labors and achieve- 
 ments become better known in the dying out of the blaze 
 and glare of the armed conflict. The real heroes of success 
 in holding a nation to its empire of a continent were Lin- 
 coln, Stanton, Chase, and Seward. These four we recognize 
 with but one other, whose story we are striving to tell. 
 
 President Lincoln was far stronger in the political arena 
 than he was in the battle-field. But we can see at a glance 
 how one was hampered by the other. The President, for 
 example, accepted West Point as the source of all military 
 ability, because the people in their blind ignorance had al- 
 ready indorsed the unhappy little school upon the Hudson. 
 And no man knows better the power of a popular cry. 
 When, therefore, " unconditional surrender" rang out attrib- 
 uted to an unknown U. S. Grant, he was accepted from that out 
 as " Unconditional Surrender Grant," President Lincoln hast- 
 ened to accept it, although he knew in his grim way that 
 Grant was no more to be credited with the happy combina- 
 tion of words uttered by the gallant dead than was Well- 
 ington guilty of crying, " dp, guards, and at 'em !" when 
 the fight hung doubtful at Waterloo, or General Zachary 
 Taylor the man who cried, "A little more grape, Captain 
 Bragg!" when the poor Mexicans were pressing his front. 
 Of all people on earth, we are the most voracious phrase 
 eaters. The fruit from the tree of knowledge has all been 
 canned for us and duly labeled. Our entire political wisdom 
 has resolved itself into a collection of axioms, and we com- 
 fort ourselves in repeating them very much as the unlettered 
 sinner of Kentucky had the Lord's Prayer written upon the
 
 Catch- Phrases of the War. 139 
 
 head-board of his bed, and went through his devotions on 
 retiring by a rap to call attention and saying solemnly, 
 " Them 's my sentiments, O Lord." 
 
 "Unconditional surrender" and "move on his works" 
 were more to the administration than ail the eloquence of 
 Lincoln, Seward, and "Wendell Phillips. The gallant Smith 
 was in his grave, and the man who fell heir to his happy ut- 
 terance quietly accepted the greatness thrust upon him as 
 the administration seized on that phrase to strengthen itself 
 with the people. Thus were commanders made and cam- 
 paigns planned by able men brought to naught.
 
 140 -Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Nashville the Political Objective Point Shameful Surprise and Useless 
 Slaughter at Shiloh Reorganization of the Forces at Corinth Thomas 
 Given Command of the Right Wing Asks to be Relieved and Reas- 
 signed to His Old Command Difficulties in the Route from Corinth to 
 Chattanooga McMinnville Army of Ohio Moved Back to Louis- 
 ville Thomas Appointed to Succeed Buell, but Declines Second in 
 Command Perry ville. 
 
 The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson rendered 
 Nashville untenable by Confederate troops, and General 
 Buell immediately moved on to its occupation. This changed 
 the field of operation of the Army of Ohio from Kentucky 
 to Tennessee. The occupation of this state by Union troops 
 was held at Washington to be of great political and military 
 significance. Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, hastened to 
 inform all the European powers that we had wrested another 
 state from the rebels and added thereto his usual formula 
 that in ninety days this impious rebellion against the best 
 government under the sun would be suppressed. This 
 brilliant, stout-hearted statesman presented a bold front to 
 the greatest danger of all, a danger that hung upon our 
 national honor like a wintry cloud from the first opening of 
 the war until the last gun was fired at Nashville. European 
 interferences made a specter that not only haunted the State 
 Department, but hung in gloom about the Executive Man- 
 sion distorting and disturbing the view at all quarters. But 
 one man could sleep in quiet with that menace closing the 
 curtains of his bed darker than night, and that man was 
 Abraham Lincoln. The indomitable will of a great mind 
 was well sustained by a temperament made of a tough, 
 coarse fiber that eliminated fear. " I must run the machine 
 as I find it,", he said when, on the way to his first in- 
 auguration, he was told that it was not probable that he 
 could be sworn in at the capitol. If fate had decreed that 
 the government was to fall, he would have gone down with
 
 Washington After Bull Run. 141 
 
 it in calm, dignified composure. No man ever felt more posi- 
 tively the philosophy of Lady Macbeth's two words given in 
 response to her husband's query : " If we fail ? " " We 
 fail." That is all ; we take the risks and can stand the re- 
 sult, let it be what it may. The administration knew that 
 if the weakest war power of Europe took the initiative and 
 recognized the Confederacy, in less than thirty days France 
 would follow and then Russia and England, and before 
 McClellan's huge army could move from the fortifications of 
 Washington, the fleets of all Europe would be upon our 
 shores protecting their commerce that had been so idiotically 
 assailed by our congress. All the painstaking care and 
 sleepless labors of the great men at Washington during the 
 four years of deadly peril to the great Republic which they 
 preserved are lost to the masses who are busy building monu- 
 ments to epauletted imbecility amid the sneers and jeers of 
 the civilized world. 
 
 At the time General Buell turned .from Cumberland 
 Gap and marched upon Nashville, General McClellan was 
 being pushed out of Washington by an impatient adminis- 
 tration and an irritated public. For nine months he had 
 been gathering about the capitol an immense army. To the 
 living man who saw George B. McClellan's entrance into 
 Washington and subsequent conduct, there is a memory of 
 amazement. The battle of Bull Run was followed not by 
 the defeat of our army, but a total disintegration of an armed 
 nn>!>. The streets, hotels, drinking shops, and other dis- 
 graceful resorts were crowded with drunken officers and dis- 
 orderly men. The few regiments enlisted for the war were 
 demoralized by the bad example of the hundred days men 
 waiting eagerly for the hour then nearly approaching in 
 which they could throw down their muskets and return 
 home to tell of the great battle from which they ran away. 
 Daylight upon the dirty corners and streets was a shame to 
 a civilized community, while the nights were simply hideous. 
 As there were no fortifications and few troops prepared for 
 battle, there was not a day nor a night that the Confederate 
 forces could not have marched in and held the capitol. 
 Why it did not is answered by the fact that West Point was
 
 142 JLiife of Thomas. 
 
 in command more imperatively on the Southern side than 
 at the North. While McClellan was organizing his anaconda, 
 as the army came to be known, the Southern soldiers, 
 officers, and men, puffed into a belief that they were irre- 
 sistible, treated the Yankee forces and their occupation of 
 Washington with contempt. In the meantime, the same 
 bitter jealousies, petty intrigues, and selfish shouldering of 
 brutal incapacity were developing at Richmond as at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 The War Department had selected George B. McClellan 
 as the general in command for no reason that one could dis- 
 cover, and the people indorsed the choice because of a little 
 victory achieved by General William Rosecrans in the moun- 
 tains of West Virginia, but attributed to McClellan. The 
 popular clamor made over the young Napoleon, as we called 
 him, was ludicrous. There was nothing the young man had 
 ever done or said, there was nothing in ,his appearance, to 
 justify such confidence. He had left the army for work in 
 civil life without making a figure of any prominence, and 
 yet there we were shouting ourselves hoarse over the com- 
 mon place in uniform that was bound to do something start- 
 ling in the great hereafter. , 
 
 To do McClellan justice, he certainly accomplished much 
 in immediately calling order out of chaos. The drunken mobs 
 were driven from the streets, camps of instruction established, 
 and the material of a great army accumulated. His more 
 important work was the construction of a circle of fortifica- 
 tions about the capital that served subsequently to secure 
 the city from capture. His more ostentatious work was the 
 creation of a gorgeous staff made up of princes and rich men's 
 sons that goes galloping down the memories of men while 
 great fights about Richmond grow indistinct and remote. 
 
 After accomplishing these results our young Napoleon 
 seemed at a loss what to do next. For nine months the army 
 grew and grew with nothing to show but the infamous 
 slaughter of our men under the gallant Baker at Ball's Bluff, 
 with more than sufficient troops within supporting distance 
 to have turned a cruel massacre into victory. The long de- 
 lay disturbed even the self-possessed President. The Secre-
 
 Early Days with McClellan. 143 
 
 tary of the Treasury became alarmed at the million a day 
 called for. Mr. Seward saw his ninety days promised Europe 
 become ridiculous, while Edwin M. Stanton, whose appoint- 
 ment General McClellan urged, grew doubtful of his friend's 
 loyalty. 
 
 The day passed when President Lincoln and Secretary 
 of War Simon Cameron could be seen awaiting an audience 
 in McGlellan's ante-chamber. The brow of the President 
 darkened and his manner grew cold in the presence of this 
 petted warrior. He demanded at last to be shown the plan 
 of campaign, and then he gave positive orders for the army 
 to move on a certain day. McClellan had an ill-concealed 
 contempt for the eminent men who were bearing the heavy 
 burdens their positions had placed upon them. In common 
 with the other military minds he was ignorant of the political 
 condition, and when he drove the ilutchinsons, the Abolition 
 singers, from his camps, he only responded to the West 
 Point prejudice against these low creature* bent on a dis- 
 organization of society. And in this he reflected the popu- 
 lar feeling. One reads to-day his orders to subordinates to 
 bear in mind that the object of the war is the restoration of 
 the Union, and not the interference with the domestic in- 
 stitutions of the revolted states. We must remember, how- 
 ever, that he gave expression to the current thought and 
 popular prejudice of the day. 
 
 The young general concurred with the administration 
 and the press in regarding Richmond as our objective point. 
 Now, looked at from either a political or a military point, 
 Richmond was of no importance to either side. The rudely 
 formed Confederate Government was in the saddle, and any 
 one town, let it be called capital or not, might be lost or 
 won without affecting the result save and except Washing- 
 ton. The capture of our capital meant to our own people, 
 and the war powers of Europe, a loss to us of our cause. 
 As for the Confederacy, so long as Lee was to the front 
 with the South secured to him in the war the Confederacv 
 
 V 
 
 was safe. The administration did hot nor could McClellan 
 be made to see this. The one frittered away his great power
 
 144 Life of Thomiis. 
 
 in many small enterprises while the other seemed to look 
 mainly to a conquest of territory. 
 
 It is not good sense, not to say good strategy, to accept 
 the enemy's plan of cam'paign. The Confederates, threaten- 
 ing Washington, covered Richmond as its base and invited 
 attack upon the best ground for them and the worst for us 
 on the whole continent. This was the head ; the belly, upon 
 which it lived and where it was weakest, as we have said, 
 was in Georgia. Had General Thomas's strategy been ac- 
 cepted, and his twenty thousand men marched through 
 Cumberland Gap and Knoxville to Chattanooga, McClellan 
 having force enough to man the fortifications about Wash- 
 ington could have moved with a hundred thousand into the 
 heart of the Confederacy, and whether he ended the strife 
 there as we did subsequently on the very line proposed by 
 General Thomas, he would have shifted the war from the 
 border to the interior and rendered it impossible for the Con- 
 federates to triumph- in a capture of our capital. 
 
 All this seems clear and simple now as seen from the 
 blunders of the past, but it was plain and practicable at the 
 time to one man only, and that was the general who put it 
 to record and who pleaded to have it adopted while prepar- 
 ing his force for the swift, sudden, and brilliant effort. This 
 is the man patronized while damned with faint praise in 
 memoirs of men who felt his superiority and shuddered at 
 the thought of the cold, impartial search of true history un- 
 covering their errors that made disasters, defeat and whole- 
 sale death their only claim to eminence. If to build a mon- 
 ument to such we were to gather up the bones of men need- 
 lessly slaughtered that monument would amaze the world. 
 These are they who have put aside their swords to wield 
 their pens and write of Thomas, the one author of a great 
 plan of campaign, every move and every battle of which 
 looked to an inevitable conclusion of a deadly contest, that 
 he was a good soldier, but too slow fora subordinate position 
 and too timid for a separate command. 
 
 In that pitiful book published by General McClellan's sur- 
 viving friends and relatives, of 678 pages, the name of 
 George H. Thomas does not appear. Better this than the
 
 McCleUan's Dim Views. 145 
 
 miserable misrepresentations of Grant, Sherman, and Sheri- 
 dan. Although the very name is ignored, upon page 102 of 
 McClellan's own story, we find the following as part of a 
 memorandum written 2d of August, 1861, and submitted to 
 the President : 
 
 "As soon as it becomes perfectly clear that Kentucky is 
 cordially united with us, I would advise a movement through 
 that state into Eastern Tennessee for the purpose of assist- 
 ing the Union men of that region, and of seizing the rail- 
 roads leading from Memphis to the East. The possession of 
 those roads by us, in connection with the movement on the 
 Mississippi, would go far toward the evacuation of Virginia by 
 the rebels" 
 
 The italics are our own. Through the dense fog of this 
 military mind, a ray of light seems to penetrate. But how 
 dim it is we learn when he makes such a move depend upon 
 the cordial support of Kentucky. The condition of the pub- 
 lic mind in Kentucky was as unknown to the young Napo- 
 leon as was his military future. There was no state acting 
 under or sympathizing with the Confederacy that was so 
 solid in its course determined on at an early day as Ken- 
 tucky ; shrewd, selfish, and self-possessed, the people of Ken- 
 tucky almost unanimously resolved to be non-committal. 
 They manifested the deepest sympathy for the South, and 
 the liveliest appreciation of their own welfare. In the pur- 
 suit of slaves, of which Kentucky lost more probably than 
 South Carolina owned, the people had learned of the re- 
 sources and temper of their neighbors across the Ohio, and 
 through social intercourse and intermarriage, they had come 
 to feel kindly for a people who really regarded their gener- 
 ous, impulsive friends of the " dark and bloody ground " as 
 part of themselves. There were antagonistic and conflicting 
 motives, but between the two Kentucky remained firm. It 
 was non-committal. The government appealed for aid to the 
 land of the one monument that of the purest patriot our 
 land ever possessed, Henry Clay, to restore the Union. Clay 
 lived to serve and died almost broken-hearted because he 
 saw it endangered, and our government pleaded in vain. On 
 10
 
 146 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the other hand, when Bragg swung from his base of supplies 
 at Chattanooga, and fought his way through to Perryville, 
 expecting to see the state rise in welcome, fill his exhausted 
 ranks, and feed his famished soldiers, not a solitary cry of 
 welcome, not a recruit appeared, not a gun or a ration was 
 given. Indeed, the prominent men who met to consult, very 
 plainly advised him to get out of Kentucky on the double 
 quick. 
 
 To wait for such a people under these circumstances " to 
 become cordially united with us," was to prolong the war in- 
 definitely, and we can readily measure the ability of a man 
 capable of such a proposition. 
 
 * General McClellan had scarcely left his railroad office to 
 assume command of the Ohio militia in the very beginning 
 of the war before he was called on, he tells us in this same 
 book, by Governor Buckner, to arrange terms of strict 
 neutrality on the part of Kentucky. As General Preston, 
 one of Kentucky's most eminent men, said to the writer of 
 this long after the war, "Kentucky had much charming 
 sentiment anent the lost cause, but not enough fanaticism to 
 lift her above a just consideration of fine stock, corn, and 
 tobacco." 
 
 In this same memorandum our young Napoleon writes : 
 " The rebels have chosen Virginia as their battle-ground, and 
 it seems proper for us to make the first great struggle there. 
 One is puzzled to comprehend the "propriety" of this con- 
 clusion. The enemy had selected their better positions 
 wherein was it proper for us to accept their chosen arena? 
 Especially is this pertinent in view of the glimmer given that 
 the occupation of East Tennessee with a control of the rail- 
 roads would go far toward forcing the evacuation of Vir- 
 ginia by the rebels. But then it was necessary to wait for 
 Kentucky to be cordially united with us. 
 
 While the young Napoleon was dictating to a government 
 taught humility by its defeat by a half-armed mob, and this 
 muddle of its military movement, and rode at the head of a 
 gorgeous staff along streets to the music of cheers from 
 senators, members of the house, cabinet officials, and the 
 mob, when all the armies of the United States were put un-
 
 Nashville Occupied. 147 
 
 der his command ; when all the vast resources of the country 
 were given to him, the one silent solitary man who saw it 
 all, and could have used all their men and means to an end 
 that would have struck like the hand of fate at the fortunes 
 of the Confederacy, this man far out in Kentucky was slowly 
 but surely, building up an army that was destined to swing 
 its eagles through the smoke of continuous victory to a 
 triumph for the great republic. 
 
 General Thomas was in camp at Somerset, Kentucky, after 
 the victory at Mill Springs, when he received orders from 
 General Buell to concentrate his forces and move on Bowling 
 Green, where Albert Sidney Johnston was erecting fortifica- 
 tions. Before any demonstration of this sort could be made, 
 the Confederate general found his fortifications untenable, 
 and so evacuating what had been a strong position, fell back 
 to Nashville. Nashville, however, was found to be as much 
 without military significance or strength as Bowling Green, 
 and was soon in the possession of the army under General 
 Buell. In accord with orders, General Thomas moved his 
 command to Louisville, and thence by boats on the Ohio and 
 Cumberland to Nashville. 
 
 Andrew Johnson was solemnly installed governor of 
 Tennessee. Governor in name, his authority was limited to 
 the range of Buell's guns. What might have been the con- 
 dition of East Tennessee as to loyalty, Central Tennessee 
 had none of that lofty quality. On the contrary, there 
 seemed to be a more bitter feeling of hostility to the govern- 
 ment in that state than in any other at war with the Union. 
 We call attention to this, because it throws much light on 
 the mysterious movements of our government. Nashville 
 was of small political and less military importance to us, and 
 yet to gain that place and inaugurate Johnson our forces 
 were deflected trom the campaign that military instruction 
 alone would have dictated was of vital importance. The un- 
 necessary prolongation of the war and the many disasters 
 that followed can be attributed to the Johnson infatuation. 
 
 About the 15th of March, General Buell received orders 
 to form a junction with the army of General Grant on the 
 Tennessee river at Pittsburg Landing. General Buell
 
 148 Life of Thomas. 
 
 promptly responded. Ordering General O. M, Mitchel to 
 operate with his force against the Confederates guarding the 
 Memphis and Charleston railroads, he moved with the divi- 
 sions under Thomas, McCook, and Crittenden on the direct 
 road to Savannah, near Pittsburg Landing. The head of his 
 column, under General Nelson, arrived on the memorable 6th 
 of April at the place designated. All that day Buell's forces 
 marched to the roar of artillery that grew louder as the men 
 were urged forward by their officers, all excited and ani- 
 mated by the potent indication of a desperate and unseen 
 conflict. That the nature of it was unknown added to the 
 interest by deepening the mystery. General Buell had the 
 day before heard from General Grant by courier, and the 
 message advised Don Carlos that it was a junction of forces 
 looked for in which there was no hurry, and therefore it was 
 not necessary to fatigue his men. General Buell was not of 
 a nature to be overconfident. His clear brain comprehended 
 the situation, and Jiis soldierly instincts drove him to disre- 
 gard the advice given. He knew that Grant and Sherman 
 were in great peril, for he knew Grant and Sherman, and to 
 relieve them from danger he urged his columns forward un- 
 der light marching order, and, as we have said, on the 6th 
 of April the battle itself spoke to him in warning approval 
 of his forced march. The sun had set and the night was 
 gathering in clouds above the field when the head of Buell's 
 army under Nelson reached the bank of the river, and the, 
 tired but excited men saw under the further bank from them 
 a mass of men crowded together in a panic, while the thun- 
 der of the conflict that filled their ears from early dawn had 
 died down, except in the roar of the gunboats that kept up 
 a continuous fire, throwing shot' and shell up on the bank 
 into the unseen and mysteriously silent field beyond. 
 
 Grant and Sherman had been shamefully surprised and 
 driven back, with a horrible slaughter of brave men. 
 Throwing their forces in the face of a vigilant enemy with a 
 river in their rear, they had left to every division and almost 
 to every brigade to select its camp to suit the whim or con- 
 venience of the subordinate commanding officer. Provision, 
 was made, however, for space in the center front for Buell's
 
 Shameful Surprise of Shiloh. 149 
 
 forces when they should arrive. This vacancy made it im- 
 possible to devise a line of resistance in the awful emergency 
 that followed, even had the other divisions not been left in 
 air. No picket line was thrown out, and no cavalry sent to 
 feel the front and give warning of the swiftly approaching 
 enemy. These commanders of ours seemed to have courted 
 the surprise. We learn since the close of the war that the 
 army of Beauregard moved up unmolested and slept on their 
 arms within sound of the doomed camps where unsuspecting 
 men were cooking their last meal before their murder in the 
 morning. Ere the dawn, brightened into day, the sleeping 
 soldiers of our camps were awakened by the rebel yell and 
 the deadly rattle of musketry that killed men as they leaped 
 from their blankets, killed men cooking their early breakfast, 
 killed officers asleep in their tents, and sent through all the 
 camps the wild terror of a fatal surprise. 
 
 The wonder is that any battle was fought on that Sun- 
 day in April. It was the best illustration of the pluck and 
 sense of our men. It was the soldier's day at Shiloh. They 
 fell into line instinctively and fought in concert from indi- 
 vidual impulse. Fortunately for us, on the extreme right of 
 our line, if the sudden and impromptu formation be called 
 such, the key to the situation, as it proved, was held by a 
 strange, eccentric man, known as Colonel Tom Worthington. 
 The son of one of Ohio's most eminent men in its pioneer 
 days, he had been sent in youth to West Point. The re- 
 straint of the school was rather irksome to the eccentric- 
 man, and he left before he could be graduated into command. 
 There was no element of success in the late cadet. He had 
 the ability to spend his patrimony without purchasing with 
 it any thing wqrse than a chronic dyspepsia that, added to 
 his natural eccentricity, made men envy him. When, how- 
 ever, the war came so unexpectedly, there was a wild de- 
 mand for West Pointers. Tom had been one long enough 
 to make him valuable. He was made colonel of the Forty- 
 sixth Ohio Infantry. Tom's art of war was learned from 
 Caesar's Commentaries a better authority than Jomini or 
 Halleck^ by the by and consisted of fighting all day and 
 fortifying all night. Tom's regiment carried as many picks
 
 150 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and shovels as it did muskets, and if he did not fight all day 
 it was because the prudent generals over him did not ap- 
 prove of Caesar's Commentaries as interpreted by Colonel 
 Tom Worthington. He could not, however, be restrained 
 from fortifying, and every night on the 'march his regiment 
 slept behind some sort of a breast-work. This served him 
 and our army a good purpose at Shiloh. When that fatal 
 field was reached, Colonel Tom made an observation. They 
 were, he saw, in the enemy's country, with that enemy un- 
 doubtedly at the front, with a river in our rear a condition 
 that Csesar's Commentaries expres.sly warned against. As 
 soon as Colonel Tom's regiment was in camp, he rode over 
 to head-quarters, really for the purpose of expressing his 
 opinion as to the peril of their position, but ostensibly to 
 learn something of the picket line, which he was unable to 
 find, from the simple fact that there was none. Colonel 
 Worthington was not an agreeable man. He was loud of 
 speech and aggressive in manner. He had not got from 
 West Point even its polish. Careless in his attire, he was so 
 common in his ways that on the march it was no unusual 
 event for him to mount behind him some worn out or sick 
 soldier and so furnish a little transportation that was a great 
 offense to his brother officers. He had a contempt for these 
 same officers, who could not read Caesar's Commentaries in 
 the original that the colonel carried with him and consulted 
 on all occasions. 
 
 For these and other reasons Colonel Tom was not wel- 
 come at head-quarters, and on this occasion he found Gen- 
 erals Grant and Sherman with several other officers at sup- 
 per, which the colonel was not invited to join. After fum- 
 ing and fretting on the outside he returned to his regiment, 
 reporting that he found "one general commanding drunk 
 and the other crazy." These words were used against him 
 when subsequently he was tried, condemned and cashiered 
 for insubordination in saving all that was saved of the 
 doomed army on the Sunday of April 6th. Colonel Tom 
 threw out his own picket line, established his own line of 
 battle, and in the morning was in command of the only 
 regiment probably not taken by surprise. This was most
 
 Budl Arrives in Time. 151 
 
 fortunately placed to form a rallying point, and first regi- 
 ments and then brigades formed and fought all day, the en- 
 emy being unable to disperse this third of an army that 
 saved the other two-thirds from being captured or driven 
 into the river. 
 
 It is claimed by the Confederates that the death of Albert 
 Sidney Johnston robbed their army of the fruit of victory. 
 It certainly somewhat equalized conditions. Our army went 
 into the fight without a head, precisely -as the Confederates 
 went out. We doubt, however, whether the death of Gen- 
 eral Johnston had the effect attributed. It caused no cessa- 
 tion of the fierce conflict. What might have happened had 
 daylight been prolonged a few hours we can only conjecture, 
 but when the sun went down its last rays fell upon our men 
 holding our extreme right, and with it a cover to the dis- 
 organized mass crowded in under the banks of the river. 
 
 With night came Xelson's command of Buell's army, 
 and in the early dawn Buell's column moved in upon the 
 field to resume the fight of the day before. These fresh 
 troops came none too soon. General Buell seeking General 
 Grant on the night of the 5th of April, that he might learn 
 something of the situation, found the general commanding 
 on a boat with his staff, horses and equipage, prepared for 
 flight. It had been the soldier's day at Shiloh on the 5th, 
 it became Buell's day on the 6th, and Buell's victory when 
 the hardy men of the forced march redeemed the shameful 
 disaster that had poured its gloomy roar in their ears all the 
 day before. 
 
 General Thomas took no part in this affair, as he and 
 his command did not reach the field in time. The deadly 
 conflict made a deep impression on him. He was one to 
 appreciate the noble qualities of the men under muskets 
 and note how, without a. head, they fought even when 
 awakened in their tents by the rebel yell, and were shot 
 down or bayoneted as they hurried half dressed into line. 
 " The noblest soldiers in the world," he was wont to say 
 with a warmth unusual to his undemonstrative manner, "all 
 they need is a little instruction and a capable commander." 
 He not only found appreciation for the men, but a measure
 
 152 Lift of Thomas. 
 
 for their generals. This last he never expressed in words, 
 but left unmistakable evidence in acts. He had a high ad- 
 miration for Buell. The way in which that officer took in 
 the situation when advised to move leisurely in his march to 
 Shiloh and hurried his command forward under light march- 
 ing orders that he might rescue imbecility from destruction, 
 was of a piece with Thomas's own conduct subsequently at 
 Nashville, when confronted by Hood's army ; almost every 
 hour brought him a. telegraph order to fight at once, which 
 he treated with contempt, while continuing his preparations. 
 We will find directly his confidence in and admiration of 
 Don Carlos Buell expressed by an act of self-denial that has 
 been a puzzle to the unappreciative ever since. 
 
 The battle of Shiloh was followed by a reorganization 
 of the forces designed to move on Corinth. General Halleck 
 assumed command in person. Henry Wager Halleck was 
 the beau ideal of a West Pointer. Of portly presence and 
 soldierly bearing, he had a solemn, dignified manner, that 
 impressed his associates with a belief in a sound intellectual 
 force, which gained him the title of " Old Brains " in the 
 army. He honestly believed that war was an art that could 
 be taught by books, and had produced a volume entitled 
 *' Halleck's Art of War." He was surprised to find, however, 
 when he took the field, that his learned effort was about as 
 useful as would have been a treatise on infant baptism. He 
 was, fortunately for our military service, a better judge of 
 men than of military operations, and while of a slow, cau- 
 tious, conservative turn in speech and acts, he was not only 
 instrumental in having General McClellan relegated to the 
 sphere nature meant he should fill, but he was enabled to 
 have George H. Thomas promoted to positions where the 
 great Virginian could wait for opportunity. 
 
 In accordance with the "Art of War " General Halleck 
 made a most elaborate division of his forces. He had five 
 parts under the names of Right Wing, Center, Reserves and 
 Cavalry. The Right Wing, comprising four divisions of the 
 Army of the Tennessee and the First Division of the Army 
 of the Ohio, was given to General Thomas. He secured the 
 promotion of General Thomas to the rank of Major-GeneraL
 
 The Burrowing toward Corinth. 153 
 
 The center was given to General Buell. The Left Wing, or 
 Army of the Mississippi, was intrusted to General Pope, and 
 the Reserves to General McClernand, while General Gordon 
 Granger had command of the Cavalry. The division com- 
 manders were Major-General W. T. Sherman, Brigadier-Gen- 
 erals T. W. Sherman, Davis and McKean. 
 
 This immense force moved on in accordance with " Hal- 
 leek's Art of War," and with a prudent caution that dis- 
 counted chances. Every day's advance in parallels was 
 marked by heavy fortifications that precluded any attack 
 with the remotest hope of success on the part of the enemy. 
 If McClellan's army at Washington was an anaconda Hal- 
 leek's was an alligator, and both weakened the morale of 
 their forces in proportion to their security. The men who 
 inarched with full reliance on their muskets now found 
 themselves falling back on picks and shovels. The military 
 roads constructed over the soft yielding bottoms of the Ten- 
 nessee were marvels of engineering, and enabled the huge 
 army to keep abreast, while the enemy played like lightning 
 along the front and flanks in continuous skirmishes, but in 
 vain. 
 
 Had this immense and compact army been moving to 
 any point of the slightest importance, it would probably 
 have arrived at its destination some years after the war had 
 ceased. As it was, the value of Corinth in a military view 
 found measure in the fact that it was thus menaced. 
 
 Of so little importance was this supposed advantage 
 thus painfully gained, that the General commanding was at 
 a loss to know what next to attempt. Every mile gained 
 by such a force not only increased the cost and difficulty of 
 supply, but the slow cautious advance bade fair to bankrupt 
 the treasury at Washington before any thing could be ac- 
 complished. To meet this emergency, the three armies 
 called together to demonstrate the success of Halleck's Art 
 of War were separated and given severally distinct fields and 
 aims ; no one of them, save that on Chattanooga, of the 
 slightest importance to our success in the war, and that to 
 Chattanooga was rendered unavailing by its utter impracti- 
 cability. General Buell was ordered to move east from
 
 154 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Corinth toward Chattanooga. To this end an effort was 
 made to repair the railroad eastward from Eastport, but al- 
 most immediately abandoned as not practicable. From 
 this they turned to repairing the two railroads from Nash- 
 ville to the Tennessee river and connecting at Stevenson, 
 Alabama. 
 
 What a contrast is this ill-conceived, circuitous, ex- 
 pensive route to that projected the year before by General 
 Thomas through Cumberland Gap to East Tennessee and 
 Chattanooga. We were drifting in blind ignorance toward 
 the vital point of our enemy's weakness. Had General 
 Thomas's plan of advance been accepted, with President 
 Lincoln's project of a railroad, the people at Richmond in 
 all human probability would have been awakened to the fact 
 that we had the sudden suppression of their revolt in view. 
 The year's delay had changed the aspect of the field, and 
 instead of a huge army concentrated in Georgia to drive our 
 forces where the Confederacy lived, time and opportunity 
 had been given them to meet us in a fatal encounter at 
 Shiloh, send another larger force to the Mississippi, and 
 garrison Chattanooga with an army that threatened all we 
 had gained in Kentucky and Tennessee. 
 
 On June the 5th, 1862, General Thomas was given com- 
 mand at Corinth of all the forces there, and in the same 
 month occurred an event strikingly illustrative of General 
 Thomas's character. He asked to be relieved from the com- 
 mand of the right wing of four divisions and returned to his 
 former command, in the Army of the Ohio under General 
 Buell, of two divisions. This restored General Grant to his 
 former command, and it is held even by the friends of 
 Thomas that he was moved to this by a regard for Grant. 
 It is not singular that such a misconception should exist. 
 It seems to be the law of our being never to be content with 
 our heroes. We hasten to conceal them under attributes 
 that are not only foreign to their natures, but antagonistic 
 to what we admire in them. Now, had General Thomas 
 been such a weak sentimentalist as to give up a high com- 
 mand in pity for one whose habits, to say the least, at that
 
 Thomas Returns to His Own. 155 
 
 time made command for him a public danger, the title of 
 the Rock of Chickamauga is misplaced. 
 
 The truth is that General Thomas was not moved by 
 any such sentimental weakness. He comprehended in all 
 its horror the crime of Shiloh. The thoughtful, reserved 
 man with all his impulses under iron control seldom spoke 
 save in his acts. He asked to be returned to his old com- 
 mand because in that command he was building an army 
 that was to be irresistible through its perfect organization 
 and its confidence in its general. The work he had given 
 himself to do was more important to him and his cause than 
 any temporary honor. " What is the good of a hundred 
 thousand men when you can handle and tight only one thou- 
 sand ?" was what he thought, and the query held in it more 
 than allHalleck's Art of War. And so he gladly turned over 
 his four divisions to the vulgar ambition of any one pleased 
 with such fringe work of command, and returned to the men 
 who from his care of them called him u Pap Thomas," and 
 whose confidence in. him won eventually the higher title 
 found in the " Rock of Chickamauga." 
 
 In July, 1862, General Ilalleck was called to Washing- 
 ton and appointed general-in-chief of all the armies of the 
 United States. This was in -effect the position held up to 
 that time by General Geo. B. McClellan. But this officer 
 had demonstrated in the field the incapacity that was sus- 
 pected and feared at Washington, while he was organizing 
 the army he so completely wrecked upon the Chickahoininy. 
 The administration, relying upon West Point to conduct the 
 war, had no comprehensive plan, no great objective^ points, 
 but drifted along in the most confusing and inconclusive 
 manner. All that saved us from a hopeless wreck was that 
 the Confederacy was, if possible, in a worse condition. It 
 had but one great objective point, which was Washington, 
 and this it seemed persistently to ignore. Great masses of 
 men moved to and fro without any definite purpose, and, 
 coming together, bloody battles were fought without other 
 result than that found in the lists of killed, wounded, and 
 missing. It looked, as an experienced French general said, 
 as if we sought to end the war by a slaughter of efach other.
 
 150 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Had President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton ignored West 
 Point and taken immediate command, a different manage- 
 ment and a different result would undoubtedly have occurred. 
 Any man of common sense can plan a campaign whether he 
 can iight a battle or not. The trouble with the administra- 
 tion was, however, as we have said, that believing West 
 Point held a Napoleon, if he could only be found, and while, 
 of course, deeply concerned about the armed conflict, it left 
 the field to professed military men and devoted its time to 
 foreign and domestic political affairs. Yet President Lin- 
 coln was himself an able general. Edwin M. Stanton, while 
 lying upon the sick bed from which he never came alive, re- 
 peated a conversation had between President Lincoln and 
 General McClellan, wherein McClellan was urging upon the 
 president the necessity of sending every available man to 
 Torktown. 
 
 "We can not uncover Washington," said the President 
 firmly. 
 
 " The safety of Washington is in my success at Rich- 
 mond," responded the general. 
 
 " Why go to find the rebels at a heavy cost and a greater 
 peril, when they are at our door within a day's march ?" 
 
 McClellan transported his army of a hundred thousand 
 men of all arms to the vicinity of Yorktown, then occupied 
 by General Magruder with only five thousand men. Instead 
 of assaulting the place with his overwhelming numbers, our 
 general proceeded to besiege the place, and from the 5th of 
 April to the 4th of May had all his army in trenches, gradu- 
 ally approaching the enemy. When at last he was about to 
 open fire, the Confederates quietly withdrew. On the 10th 
 of April, Norfolk was occupied by General Wool. After the 
 evacuation of Yorktown, the occupation of Williamsburg 
 was contested, and although the Confederates withdrew, it 
 was after a hot contest that proved virtually a victory to 
 them, for it deepened the caution of our general and further 
 demoralized an army trained through a year to the warning 
 found in a daily order not to bring on a general engagement. 
 The distance from Williamsburg to Richmond is fifty miles, 
 and over this the enemy retreated, fighting as he fell back.
 
 The Chickahominy. 157 
 
 This continued until the Chickahominy was reached, when 
 an obstacle presented itself that checked our advance. This 
 stream, that in dry seasons is a mere brook, in a wet time be- 
 comes a river, with low, swampy banks. The rain-storms 
 that sometimes follow heavy cannonading had not only sub- 
 merged the low, murky flats that made marching difficult, 
 but swelled the little Chickahominy to proportions that 
 made crossing in the presence of the enemy perilous in the 
 extreme. This peril came to McClellan swiftly after the 
 25th of May. The base of operations for the army was at 
 White House, on the York River Railroad, where that road 
 crosses the Pamunky, twenty-four miles east of Richmond. 
 
 Fitz John Porter had advanced to Hanover Court House, 
 
 ji 
 
 where he separated to form a junction with the forces under 
 McDowell. But McDowell had been withdrawn to cover 
 Washington, and so Porter returned to his original camp. 
 It will be seen by reference to the map that the Army of the 
 Potomac was nearly equally divided on the two sides of the 
 river. The left wing had four divisions moving along the 
 York River Railroad south of the Chickahominy, while the 
 right wing, consisting of five divisions, marched in the same 
 direction on a parallel line with the Chickahominy, now a 
 fierce, turbulent, impassable stream, roaring on between. 
 There was no bridge promising communication, save one 
 known as Bottom Bridge, and that was in a sorry, uncertain 
 condition. Appreciating this situation, on the 31st of May, 
 the Confederates, under General Joseph E. Johnston, made 
 an attack on McClellan's left. On the 31st, Longstreet and 
 Hill moved in and fought what is known as the battle of 
 Fair Oaks. Our forces were driven back by superior num- 
 bers and were about to surrender, when General Sumner, 
 who had his entire corps in column ready to move, hurried 
 Sedgwick's division across the shaky, almost floating Bottom 
 Bridge. This unexpected and impetuous charge upon the 
 exposed flank of the Confederates reversed the situation and 
 drove the late victors back upon Fair Oaks station. 
 
 It was so evident to the Confederates that McClellan 
 had the back of his army broken across the Chickahominy, 
 that a desperate effort was continued to force the advantage.
 
 158 Life f Thomas. 
 
 Their attack was resumejil on the 2d of June, but owing to 
 some confusion in their own efforts the attack was unsuc- 
 cessful, and with a loss of 4,233 men to our 5,739, they aban- 
 doned their position at Fair Oaks. 
 
 While our army was repairing damages and building 
 bridges, the unexpected happened in two directions. Stone- 
 wall Jackson suddenly appeared from the Valley on McClel- 
 
 right, while General J. E. B. Stuart, in command of fifteen 
 hundred cavalry, swung round the right flank of our arrny 
 and destroyed nearly all the stores collected for the support 
 of our forces. In the face of these disasters, McClellan de- 
 termined to retreat to the James, that was then open and af- 
 forded easy water transportation and a safer base than that 
 at "White House. This retreat was far more hazardous than 
 any advance could have been. He had to move by the flank 
 on one road only, and that open to attack at a dozen points 
 from other roads crossing it. Striving to conceal his move 
 by a false attack and a bold raid by the cavalry, the entire 
 army began its retreat. The enemy were not much behind, 
 and then followed the seven days fighting from the 25th of 
 June to the 1st of July. In this retreat, our men seemed to 
 have regained the lost spirit that nearly a year's training had 
 taken out of them, and fought well so well, indeed, that 
 had it been an advance instead of a retreat, the Confederates 
 would have fared badly. The seven days fighting ended in 
 the battle of Malvern Hill, when the Confederates were so 
 terribly worsted that, had McClellan marched on to Rich- 
 mond, he would undoubtedly have driven the Confederate 
 government out with its army. Instead of this, he called a 
 council of war, that proved true to the traditional council 
 that never fights. Instead of taking Richmond, McClellan 
 closed his report to the Secretary of War in the following 
 words, which give the true measure of the man. They read : 
 
 " If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no 
 thanks to you or any other person in Washington. You 
 have done your best to sacrifice this army." 
 
 It was the belief of this brainless bullet-head, that the 
 government at Washington was not only willing, but anxious 
 to sacrifice its only army that it might be rid of its general.
 
 The Real Stature of McClellan. 159 
 
 This not only crops out in the closing lines of his extra- 
 ordinary report, but appears on every page of the book 
 called " McClellan's Own Story," published since his death. 
 "When one remembers the patriotism, the toil, and anxiety of 
 the eminent men then making our government, one's indig- 
 nation boils at the insolence of this military imbecile whose 
 blunders nearly lost us our army, and left the field the brave 
 men fought over stained with the useless blood of fifty 
 thousand men. 
 
 We read those events to-day under a glare of sunlight 
 given us by "McClellan's Own Story," and "Long's Life of 
 Lee." " If I save this army." " This army " at that mo- 
 ment numbered nearly a hundred thousand, and had shown 
 in a retreat that seemed planned for its destruction, a fighting 
 capacity that almost equals that of the Army of the Cum- 
 berland, and subsequently, when gathered on Malvern Hill, 
 achieved a great victory. It was in fact a victory that 
 opened the road to Richmond had our very little Napoleon 
 possessed the sense to seize on the advantage. In lieu of 
 this, he had the telegraph at Washington vibrating with con- 
 tinuous cries for reinforcements. We now read in the care- 
 fully prepared " Life of Lee," by Long, that while with 
 80,000 brave men, our diminutive Napoleon was demanding 
 help, the pious Lee was thanking God every night for an- 
 other twenty-four hours in which to fortify Richmond, and 
 strengthen his shattered army. 
 
 Why President Lincoln did not respond to McClellan's 
 treacherous insolence by arrest and trial for treason, is found 
 in the unwritten history of that troubled time. We have 
 Edwin M. Stanton's word for it, and the strange arid contra- 
 dictory conduct of both president and secretary, leave no 
 doubt that the government dared not arrest him. It dared 
 not even displace him on the James by another general. 
 McClellan had not only surrounded himself by a group of 
 favorite officers in command of his several corps, but he and 
 they had assidiously cultivated in the rank and file a discon- 
 tent toward the administration of President Lincoln. The 
 men were taught to believe that they were being sacrificed 
 to the abolition selfishness at Washington. This distrust and
 
 160 Life of Thomas. 
 
 discontent had become BO general that when, on July 7th, Pres- 
 ident Lincoln visited the army, orders had to be issued for 
 the men to cheer their chief executive to check what the of- 
 ficers believed would occur in the shape of mob violence and 
 
 insult. 
 
 " We had to get the army back to the fortifications at 
 Washington for fear of a revolt in getting clear of the fel- 
 low," said Edwin M. Stanton after the war. 
 
 This fact makes clear and consistent President Lincoln's 
 conduct toward George B. McClellan.' 
 
 This was the condition of the military field when after the 
 capture of Corinth the three armies were separated and given 
 three different lines of operation. Generals Grant and Sher- 
 man were sent to the Mississippi, while General Buell was 
 ordered to move eastward with Chattanooga as an objective. 
 We were drifting in the right direction by a most circuitous 
 route, and a'fter a lost opportunity. One man alone saw the 
 situation, but he was not in a position to make his knowledge 
 available. Not in command, he was not of the sort to press 
 persistently his views upon those in authority. He was build- 
 ing his own army and biding his own good time. 
 
 The movements of Buell were not lost to the enemy. 
 The people at Richmond had not been slow either in their ap- 
 preciation of the great gate-way to the South, or in observ- 
 ing that we seemed profoundly ignorant of its importance. 
 Now, however, that a huge army was moving in that direc- 
 tion with an active repair of railroads and an accumulation 
 of stores, active measures were taken to meet the menaced 
 danger. The general movement of our fources under Buell 
 was eastward. Generals Nelson and Wood's forces were em- 
 ployed in repairing the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. 
 They formed a junction with General O. M. Mitchel's divi- 
 sion, already engaged in the same work. General McCook's 
 division marched from Corinth, and General Crittenden's 
 from Boonville, and took position at Battle Creek, threaten- 
 ing Chattanooga early in July. As rapidly as roads could be 
 repaired and supplies gathered, the entire army moved in the 
 same direction. General Thomas brought up the rear. He 
 was then ordered on the 5th of August to Decherd, and on
 
 Bragg Marches for Kentucky. 
 
 the 19th to McMinnville, in command of all the troops col- 
 lected there for an aggressive movement. 
 
 General Bu ell's military operations were gravely em- 
 barrassed by the political movements inaugurated by Andrew 
 Johnson and enforced by the administration. The phantom 
 of a loyal population in Tennessee yet haunted the brain of 
 the authorities at "Washington. Fortunately for us all a like 
 will-o'-the-wisp was misleading the people at Richmond. To 
 offset our loyal Tennesseeans they had an immense popula- 
 tion of the disloyal in Kentucky, and it was determined that 
 two columns should move into that state and hold Frank- 
 fort until an ordinance of secession could be passed and arms 
 given the brave Kentuckians with which to drive the Fed- 
 erals across the Ohio. 
 
 To this end, while a column under General Kirby Smith 
 marched through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky ; General 
 Bragg, cutting loose from his base of supplies at Chattanooga, 
 marched an army of twenty-five thousand men to form a 
 junction with Smith at or near Louisville. General Buell 
 had twice the number of men and better supplied and 
 equipped of all arms, but owing to his political duties that 
 he dared not neglect, this force was so scattered that it ap- 
 peared impossible to concentrate them in time to drive 
 Bragg back over the Tennessee, or from his line of operations, 
 which would have been quite as fatal ; for Bragg, depending 
 on the country for supplies, had to select the one possessed 
 of the most fertility. This marked his line of march from 
 Chattanooga to Kentucky, in the mind of General Thomas, 
 as if he had read it in an order from Bragg's head-quarters. 
 General Buell did not concur in the view taken by General 
 Thomas. Believing that Bragg had an army of fifty thou- 
 sand men, he could not be made to believe that such a force 
 under the command of a sane mind would seek to support 
 itself from the country through which it marched. Buell 
 was deceived as to the number of Bragg's army and believed 
 that Nashville was its destination. Thomas was satisfied 
 that Bragg aimed at Kentucky. There was a wide difference 
 in their views and a wider in the results. If Bragg's pur- 
 11
 
 162 Life of Thomas. 
 
 pose was to invade Kentucky, he would cross over to the 
 Sequatchie Valley. If, on the other hand, he meant Nash- 
 ville, it would be necessary to check the move at McMinn- 
 ville. The two routes were too far apart to hold both, and 
 it was then of vital importance to know as soon as possible 
 which was to be selected. When the crossing of the Ten- 
 nessee by the Confederates was effected the greatest possible 
 efforts were made to learn of their movements. We gather 
 this from the telegrams that passed between Generals Thomas 
 and Buell. We copy from them as not only throwing light 
 on the events, but giving us a knowledge of the two distin- 
 guished officers then in command. 
 
 On the day that General Thomas reached McMinnville, 
 General Buell discussed the situation in a lengthy dispatch : 
 " The enemy crossed three hundred cavalry and three thou- 
 sand infantry at Chattanooga yesterday. This may be for 
 the purpose of foraging in Sequatchie Valley, but we must 
 be prepared for more than that. Hold your command 
 in readiness to march at the shortest notice. . . . You 
 should, by means of spies and scouts, keep yourself thoroughly 
 informed of what is going on between you and Chattanooga. 
 . . . I shall concentrate your division and McCook's at 
 Tracy City, or near there, and send Crittenden up the Se- 
 quatchie Valley to about the Anderson road. We must be 
 prepared either to fight in detachments, or concentrate rap- 
 idly, according to circumstances." 
 
 On the 22d, General Thomas telegraphed to General 
 Buell : " I have believed for a day or two that the demonstra- 
 tion in this direction is to cover the advance of the enemy 
 toward Kentucky. . . . The citizens here think they 
 will advance into Kentucky." 
 
 General Buell replied the same day : " From General 
 McCook's information this morning, it seems almost certain 
 that Bragg is marching on McMinnville, his advance was on 
 the top of Walden's Ridge last night. McCown is said to 
 be crossing at Kingston, and Withers at Harrison. Of 
 course they will expect to unite. What sort of ground can 
 we take by concentration at McMinnville ? How would it do
 
 Observing Bragg. 163 
 
 to fight at Altamont? Is the ground such as to give us the 
 advantage of our artillery?" 
 
 General Thomas replied the same day : " By all means 
 concentrate here. The enemy can not reach Nashville hy 
 any other route across the mountains unless by Sparta. At 
 Altamont, I am positively informed, that the enemy would 
 have an equal advantage with ourselves. Here we will have 
 a most decided advantage, and by being here, should he 
 march by Sparta, we can meet him either there, or at Althus- 
 ford across the Caneyfork. He is obliged to pass this place 
 or Sparta to reach Nashville. ... I can not think that 
 Bragg is coming here, either by the Hill or Therman road." 
 
 In answer Buell said : " I can hardly think that the en- 
 emy will attempt to march across to McMinnville, at least 
 not immediately. It appears to me that he will rather en- 
 deavor to get into North Alabama, and perhaps strike across 
 to Decherd. If we advance to Altamont, we may thwart him 
 in both and preserve our communications with Decherd and 
 Nashville. What think you?" 
 
 General Thomas replied on the same day : " We can get 
 neither forage nor water at Altamont. It will be difficult 
 for us to march across the mountains to Sequatchie Valley 
 as for the enemy to come to Altamont or this place. I would 
 not advise concentrating here except for battle or for an ad- 
 vance into East Tennessee. I think our connection with 
 Nashville will be better preserved by holding Decherd 
 with a division to enable us to concentrate either there if 
 threatened or at this place. I also learn that Tupelo, Mis- 
 sissippi, has been abandoned, and most of the enemy at that 
 place sent to Chattanooga. I therefore do not apprehend any 
 attempt to seize North Alabama." 
 
 The next day Buell telegraphed : " There is no possibil- 
 ity of our concentrating at McMinnville. We must concen- 
 trate in advance and assume the offensive, or fall back at 
 last to Murfreesboro. I deem the former the surest, and we 
 will act accordingly. I wish you, therefore, to move by a 
 forced march to Altamont, there to form a junction with 
 McCook, Crittenden, and Schoepf. There must be no delav 
 or failure. The enemy's advance was at the top of Walden's
 
 L\f>' "/ Thomas. 
 
 Ridge, ten miles from Chattanooga, night before last, and 
 talked of being at McMinnville to-morrow. That is hardly 
 possible, but they must be met at the earliest possible mo- 
 ment." 
 
 A day later he telegraphed : " In advancing to Altamont, 
 take the Hickory creek road, instead of the Therman road. 
 This will put you on a shorter line of retreat on Murfrees- 
 boro by way of Manchester, and brings us nearer together. 
 . . In the event of any reverse which makes it necessary 
 for the whole force to fall back, do so by Manchester and 
 Beech Grove, making a stand to check the enemy whenever 
 it can be done to advantage." On the 24th, General Thomas's 
 scouts returned with intelligence that the enemy would ad- 
 vance on McMinnville by two or three routes, and that 
 forces were at Pikeville and in the Sequatchie valley. He 
 then reported to General Buell that he would move that 
 afternoon in compliance with orders. It is evident, how- 
 ever, from the foregoing quotations, that he was reluctant to 
 move to Altamont, and the issue of that movement proved 
 that his reluctance was well founded. 
 
 August 25th, at 5 p. M., Thomas telegraphed to General 
 Buell from Altamont : " The enemy no nearer than Dunlap. 
 It is reported that there is one brigade there and one at Pike- 
 ville. . . . Water scarce, only one spring here, and not 
 forage enough in the neighborhood to last for one day. The 
 road up the mountain is almost impassable ; General Wood 
 has been from six o'clock until now, and has not succeeded in 
 getting his artillery up the road. I deem it next to impossible 
 to march a large army across the mountains by Altamont, on 
 account of the scarcity of water and forage and the extreme 
 difficulty of passing over the road. I will therefore return 
 to McMinnville and await further orders. As I mentioned 
 in one of my dispatches, I regard McMiuuville as the most 
 important point for occupation of any. The occupation of 
 McMinnville, Sparta, and Murfreesboro will, in my opinion, 
 secure the Xashville and Chattanooga Railroad." 
 
 General Thomas's experience confirmed what he had 
 anticipated as to the condition of Altamont, and without 
 further orders he fell back to McMinnville, where he waa
 
 Thomas' Views of Bragg's Move. 165 
 
 again telegraphed as follows: "Keep your position at Mc- 
 Minnville, but make nothing like a permanent establishment. 
 Be always ready to move at a moment's notice. That Bragg 
 is on that side of the river with a large force is beyond all 
 question. It is hardly probable that it is merely for the pur- 
 pose of demonstration, and we must be prepared to con- 
 centrate promptly. Of course, the passage of so large a 
 force across the mountains is difficult, but not as much so as 
 you would suppose from the road you took. The Therman 
 road is very good and the mountains quite easy of ascent. 
 The descent on this side is easy enough by four roads all di- 
 verging from Altamont, tlie first going by Beersheba to Mc- 
 Minnville, the second by Hickory creek to McMinnville or 
 toward Manchester, the third also to Manchester and to 
 Decherd by Pelham, and the fourth by Cowan. The Beer- 
 sheba is excellent for a mountain road. The question is, 
 how to meet an advance which may take either of these 
 roads through Altamont? The best position we could take 
 would be McMinnville, Altamont, and on the Therman road 
 just this side of Sequatchie valley. We should not only be 
 able to concentrate against an advance on that road, or the 
 Sparta road, but also to threaten his flanks, if he should at- 
 tempt to go into North Alabama by Battle creek a not im- 
 probable thing on many accounts. The difficulty of supply- 
 ing ourselves on the mountains is, I think, the only objection 
 to the disposition I mention." 
 
 To this, General Thomas replied on the 28th : " Troops 
 at this place can watch the direct Chattanooga road, the 
 Dunlap, and the Harrison and Pikeville roads, and by the 
 system of expresses established by Smith, I think I can give 
 you intelligence of the enemy before he can cross Sequatchie 
 valley." 
 
 "We give these telegrams more at length than a mere 
 narrative would warrant, because, as we have said, they 
 throw light on the different views held in advance as to 
 Bragg's movement by Generals Thomas and Buell. Had 
 General Thomas's earnestly urged advice been acted on, the 
 result, as we can now see, would have saved us the mortify- 
 ing retreat to the Ohio river. Bragg was extremely anxious
 
 166 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to avoid a battle in the mountains, where the Union forces 
 had the advantage of acting on the defensive, and could, 
 therefore, select positions. General Buell overrated the 
 force commanded by Bragg, and he gravely mistook the ob- 
 ject of Bragg's men. General Thomas recognized the fact 
 that Bragg, in severing his army from its base of supplies at 
 Chattanooga, was driven to move in light marching order, 
 as the forage was scarce in the country through which he 
 was forced to pass. If he could escape a general engage- 
 ment and make his connection with Kirby Smith on the 
 Ohio, all Tennessee and much of Kentucky would have to 
 be abandoned by our troops. This, however, was not so 
 much the purpose of this bold maneuver as the belief that 
 Kentucky, relieved of our presence and encouraged by that 
 of a Confederate force, would at once pass the Ordinance of 
 Secession, and so greatly add men and material to the cause. 
 With Kentucky no longer an unarmed neutrality, the men- 
 ace to the Confederacy at its weakest point would be re- 
 moved, and Lee's army left to threaten our Capitol and 
 force the fighting on the ground that eminent general might 
 select. 
 
 Thomas saw all this, and while Buell was in a maze as 
 to Bragg's intent, our general never for an instant had the 
 slightest doubt. He had to obey orders, and in so doing 
 opened the way for Bragg through the Sequatchie valley, 
 the shorter and better route to Kentucky. The next move 
 upon the board was an order issued 30th August concen- 
 trating the army at Murfreesboro. General Thomas was 
 directed to march in the rear of Wood's and Ammen's di- 
 visions, to keep a day's march between his force and that of 
 the enemy, and so to avoid a general engagement. On the 
 first of September, he advised with General Thomas by 
 telegram by asking, " Do any circumstances present them- 
 selves which would make a change in our movements ad- 
 visable ? " 
 
 , Thomas replied, "I think as the movement has com- 
 menced that it had better be executed." 
 
 This maneuver had scarcely been executed before it was 
 abandoned. Neither the movement nor the abandonment
 
 The Race for the Ohio. lt>7 
 
 of it was in accord with the views of General Thomas. He 
 did not believe in the beginning that Murfreesboro was the 
 best point at which to concentrate, nor after the concen- 
 tration that it was well to abandon that line of operation. 
 
 At Murfreesboro, General Thomas was surprised by an 
 order from his general commanding to proceed at once by 
 rail to Nashville. The immediate cause of this change of 
 purpose came in General Buell's mistaken impression as to 
 Bragg's force. Had he known that Bragg had really severed 
 his force from his base of supply, and had one of so small a 
 number that he could subsist on a by no means rich line of 
 country with no hope of reinforcement until he reached 
 Kentucky, he would have seen that with the fifty thousand 
 men concentrated at Murfreesboro he could have driven 
 Bragg back on the Tennessee. It is very clear that had 
 General Thomas been in command, a great battle would 
 have been fought and the extraordinary race of two armies 
 from the Tennessee to the Ohio would never have startled 
 the American people. 
 
 The movements of these two armies were the most ex- 
 traordinary of the war. Marching on parallel lines, both 
 generals aimed to keep their forces apart. Buell, believing 
 that Bragg outnumbered him, sought his reinforcements at 
 Louisville, while Bragg, knowing that Buell had two men to 
 his one, found a junction with Kirby Smith a necessity. And 
 so for days the two armies nearly abreast moved on different 
 roads at times almost in sight of each other. General 
 Thomas was sent to the front when a fight was imminent, 
 and then to the rear when the safety of the army called for 
 his care. This recognition of his ability accompanied him 
 through the war. It made no difference what rank he held, 
 lie was ever in command so far as the commanding officer 
 was concerned. 
 
 At Prewitt's Knob, General Thomas, intercepting Bragg, 
 prepared for a battle that Bragg, of course, declined, by 
 changing his course east from the road to Louisville and 
 marching northward. Our army continued its march to 
 Louisville, where heavy reinforcements awaited its arrival. 
 
 The government at Washington was dissatisfied with
 
 Life of 
 
 (icncral Buell from the beginning of his command. The 
 march from Murfreesboro to Louisville deepened the dis- 
 trust. The malign political influence of which wo have 
 spoken, beginning with Thomas, was continued to Buell. 
 The silent reserve of the Virginia general that so irritated 
 Johnson 'was a dignified contempt in Don Carlos that mad- 
 dened to blind wrath the ambitious politician. When it be- 
 came evident that Bragg had crossed the Tennessee in force, 
 Governor Johnson sent humbly to General Buell for infor- 
 mation as to what he, the general commanding, proposed 
 doing. Of course an officer of Buell's military turn was not 
 the man to regard Andrew Johnson's demand with much 
 favor or even polite conversation. As governor of the state 
 honor, he responded in person and clanked with two aids 
 into the governor's office and asked stiffly what his excel- 
 lency desired. 
 
 "Bragg is moving on Nashville," said Johnson fiercely, 
 " and I want to know what is being done to protect the 
 oapitol." 
 
 " I do not know," said the general calmly and slowly, 
 " that General Bragg threatens Nashville. When the pur- 
 pose of his crossing the Tennessee is developed, I will be 
 prepared to meet and fight him." 
 
 " There is no question but that your General Bragg 
 means Nashville." The governor uttered the word general 
 impressively and with a sneer. 
 
 "I hardly think you are certain of your conclusion. 
 General Bragg is an old experienced soldier and must know 
 that Nashville is not a place of any military significance." 
 
 "And, therefore, you will abandon it." 
 
 "I don't say that. The defense of Nashville is at Mur- 
 freesboro. If General Bragg is defeated there, then Nash- 
 ville is safe. If he is not, Nashville can not be held. Is 
 there any thing else you wish of me, governor? " 
 
 Xo, sir; no, sir; my business is with the government 
 at Washington." And General Buell, with his two aids, 
 clanked out from the office. 
 
 There was a fighting parson in the army called Colonel 
 Granville Moody. This evangelist wore epauletts, was a man
 
 Prayer with And re n- Johnson. 169 
 
 six feet in height, well proportioned, and possessed of a vocal 
 organ of such penetrating power that he could address an 
 audience of ten thousand with more ease than the ordinary 
 speaker could entertain a hundred. He preached war from 
 the pulpit dedicated to the unresisting Savior, and to stimu- 
 late enlistment volunteered himself. As a colonel of a pious 
 regiment, he prayed much and fought more. He was fond of 
 Andrew Johnson, probably, because the governor, finding the 
 religious element of much service to himself, patronized the 
 fighting parson. This hot gospeler of the sword was pres- 
 ent at the interview, and as soon as General Buell was out 
 of hearing, Governor Johnson said to him : " That man's a 
 traitor; his heart is not in the cause. The government 
 should be warned. But I weary of the work. I am met at 
 every turn by treachery. It is most disheartening." 
 
 "Governor Johnson," said Colonel Moody solemnly, 
 " let us pray." 
 
 Without a word more these men dropped upon their 
 knees, and Colonel Moody addressed God in a long, fervent 
 appeal for strength to meet and foil the disloyal in their 
 treachery to the faithful government. It is safe to say that 
 Andrew Johnson cared little for the petition offered the 
 Almighty, but he did care for the one he was brooding over 
 to President Lincoln asking the removal of Buell. He knew 
 that the Rev. Colonel Moody's name would strengthen his 
 demand, and as he joined the fighting parson in an appeal 
 to the Lord, it was but right the armed evangelist should 
 join the governor in one to the president. 
 
 It seems preposterous, looked at now, that great events 
 should turn on causes such as the one here narrated that the 
 Kev. Granville Moody was given to repeating at camp-meet- 
 ings and revivals in after life. But it is true that a general 
 of high soldierly qualities was dismissed the service, under a t 
 cloud, because a demagogue and an armed parson saw fit to 
 demand his sacrifice. All this will be made apparent here- 
 after. 
 
 When General Buell reached Louisville, he was met by 
 an order retiring him from the command of the army, and ap- 
 pointing General Thomas his successor. Thomas promptly
 
 170 Lift of Thomas. 
 
 requested a suspension of this order until he could be heard. 
 That Buell had been outmaneuvered and outmarched by 
 Bragg, Thomas well knew, as he subsequently testified be- 
 fore the court of inquiry organized to question the conduct 
 of the general commanding. But it was an error in judg- 
 ment in a general whose prompt arrival not only without 
 orders, but contrary to orders, on the fatal field of Shiloh, 
 saved the army, and whose capacity to command was un- 
 questioned, for as we shall see directly, he was not removed 
 because the government had any doubt whatever as to his 
 military ability. General Thomas had, through the force of 
 circumstances, been taken into the confidence of Buell, and 
 although, as we have shown, he did not approve of his com- 
 mander's management of the late campaign, he saw that the 
 error of judgment did not sanction the cruel injustice. 
 Thomas knew, also, that the charges made against his friend 
 and general, were without the slightest foundation, in fact. 
 He made no reference, however, to this last, for the very 
 good reason that he had just cause for declining to super- 
 sede Buell, as stated in a telegram to head-quarters, which 
 read : 
 
 " General BuelFs preparations have been completed to 
 move against the enemy, and I respectfully ask that he may 
 be retained in command. My position is very embarrass- 
 ing. Not being as well informed as I should be as the com- 
 mander of this army, and on assumption of such responsi- 
 bility." 
 
 The government acted promptly on the receipt of this 
 dispatch. The order was revoked, and Buell retained in 
 command. 
 
 This act of General Thomas was not understood at Wash- 
 ington, nor until lately has it been better comprehended by 
 fhe public. Among the military it was of course miscon- 
 strued. Such a sense of justice, such self-denial, were un- 
 known to men, saturated with selfishness, and rendered 
 dizzy by the despotic power of military position who 
 climbed to place regardless of their self-respect or sense of 
 honor. General Thomas was made of different material. 
 His ambition came solely from his consciousness of capacity,
 
 Why Thomas Protested. 171 
 
 and while he loved his country with all his heart, he loved 
 his honor more. Even General Buell misunderstood the di- 
 vine promptings of Thomas's mind in this matter. He at- 
 tributed his subordinate's act to a personal friendship and ad- 
 miration of himself, and was, therefore, quite amazed when 
 at the Buell court of inquiry, General Thomas, summoned 
 as a witness, coldly, and with striking impurturbability, gave 
 the errors of his general when he permitted Bragg to march 
 abreast of him from Murfreesboro to the Ohio. Of course 
 the feeble egotism expressed through the burlesque imitations 
 of Csesar's " Commentaries," and published as " Memoirs," 
 dispose of George H. Thomas in a sentence which may be 
 made to say : u He was a good enough officer, but, unfortun- 
 ately, too slow for a subordinate, and too timid fora separate 
 command." We have given strength to the sentence by con- 
 densing into a few words the atrocious dullness of many 
 pages by men who proved themselves as ignorant of our 
 great captain as they were of the war in which they peopled 
 national cemeteries with uncalled-for dead for coming gen- 
 erations to weep over and honor. 
 
 It will be observed that our general did not decline the 
 command. He only asked that it might be suspended and 
 Buell retained, and why? Because, as he said subsequently, 
 "I am not as modest as I have been represented to be. I 
 did not request the retention of General Buell through 
 modesty, but because his removal and my assignment were 
 alike unjust to him and to me. It was unjust to relieve him 
 on the eve of a battle, and unjust to myself to impose upon 
 me the command of an army at such a time." Had the gov- 
 ernment pressed its order, Thomas would have accepted, for 
 such an act upon the part of the authorities at "Washington, 
 relieved him of all responsibility. Had the War Depart- 
 ment, on the other hand, attempted to give the command to 
 other than Buell or Thomas, the order would have been 
 greeted by an indignant protest as in September, 1861, and 
 after when he was called upon to serve under General Rose- 
 crans. It is to be remembered that at all times in the mind 
 of General Thomas he regarded a separate command for him- 
 self as one which enlarged the force under him, and widened
 
 172 Life of Thomas. 
 
 his field of service. He never lost sight of the men he had 
 trained to know him and the enemy, and whom he had 
 drilled and disciplined under his own eye into veterans long 
 before their baptism of fire. 
 
 In the reorganized army at Louisville, numbering over a 
 hundred thousand men, General Thomas was made second in 
 command. This was a high title attached to very little 
 power, and less responsibility. The army was composed of 
 three army corps. Major-General Alexander McDowell Mc- 
 Oook being given command of the first ; Major-General 
 Crittenden of the second, and Brigadier-General C. C. Gil- 
 bert of the third. This arrangement was extremely de- 
 fective. "While Thomas was designated second in command, 
 he had no actual authority as such. His old division was in 
 General Gilbert's corps, but any attempt at actual control 
 put two major-generals in one corps. Had the second gen- 
 eral in command been given power to act on his own responsi- 
 bility in the absence of the general commanding, or in any 
 other emergency, the position would have possessed some 
 significance. As it was, the general carried a decoration 
 only. He did not even have the confidence of his command- 
 ing officers. A knowledge of the movements of the army 
 came to him through orders to be transmitted to the corps 
 commander, so that General Thomas was a clerk carrying 
 the high title of second in command. 
 
 General Buell was a self-reliant man of not only a re- 
 served habit, but possessed of such a high regard for military 
 discipline that to advise with a subordinate was to abdicate 
 command. In all the exchange of telegrams when Thomas 
 was at the front and Buell in doubt as to Bragg's move- 
 ments, the object kept in view was intelligence, not advice. 
 It was this condition that forced General Thomas to ask for 
 a suspension of the order relieving Buell in his behalf, and 
 it was a continuation of this condition that brought about a 
 shameful disaster and eventual retirement of an eminent and 
 promising commander. 
 
 On the 1st of October, the army moved in the three 
 corps upon their different roads from Louisville to concen- 
 trate at Bardstown. The marching was well timed, and,
 
 Approaching Perryville. 173 
 
 had the enemy been found at Bardstowri, would have been 
 in position to overwhelm the lesser force held under Bragg 
 and Kirby Smith. But the same full knowledge of the situ- 
 ation that had displayed itself in the march from Chatta- 
 nooga to Kentucky forced Bragg to avoid an engagement 
 when disaster only could be expected. Bragg's army was 
 not at or near Bardstown", and the march was resumed in 
 the direction of Perryville, where it was believed Bragg 
 would make a stand. The order of march that had been so 
 admirably maintained from Louisville to Bardstown was not 
 pressed in this later advance. The three corps were not 
 abreast, and this fact coming to the knowledge of Bragg on 
 the 7th of October, impelled him to make an attack, believ- 
 ing he could repulse the corps in the lead before the others 
 could be brought up to its relief. He was mistaken as to 
 the condition, but strangely successful in his daring attack. 
 To appreciate the audacity of this fight on the part of the 
 Confederates, we have to remember that it was made by 
 three divisions under General Polk against eight divisions 
 of the Union army. It was sudden, unexpected, deadly, and 
 successful. Polk had command of the rear guard of Bragg'a 
 army lie was at Perryville when General Gilbert, in com- 
 mand of the center, was preparing to encamp within three 
 miles of that place. In the rear at some distance was McCook 
 on our left, and behind this was Critteuden. The entire 
 force had been distressed in its march that day from a lack 
 of water. Crittenden's command had to be moved far to 
 the right for the purpose of relieving the deadly thirst of the 
 men, and along the entire front there was the confusion that 
 followed the sight of water to thirsty soldiers, thirty thou- 
 sand of whom were raw recruits. 
 
 It was well known that our army was in the presence of 
 the enemy. It was not known, however, although the fact 
 could have been demonstrated by a reconnoisance, that they 
 were almost within gunshot. General Buell determined to 
 fight a great battle that morning, on the 8th, and had or- 
 dered his several generals, after getting into line, to report 
 to him in person. This General McCook did, leaving his 
 men a mere mob searching for water. In his absence the
 
 174 Life of Ttiomas. 
 
 blow was struck, and while reporting that all was quiet upon 
 his front the roar of artillery and rattle of musketry broke 
 upon their ears. General Buell was confined to his tent by 
 a hurt received the day before by his horse falling upon him. 
 Nevertheless, he sprang from his cot and hurried out 
 
 "What is the meaning of that?" he cried. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," responded McCook carelessly, "but a 
 skirmish." 
 
 "A skirmish with such a waste of ammunition that is 
 the way my orders are obeyed? Go back, sir, and put a 
 stop to that folly." 
 
 General McCook's return to his command, unlike Gen- 
 eral Sheridan's at Winchester, had no poet and actor to im- 
 mortalize disaster, or perhaps the genial, full-stomached Mc- 
 Cook would now be sung as a great captain " twenty miles 
 away." It is true he had but five miles to ride before he 
 struck the headless confusion and horrible slaughter that 
 came not of his absence but of his inability. Poor McCook ! 
 this was the beginning of a series of defeats that we shall be 
 called on to chronicle ere we end our story of the war. The 
 old Grecian and Roman warriors were wont to consult the 
 bowels of birds to get auguries of success or warnings of de- 
 feat from the gods. McCook's full stomach proved such 
 deadly omen wherever presented. He owed his elevation to 
 favoritism, the McCook and Stanton families having been at 
 an early day almost one in their daily intercourse and affilia- 
 tions. He was of West Point, and had, therefore, gradu- 
 ated acceptably into any position the government might give 
 him. 
 
 General McCook galloped upon the field through the 
 dense smoke of which the almost level rays of the setting sun 
 were shining, to find General Jackson's two brigades of raw 
 troops being pressed back by heavy odds of veterans. There 
 was no question as to General McCook's courage. After 
 sending an earnest request to General Sheridan, then under 
 General Gilbert's command, for protection to his right, 
 which entreaty received no response, McCook turned his at- 
 tention to his left, and had the satisfaction of seeing a re- 
 pulse of the enemy. It was a bloody affair, however, result-
 
 Blunders of Perryville. 175 
 
 ing in the deaths of Generals Jackson and Terrill and a 
 fearful mortality of men and subordinate officers. McCook 
 then turned to his right, and none too soon. This fierce ap- 
 peal for help upon his right was unheard. Between his 
 right and Rosecrans' left, where Gilbert's force should have 
 been, and into the gap, the enemy came, striking McCook's 
 line at right angles. 
 
 There was no time during that bloody engagement in 
 which we could not have swung our left into the rear of the 
 enemy and captured or killed the entire force. As if to 
 compel this, the enemy hurried their columns in between 
 McCook and Rousseau, wheeled on their left and actually at- 
 tacked McCook with their backs to and within sight of five 
 divisions that seemed paralyzed by the audacity of the move. 
 Our brave men engaged in the actual conflict, the bulk of 
 them fresh from their peaceful homes and all unused to war, 
 proved their manhood by grimly fighting while thus en- 
 gaged for two hours. In all that time not an order was is- 
 sued from a general commanding. General Thomas, the 
 imaginary second of command, was five miles distant on 
 the extreme right and General Buell the same distance at 
 the rear incapacitated by a hurt. Captain Fisher of General 
 McCook's staft' carried a second petition for help to Gilbert, 
 but failing to get any hurried of his own accord to General 
 Buell. It was then too late. JTight was enveloping a field 
 from which General Buckner was slowly withdrawing, leav- 
 ing behind his dead and wounded and a stain upon our 
 military record that can never be removed. General Thomas 
 was upon our extreme right and of course in command of 
 Crittenden's corps. Hearing the battle he could not see, 
 taught him that it was more serious than a skirmish and noth- 
 ing but the late hour would save them from being involved in 
 a general engagement. He, waiting for orders that he ex- 
 pected every instant which never came, of course he denied 
 General Crittenden's earnest request to lead his troops into 
 a fight that was evidently a desperate one. " No," he said, 
 " I know nothing of General Buell's plan, and I must wait 
 here where he knows I am for orders." 
 
 Knowing General Thomas as we do, it is impossible to
 
 176 Life of Themas. 
 
 conceive his acting other than he did. Had he known the 
 situation he would of course have moved into the tight 
 without orders. But he could not realize that two divisions 
 of Bragg' s army had been not only recklessly thrown against 
 eight divisions, but actually wedged in between forces that 
 had they been moved to battle would have annihilated 
 them. In criticising the conduct of General Buell we have 
 to bear these facts in mind. Had the general orders been 
 obeyed the gap between McCook and Rousseau would not 
 have presented the opportunity so readily seized on by the 
 enemy. Then, again, General McCook had reported his 
 front clear of the enemy at the very instant almost of their 
 attack when the roar of their guns gave the lie to his report. 
 
 The Confederates continued their retreat from Kentucky 
 unmolested. For three days General Buell was busy 
 maneuvering his force so as to bring the entire front forward 
 for a general engagement. Of course this was soldierly and 
 prudent had the enemy accepted the challenge and gone 
 into the fight. But Bragg's and Kirby Smith's campaign 
 into Kentucky was a ludicrous failure. Instead of meeting 
 an enthusiastic welcome of which they had been assured, 
 they encountered scowls from the many and open abuse 
 from the few. The thoughtful Kentuckians were of no mind 
 to have the armed conflict shifted from the Virginia soil to 
 their OAvn, and let us hope that the memory of Henry Clay 
 yet lived among the fair fields and pleasant homes of a brave 
 people. The danger of dissension had shortened the life of 
 the great leader, and the memory of his dying anguish must 
 have had weight with the people that adored him through- 
 out his illustrious career. 
 
 General Buell learned too late that while he was pre- 
 paring to hurt the enemy in a great battle that enemy was 
 moving swiftly from a state that gave it no welcome, and 
 not even transportation to carry back the arms that had been 
 brought in to equip the expected patriots.
 
 Buell Court of Inquiry. 17,7 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Buell Court of Inquiry Thomas Shows that had his Suggestion of 
 Concentrating the Army at Sparta been acted on Bragg's Advance 
 would havt> been Checked. 
 
 The disastrous battle of Perryville came to the aid of 
 Governors Johnson, of Tennessee, and Morton, of Indiana, 
 and General Buell was not only deprived of command, but 
 ordered before a court of inquiry. This was a new sort of 
 tribunal unknown to the usages of war or the law, constitu- 
 tional or statutory, and originated in the fertile mind of the 
 Hon. Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. The court, con- 
 sisting of Generals Lewis Wallace, Daniel Tyler, N. J. T. 
 Dana, Edward 0. C. Ord, Albin Shoepf, and Major Donn 
 Piatt, judge-advocate, was convened to assist the pres- 
 ident in an inquiry as to the military conduct of Don 
 Carlos Buell, Major General, lately in command of the Army 
 of the Ohio. When Major Piatt received his orders, he re- 
 paired to the War Department to learn, if possible, the line 
 of inquiry from the charges prepared. He found no charges 
 on file, and, on making application to the Secretary of War, 
 found that none had been prepared. On stating that he 
 was at a loss to know how to conduct so blind an in- 
 vestigation, he was told to apply to Andrew Johnson and 
 Oliver P. Morton, who could furnish him with all the charges 
 necessary to the investigation. 
 
 The court convened at Cincinnati in midwinter, and the 
 night before its organization the judge- advocate went to In- 
 dianapolis to consult Governor Morton, as Governor John- 
 son was at Nashville. Arriving at Indianapolis at 8 p. M., 
 the officer went in search of the governor. This proved 
 more of a task than he anticipated. The governor could 
 not be found. He was not at his office nor at his house. 
 They who ought to have known of the eminent man's where- 
 12
 
 178 Life of Thomas. 
 
 abouts denied such knowledge with an amused expression, 
 the meaning of which never was explained. The search 
 was at last abandoned, and the judge-advocate had retired 
 to his room to snatch an hour's sleep before returning on 
 the early train to Cincinnati when the governor walked in. 
 lie offered no explanation of his mysterious absence, but, 
 learning the object of the visit, plunged into business. He 
 and Andrew Johnson had demanded this court to try Gen- 
 eral Buell not for incapacity or misconduct as an officer, but 
 for being a traitor, and the governor was quite indignant 
 when he learned that "the double-dyed villain," as he 
 phrased it, was not under arrest. The suggestion, however, 
 that a man could not well be arrested when no charges 
 had been made against him, somewhat quieted the governor's 
 indignation, for Oliver P. Morton was not only an able man, 
 but a profound lawyer. 
 
 The judge-advocate informed the governor of his in- 
 structions from the Secretary of War, and Governor Mor- 
 ton entered upon a recital of acts clearly indicating that Gen- 
 eral Buell was in treasonable correspondence and even per- 
 sonal communication with General Bragg; that the entire 
 movement from Murfreesboro to the Ohio was planned and 
 conducted for the purpose of giving both Tennessee and 
 Kentucky to the rebels. When the judge-advocate, how- 
 ever, proposed to formulate these charges and place them 
 before the court, the governor demurred- "By no manner 
 of means," he said earnestly, " I give you these only for 
 your own guidance. Johnson and I will furnish the wit- 
 nesses, and we will appear ourselves at the proper time." 
 
 The judge-advocate returned to his court, which he 
 Bwore to secresy, an oath General Buell declined taking, and 
 on a demand from that officer for charges, he was informed 
 that the court was one of inquiry only to assist the presi- 
 dent in a better knowledge of the late campaign that had 
 ended so disastrously to the government. General Buell 
 protested to this course and claimed that the tribunal had 
 no legal sanction, and, having said so, proceeded quietly with 
 the so-called investigation. 
 
 The court sat for six months. When the witnesses prom-
 
 Thomas Before the Buell Court. 179 
 
 ised by the war governor appeared, the better class of them 
 absolutely knew nothing of the treasonable practices charged, 
 while those who were voluble in their information the law 
 officer of the court was ashamed to put on the stand. They 
 nearly all belonged to that class of mercenary spies known 
 as detectives that one, General Baker, of the War Depart- 
 ment, made so numerous and utterly unreliable. While 
 waiting for these witnesses, who never got before the court, 
 the judge-advocate devoted himself of course to an investi- 
 gation of the campaign. Among the witnesses summoned 
 by both sides appeared George H. Thomas. 
 
 General Buell conducted his side of the inquiry with 
 marked ability. Confined as this was to the military opera- 
 tions in Tennessee and Kentucky, he had the advantage not 
 only of better information, but, as the witnesses were sub- 
 ordinates, his very presence embarrassed and at times con- 
 fused them. General Buell is under the medium height, but 
 he walks erect with a singularly military bearing while his 
 austere manners and the striking seriousness of his hand- 
 some face made up a personality that told on the witnesses 
 disposed to criticise his military management. He came 
 into court in full uniform with sword on side to show that 
 he was not under arrest and accompanied by two aids so well 
 drilled and disciplined that they seemed a chorus ready at 
 any moment to break into song. This told on the witnesses 
 and had its effect on the court. The law officer, whose 
 duty kept him impartial, but who really sympathized with 
 a man one out of a thousand in culture and ability who was 
 being imposed on by two scurvy politicians and a stress of 
 untoward circumstances, soon recognized the fact that the 
 defendant had won over half the court before the investiga- 
 tion had half ended. Generals Dana and Ord could not con- 
 ceal their partiality for Buell, while Generals Tyler and 
 Shoepf were moved to hostility more by Generals Dana's 
 and Ord's support than aught else. General Lew Wallace 
 presided with a" dignified impartiality that was admirable. 
 He was helped to this in a good manner by the fact that he 
 had been put under a cloud by charges openly made by Gen- 
 eral Grant of misconduct at Shiloh, and as General Halleck
 
 180 Life of Thomas. 
 
 had assigned him to this court instead of a command in the 
 field, he was quite willing to find defects, but defects that 
 could be traced to Washington. There is no reflection in 
 this upon ;i man of genius who has since won through his 
 pen the immortality denied his sword. In conducting the 
 inquiry and in his finding, he proved himself eminently able 
 and just. 
 
 This was the situation when General George II. Thomas 
 appeared. His entrance seemed to fetch a new condition, 
 and what had been General Buell's advantage, swung imper- 
 ceptibly to the other side. The calm, dignified, yet easy 
 bearing of a man who made one feel his presence before he 
 uttered a word, prepared the court for evidence of moment. 
 The commission was not disappointed. Although he con- 
 fined his testimony strictly to the questions asked, and gave 
 it without the slightest show of partiality, it soon became 
 clear to the military tribunal that Bragg, with an inferior 
 force, had outmaneuvered, outmarched, and outfought Gen- 
 eral Buell. Beginning with the crossing of the Tennessee 
 river, he told of the confused and uncertain information as 
 to Bragg's movements; how the route through the Se- 
 quatchie Valley was left open to the confederates for their 
 march to Kentucky ; then came that extraordinary race of 
 two armies nearly abreast to the Ohio, the reorganization 
 and the short campaign that ended in the disastrous fight at 
 Perryville. 
 
 No man was ever more amazed than General Buell. He 
 had welcomed the coming of General Thomas as that of a 
 friend, the friend who had declined the command on the ground 
 that he, Buell, better knew the situation t.hau he, Thomas, 
 could, and who had never given other reason than the one 
 found in his response to the War Department. General 
 Buell had naturally attributed this course on the part of his 
 great subordinate to not only a friendly feeling, but to a be- 
 lief in the generalship that was being questioned. The 
 revelation was stunning, so much so that his cold, calm man- 
 ner that had so far sustained him, vanished, and it was with 
 difficulty that he could restrain himself until a cross-examin- 
 ation became proper. When the witness was turned over,
 
 Thomas 1 Adverse Testimony. 181 
 
 General Buell attacked the main point. General Thomas 
 had been asked, the question that had been put to every wit- 
 ness for the government, as to whether there was not a point 
 at which our troops could have been concentrated after Bragg 
 crossed the Tennessee where' he could have been atracked 
 with fair prospect of driving him back, or forcing him from 
 the line of advance upon which he hoped to get supplies for 
 his army. General Thomas had answered in the affirmative, 
 and pointed upon the map to the place. 
 
 " You have said, General Thomas," said Buell, " that at 
 Sparta we could have concentrated our forces with a fair 
 prospect of defeating Bragg ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Please tell the court, General," and a slight sneer tinged 
 the question, "whether that opinion has come from a study 
 of the situation since, or whether it suggested itself to your 
 mind at the time?" 
 
 "If you will give me your book of telegrams," was the 
 quiet response, " I believe it will answer better than I can." 
 
 The book asked for was handed General Thomas, and he 
 slowly turned the leaves until he came to what he was in 
 search of, and then returned it open to General Buell. The 
 color deepened upon the face of Buell as he read that which 
 terminated all cross-examination on that point. 
 
 The finding of this extraordinary tribunal was of no 
 consequence. It was virtually an acquittal of General Buell, 
 and a mild censure of General Halleck. The eventual his- 
 tory of the records was as curious as the conduct of the 
 court. Taken down by that accomplished stenographer, Mr. 
 Benn Pitman, they were forwarded to the War Department 
 in a box. Some years after a delver in the dust of worthless 
 things called for these records. They could not be found. 
 Box and all had disappeared. This very disappearance made 
 them valuable. Congress resolved, and the press was about 
 taking up the mystery, when Mr. Benn Pitman informed the 
 department that he could replace the records from his orig- 
 inal copy in shorthand. This was done, and immediately all 
 interest in them subsided.
 
 182 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Treason in the Head-quarters at Alexandria Preparations for the Removal 
 of McClellan Pope Put in Command of the Forces Defending Wash- 
 ington The Shameful Story of the Second Bull Run The Fitz John 
 Porter Case Lee's Invasion of Maryland McClellan Relieved of 
 Command. 
 
 Between the llth of March, 1862, and the 8th of Octo- 
 ber of the same year, while General Buell was trying con- 
 clusions with General Bragg that ended in the disastrous 
 battle of Perryville, the war continued to drift without any 
 progress toward a conclusion on either side. It looked as if 
 the government had agreed with the insurgents to make it a 
 question of endurance. These armies marched without any 
 plan of campaign, and battles were fought with apparently 
 no other object than to kill and wound more on one side 
 than on the other. These bloody encounters were, with but 
 few exceptions, favorable to the South. Had it not been for 
 the navy, that enabled Commodore Dupont to capture Jack- 
 sonville, Florida, Commodore Farragut to take New Orleans 
 and force the surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Phillips, 
 with the subsequent capture of Natchez, the people at the 
 North might well have despaired of eventual success. There 
 was one uniform story attached to every military event on 
 land, which told of a brave soldiery badly handled. Our 
 men under muskets, blindly obeying incompetent men under 
 epaulettes, left their dead and dying on fields of defeat that 
 would have been of no avail had they been fields of victory. 
 
 We have somewhat anticipated in giving General Mc- 
 Clellan's disasters before Richmond. On the 10th of August, 
 1862, our forces were withdrawn from the James before 
 Richmond to the fortifications of "Washington that they 
 might be given a new commander. "We have already cited 
 the reasons for this extraordinary move. We had won a 
 great victory, no thanks to McClellan, at Malvern Hill, and
 
 Trying to Drop McClettan. 183 
 
 if there was any purpose known to man for the capture of 
 Richmond, we were in a position, under a capable com- 
 mander, to accomplish that event. It was easy to send sup- 
 plies and reinforcements by the open water ways, and there 
 was no apparent reason for us to abandon that which we had 
 gained at such heavy cost of men and money. The govern- 
 ment at Washington, however, had no choice. The fear of 
 the Confederate army had come to be less, as we have said, 
 than a fear of our own forces honeycombed with treason- 
 able discontent by the shallow McClellan and his stupid sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 The government anxiously sought for some one to put 
 in command when the Army of the Potomac should be un- 
 der the guns of the fortifications at Washington, and to re- 
 lieve McClellan, when an arrest could be made should a 
 revolt be manifested. The most promising of the West 
 Pointers of course no other could be selected in the eyes 
 of the War Department was a young man answering to the 
 name of General John Pope, who, on the 8th of April, 1862, 
 had captured Island No. 10 in the Mississippi. The selection 
 was not faulty. General Pope had not only high soldierly 
 qualities, proud self-confidence, and great force of character, 
 but he possessed a thoughtful mind, enriched by stores of in- 
 formation. He was given command at first of all the forces 
 that had been retained to cover Washington in the absence 
 of the Army of the Potomac. These several divisions were 
 in a bad condition. General McClellan made not only a con- 
 tinuous demand for troops, but one for supplies, that impov- 
 erished every other army in the field. Thus, while General 
 Thomas was organizing the nucleus of the force that was 
 destined in the end to win the conflict for the Union, he 
 found it almost impossible to secure blankets for his men, 
 the hundred and fifty thousand men under McClellan were 
 having daily parades in white gloves and polished shoes. 
 There was enough wasted on this favored force to have sup- 
 plied all the others in the field with comforts at least. The 
 extravagance cultivated in the nine months of inaction be- 
 fore Washington told fearfully against the government when 
 these troops were subject to the privations common to every
 
 184 Lift, of Thomas. 
 
 campaign. It seemed to the men that they were intention- 
 ally neglected, and this gave weight to the openly uttered 
 charge from head-quarters that the Abolitionists at Washing- 
 ton had purposely sacrificed the army because of this hatred 
 of its. general. All this appears of record in McClellan's 
 o\vn story to his wife, as presented and published by his 
 widow. 
 
 General Pope proceeded at once to organize and equip 
 the thirty-five thousand given him to defend Washington 
 until the Army of the Potomac had been safely lodged be- 
 hind the fortifications of the capital. Thanks to our young 
 Napoleon, it was a question whether a huge army that ought 
 to have been marched from Malvern Hill to Richmond could 
 be safely got from the James river to the shelter of the guns 
 at Washington. 
 
 There was no time to be lost by the newly appointed com- 
 mander. Lee's victorious army had a short inarch before 
 them, and any day might appear in full force to battle for its 
 one objective point, the capture of our capital. The trans- 
 portation of our army in its defeat from before Richmond to 
 Washington under the command of a sullen, disloyal, and 
 brainless commander was not hurried. From the general- 
 in-chief down to the humblest private, it was felt to be a 
 shameful failure. After nine months' costly preparation, 
 after a fearful loss of life, an army of a hundred thousand 
 men had been marched to the sight of the Confederate capi- 
 tal, only to be driven back by an inferior force to the place 
 of beginning. General Pope, with an intelligence and en- 
 ergy that were admirable, gathered up the scattered troops 
 and hastily equipped them for service. He had thirty-live 
 thousand all told, and about thirty thousand capable of im- 
 mediate service. He was aid^ed in this by capable subordi- 
 nates of the highest courage apd purest patriotism. The 
 administration at Washington seconded to its utmost these 
 heroic efforts. We take no account in our so-called histories 
 of the war, that have eyes for naught but aimless campaigns 
 and battles without results, of the task imposed on the im- 
 mortal statesmen God seemed to have called to command in 
 our hour of peril. The disastrous retreat from the James
 
 Lee's Mom Against Pope.. 185 
 
 had not only strengthened the disloyal element at the North, 
 but justified the governments of Europe in an immediate 
 recognition of the Confederacy. We did not, could not, 
 know then that we were safer from such European interfer- 
 ence while the South was most successful than when the 
 Confederate armies were losing in the field. To our openly 
 avowed enemies abroad, the Confederates, in their hour of 
 triumph, seemed to be winning without that recognition and 
 aid which might have troublesome consequences to the war 
 powers of Europe. 
 
 It was to deceive the enemy as to our real weakness that 
 the boastful orders written at the War Department by Secre- 
 tary Stanton were issued over the name of General Pope. 
 They were unfortunate, for while they deceived no one they 
 placed the new commander in a false position. In common 
 with all capable men General Pope was without noisy self- 
 assertion and went quietly about the work assigned him. 
 
 On the 20th of August, 1862, Lee with his entire army 
 appeared before Pope upon the Rapidau, and here occurred 
 on the part of the Confederate general a maneuver that is 
 without a parallel in the annals of intelligent war. 
 
 To understand this we must know that when it became 
 evident that the ninety thousand men under McClellan were 
 being withdrawn, a great effort was made to reach Pope and 
 defeat his army before that of McClellan could come to hia 
 assistance. General Lee made his point, and with the entire 
 army from about Richmond confronted Pope with only thirty- 
 five thousand. But Pope had withdrawn from the line of the 
 Rapidan and was strongly posted beyond the Rappahannock. 
 The bold Lochinvar from out the west was aided in this by 
 a rise in the river. To attempt a crossing on the part of the 
 Confederates was hazardous, but with the larger force under 
 Lee such an attempt demonstrated at one point and accom- 
 plished at another was possible. He declined the attempt. 
 His strategem was to cut his army in half and send one part 
 over the almost forgotten ford of the Rappahannock, far off 
 to the north through Thoroughfare Gap in Bull Run Moun- 
 tains, into the rear of the Union forces. Of course this was 
 accomplished without opposition. Indeed, had Pope been
 
 186 Life of Thomas. 
 
 taken into advisement he would have strongly advocated the 
 move. It threw forty thousand Confederates in between 
 Pope's and McClellan's armies and entirely beyond aid from 
 the forty thousand left idle under Lee on the Rappahan- 
 nock. 
 
 The army thus entrapped marched under Stonewall 
 Jackson. We do not know that Jackson approved of this 
 extraordinary move. We doubt it. He probably obeyed 
 orders. There was another officer under Lee second only in 
 military ability to Jackson, and that was General Longstreet. 
 He had not been consulted, for it had become a common event 
 to have his views in opposition to his general. This was not 
 agreeable, and on this account probably he had not even been 
 informed of Lee's intent and Jackson's movement. Wonder- 
 ing at an inaction so unaccountable, a delay that lost the 
 Confederate army three days when every hour was fraught 
 with the gravest consequences, he was suddenly summoned to 
 head-quarters where he found his general in an unusual state 
 of anxiety. Longstreet learned to his amazement and con- 
 sternation what had happened. 
 
 -' My God. General Lee," he cried, " you hav'e reversed 
 positions ; we hurried here to attack Pope and McClellan in 
 their divided condition, and now you have not only cut our 
 army in two, but sent half of it in between Pope and 
 McClellan." 
 
 ."What do you advise," asked Lee. 
 
 " To permit me to take the army here and follow Jack- 
 son as rapidly as possible." 
 
 This was done and none too soon. Had a force been 
 left by Pope, however small, to defeat the passage at Thor- 
 oughfare Gap, Lee and Longstreet would have been too late 
 for the Second Bull Run battle that followed. Pope, fully 
 aware of the extraordinary condition, was so sure of closing 
 in on Jackson and annihilating his inferior army that he con- 
 centrated his forces for a swift, deadly blow. In this he 
 counted largely upon the co-operation of McClellan's Army 
 of the Potomac, then being slowly forwarded to the field. It 
 is now history that he relied upon a support that was honey- 
 combed with treachery. McClellan had not yet been relieved
 
 Pope, McCleUav, Porter. 187 
 
 of his command, and through him orders had to pass send- 
 ing his troops to the aid of Pope. Quartered with his huge 
 staff of princes and rich men at Alexandria, the wire con- 
 necting hin> with the War Department trembled with con- 
 tinuous demands to hurry forward his troops. One reads 
 with amazed indignation the insolent responses to the fran- 
 tic appeals, and yet more indignantly the story of dis- 
 obedience. In all the shameful record of imbecility with its 
 continuous account of defeats and disasters, when brave men 
 went down in thousands to bloody graves without cause, 
 the most shameful is this story of the second Bull Run. 
 
 General Pope was quick to learn of Stonewall Jackson's 
 unmilitary move; prompt to act upon the information. 
 Jackson was well in the trap Lee had so strangely planned 
 for him. To take advantage of this, it was necessary that 
 the forces from the Army of the Potomac should act promptly. 
 The first evidence that such earnest and honest support, so 
 necessary under the emergency, could not be relied on came 
 in the conduct of General Fitz John Porter. He, with his 
 command of regulars, was at Warrenton Junction on the 
 night of the 27th of August. That evening he received the 
 order from Pope which read : " The major-general command- 
 ing directs that you start at one o'clock to-night, so as to be here 
 by daylight to-morrow morning." It is said Hooker had been 
 in severe engagement. It indicated an advantage, but not a 
 rout. It repeated: " It is necessary on all accounts that you 
 should be here by daylight." 
 
 This positive order was deliberately disobeyed. He did 
 not inarch at one o'clock. He did not move at daylight. It 
 was seven A. M. before he got under way. The excuse given 
 for this failure to comply with a positive order is that his 
 troops were weary and needed rest that the night was dark 
 and the road to Bristow was much incumbered by wagon 
 trains. 
 
 The night was dark. The writer of this well remem- 
 bers riding through it in a vain search of his command after 
 a leave of absence. But every troop, division, and brigade 
 of both armies were on the move that fatal night except that 
 of Fitz .lohn Porter. Nor is it true that his troops were
 
 188 Life of Thomas 
 
 unfit to move on account of excessive marching the day be- 
 fore. His forces had done as little of that as any other bri- 
 gade in the Federal army. 
 
 Instead of moving even at daylight, we find him writing 
 a long letter at six A. M. to General Burnside, and his motive 
 shown by the missive is so disloyal that he could have been 
 condemned on its reading to immediate death ; that would 
 have been awarded by the court-martial that tore the epau- 
 lets from his shoulders but for the unfounded fear that 
 Lincoln, then regarded as a weak man, would not approve 
 the sentence. 
 
 When, after a second order directing him to march at 
 early dawn, obeyed by reluctantly moving at seven A. M., he 
 did follow instructions, the march placed him and his forces 
 upon the flank of Jackson's army. Had he followed the ad- 
 vantage thus given, Jackson's force would have been over- 
 whelmed, for we all know the effect of an attack upon the 
 rear such as Porter could have made. Instead of this, he 
 remained idle all that day, and when late in tbte afternoon he 
 did move, it was in retreat. All that day he heard the roar 
 of a conflict going on, and this he leaves of record in his own 
 dispatches, although he and his friends have since denied 
 that any battle was in progress. 
 
 In the trial of this man, much time was lost in proving 
 or disproving the time when he got orders to attack. It was 
 time thrown away. General Porter knew why he was there 
 and what his duties were. To appreciate this, let the reader 
 suppose for an instant that McClellan had been in command 
 instead of Pope. Would there have been then any hesitation 
 in the mind of this subordinate or any delay in his move- 
 ments? Porter well knew why he had been hurried into 
 position and what was expected of him. 
 
 The defense is simply pitiable. It is that he was satisfied 
 a heavy force was at his front, and to attack was to insure 
 defeat, and he actually claims commendation for his conduct. 
 To accept his own dispatch to McDowell, in which he asks. 
 u How goes the battle? it seems to go to our rear," he heard 
 the roar of the conflict in which his brother soldiers were 
 being driven from the field, and he left them to their cruel
 
 JFitz John Porter's Failure. 189 
 
 fate. If there was actually no battle, aa now claimed, he 
 thought there was, or he would not have so written. He did 
 not move into the fight then going on, and all that day made 
 no effort to communicate with head-quarters or any other 
 part of our army. 
 
 The fact is, that no force whatever was at his front. 
 Longstreet's command did not reach Jackson's right wing 
 until noon, nor did his hungry and exhausted troops get into 
 position at all that day. When it was reporte'd that Porter 
 had withdrawn, the men who had been hurried up were per- 
 mitted to break ranks and seek the rest and food they so 
 much needed. The proof of this rests on testimony which 
 can not he disputed. We have only to turn to the report 
 made by General Robert C. Schenck to settle this. On the 
 morning of the 29th, this gallant and able officer moved from 
 the hills below Bull Run to Young's creek, and occupied 
 what is known as Gibbon's woods, where a skirmish had 
 occurred the day before, and where General Schenck found 
 the killed and wounded, which he cared for. Here he re- 
 mained until late in the afternoon. Now it was impossible 
 for Longstreet's forces to be at Porter's front with General 
 Schenck's divisions at Gibbon's woods. This is corroborated 
 by General T. L. Rosser, of the Confederate service, who tes- 
 tifies that at ten A. M. he was ordered to gallop his cavalry 
 with bushes fastened to the horses' tails, so that rising clouds 
 of dust might impress our forces under Porter with the be- 
 lief that the Confederates were being heavily reinforced. 
 This he continued to do for four or five hours, which would 
 have ended the effort at two or three p. M. It certainly was 
 not continued after the arrival of Longstreet's troops. 
 
 There is one important fact that seems to have escaped 
 the attention of both courts and which impresses us that 
 Longstreet's half of Lee's army numbered at least forty 
 thousand men. It had but one road along which to march 
 from Thoroughfare Gap to the battle-field. N"ow, supposing 
 that the head of the column arrived upon the field at 2 p. M., 
 how long did it take to fetch up the entire force so as to 
 put it in position for immediate service. It certainly was 
 not there when General Schenck fell back from Gibbon's
 
 190 Life of Thomas. 
 
 woods between three and four of the afternoon when Rosser 
 was brushing the same road over which Longstreet was to 
 march. The direct and positive testimony is against any 
 such claims as that offered by Porter, while all the circum- 
 stantial evidence is in deadly antagonism to such assumption. 
 Against this we have the guessing of Confederate witnesses 
 whose very uncertainty as to time is fatal to their conclu- 
 sion. We know what guessing is in a time of such intense 
 anxiety. And when we add to this the bond of sympathy 
 toward Porter and his general, McClellan, we can readily see 
 how noon may stretch to three or four o'clock. 
 
 There is yet another fact strangely overlooked. It was 
 a physical impossibility for Longstreet's command to march 
 from Thoroughfare Gap to the battle-field in time to form a 
 line on Jackson's right. The distance as a crow flies is 
 twelve miles, but the only road along which it could have 
 moved lengthened the distance into a day's march for the 
 best equipped army. Lee's army was badly provided with 
 transportation and exhausted by the forced march from Gor- 
 donsville to Thoroughfare Gap. This he was obliged to ap- 
 proach cautiously, but not in a way to give his men their 
 necessary rest and food. On the night of the 28th, the 
 little Union force left at the gap was brushed aside, and on 
 the morning of the 29th, the march was resumed to the roar of 
 Jackson's artillery attacking Poe's brigade under Heintzelman, 
 that made an attempt to flank the enemy's right. This was 
 after 10 A. M. There can be no mistake as to the hour, for it 
 was entered in Heintzelman's diary. This is confirmed by 
 a memorandum attached to the .report of General J. E. B. 
 Stuart. After the fight was over and Poe repulsed, General 
 Stuart reports that he went in search of Longstreet, riding 
 in the rear of Jackson's army along Centerville road. He 
 met Lougstreet at the head of his column between Gains- 
 ville and Haymarket. Now, counting the time necessary to 
 repulse Poe, for Stuart did not leave the field till that was 
 ended add to this the ride on exhausted horses, for Stuart 
 was in from one of the most desperate raids ever accom- 
 plished by Confederate cavalry in which he had ridden as 
 Cook, General Lee's biographer informs us, " through storm
 
 Fitz John Porter's Failure. 191 
 
 and shine, through night and day" we say add such a ride 
 to the time given to the fight, and it must have been 1 p. M. 
 or later when he met the head of Longstreet's force. We 
 learn from General Lee that it took two hours and a half to 
 get the force in line of battle, and that line was the prolonga- 
 tion of Jackson's right nowhere near Porter's front. 
 
 Had this creature of McClellan's moved in to the sup- 
 port of our left any time during the 29th, one of two things 
 would have happened. Either he would have demonstrated 
 the presence of Longstreet and so enabled Pope to fall back 
 as was his intent behind Centerville and then wait for the 
 slow moving reinforcements from McClellan's army, or the 
 movement on Jackson's right in the absence of Longstreet 
 would have annihilated Jackson's army. As it was, the 
 frightful disaster of the 30th occurred, and this man, lately 
 restored not only to position and a claim on the treasury, 
 but to public estimation as a loyal officer, has upon his hands 
 the blood of many thousand brave men killed and wounded 
 through his treachery. 
 
 We have dwelt at length upon this affair because of the 
 treason developed that so nearly proved fatal to the cause of 
 the government. That the administration was forced to 
 fetch back the army to the fortifications of Washington be- 
 fore it dared displace its general, can be accepted as the truth 
 of history. That this same man willfully refused co-opera- 
 tion with General Pope, all his acts after his return to Alex- 
 andria bear witness. The motives that made him retain 
 Franklin's and Sumner's corps after positive orders from the 
 War Department to hurry them to the field, are reflected in 
 the insolent telegrams in which he advises to " leave Pope to 
 get out of his scrape" and in the refusal of Franklin to report 
 to Pope and of Porter to fight. The shame of it all is that 
 the man is now known, since " his own story " is published, 
 to have been such an imbecile. Had he been what his silly 
 followers claimed for him, a Napoleon, the whole affair would 
 have gained in the dignity of crime from what we now 
 shrink from as a sickening folly. We have a strange weak- 
 ness as a people in our burning desire to have heroes to wor- 
 ship, and, rather than do without, we imitate barbarous
 
 19:2 Life of Thomas. 
 
 races in creating them. Not content with the onions and 
 monkeys kindly furnished us by nature, that we might adore 
 as did the Egyptians, we hasten to stuff effigies of men with 
 imaginary qualities, and not only bump our empty skulls 
 upon the floor in their presence, but proceed in wrath to 
 brain any one who attempts to puncture the idols and expose 
 the stuffing. 
 
 The defeat of Pope's army drove the administration at 
 Washington to a deeper degradation than it had already suf- 
 fered. Instead of deposing the incompetent at the head of 
 the army, whose insolence and treachery would have justi- 
 fied arrest and trial, the president was forced to continue him 
 that the men thoroughly permeated with distrust might be 
 reorganized and again put in the field. This was the work 
 of President Lincoln. The man who selected his Secretary 
 of War because of that secretary's ability, in the face of an 
 openly expressed contempt, and the gravest insult one man 
 could offer another, was not one to consult his fears in an 
 awful emergency, such as the one which fell upon the gov- 
 ernment. Using his own quaint fable that came to be com- 
 mon political property on the stump, he said, " It is no time 
 to swap horses while swimming the stream. We must bear 
 with this fellow a little longer. He was useful in organizing 
 an army in the first instance, and can be of use in reorganiz- 
 ing this." 
 
 And so, George B. McClellan continued in command. 
 Lee's foolish invasion of Maryland followed. To one who 
 saw the rout at the Second Bull Run, that was the wildest of 
 the war, and knew of the treason that brooded in the head- 
 quarters at Alexandria, and knew that on the night of the 
 fatal 30th, the entire army under Lee could have entered 
 Washington with our panic-stricken mob of unarmed men, 
 for in such a flight no man could be expected to carry his 
 musket, the neglect of the opportunity sounded the death 
 knell of the Confederacy. The invasion of Maryland was 
 not only as hopeless as had been that of Bragg of Kentucky, 
 but it was an acknowledgment of weakness. The broad 
 river and the heavy fortifications were confessed by Lee to be 
 beyond his best effort. He had wrested a great victory from.
 
 Lee- Invades Maryland. 103 
 
 under the feet of a mighty foe. He saw his enemies flying 
 in wild disorder, and he knew that their head-quarters were 
 rendered useless to their government by a treason that fairly 
 honey-combed the camp. He turned aside and marched into 
 Maryland, leaving on his flank all there was of the Union 
 forces. He gave them time to make up their mean little dif- 
 ferences, to reorganize, refit, and reinforce the huge army. 
 He marched into Maryland with a proclamation and a hope. 
 The proclamation invited Maryland to join the Confederate 
 cause, and the hope was that out of the abundance of that 
 prosperous state, supplies might be given to his empty com- 
 missary, and fresh recruits to the thinned ranks of his army. 
 Unfortunately, he showed to the Marylanders the army they 
 were to equip and recruit. The ragged, gaunt host of grim 
 veterans were not inviting. Shoeless, and in tatters, their 
 ouly uniform dirt, they swung by, the ghost of an army, 
 and " My Maryland " saw what proved to be the truth, that 
 victory to such a force was as fatal as defeat. It was mani- 
 fest that the South had no solid, stalwart sons of toil on 
 which to build, and, of course, no resources to sustain such 
 under arms. Slavery had wasted men as it had impoverished 
 the soil, and it was only a question of time when the crash 
 would come, and the cause of state rights be a lost cause to 
 the continent. Had Lee captured Washington, he would 
 have had no need of a call upon the border states. He 
 would have won recognition from the European governments, 
 and their interference would have soon followed, which had 
 in it a negotiation for peace, and a boundary line that would 
 have put the capitol of our fathers in the keeping of men 
 who made human servitude the corner stone of their social 
 and political fabric. 
 
 The danger of the Union was not in that fierce host of 
 terrible fighters^ but in the council chambers and kingly cab- 
 inets of Europe. The very victories that so wasted the 
 strength of the South, were against them. They lulled our 
 foreign enemies into the belief that the Confederates were 
 quite able to win without embarrassing interference from 
 them. Although relieved by Lee's move into a grave trap of 
 13
 
 194 Life of Thomas. 
 
 his own creating, what days of killing anxiety, what night- 
 sweats came to the men at Washington in that dark hour of 
 our peril. The senseless mass that go shouting over the 
 brainless bullet-heads, gold braid and feathers in the blaze 
 and glare of war made great, had better turn their eyes to 
 our real heroes, who, under Lincoln, saved the grand Repub- 
 lic. But we prefer. 
 
 The duet o'er gilded, to the gold o'er dusted. 
 
 And BO build cloud-capped monuments to the heroes of 
 disaster, while slow decay effaces the names of those who 
 have real claims upon a nation's gratitude. 
 
 While McClellan slowly moved in at the head of the 
 two armies, upon Lee's flank and rear, that aggressive gen- 
 eral of -the South suddenly fell upon Harper's Ferry and 
 captured fifteen thousand men and enough supplies to relieve 
 his army. It is true that Harper's Ferry, as a military posi- 
 tion, meant Loudon and Maryland Heights, and the coward- 
 ice of Ford and the treachery of Miles gave these trophies 
 without resistance to the Confederates ; yet, had McClellan 
 marched a mile a day more rapidly than he did, such invest- 
 ment of the place as made the seizure of the heights possible 
 would not have been within the power of the Confederates. 
 
 While Harper's Ferry was being captured why an at- 
 tempt was made to hold the place is a military mystery 
 McClellan engaged Lee at South Mountain, and the passes 
 were gained after a fierce resistance by Hill and Longstreet's 
 forces. Had McClellan taken advantage of this success, we 
 now see clearly it would have resulted in an utter destruction 
 of the Confederate army. In his eagerness to capture Har- 
 per's Ferry, the Confederate general had put the Potomac 
 between almost two halves of his army, and ,it remained for 
 McClellan to defeat these forces in detail. Our great captain 
 did nothing of the sort. Marching upon his right instead 
 of upon his left, he fought for Turner's Gap long enough to 
 allow Lee to concentrate again. After came the battle of 
 Antietam, when it was demonstrated that "the great organ- 
 izer," as he is called, could not handle hie organization.
 
 McCldla-n," Failure and Removal. 
 
 The battle was fought by divisions, brigades, and even regi- 
 ments, and in no instance was the weight of our eighty- 
 seven thousand men felt by the forty thousand which Lee 
 had under him, until Hill's and McLaw's divisions came 
 upon the field late in the day. However, taking Lee's object 
 in view, and that was to get his army over the Potomac, 
 the result of the battle was a victory to our arms, and had 
 McClellan followed it up by a tierce attac'k in the morning, 
 the remnant of the Confederate force that would have made 
 the crossing might have been counted as missing and scat- 
 tered for all the evil they could do the Union thereafter. 
 Although reinforced by fourteen thousand fresh troops the 
 night of the battle, our general permitted the ConfederateH 
 to recross the Potomac, whence they fell back unmolested 
 to the security of Bunker Hill and Winchester. No orders 
 from Washington, however curtly worded, could induce 
 McClellan to renew active hostilities. 
 
 "This fellow," said Secretary Stanton to the President, 
 " is settled with his family at Washington, and is there for 
 the winter.'' 
 
 "Has he sent for his wife?" 
 
 " His wife is with him." 
 
 "And that black and tan terrier?" 
 
 " Is one of the family." 
 
 " Then he has gone into winter quarters and must be 
 removed." And he was removed.
 
 196 Ltfe of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Rosocrans given Command of the Army of the Cumberland Thomas pro- 
 tests against his Junior being placed over Him Takes Command of 
 the Center Advance upon Chattanooga Battle of Stone River 
 Thomas opposes Retreat. 
 
 William S. Rosecrans prided himself in deeds that will 
 live in history to be a man of eminent military genius. We 
 use the word genius advisedly, well remembering its proper 
 as well as popular meaning. Genius is to the human mind 
 what the pearl is to the oyster disease but a pearl all the 
 same. It is not only a disease, but it is a surprise. General 
 Rosecrans could plan a campaign and tight a battle in a 
 way to amaze the military world, and yet he promised so 
 little that his promotion was accidental and carried with it 
 no prospect of aught but disaster. He was so ignorant of char- 
 acter that he could not distinguish between Alexander 
 McDowell McCook and George H. Thomas. His business 
 capacity was so limited that a department under him was 
 in confusion, and yet from the beginning of his career 
 in the army until its close his record is a brilliant suc- 
 cession of triumphs that are as strange as they are start- 
 ling. This record begins with the battle of Rich Moun- 
 tain in July, '61, when McClellan found himself in command 
 of thirty thousand men opposed to Generals Pegram and 
 Garnett with only ten thousand all told. But the Confeder- 
 ates were strongly fortified, the one on Laurel Hill and the 
 other and larger force upon Rich Mountain, West Virginia. 
 While McClellan was hesitating as to what to do General 
 Rosecrans asked permission to lead a brigade by a bridle 
 path to the rear of Pegram. This was granted upon an 
 understanding to the effect that when Rosecrans got in 
 position he was to inform his general commanding, who 
 would immediately second the effort in the rear by an attack 
 on the front. This was based upon the belief that Rosecrans
 
 Rosecrans First Victory. 197 
 
 would surprise the enemy. The force led along the moun- 
 tain path to the rear created much consternation, but failed 
 as a surprise, and Rosecrans was scarcely in position before 
 he was called on to tight and fought so bravely with muskets 
 alone that unaided he drove Pegram and his men into the 
 mountains. This led to the defeat of Garnett and a capture 
 of the entire forco. 
 
 McClellan received his notice of Rosecrans' condition 
 in the roar of the conflict that echoed and re-echoed ajnong 
 the mountains as if a million of men were engaged in a 
 death struggle. McClellan having got no word from his 
 gallant subordinate, naturally believed, for McClellan, that 
 he was being defeated, and rested idly in his tent until late 
 in the day when a portion of Rosecrans' command came into 
 cam}) through Pegram's works with a goodly number of Con- 
 federate prisoners. 
 
 This brilliant little achievement had two results. With 
 the press and people unacquainted with the details, McClel- 
 lan received all the praise. At Washington among the mil- 
 itary Rosecrans rose as a marked man. Lincoln and Chase, 
 especially, were struck with the audacity and dash of the 
 venture, and after McClellan, Rosecrans was selected for high 
 promotion. It was soon discovered, however, that their favor- 
 ite had defects, not so fatal to the cause as those of McClellan, 
 but eminently fatal to himself. As we have said, he lacked 
 in business capacity and was character blind. Could he 
 have handled men as he handled masses he never would 
 have made a deadly enemy of Edwin M. Stanton. A blind 
 believer in military training, he regarded civilians in camp 
 or cabinet as obstacles in the way of success and could not 
 therefore see in the great War Secretary any thing beyond 
 the President's clerk, whose impertinent interference was to 
 be rebuked, if not snubbed, by the military generals he an- 
 noyed with his orders. In illustration of this we have to 
 record the fact that when a vacancy in the regular army of 
 a major-generalship occurred, Mr. Stanton addressed a cir- 
 cular to all the generals in the field announcing the fact that 
 this position was to be awarded to the commander who 
 achieved the first great victory. All save Rosecrans re-
 
 198 Life of Thoma*. 
 
 ceived this with thanks. Our impulsive general seized his 
 pen and administered a scathing rebuke in return. ^ He ad- 
 vised the indignant War Secretary that he, Rosecrans, was in 
 arms, not for the sake of personal reward, but from patriotic 
 impulse, and that such an offer was ill-advised and ill-timed. 
 We have no access to the response that Mr. Stanton did not 
 make of record other than in a nature that was strangely 
 bitter, vindictive and tenacious in its memory of insults. 
 
 It is a striking fact that of the three members of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln's cabinet most necessary to the successful issue 
 of the conflict, that is of State, War and Finance, each one 
 was greater in his chosen vocation than his President. But 
 no one of them held as much of all as the man God in his 
 mercy called to power in that dark hour of peril to the 
 desperate government. Abraham Lincoln was the great 
 balance-wheel to the machine and held it steadily to its work. 
 Stanton had his faults, and grave faults they were, but he 
 had no weaknesses. The President interfered only when 
 the faults were likely to work wrong to the cause. Had he 
 not exercised his wise control, Stanton, with Pope's army 
 drifting a wreck into Washington and the Army of the Po- 
 tomac under disloyal generals worked into a condition of in- 
 subordination, would have put McClellau under arrest and 
 summoned a drum-head court-martial to try the weak gen- 
 eral for insubordination in the face of the enemy. And now, 
 when it becomes necessary to select a general to serve in 
 place of Buell, removed, President Lincoln intervened be- 
 tween Mr. Stanton's vindictive dislike and the public good. 
 
 The great War Secretary selected George H. Thomas, 
 not only because of his confidence in the eminent Virginian, 
 but because he was advised that Secretary Chase was about 
 to approach the President in behalf of Rosecrans. The 
 President did listen patiently to both Secretaries, and then 
 said: 
 
 " Let the Virginian wait ; we will try Rosecrans." 
 
 The writer of this happened to be in the office of the 
 Wa Secretary when Mr. Stanton returned from the execu- 
 tive mansion, bilious with wrath at Secretary Chase's inter- 
 ference and Rosecrana' success. His first words were:
 
 Thomas Overslaughed. 199 
 
 ''Well, you have your choice of idiots; now look out 
 for frightful disaster." 
 
 We will see how these ominous words followed and 
 shadowed a pure patriot and a brilliant soldier to the end. 
 
 The General Order No. 168, assigning General William 
 S. Rosecrans to command of the army in place of General 
 Buell, was isued the 24th of October, 1862. It was a painful 
 surprise to General Thomas. It will be rememberd that, 
 when the position was tendered him at Louisville, he asked, 
 without declining, that it might be suspended. He had 
 every reason to believe that such had been the course taken. 
 Considered worthy the command on the 29th of September, 
 what had occurred since to throw him out of the line of 
 promotion? To those who have been busy in egotistical 
 memoirs, letters, and addresses, damning General Thomas 
 in faint praise by saying that he was a good officer, but too 
 slow for a subordinate and too cautious for an independent 
 command, and that he shrunk from all responsibility, had 
 better read the letter he addressed General Halleck upon that 
 occasion. It is as follows : 
 
 " Soon after coming to Kentucky, I urged upon the 
 government to send me twenty thousand men properly 
 equipped to take the field, that I might at least make the 
 attempt to take Knoxville and secure East Tennessee. My 
 suggestions were not listened to, but were even passed by in 
 silence. But, without boasting, I believe I have exhibited at 
 least sufficient energy to show that, if I had been intrusted with 
 that expedition at that time (fall of 1861), I might have con- 
 ducted it successfully. Before Corinth, I was intrusted with 
 the command of the right wing, or Army of the Tennessee. 
 I feel confident that I did my duty patriotically, and with a 
 reasonable amount of credit to myself. As soon as the 
 emergency was over, I was relieved and returned to the 
 command of my old division. I went to my duties with- 
 out a murmur*, as I am neither ambitious nor have any polit- 
 ical aspirations. On the 30th of September, I received an 
 order through your aide, Colonel McKibben, placing me in 
 command of the Department of the Ohio, and directing 
 General Buell to turn over the command of his troops to
 
 200 Life of Thomas. 
 
 me. This order came just as General Buell had by extraor- 
 dinary efforts prepared his army to pursue and drive the 
 rebels from Kentucky. Feeling that a great injustice would 
 be done him if not permitted to carry out his plans, and that 
 I would be placed in a situation to be disgraced, I requested 
 that he might be retained in command. The order relieving 
 him was suspended, but to-day I find him relieved by Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans, my junior, although I do not feel conscious 
 that any just cause exists for overslaughing me by placing 
 me under my junior, and I therefore am deeply mortified 
 and grieved at the course taken in this matter." 
 
 To this warm yet dignified protest, General Halleck 
 responded as follows: 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE ARMY, 
 
 WASHINGTON, November 15, 1862. 
 
 GENERAL Your letter of October 30th is just at hand. 
 I can not better state my appreciation of you than by refer- 
 ring you to the fact that at Pittsburg Landing I urged upon 
 the Secretary of War to secure your appointment as major- 
 general, in order that I might place you in command of the 
 right wing of the army over your superiors. It was through 
 my urgent solicitation that you were commissioned. 
 
 When it 'was determined to remove General Buell, 
 another person was spoken of as his successor ; and it was 
 through my solicitation that you were appointed. You hav- 
 ing virtually declined the command at that time, it was nec- 
 essary to appoint another, and General Rosecrans was selected. 
 
 You are mistaken about General Rosecrans being your 
 junior. But this is of little importance, for the law gives 
 the President power to assign without regard to dates, and 
 he has seen tit to exercise it in this case and many others. 
 
 Rest assured, General, that I fully appreciate your mili- 
 tary capacity, and will do every thing in my power to give 
 you an independent command when opportunity offers. It 
 was not possible to give command after you had declined it. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. W. HALLECK, 
 
 Comman der-in-chief."
 
 Antedating a Commission. 201 
 
 In considering this shameful treatment of General 
 Thomas, it is well to remember what we have been at some 
 pains to state, the political influences that were brought to 
 bear upon the mind of Abraham Lincoln. We have seen 
 that General Buell was regarded by all the hot gospelers of 
 abolitionism and especially by Andrew Johnson and his im- 
 mediate followers as disloyal to the cause, and not therefore 
 to be trusted with any command. General ThomaS, being 
 by birth a Virginian, was of course suspected, but, when he 
 wisely asked that the order placing him in Buell's position 
 might be suspended, the suspicion in the minds of the fanatics 
 became confirmed distrust. This was brought to bear upon 
 the President. Now, it is extremely doubtful whether Presi- 
 dent Lincoln shared in their distrust. It is more than proba- 
 ble that he was moved to a selection of Rosecrans because he 
 had not only confidence in him, but knew that, while Rose- 
 crans was not offensive to the abolitionists, he, being a Cath- 
 olic, had a wide popularity with the true believers of that 
 faith. It was well known that the Catholic clergy at home 
 and abroad had little sympathy with our government in its 
 armed attempt to sustain the Union. The strife from that 
 point of view was regarded as a Yankee war, originating 
 with Puritans, who began with hanging Quakers, and con- 
 tinued such bigoted persecution by denying the Catholics 
 the civil rights and social privileges accorded other sects. It 
 was not a body of people to be neglected or slighted. At 
 that time the Irish contingent of volunteers made a force of 
 brave men, and, to increase that force in the field and win 
 favor in the eyes of the Catholics at home, it was well to ad- 
 vance General Rosecrans, who, after assisting at mass in the 
 morning, felt free to swear his orders through till late at 
 night. 
 
 This promotion was not without friction. Not only did 
 Thomas's commission antedate that of General Rosecrans, 
 but also those of Generals McCook and Crittenden. Presi- 
 dent Lincoln solved the difficulty by quietly moving his pen 
 through the date of Rosecrans' commission, and writing 
 over August 16, 1892, March 21 of the same year. With
 
 202 Life of Thomas. 
 
 this fact known to us, we read General Thomas's reply to 
 General Halleek : 
 
 " GALLATIN, TENN., November 21, 1862. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, 
 
 Commanding U. S. Army, Washington, D. C. 
 
 GENERAL I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
 of your letter of the 15th instant, and to thank you sincerely 
 for the kindness of its tone. I should not have addressed 
 you in the first place, if I had known that General Rose- 
 crans' commission was dated prior to mine. The letter was 
 written, not because I desired the command, but for being 
 superseded by a junior in rank, when I felt that there was 
 no good cause for so treating me. 
 
 I have no objection to serving under General Rosecrans, 
 now that I know that his commission dates prior to mine, 
 but I must confess that I should feel deeply mortified should 
 the President place a junior over me without a just cause, al- 
 though the law authorizes him to do so should he see fit. 
 
 I am, General, very truly yours, 
 
 GEORGE H. THOMAS, 
 
 Major- General U. S. A" 
 
 When, some time subsequent to this, General Thomas 
 learned the facts of the forgery, he was extremely indignant, 
 and wrote to General Halleek : 
 
 " I have made my last protest while the war lasts. You 
 may hereafter put a stick over me, if you choose to do so. I 
 will take care, however, to so manage my command, what- 
 ever it may be, as not to be involved in the mistakes of the 
 stick." 
 
 General Rosecrans hastened to tender General Thomas 
 a continuation of his position as second in command, but our 
 hero was weary of a place that had in it honor alone, and 
 asked for a command with well defined duties and individual 
 responsibility. In response to this, he was given the center, 
 with Generals Rousseau, Dumont, Negley, and Fry as his 
 subordinates. 
 
 Ever mindful of the grand objective point of the war on 
 our side, General Thomaa again brought forward his old plan
 
 Chattanooga Thomas' Objective. 203 
 
 of invasion through Cumberland Gap and East Tennessee to 
 Chattanooga. He claimed that a column of twenty thousand 
 men was more available in that direction than a hundred 
 thousand on the line through Nashville. Kentucky had 
 proven herself entirely neutral, while East Tennessee swarmed 
 with citizens who, if not loyal to the Union at heart, were in 
 deadly enmity to the Confederate cause, and had suffered 
 terribly from their open avowal of hostility to the govern- 
 ment at Richmond. The line of supply could be more easily 
 maintained, and the army, instead of moving among foes, 
 would receive aid and comfort from friends. 
 
 General Rosecrans thought favorably of the plan of 
 campaign. His acute military mind followed Thomas with 
 a clear comprehension of the situation. He saw at a glance 
 that it was a great flank movement on the forces under Lee 
 in Virginia, and if successful, as it promised to be, would 
 force the lighting out of Virginia to the cotton states. Our 
 gallant navy was winning its way along the coast, so that a 
 struggle confined to the cotton states must of necessity be 
 brief. It was a fascinating proposition to General Rose- 
 crans, but there was a lion in the path. The Catholic gen- 
 eral had been out of the military service many years, and in 
 that time mixing with the people had picked up some polit- 
 ical information. He comprehended clearly the lofty ambi- 
 tion of Andrew Johnson in his desire to be a military gov- 
 ernor with an army of a hundred thousand men to hold 
 down the population he was supposed to benefit by govern- 
 ing. General Rosecrans knew that this executive inebriate 
 was sustained by a political power that forced obedience, 
 whenever it failed to command respect. The general com- 
 manding remembered that Thomas, the author of the pro- 
 posed campaign, had been thrust aside by this maliffn influ- 
 ence, General Mitchell discouraged and threatened, and Gen- 
 eral Buell driven from his command in disgrace, and so had 
 no care to try conclusions with any such political element. 
 
 The newly made commander put the grand plan of a 
 campaign behind him and proceeded with his political work, 
 which meant to defeat and drive Bragg from Tennessee, and 
 once more return to Governor Johnson his conquered terri-
 
 204 Life of Thomas. 
 
 tory. To this end he began the concentration of forces at 
 Nashville. To make this concentration available, it was 
 necessary to open again the line of railroad from Louisville 
 to Nashville arid at the last named place accumulate vast 
 supplies. This essential work was given to General Thomas 
 and his command. 
 
 To keep open a single line of railroad through a hostile 
 territory for two hundred miles taxed the resources of 
 Thomas's entire command. A guerrilla chief of high cour- 
 age and audacity known as John Morgan with a mere hand- 
 ful of men put the entire Army of the Cumberland at de- 
 fiance. Seizing the best horses at command in a region of 
 country long famous for its fast speed and blood in horses, 
 this famous raider could burn a bridge or blow up a tunnel 
 in sight of infantry set to guard one or the other, and be off 
 before even a bullet could be sent after him. Here to-day 
 and gone to-morrow, he puzzled officers and bid defiance to 
 troops, and kept a huge, force of men under engineers busily 
 repairing what was so easily destroyed. General Thomas 
 met this exasperating evil by organizing a cavalry that was 
 something more than men on horseback. When the war 
 first began, it was a West Point idea that it was to be fought 
 out without cavalry. When we recovered from this idiotic 
 condition and begun organization, it was based on the worst 
 possible system in accepting men who wanted to ride instead 
 of searching for those who knew how to ride. Volunteers 
 from towns and cities who never had been astride of a horse 
 were fascinated with the idea of owning one, while the coun- 
 try bred, well knowing that not only was riding a labor but 
 the care of the horse a heavy task, fought shy of that arm 
 of the service. The consequence was that the cavalrymen 
 were helpless in the saddle, while their horses were starved 
 and ridden to death in thirty days. It was said for nearly 
 two years of our cavalry that onte never was killed save by a 
 fall from his horse. 
 
 General Thomas organized a corps of mounted riflemen 
 selected from farmers' sons, and directed them not to guard 
 the railroad, but hunt down John Morgan and his men. 
 The result was that the famous raider, finding himself
 
 Rosecrans Moves on Nashville. 205 
 
 closely pursued in Kentucky, had the audacity to attempt a 
 raid on Ohio. It began brilliantly enough, but ended in the 
 penitentiary. 
 
 The necessary preparations for an advance of our army 
 were punctured continuously by impatient thrusts from the 
 War Department. That Edwin M. Stanton sought to drive 
 Rosecrans from the command, can not now be doubted, and had 
 he not been restrained by President Lincoln and Secretary 
 Chase, he would undoubtedly have succeeded. The reason of 
 this unreasoning enmity could not fail to feel his insecurity, 
 and to placate the irate Secretary, he did that which proved a 
 source of continuous disaster and his ruin in the end. Sec- 
 retary Stanton, as strong in his friendships as he was in his 
 enmity, had the McCook family as his wards, and his especial 
 pet was Alexander McDowell McCook. General Rosecrans 
 tendered the War Secretary the olive branch by giving this 
 genial gentleman, but utterly incompetent officer, command 
 of the right wing of the army. This was - a fatal step and 
 second to that was the weakening of the center by with- 
 drawing a huge force to guard the communication between 
 Louisville and Nashville. This left Thomas only Rous- 
 seau's and Negley's divisions with two detached brigades 
 from the rear. 
 
 Moving by different roads from Nashville, the army un- 
 der Rosecrans came abreast at Stone river near Murfreesboro 
 with that of Bragg. It was a cold, cloudy evening of the 
 29th of December, with the twilight darkening down in ad- 
 vance of sunset, when General Thomas, riding slowly along 
 the lines then going into camp for the night, heard heavy 
 firing to the front and left. There had been more or less of 
 disturbance of this sort in the active march from Nashville, 
 but the annoyance made by the enemy was easily brushed 
 aside. On this occasion, however, the roar was more pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 " What is the meaning of that, General ?" asked an aide 
 of General Thomas. 
 
 " It means a fight to-morrow on Stone river," was the 
 brief response as the general continued calmly his preparations 
 for the night.
 
 i>0(j Life of Thomas. 
 
 True enough, General Rosecrans, believing the enemy to 
 be in full retreat, had ordered General Crittenden late in the 
 evening to cross Stone river and occupy Murfreesboro. In 
 obeying this command Crittenden found such a decided re- 
 sistance that he reported the enemy to be in force upon the 
 further side of the river and received in return an order to fall 
 back. Crittenden's report was confirmed by the right in a 
 fierce engagement which McCook's force met from the en- 
 emy when our right sought to go into camp for the night. 
 Bragg's entire army tff veterans was posted on Stone river 
 to dispute the further march of the forces of the Union. 
 
 A night before a great battle in our army of volunteers 
 differed strongly from that of probably any other armed 
 force, especially in Europe. The volunteers, however well 
 drilled and disciplined into a fighting machine, had yet an 
 interest more or less intelligent that they were free to exer- 
 cise. The bayonets not only thought but felt, and around 
 each camp-fire was an improvised council of war, in which 
 not only the situation was considered, but the character and 
 capacity of officers discussed. This condition strengthens 
 an army, provided the men wearing epaulets possess the en- 
 tire confidence of those bearing muskets. That the dis- 
 crimination is apt to be mainly correct and just, a knowledge 
 .of public opinion confirms. Men may be misled as to facts 
 and through distorted evidence of such can well be deceived 
 as to leaders they seldom or never encounter personally. But 
 when opportunities are given the eventual verdict can be re- 
 lied on. On the cold, murky night of the 30th, could one 
 have passed from camp to camp and gathered up the opin- 
 ions expressed he would have been able to almost outline the 
 successes and failures of the day to come. We must also re- 
 member that whether the convictions that prevailed were 
 just or unjust they influenced action on the part of those who 
 made for us victory or defeat. It is a tradition of the Army 
 of the Cumberland that confidence in success was based on 
 the fact that " Pap Thomas " held the center, as the fact 
 proved when the trial came. 
 
 All men are brave through association. "We mean that 
 the great Republic, having called into the field the fighting
 
 Stone. River. 207 
 
 element of its loyal population, had a right to count on a 
 certain amount of courage to make battles and campaigns. 
 But this successful courage depends on .reasonable conditions. 
 The men must touch elbows in spirit as well as in person, 
 and, above all, must have confidence in their officers. The 
 bravest body of men ever put under arms and drilled into 
 veterans are subject to panics in the presence of the unex- 
 pected. As we have said before, this is the fatal effect which 
 follows successful flank movement or an attack in the rear. 
 To overcome this, there is nothing so potent as the cool, self- 
 possessed conduct of the general in command who possesses 
 the confidence of his men. 
 
 No battle came off upon the 30th of December. General 
 Rosecrans, finding the enemy at his front prepared to resist 
 before Murfreesboro his further approach, passed the day in 
 getting his forces in position preparatory to an assault. To this 
 end he massed his troops heavily under Crittenden upon his 
 left for the purpose of flanking an enemy he found strongly 
 posted upon heights well fortified. General Bragg, without 
 regard to Stone river that cut his right at almost right angles, 
 had seized on a line of heights running for over a mile from 
 north to south. To flank this position on Bragg's left called 
 for a march of two miles and a crossing of Stone river in 
 the face of the enemy. 
 
 As General Rosecrans did not attack on the 30th, Gen- 
 eral Bragg determined to take the initiative and open fight 
 on the 31st. While strongly posted, there were conditions 
 that might arise and make his position extremely precarious. 
 He had his army cut, as we have stated, by Stone river. It 
 was midwinter and a stormy one. This same river might in 
 any twelve hours rise to a stage of water that would be fatal 
 to his army. He believed that the Union army greatly out- 
 numbered his and so could not afford to take chances that 
 might augment the difference. Hence, he resolved to end 
 the delay by taking the initiative at daylight on the 31st. 
 Strange to say he determined upon the same maneuver, only 
 reversed, that General Rosecrans had resolved on. He pre- 
 pared to strike our left. In the evening General Bragg 
 extended his left, made up of McGowa's and Cleburne'a
 
 208 Life of Thomas. 
 
 divisions, sustained by Wharton's cavalry, quite a mile be- 
 yond our right. At daylight this line made up of two-fifths 
 of Bragg' s infantry swung around upon our right in assault 
 that for momentum and dash had probably no parallel in the 
 war. The immediate result was disastrous to the Union 
 army. Our flank made up of three brigades was badly ar- 
 ranged to meet an assault of eight full brigades. General 
 McCook's head-quartars were too far from the scene of the 
 conflict while General Willich next in command on the 
 field was not at his post. While General McCook was shav- 
 ing and General Willich was off' in search of information as 
 to the enemy that he could have had by remaining at the 
 head of his command, our men were left to fight as best they 
 could against overwhelming numbers. General Bragg in 
 his report of the battle claimed he had surprised our forces. 
 This was not true. Skirmish lines had been well thrown out 
 and we had full and fair warning of the approaching storm. 
 The men and their immediate officers were in line and pre- 
 pared as well as they could be. But their superior officers 
 ' who should have been at the front or in sight of it to remedy 
 our exposed position by an immediate rally of supports, were 
 surprised. Indeed, the information General Willich went in 
 search of was given him in the shape of a capture, not only 
 of seven hundred of his men, but the curious general him- 
 self. 
 
 Our brave fellows fought as well as they could, and bet- 
 ter than was to be expected. Kirk's and Willich's commands 
 were swept aside. Captain Edgarton, located near the salient 
 angle of the line, was captured with his battery, and the gal- 
 lant Goodspeed lost three guns posted to the right of Wil- 
 lich's brigade. This exposed General Davis's right flank to 
 the enveloping lines of the enemy, and Colonel Post was 
 forced to change ground perpendicular to the rear, and so 
 repel a flank attack. The 59th Illinois, supporting Pinney's 
 battery, was moved one-fourth of a mile to the right. The 
 74th and 75th Illinois infantry came up in support, and as 
 the enemy overlapped the 22d Indiana, moved in beyond the 
 battery. In a few seconds the enemy came in upon them, 
 attacking Baldwin and Post upon the flank, and Carlin,
 
 Thomas Stays Defeat. 209 
 
 Woodruff, and Sill in the front. The resistance made by 
 troops thus hurriedly called to new and trying positions was 
 so persistent that General Polk, of the Confederate service, 
 was forced to fetch up all his reserves. This was not the 
 only repulse made by our unsupported forces. But the 
 weight and force of the victorious enemy were irresistible,, 
 and our right fell back fighting, while the front of Bragg's 
 army swung in as our flank receded. The Confederates were 
 sweeping on to victory, but not without being made to pay 
 dearly for their gain. The losses were so heavy that General 
 Hardee was forced to call earnestly for reinforcements, nor 
 could he arrest the retreat of a single regiment, or pre- 
 vent the reformation of lines on new conditions as the old 
 gave way. 
 
 General Rosecrans, who had ordered Crittenden to ad- 
 vance, as we have stated, upon the enemy's right flank, find- 
 ing himself anticipated, countermanded his order and hur- 
 ried Crittenden to the support of his own shattered right. 
 It is not to be supposed that this gallant officer so brilliant 
 upon a field lost either head or heart. He not only pushed 
 forward his forces to remedy the loss, but rode at their head 
 for hours under the deadliest fire ever experienced in battle. 
 Captain Byron Kirby, a brave, capable aide, was shot out of 
 his saddle, and Col. Garesche, General Rosecrans' chief of 
 staff was killed, a round shot taking off his head, and so 
 close to his general that the blood and brains of one of the 
 most promising officer in the service fell in a shower upon 
 Rosecrans, who was so absorbed in his efforts to get up his 
 troops in time that he did not notice even these casualties. 
 As Major Frank S. Bond says when his attention was called 
 to the fact that Garesche was killed, he only glanced at the 
 headless trunk that for a second swayed to and fro upon the 
 flying charger ere it fell, and the general made no response. 
 His heart was wrung with anxiety no words can express, 
 and his eager eyes were on the columns that at the double 
 quick were hurrying to the rescue. He might have been re- 
 lieved had he known that at the pivotal point, ready at the 
 moment upon which trembled uncertain the fate of a 
 14
 
 210 . Life of Thomas. 
 
 death struggle, was one who, although prompt and efficient, 
 was cool and calm in the deadly hour of peril, and held in 
 the hollow of his hand a victory snatched from the jaws of 
 defeat. 
 
 General Thomas, holding the center, saw the right 
 doubled up, and a victorious foe sweeping on to his rear. It 
 was necessary to change front, and this in the midst of the 
 conflict, and in the face of the foe. This he did with all the 
 precision of a parade. It was done none too soon. The en- 
 tire army under Bragg, save Breckenridge's division left 
 across the river, was moving victoriously from a defeat of the 
 right wing upon the flank of the center. To designate at a 
 glance the new line, post upon it the troops unengaged, ex- 
 tricate the brigades that, fighting, fell back almost sur- 
 rounded by the foe, was the task given General George H. 
 Thomas, and it was accomplished in time to check and drive 
 back the enemy at the very moment when victory was in its 
 clasp. 
 
 The center, reinforced from the left, held its own against 
 repeated assaults until the short, cold day ended in a cloudy 
 night that enveloped the fatal field in a darkness that seemed 
 impenetrable. When the fighting ceased, the Union army 
 found itself driven back over a mile from its extreme right. 
 The entire army under Bragg except Breckenridge's division 
 was pressing in upon our forces at a point that had been our 
 center when the fight began. In a word, they were in pos- 
 session of the field, and so admirably posted that a renewal 
 of the battle next morning would be under more promising 
 conditions than those of the tight already ended. 
 
 General Thomas mingled, as was his wont, among his 
 troops listening to reports and suggestions of his subordinate 
 officers, and above all, looking to the care of the wounded. 
 A fact was impressed by the unfortunate events of the day 
 upon his thoughtful mind that had been a belief before, and 
 was conviction now. This truth was that the men making 
 up the Army of the Cumberland were not subject to the wild, 
 unreasoning panics that so afflicted the Army of the Po- 
 tomac. He saw the unexpected happen when the long, 
 heavy column of the enemy swung around the right and ap-
 
 Thomas Opposes Retreat. 211 
 
 peared almost in the rear of the badly posted brigades, and 
 he saw these brigades give way not in wild disorder, but 
 fighting desperately as they fell back under command of their 
 gallant officers. This fact, pressed upon his mind, gave birth 
 to the oracular saying that, uttered that night saved the Army 
 of the Cumberland from retreat. 
 
 General Rosecrans, who had overtaxed his strength in 
 his heroic efforts of the day, called a council of war that 
 night to consider the possibilities of a retreat that would 
 save what was left of his army. He was in no condition of 
 mind or body to give the crisis cool consideration. The 
 council was held in a rough log-cabin, but dimly lit and un- 
 warmed, a weird assembly on that New Year eve. All the 
 brave gentlemen assembled, from Rosecrans, in his old faded 
 uniform yet stiff with the blood and brain of Garesche, 
 down to the colonel the day's casualties had made com- 
 mander of a brigade, bore marks of the hard fight, not only 
 in the pale, anxious, yet firm faces and disordered dress, but 
 in several instances bloody wounds. General Thomas, mov- 
 ing in his slow, deliberate way through the throng to a cor- 
 ner, found a board, and, improvising a seat, leaned back and 
 fell asleep. As the discussion opened and continued with 
 much heat, Rosecrans often cast his eyes upon the man who 
 had saved his center that day, as if longing fot an opinion 
 he had, like other commanders, learned to lean upon. But 
 Thomas slept on. 
 
 We are told that a majority of the officers favored not a 
 retreat, but falling back to a better position. Rosecrans was 
 considering a retreat to Nashville. He was possessed of 
 some facts not known to the officers present. Some ugly 
 demonstrations had been made by the enemy on our line of 
 supplies, and Nashville itself was in a feverish state of 
 alarm over an expected assault that would carry the city. 
 The discussion waxed warm. The gallant General Critten- 
 den led the opposition, and was warm in his antagonism to 
 any withdrawal of the army. He maintained that Bragg's 
 army was more crippled and in a worse condition than ours, 
 and to give way would break the spirit and destroy the 
 morale of our army. Near midnight, General Rosecrans
 
 212 Life of Thomas. 
 
 called on Surgeon Eben Swift, the medical director of the 
 department, to know if he had sufficient transportation to 
 remove our wounded. The doctor replied that he helieved 
 he had ; that there were between five and six thousand 
 wounded, but many of these could walk. General Rose- 
 crans then awakened Thomas and asked him : " Will you 
 protect the rear or retreat to Overall creek?" 
 
 General Thomas promptly and emphatically responded 
 in the memorable words, " This army can 't retreat," and fell 
 asleep again. And "this army" never did retreat. 
 
 It was after midnight when General McCook, at the re- 
 quest of Rosecrans, rode with him to the rear, for the pur- 
 pose of selecting a new position. The clouds that darkened 
 the fore part of the night cleared away, and the two officers 
 were not only able to see that the proposed position, owing 
 to the low condition of the ground, was untenable, but they 
 saw something else. General D. S. Stanley, under orders, had 
 forbid any fires to be built in the rear, but lawless wagoners 
 and some insubordinate cavalry had disobeyed these orders, 
 and far down on the west of the road the two generals saw 
 a long line of light, mostly torches, moving actively to and 
 fro. Rosecrans exclaimed : " The enemy is in our rear." He 
 not only remembered the reports from his disturbed lines 
 and of the condition of Nashville, but he gave a significance 
 to General Thomas's sententious utterance that was entirely 
 foreign to its utterance. The man who had brought five 
 brigades from out Bragg's army in the midst of a deadly 
 conflict that had for our apparently doomed forces a fire in 
 front, flank, and rear, and had swung his own line round 
 under a cross-fire of artillery and infantry, felt the fiber of 
 a force that might be killed bilt could not be driven. 
 
 General Rosecrans and his amiable but evil genius gal- 
 loped back to the tent, where most of the council remained, 
 and said : " We must fight or surrender." 
 
 The dawn of the New Year's day brought on no fight- 
 ing, nor yet that of the second. Had Rosecrans known how 
 terribly Bragg's forces had suffered in killed and wounded, 
 he would have renewed the conflict at daylight on the first. 
 We know now, being able to look impartially on both sides,
 
 About General Negley. 213 
 
 that such an attack must have resulted in an overwhelming 
 defeat of the Confederates. The dash of the Southern 
 troops that made such brave fighting in the beginning ex- 
 hausted a race that lacked staying power at all times. Over- 
 whelming as the victories of the South have been, in no one 
 instance was the fruit clearly and fairly gathered. Lee's 
 army, after every triumph on the field, seemed stunned by its 
 own success. Bragg's army formed no exception, and would 
 not probably have resumed the offensive even had it escaped 
 its terrible punishment. Even on the afternoon of the 
 second, we opened the conflict by General Crittenden send- 
 ing across Stone river, on the right of Bragg, Van Cleve's 
 division and Grose's brigade of Palmer's command. Gen- 
 eral Bragg, seeing the danger this meant to his right, ordered 
 Breckenridge to repel our forces. This was promptly exe- . 
 cuted. Van Cleve fell back to the bank of the river, under 
 protection of some fifty guns of Major John Mendenhall, 
 General Crittenden's chief of artillery. At this juncture 
 occurred a dashing event that was unexpected on both sides. 
 Colonel John J. Miller, irritated and disgusted, in common 
 with both men and officers of Negley 's command, at the cow- 
 ardly conduct of their general, took command without orders 
 from Negley and in opposition to those from another general 
 of division, and crossing the river with seven regiments, at- 
 tacked Breckenridge's forces with such fury that they were 
 forced back in great confusion toward Murfreesboro. Gen- 
 eral Jeff. C. Davis, with his division, advanced promptly to, 
 the support of Miller, and the two seized on, held, and forti- 
 fied a height that proved the key to ther situation. For this 
 gallant deed done without orders, General Negley, who took 
 no part in the affair, was promoted to major-general. 
 
 As the position taken and fortified in this impulsive 
 manner exposed Bragg's forces to an enfilading fire of artil- 
 lery, there was nothing left but immediate retreat. This 
 occurred on the night of the third. f The rear guard made 
 itself so annoying to Thomas's front that permission was 
 given for a night attack. The thin line of Confederates was 
 easily pierced, but the result came too late; General Bragg 
 was in full retreat. He saved his material, but left his 
 wounded at Murfreesboro.
 
 214 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Immediate Effect of the Stone River Victory Review of the Operation* 
 During the Six Months Following the Army of the Potomac Burnside 
 takes up McClellan's Cry of "On to Richmond" Disaster of Fred- 
 ericksburg Hooker succeeds Burnside Meade put in Command In- 
 vasion of Pennsylvania and Battle of Gettysburg. 
 
 The unexpected victory on Stone river sent a wave of 
 feeling through the North that lifted Rosecrans into high 
 popular favor, and bade fair to make him our foremost mili- 
 tary leader. It broke down for a time the personal hostility 
 of the "War Department, and, let the Secretary think what 
 he might, he was for a time reduced to silence. This was the 
 more irritating from the fact that Secretary Chase, who was 
 so earnestly involved in a military success that would insure 
 the financial system of the administration that was ever 
 trembling on the verge of collapse, could not refrain boast- 
 ing of his sagacity in selecting Rosecrans as the successor of 
 Buell. Stanton could ill-brook this interference on the part 
 of Chase, and in this instance it was doubly offensive from 
 his personal dislike of the general. 
 
 " You see," said Chase to Stanton, at a cabinet meeting, 
 " my friend has justified all I urged on you in his behalf." 
 
 "If you knew as much about Stone river as I do," 
 growled the War Secretary, "you would not feel so cock- 
 sure of your friend. But for George H. Thomas, the man I 
 wanted to head that army, Stone river, instead of being a 
 victory, would have been a defeat." 
 
 "Come now, Stanton," retorted Chase, "be just. We 
 selected Rosecrans, and Rosecrans ad the sagacity to select 
 Thomas. Then, you know, there is nothing so successful as 
 success." 
 
 Could General Rosecrans have followed this victory by 
 active operations and continuous fighting, he would unques- 
 tionably have won his way to a command of all our armies.
 
 Preparations for Advance. 215 
 
 But this he thought to be impossible. The line of advance 
 for the Army of the Cumberland in its march on Chatta- 
 nooga had by chance been made so difficult that an imme- 
 diate forward movement was out of the question. With 
 nothing but a single line of railroad reaching from Louisville 
 to Murfreesboro to depend on for "supplies, it required time 
 for transportation, even when the road was open ; but this 
 same road had not only to be guarded, but reconstructed, 
 continually. The line of advance by the way of Nashville 
 was run through the most disloyal, active, and intelligent 
 people of the Confederate states. Every step forward deep- 
 ened the hostility. The men kept at home by extreme 
 youth or old age, or other incapacity, armed with squirrel rifles, 
 infested every road, and made every laurel bush an ambus- 
 cade for stragglers from our army. The very women hurled 
 epithets at our troops as they marched by their dwellings. 
 It was not only necessary to rebuild the railroad without 
 ceasing, but that same road had to be guarded and heavy 
 fortifications constructed about the depots where arms, mu- 
 nitions of war, food, and clothing were collected. 
 
 Six months were given to this work. It met with no 
 approval at Washington. The War Department seemed to 
 shut its eyes willfully to the necessities of the situation. We 
 must in justice, however, say that Secretary Stanton, while 
 grumbling at the delay, lost no time in forwarding the sup- 
 plies demanded. He was less energetic in the forwarding of 
 men, for he honestly believed they could be more efficiently 
 used elsewhere. 
 
 In the meantime, as winter passed to spring and from 
 spring to summer, and the Army of the Cumberland was 
 being reorganized, well equipped, and stores upon which it 
 could depend accumulated, the war in other fields continued 
 to drift with an almost uniform loss to the Union armies. 
 
 While the Army of the Cumberland is at Murfreesboro 
 thus reorganizing for an advance, we will turn to the Army 
 of the Potomac, and learn what, during the six months fol- 
 lowing the battle of Stone river, was being done by that army 
 of defeats. 
 
 When, on the 8th of November, 1862, General Ambrose
 
 216 Life of Thomas. 
 
 E. Burnside superseded by order General McClellan, there 
 was consternation, not to say disgust, throughout the Army 
 .of the Potomac. It was generally known that the man thus 
 selected to the command of the one army of the Union des- 
 ignated to do the hardest fighting was strikingly incompe- 
 tent. It is but justice to General Burnside to say that he 
 shared himself in this conclusion, and deepened the djsmay 
 by its open avowal. The secret of this strange selection is 
 to be found in the condition of the army as McClellan held 
 and left it. The discontent of the men and the open disloy- 
 alty of the corps commanders were so marked that the ad- 
 ministration dared not put over them a soldier, however dis- 
 tinguished, not of the McClellan clique or circle. General 
 Bu>rnside,an amiable and loyal gentleman, had the confidence 
 of the government, not because of any ability, but for that 
 he privately criticised McClellan's motives and movements to 
 the President, and he had the favor of the McClellan group 
 for the sympathy he expressed in their behalf. And yet it 
 was well known that at the first Bull Run he refused to lead 
 a regiment, the only one left intact, into the fight, upon the 
 ground that said regiment was made up of the best families 
 of Rhode Island, and, if he got it cut up as the others were, 
 he would not dare to return to that state. At Antietam, 
 when ordered to carry a bridge, the possession of which 
 would have pierced the enemy's center, he delayed for 
 hours, until, indeed, the golden opportunity was past. He 
 had neither physical nor moral courage, and his protest, when 
 called to the responsibility of the high command, was simply 
 pitiable. 
 
 The truth is that nearly two years' observation and ex- 
 perience of the eminent men at Washington had given them 
 a contempt of merely military men. It seemed to them 
 that the " bullet heads," as the immortal Hawthorne had 
 designated the military leaders, an expression Secretary 
 Stanton and President Lincoln had adopted, were nearly all 
 the same ; that they all blundered into errors the men were 
 expected to rectify by hard fighting. Their capacity, they 
 believed, was exercised not in planning campaigns that had 
 any sense in objective points, but in the production of that
 
 Burnside Succeeds McClellan. 217 
 
 sort of military literature that followed blunders, called bat- 
 tles, and claimed premeditated reason for what in fact were 
 merely casualties. The President and his irritable Sec- 
 retary of "War really wished to put fighting Joe Hooker, as 
 he was called, in command, but firmly believed that such se- 
 lection would demoralize the entire army. 
 
 Of course Burnside took up what McClellan had left 
 and the senseless " on to Richmond " continued the cry of 
 press, people, and administration, although the ground to be 
 marched over gave Lee the strength of a hundred thousand 
 men to his well tried veterans. Every mountain range and 
 river became a fortification, behind which the army on the 
 defense doubled its forces while waiting in grim silence for 
 devoted men to be led to the slaughter. And if successful, 
 with Richmond captured, we would be'no nearer the end of 
 the war than before. 
 
 As Richmond was to be our military terminal, the sim- 
 ple-minded Burnside took the more direct route. He would 
 go by the way of Fredericksburg. To this end he moved 
 down the north bank of the Rappahannock to a position op- 
 posite that insignificant town. He labored under the strange 
 delusion that this movement was unknown to the enemy. 
 He seemed to forget ttfat he was marching through a coun- 
 try where all were hostile spies, and men and women active 
 and intelligent informers. To confirm all that came to Lee's 
 ears in this way, General J. E. B. Stuart, raiding across 
 Warrenton Springs, entered Warrenton just as our rear 
 guard were marching out, and found all the information 
 necessary in reports and papers the red tape of our army 
 carefully collected and as regularly left for the enemy's 
 perusal. Thus officially informed, Lee gathered his army 
 and hastily took position south of Fredericksburg. Nature 
 gave him in this a strange advantage. The Rappahannock, 
 running a southerly direction under bluffs in the east bank, 
 has on its west bank a level space of a mile in width and 
 about five miles in length, extending from Massaponnax 
 creek to where the bluffs abut on the Rappahannock op- 
 posite Beck's Island. Lee offered no opposition to Burn- 
 side's passage of the river other than an irregular fire of ar-
 
 218 Life of Thomas. 
 
 tillery at the pontoons bearing them across the stream. 
 This was intentionally feeble. Lee easily favored that cross- 
 ing. With eighty thousand veterans in position on the 
 bluff, and three hundred pieces of artillery to sweep the plain, 
 he laid in wait behind a dead-fall with victory as well se- 
 cured as if Burnside had surrendered in advance. On that 
 calm, mild Indian summer morning, a hundred thousand of 
 our brave fellows fell into line prepared for slaughter to the 
 music of six hundred guns that on the Confederate side 
 poured round shot and shell in our ranks, while the Union 
 artillery on the bluffs east of the river fell short and had 
 to cease firing, for they were doing more injury to our own 
 troops than to the enemy. 
 
 And was the fearful might of these hundred thousand 
 thrown at once upon the enemy? Not at all, for the battle 
 was fought as all the battles of the Potomac army, by brig- 
 ades and divisions, at times by a regiment only. Franklin, 
 for example, having under his command fifty-five thousand 
 men on our left, remained idle while the battle raged upon 
 his right. Franklin claimed that his order received at 7 A. 
 M. that day was so vaguely worded that he waited for more 
 decisive and clearer instructions. Why his army had been 
 crossed over the river and heavy reinforcements sent to him 
 and all brought face to face with the enemy, he did not 
 seem to consider. However, had the entire hundred thou- 
 sand been marched up those musket fringed, slippery heights, 
 their hopeless slaughter would have been only the greater. 
 What a frightful massacre it was. The Wilderness, Cold 
 Harbor, Chickasaw Bluff, and Kenesaw Mountain have since 
 come in to parallel that wholesale wanton assassination of 
 brave men at Fredericksburg, but no such sickening idiocy 
 in a commander has overtaken us since that dreadful event. 
 All day long the awful work went on. Our gallant men 
 went in by brigades and came out in remnants, leaving their 
 dead and wounded piled up in front of intrench ments that, 
 rising tier above tier, poured an incessant storm of shot, 
 shell, and musketry upon the storming parties that could 
 only cheer on and fall. When we build, as we are building, 
 lofty monuments to defeat, we should gather the bones of
 
 The Butchery of Fredericksburg . 219 
 
 such dead, and if they fail to out-top in each instance the 
 Obelisk at the national capitol to the memory of George 
 Washington, they will, at least, be significant in their ghastly 
 grim silence of all the monuments left to tell of incompe- 
 tence bathed in blood. 
 
 Our gallant subordinate officers had not learned then, as 
 they eventually did in subsequent campaigns, to send in 
 their men instead of leading them, and the loss of such waa 
 fearful . 
 
 Night ended the unequal conflict. At least fifteen thou- 
 sand had been sacrificed in vain. The next day the commis- 
 sioned idiocy proposed renewing the attack, but there was a 
 revolt along the whole line, and for two days following the 
 Confederate commander contented himself with strengthen- 
 ing his lines, and at last permitted our demoralized forces to 
 recross the river. Had he followed up his victory and 
 poured his veterans on our disorganized masses with a river 
 in their rear, he would have annihilated the Army of the 
 Potomac, and the road to Washington could have been 
 marched along as much unmolested as would have been the 
 triumphant tramp of his thousands along Pennsylvania ave- 
 nue to a possession of our capitol. Robert E. Lee failed to 
 close the trap Burnside had hurried into, and so the war 
 went on. 
 
 It went on, however, without Ambrose E. Burnside. 
 He was promptly relieved and "Fighting Joe Hooker" 
 called to lead a forlorn hope of a hundred thousand men. 
 General Joseph Hooker was a soldierly looking man, six 
 feet in height, well proportioned, with a face that had upon 
 it more the sparkle of high animal spirits than the repose 
 of thought. The fact that he possessed entire belief in him- 
 self, with a force of character peculiar to such leaders, se- 
 cured confidence in him from others, conspicuous among 
 whom were the President and Secretary of War. It is 
 told of Hooker, that when he first appeared at Washington 
 to solicit service, to which he was entitled, of course, being 
 a West Point graduate, certain reports from the Pacific 
 slope of wild dissipation and a demoralized condition pre- 
 ceded and accompanied him. The President and Secretary
 
 220 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Stanton had been warned by the McClellan crowd to beware 
 of Hooker. Failing to get recognition from the general in 
 command or notice from Stanton, Hooker appealed to Lin- 
 coln. In two interviews granted him by the President, the 
 applicant found that the amiable, easy mannered chief magis- 
 trate could say no with a ready facility that was only equaled 
 by the quiet firmness with which he stood by the negative. 
 In the third interview, however, General Hooker, impatient 
 at the opposition that he had discovered, broke into angry 
 denunciation of the McClellan crowd. 
 
 "You have put the armies of the Union, Mr. Presi- 
 dent," he cried, "in the hands of men who have neither 
 ability, courage, nor patriotism. They have no heart for the 
 fight and they crowd out those who have. Good morning, 
 Mr. President ; when you need me, let me know. I can 
 wait." 
 
 " Hold on, Hooker," responded President Lincoln, who 
 said afterward that he saw tears in the gallant officer's eyes 
 a fact the fighter repudiated, saying that it was whisky, not 
 water, that the chief magistrate saw " hold on ; I will con- 
 sult Stanton and McClellan and see what can be done." 
 
 "Advise them to give me command of the Army of the 
 Potomac," replied the audacious applicant. " It is bound to 
 come sooner or later, and might as well come now." 
 
 " Not so fast, Joseph," replied the President. " We will 
 give you a chance to fight your way up, and that is about all 
 you can ask now." 
 
 When McClellan's removal was finally determined, the 
 War Secretary had warmly pressed Hooker for the place. 
 Had he been free to choose, he would have preferred George 
 H. Thomas to any other. President Lincoln had his own 
 views, however, and, for reasons before stated by us, he se- 
 lected Burnside. 
 
 Hooker found the army in a demoralized and disorgan- 
 ized condition. The ninety-day men, called foolishly into 
 the service, were leaving the posts in the rear they were 
 called out to man, their time being at an end, and no amount 
 of persuasion could induce them to remain. Raw recruits, 
 it is true, were pouring in, but desertions of old soldiers and
 
 Hooker Replaces Bumside. 221 
 
 new soldiers numbered some two hundred a day. While the 
 front was filled with discontent, the rear was crowded with 
 thieving officials and contractors. It was the beginning of a 
 condition that not only continued but grew worse until the 
 end of the war. When the newly commissioned general came 
 to consult the rolls, he was startled to find that no less than 
 2,922 officers and 80,964 non-commissioned officers and men 
 were absent from their regiments, many of them in hospi- 
 tals, more on leave or detached duty, and a terrible list of 
 them unaccounted for in other words, deserters. 
 
 This was a deplorable showing, but must be recognized 
 as the legitimate result of blundering disasters and bloody 
 defeats that, beginning with the war, had accompanied the 
 Army of the Potomac for over two years. The volunteers 
 were men of more than ordinary intelligence, and had 
 been strengthened in their habits of assumed responsibility 
 by the absurd system of election of all officers under the' 
 grade of brigadiers, that made the rank and file more con- 
 stituents than soldiers. These men of the Potomac Army 
 had been won to confidence in McClellan by the silent and 
 most insidious means. The lamentable failure of Burnside 
 strengthened this prejudice, and when Hooker was commis- 
 sioned, the McClellan clique of higher officers became more 
 active and open in their opposition. Nothing daunted by 
 these malign influences and unhappy results, Hooker applied 
 himself vigorously to a reorganization of the army, devoting 
 two months to a better discipline and an attempt to put 
 more heart into the demoralized lines. 
 
 On the 27th of April, 1863, Hooker accomplished what 
 Burnside could have more readily done, and that was flank- 
 ing Lee out of his strong position on the high ground in the 
 rear of Fredericksburg. Leaving General Sedgwick with a 
 column of twenty thousand men to make a demonstration 
 on Lee's front he crossed the bulk of his army over the Rap- 
 pahannock and occupied Chancellorsville. It was not so strong 
 a position as that of Lee's at Fredericksburg. Having ac- 
 complished this strategic move our general fell into a 
 stupendous error. He jumped to the conclusion that, hav- 
 ing flanked the Confederates out of their stronghold, Lee
 
 222 Life of Thomas. 
 
 would fall back in retreat toward Richmond. To insure 
 this, as he thought, he had dispatched General George D. 
 Stoneman with nearly all his cavalry in a raid upon Lee's 
 communications. This had an unexpected result. The Con- 
 federates had a deserved contempt for the tailors, hatters 
 and shoemakers we had mounted as cavalry, and as Lee had 
 no accumulated stores in his rear to be destroyed he left the 
 feeble attempt of Stoneman and his men to exhaust itself. 
 The absence of the cavalry, such as it was, proved fatal to 
 our self-confident commander. Lee of course evacuated 
 Fredericksburg, but instead of falling back on Richmond he 
 moved silently and swiftly upon Chancellors ville. Suddenly 
 and without warning Stonewall Jackson's column of twenty- 
 five thousand struck Hooker's extreme right. Emerging 
 in lines three deep from a dense wood the veterans of Jack- 
 son fell with crushing weight and force upon the Eleventh 
 Corps, entirely unprepared. Nearly all with arms stacked 
 were preparing their supper, shared in, it is said, by what 
 ought to have been a picket line. It was a force made up 
 in large degree from a foreign element stranded upon our 
 sea-ports, too worthless to seek employment in the interior. 
 It was a cruel slaughter and a fearful panic that spread 
 swifter than legs could carry fear. 
 
 This disaster to our army had one good result to our 
 arms. Stonewall Jackson fell mortally wounded from the 
 fire of his own men. The great war genius of the South 
 went down and with him the fortunes of the Confederacy. 
 The fatal volley that sent the cruel bullets crushing through 
 his rugged form was a volley fired over the grave of the 
 lost cause. From that out good fortune deserted the Southern 
 side. It went down fighting to the last, but it went down. 
 The grand, simple mannered man of war, who infused his 
 indomitable spirit into his men and was a tower of strength 
 to the cause he fought for, died none too soon nor a day too 
 late. The Confederacy had reached its zenith. Up to that 
 time his prayers to God seemed to have been answered. The 
 rebel yell of triumph rung in his dying ears, and his last 
 glance on life took in our National Capital as yet open to 
 capture. There were elements at work sapping the founda-
 
 Disaster at Chancellor sville. 223 
 
 tion of his cause that dying he did not see ard living he 
 could not avert. 
 
 While the army of Richmond was wasting itself in 
 fruitless victories, Thomas and Rosecrans with their veterans 
 were preparing a death blow to the Southern cause in the 
 capture of their citadel, Chattanooga, and Grant with his 
 legions sustained by iron-clads were moving along the Mis- 
 sissippi, destined to make that inland sea of flowing waters 
 an impassable line cutting the Confederacy nearly in halves. 
 
 The Army of the Potomac differed from that of the 
 Cumberland, as, indeed, any army made up of North-western 
 men, in that it was subject to paralyzing panics that were 
 unknown elsewhere. The disaster that befell Hooker's 
 right was no greater than that of our right at Stone river, 
 but the panic made all the difference. As Blenker's 
 frightened fugitives fell back they stampeded Deven's com- 
 mand, that, rolling on with the mass, started Schurz's force 
 in advance, and the tide striking Steinwehr's division, 
 bore it along until a mass of forty thousand men were 
 poured into Chancellorsville with the tidings to the startled 
 commander that Lee and his entire army, instead of being 
 on a retreat, were annihilating the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 This was not accomplished, however, until after some 
 of the hardest fighting of the war. Sickles' corps, that had 
 been moved out in the direction of Predericksburg, not only 
 encountered the enemy, but from eight in the morning un- 
 til six P. M. did such execution that the report of killed 
 and wounded of Lee's army was never made public. This 
 was followed by the engagement on the next day, Sunday, 
 3d of May, when with our lines more contracted to cover the 
 loss on our right the army of Lee was held in a check that 
 bid fair at one time to be a great victory to our side. The 
 confusion brought on by the disaster to our right was deep- 
 ened by an accident that befell General Hooker. A round 
 shot that went crashing through the head-quarters, pros- 
 trated the side of the room against which the general was 
 leaning and the concussion knocked him senseless. He was 
 thought to be killed and the rumor of such a grave casualty 
 reaching the lines of course did much to discourage the
 
 224 Life of Thomas. 
 
 troops. It was a long period of doubt before he could be 
 restored, and then but partially, to himself. Sick and dazed 
 he could not understand that the fight hung doubtful and 
 that Sickles and Birney were calling in desperation for rein- 
 forcements and ammunition. It was a fatal hour. Thirty 
 thousand men stood idle when ten thousand ordered in at 
 the right moment would have insured a victory. Lee learned 
 to his cost that fighting from an intrenched position made 
 almost impregnable by nature was quite another business 
 from that of moving his men in when the chances were 
 equal. He was well prepared and quite willing to permit 
 Hooker to cross his army to the north side of the Rappa- 
 hannock unmolested. This was done. The Army of the 
 Potomac, less eighteen thousand, again occupied its old po- 
 sition at Falmouth. In addition to the killed, wounded and 
 missing of the Chancellorsville battle, some twenty thousand 
 nine months' and two years' men were mustered out of the 
 service. Of course these were more than replaced by raw re- 
 cruits, but such new material required time to mold into 
 shape and make serviceable as soldiers. General Hooker 
 addressed himself heartily to this service, and was getting 
 the army into form again when an event occurred that called 
 for immediate action in a distant field. General Lee leaving 
 A. P. Hill's corps to mask his movement invaded Pennnsyl- 
 vania. This was so advisedly executed that but for General 
 Milroy, who in command of ten thousand men at Winches- 
 ter, got the information he conveyed to the startled admin- 
 istration at Washington from Lee himself, it would have been 
 a complete surprise. 
 
 A braver man or more gallant officer than General Mil- 
 roy never wore sword. Had his judgment equaled his in- 
 trepidity, he would have been invaluable, and it is a specimen 
 of how the war was conducted from the Union side that he 
 was permitted to so fortify Winchester as to call for forty 
 thousand men to man the works. Winchester was of no im- 
 portance as a strategic point. It covered nothing and could 
 be marched around on all sides, and the country surrounding 
 it could be invaded without trouble. In the doubts that beset 
 not only the head-quarters of the Potomac Army, but the 
 War Department, as to Lee's purpose, in the mysterious
 
 Pennsylvania Invaded. 225 
 
 movements he was making General Ilalleck issued an ad- 
 visory order to General Schenck, at Baltimore, in reference 
 to Milroy. General Schenck sent the writer of this to Win- 
 chester with discretionary powers as to Milroy. A day's 
 investigation at Winchester satisfied the chief of staff that 
 Milroy, in any event, had better be in Harper's Ferry, and 
 so ordered him with all his material back to that strong- 
 hold. General Schenck, at the urgent entreaty of Milroy, 
 countermanded the order, and three days thereafter Milroy 
 found himself surrounded by Lee's army. The gallant 
 soldier cut his way out with a loss of half his force and all 
 his artillery and stores. He carried to Washington positive 
 information as to Lee's designs, and was ordered under ar- 
 rest, but never tried, for obeying his general's order to re- 
 main at Winchester. 
 
 Hooker lost no time in covering Washington that Lee's 
 movement threatened and at the same time put his forces in 
 position to try conclusions with the enemy, should they 
 move on our capital or invade Pennsylvania. As we have 
 said, the Army of the Potomac was much reduced, and Gen- 
 eral Hooker called earnestly on the government for all the 
 available men within reach. The War Department, how- 
 ever, was weary of " Fighting Joe ; " and General Halleck, 
 whose success in life came more from a good digestion and a 
 cold heart than through intellectual processes, undertook to 
 freeze the gallant fellow out in the face of the enemy. To 
 this end he was refused the 11,000 men uselessly quartered 
 at Harper's Ferry. This was such an idiotic act that Gen- 
 eral Hooker caught at its intent and asked to be relieved. 
 This request was promptly complied with, and General 
 George G. Meade given command. 
 
 The invasion of Pennsylvania was a blunder based on 
 the erroneous belief that the many famous victories of Lee's 
 army had made it invincible, and that another such in the 
 home of the Union would so strengthen the anti- war feeling 
 at the North and sicken the Union feeling that it would go 
 far toward ending the war if it did not terminate the armed 
 conflict at once. The truth is that these vaunted victories 
 15
 
 226 Life of Thomas. 
 
 were almost as fatal to the Confederacy as defeats would 
 have been. The lighting clement at the South was being 
 rapidly exhausted. Slave labor had well nigh eliminated the 
 sturdy bone and sinew that go to make a state, and now in 
 the hour of their utmost need, the leaders looked in vain 
 over their vast territory sparsely settled for armed men to fill 
 up the ranks thinned by victories. 
 
 There was another consideration as well as this that 
 made President Davis oppose the projected invasion. A 
 sagacious statesman of wide experience and observation, he 
 saw the difference in morals between fighting for home at 
 home and a struggle in an invasion of an alien land. This 
 feeling in the ignorant poor whites and the bigoted masters 
 had in two years reached a fanaticism so great that martyr- 
 dom was acceptable. We had learned in that time that the 
 only disposition we could make of a Southern soldier was to 
 kill him, and in such the life was purchased at a fearful cost, 
 not only of blood, but treasure. Every man killed cost us 
 two lives and a hundred thousand dollars, counting loss from 
 disease as well as loss in battles. Fierce as the feeling was, 
 the wiser people at Richmond feared it would weaken among 
 men transferred from their own soil to the land of the enemy. 
 There was another fact no less potent to be feared that 
 came in on the knowledge, the ragged rank and file of the 
 Confederate army would learn of the dense population and 
 great wealth of the North. Let the reasons be what they 
 may, Lee took the responsibility of marching his army from 
 victories in Virginia to defeat in Pennsylvania. 
 
 They who worship at the shrine of the dead Virginian 
 may well shun a closer investigation of his military career, 
 and in that respect imitating the more cunning example of 
 admirers of Grant at the North. And yet a military part 
 that can not bear the light of truth had better be broken up 
 and cast into the limbo of forgotten things, for the day must 
 corne when, under the eye of calm, cold history, the sham 
 will be exposed to the shame of its idolaters. Had General 
 Lee been what his blind admirers claim, he would have seen 
 that the Mississippi dividing the South in halves was in dan- 
 ger .of being lost to the Confederacy from a dash of troops,
 
 (jfttyaburg. 227 
 
 and that Chattanooga, the key to the whole situation, was 
 menaced, and, instead of an invasion of Pennsylvania, he 
 would have been moving to the rescue of both river and 
 stronghold. President Davis knew, as did President Lin- 
 coln, that the war of the Confederacy was being fought in 
 the cabinets of Europe, and the only hope of eventual suc- 
 cess to the South was a recognition that would be followed 
 by interference. After Lee's brilliant victories, it was the 
 better policy of the Confederacy to hold the condition as 'it 
 was. Sooner or later the longed for recognition must come. 
 Davis, therefore, opposed Lee's bold move, but his general 
 had fought his way to an elevation quite above such control 
 and he marched to his doom. 
 
 After General Meade took command, the two armies 
 went blindly groping about Pennsylvania in search of each 
 other. The Battle of Gettysburg was an accident. General 
 Meade, after getting a rather uncertain knowledge of the 
 enemy's whereabouts, but entirely ignorant of the intent, 
 designated a position of considerable natural strength on 
 Pipe creek, some fifteen miles south-east from Gettysburg. 
 All the army corps were moving in that direction. On the 
 29th of June, General Kilpatrick, marching his cavalry at a 
 leisurely pace in a north-westerly direction through Liberty 
 and Tarrytown, to Hanover, was much astonished at an at- 
 tack from Stuart's horse, and would have been captured but 
 for the timely arrival of General Custer's command. On 
 the 30th, General Buford, moving upon Gettysburg, en- 
 countered the van of Lee's army. Buford was, of course, 
 driven back by the superior force. But General Reynolds' 
 1st corps, under command of General J. S. Wadsworth, heard 
 in the still hot day of June the roar of artillery, hurried for- 
 ward, entered Gettysburg, and driving the Confederates out, 
 seized upon and held the heights overlooking the town from 
 the north-west. General John'F. Reynolds came up rapidly 
 with the two corps, the 1st and llth, marching about 22,000 
 in all, and while making a personal reconnoisance, was killed. 
 General Abuer Doubleday, coming forward at the time with 
 the whole of the llth corps, assumed command. He was 
 forced back to Seminary Ridge, immediately west of Gettys-
 
 -2-2 S Life of Thomas. 
 
 burg. General O. O. Howard at this time joined the force on 
 Cemetery Hill, and reaching Doubleday, assumed command, 
 giving the llth corps to General Schurz. The two corps, al- 
 though admirably posted, were set upon by nearly all Lee's 
 army in front and flank, were driven back through Gettys- 
 burg, and rallied with difficulty on Cemetery Hill, south of 
 the town. 
 
 Ewell, Rhodes, and Early, the Confederate commanders, 
 dfd not press their advantage. They felt the disadvantage of 
 being the invaders. Although Gettysburg is in an old, well- 
 settled region, with an excess of excellent roads, it is sur- 
 rounded by a rough country with but a small part under cul- 
 tivation. The greater part is given up to a natural growth 
 of forest trees. The Confederates, swift to avail themselves 
 of such cover in Virginia, and so to conceal their movements, 
 found affairs reversed. The same ignorance that dazed 
 Northern commanders, when shut out from view by dense 
 woods, confused the Southern generals in Pennsylvania, es- 
 pecially in the neighborhood of Gettysburg. It was early in 
 the summer afternoon when tlie fighting ceased, but it ceased 
 because there was something in the air that portended the 
 unexpected. They were right, the unexpected appeared in 
 the person of General Dan Sickles, with the corps which had 
 reached the field in answer to a summons from General How- 
 ard, and in violation of orders fr_om General Meade. These 
 forces, without orders from their commander-in-chief, pos- 
 sessed themselves of positions that proved impregnable in 
 the three days' desperate fighting that followed. This term- 
 inated in Pickett's famous assault and defeat, because of the 
 fact that the supports called on to charge for half a mile over 
 open ground, were swept by a murderous artillery fire, 
 fringed with still more deadly musketry. For the second 
 time the Confederates were called upon to do what had been 
 given the brave men of the Union again and again to do on 
 fields wantonly watered with their blood by the brainless 
 bullet-heads we had in command. 
 
 Lee's army was gently escorted back to and over the Po- 
 tomac. Wearied, half starved, and out of ammunition, the 
 ragged veterans waded in the mud unmolested by the vie-
 
 Gettysburg. 229 
 
 torious armies of the Federal government. Indeed, the old 
 order of McClellan was renewed, and General Sedgwick, 
 with his fresh troops, was warned to so press the rear as not 
 to fetch on a general engagement. A General Kelly, with a 
 force of some thousand men, used in keeping open the Balti- 
 more and Ohio, was on the further side of the Potomac, and 
 could have successfully disputed its passage with Lee, was 
 complimented by General Halleck for his celerity and suc- 
 cess in keeping out of the way. 
 
 The loss to the two armies in this Pennsylvania cam- 
 paign could not have been less than forty thousand men. 
 Why they were killed and wounded on either side puzzles 
 the understanding. General Lee disavowed any intent other 
 than having a battle at Gettysburg, when all the odds were 
 against him, and why the same fight might not have secured 
 the same purpose on the Rappahannock, can not be answered. 
 The same may be said of the Union forces. The tenderness 
 shown the Confederates after their defeat is equally without 
 reason. 
 
 " These Americans," said the Paris Figaro, " are fighting 
 on a military system inaugurated by the Kilkenny cats. 
 The two armies meet and fight and slaughter each other with 
 the utmost fury. Then they fell back and reorganize for an- 
 other general massacre. Positively, the war will end when 
 the last man is killed.'*
 
 230 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Campaign at the West Grant and Sherman Prepare for the Descent 
 Upon Vicksburg Three Months Lost in Getting Rid of a " Political 
 General " Washburne's Support of Grant Sherman's Forces Landed 
 at the Mouth of the Yazoo Defenses of Chickasaw Bluff. 
 
 While upon the one side of the central Army of the 
 Cumberland that of the Potomac was being steadily defeated 
 until the battle of Gettysburg, upon the other a huge army 
 under Grant was 'operating upon the Mississippi. Having 
 given in brief narrative the history of the first, we now turn 
 to the forces on the right. 
 
 It will be remembered, when the old soldier, Winfield 
 Scott, was called upon for an opinion as to how better to con- 
 duct the war upon the Union side, he condemned the " On to 
 Richmond " project as ill advised. This not only because of 
 the well known axiom that it is not wise to let your adver- 
 sary select your ground of campaign, but for that he knew 
 every inch of ground between Washington and Richmond, 
 and from its nature every march along it presented difficul- 
 ties almost impossible to overcome. In lieu of this, he pro- 
 posed a column of fifty thousand men to descend and open 
 the Mississippi. Of course, the possession and control of .the 
 Mississippi was of importance second only to the capture of 
 Chattanooga. Such success cut the Confederacy in a way 
 that paralyzed one-half the territory the government at 
 Richmond looked to for men and supplies. Could this have 
 been accomplished early in the war, it would have gone far 
 toward terminating the armed conflict. But, at the time 
 when General Scott offered this as an objective point, it was 
 as far beyond our reach as military talent seemed to be. 
 Our hastily constructed navy, inland and at sea, had not yet 
 been developed, and the possibility of running past forts, and 
 so rendering them unavailable, had not been tried. 
 
 In suggesting the descent of a column of fifty thousand
 
 Natural Features of the Mississippi. 231 
 
 men down the Mississippi at the time, General Scott showed 
 an ignorance of that mighty river, and the country through 
 which it flows, hard to recognize in a man of average infor- 
 mation and intelligence. In ordinary stages of water, the 
 Mississippi flows through swamps on one side and bluffs 
 upon the other, and when flooded, an event that happens 
 every year, the mighty river sweeping away all barriers, be- 
 comes a great inland sea. To attack from the interior, and 
 descend with an army, presented obstacles far more fatal 
 than any between Washington and Richmond. To attempt 
 this with transports, was to have sunk such by batteries at 
 Columbus, Fort Pillow, Memphis, Helena, Vicksburg, Grand 
 Gulf, and Port Hudson, on one side or the other, and to 
 march by land was equally fatal, because of the utter 
 impossibility of finding lines bearing upon the river that 
 could be' relied on in a campaign. We have a clearer state- 
 ment of the condition in the memoirs of General J. H. Wil- 
 son, of the engineers, who writes : 
 
 "All the way from Cairo to New Orleans the Mississippi 
 meanders through a vast alluvial region, the whole of which 
 is annually overflowed, except where levees have afforded a 
 partial barrier. This great basin is nearly fifty miles in 
 width, and extends on the east to the upland plains of Ten- 
 nessee and Mississippi, while on the west it is bounded by 
 the lesser elevation of drift alone. The bluffs that form the 
 escarpment of the eastern plains are usually quite steep and 
 thickly overgrown with timber, underbrush, and vines. At 
 various points in its course, the river touches one extremity 
 or the other of the bottom land, washing the base of the 
 bluffs and often cutting deep into the soft strata. Columbus, 
 Fort Pillow, Memphis, Helena, Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, and 
 Port Hudson are points of this kind, and rise from eighty to 
 two hundred feet above the freshets. 
 
 u The alluvial region throughout its entire extent is 
 higher near the banks of the river, and falls off gradually 
 till it reaches the line of the bluff; the drainage is therefore 
 toward the hills, and is the source of the intricate net- work 
 of bayous for which the basin is remarkable. The Cold- 
 water, the Tallahatchie, the Yazoo, the Washita, the Red
 
 232 Life of Thomas. 
 
 
 
 and Atchafalaya rivers, besides numerous other creeks and 
 smaller streams, are accordingly nothing more than huge 
 side drains. During freshets the water that breaks over the 
 Mississippi banks or through the crevasses flows through cy- 
 press swamps and a labyrinth of bayous till it reaches the 
 bluffs, and is again forced back into the parent stream. 
 
 " Besides the bayous, crescent-shaped lakes, the sole re- 
 mains of the ancient meanderings of the river, abound on 
 both sides, often at considerable distance from the present 
 channel. The forests of the alluvial region are extremely 
 luxuriant and dense; cottonwood, tulip, sweet gum, magno- 
 lia, sycamore, and ash are found, with an almost impenetra- 
 ble jungle of cane and vine. ' The cypress swamps that oc- 
 cupy the lower portions of the bottom are nearly always un- 
 der water, and this, with the slimy character of the soil and 
 the treacherous beds and slippery steep banks of the bayous, 
 renders the country almost impassable in summer, and en- 
 tirely so, except by boats, in winter." 
 
 "When to these topographical obstacles we add that 
 of climate, so injurious to the native born and fatal to 
 Northern men, we can well believe that the Confederates 
 were quite willing to have the government at Washington 
 try conclusions upon the Mississippi. The capture of New 
 Orleans and the fall of Memphis shortened the line of river 
 to be seized and held, but did not lessen the difficulties of 
 such a conquest. It fell to the lot of General U. S. Grant to 
 make this wild and desperate endeavor. Admitting that in 
 the end he did achieve a questionable triumph in this direc- 
 tion, one, after a careful study of the facts, is forced to the 
 uncomplimentary conclusion that, had he possessed more 
 sense, he would have been less successful. Of all the gen- 
 erals who achieved notoriety during the civil war, he is the 
 one whose career as a soldier will bear the least scrutiny. , 
 Of a coarse fiber, no culture, and of limited intelligence, 
 his memory serves to illustrate either that his fame rests 
 on newspaper fiction, fostered by political partisanship, or 
 that, to be a successful military man, a marked lack of intel- 
 lectual qualities is a necessity. We have seen how at Shiloh 
 he suffered a surprise and merciless slaughter in the enemy's
 
 Chara>-t( ri<tics of Grant. 233 
 
 country; how at Fort Henry lie failed to have his forces on 
 hand to reap the fruits of Commodore Foote's victory ; how 
 at Fort Donelson he absented himself mysteriously from the 
 field at the critical moment when the Confederates, cutting 
 their way out, could have been captured to a man. History 
 now tells us that in the combined operation against Price 
 and Van Dorn, he failed to co-operate and enabled Price to 
 march oft' three miles and fall with his full weight of over- 
 whelming numbers upon Rosecrans, who subsequently de- 
 feated Van Dorn at Corinth without Grant's aid, although 
 the Confederates had double the force that our general of 
 real military genius had under him. It is strange that so 
 unsuccessful a general should be able to retain the confidence 
 of the War Department at Washington, that must have 
 known of his blunders and habits. 
 
 There is a solution to this mystery found in the name 
 and career of Elihu Benjamin Washburne, a remarkable 
 man of Maine birth and parentage and New England train- 
 ing and culture, if that word can be applied to a coarse, 
 strong man, who made up in cunning all that he lost in 
 brain. From early life to the close of his public career, he 
 was a most successful politician. To great strength of char- 
 acter he added a purity of motive as rare as it was admira- 
 ble in the time when frauds in public office began to organ- 
 ize for plunder upon a helpless people, exhausted and dazed 
 by one of the bloodiest wars that ever poor humanity suf- 
 fered. A lawyer by profession, Washburne soon passed to 
 the more congenial pursuit of politics, and in Illinois, where 
 he opened a law office, soon grew to be a noted and influen- 
 tial leader. He was returned to Congress so frequently that 
 he came to be the father of the House, and was widely noted 
 for his jealous guardianship of the public treasury. 
 
 The Hon. Elihu B. Washburne had little interest in and 
 less knowledge of war. But, in common with many, he was 
 well aware that out of that war, if successful, would come a 
 military leader to claim the recognition of the people he had 
 served, and Elihu resolved to be the patron and friend of 
 that man. He selected Grant, and his choice was as strange 
 as his faithful support was without parallel. Here was a
 
 284 Life of Thomas. 
 
 man forced from the old army because of his habits, who 
 had risen only to the rank of captain in the service, 
 and an utter failure in all that he attempted as a means 
 of subsistence in civil life. Through all his early mili- 
 tary career, as a small farmer near St. Louis, as a clerk 
 at Galena, he not only gave no evidence of ability of any 
 sort, but no one of his associates or family ever suspected 
 him of aught beyond the dullest common place; and yet, 
 through good and evil report, the Hon. Elihu stood by his 
 protege. It was a powerful support. Not only the Presi- 
 dent, but the Secretary of War, regarded Washburne as a 
 man of sterling integrity, as well as a politician whose fol- 
 lowing among the people was so earnest that he was a power 
 at Washington not to be neglected or slighted. Every pro- 
 motion gained by Grant was really given by Washburne. 
 Once only he faltered, and that was when he learned that, 
 after a frightful assault on Vicksburg, Grant left his dead to 
 rot and his wounded to writhe in agony on the outer slopes 
 of the enemy's works for three days, under the hot summer 
 sun of that horrible climate. Washburne sought Lincoln 
 with the pitiable tale. He would carry the responsibility no 
 longer. 
 
 " Elihu," said the President, much moved, as he put his 
 hand on the politician's shoulder, " it is a bad business, but 
 we must try the man a little longer. He seems a pushing 
 fellow, with all his faults." 
 
 It takes one woman and several men to make a celeb- 
 rity, and Grant had in Washington a host. We will find, as 
 we progress with the story of Vicksburg, that it was lucky 
 for General Grant that telegraphic facilities were so incom- 
 plete between the War Department and the fields in the 
 Mississippi, that the people at Washington knew as little 
 of operations about Vicksburg as the public knows to-day. 
 Had the frightful blunders, the fearful mortality, reached 
 the administration, Grant would have been superseded in 
 the first month of his campaign. But of this hereafter. 
 
 The fall of Forts Henry and Donelsoji with the subse- 
 quent evacuation of Nashville, the credit for all of which was 
 given Grant, restored the rough soldier to confidence and
 
 First Move on Vicksburg. 235 
 
 made Washburne's efforts in his behalf more easy. We 
 must also bear in mind that Halleck, the military ad- 
 viser of the President, co-operated with Washburne in the 
 promotion of Grant, not from any confidence he had in the 
 man or love for him personally, but merely because he found 
 the President and Secretary of War so inclined. It was the 
 force of discipline that made the superior officer infallible and 
 all-powerful. Therefore, in July, when Halleck was ordered 
 to Washington, he restored Grant to command of his former 
 troops with head-quarters at Corinth. From this place Grant 
 wrote Halleck, proposing an advance along the Mississippi 
 Central Railroad with Vicksburg as an objective point. 
 That meant an attack upon an army of thirty thousand men, 
 the defeat of which made Vicksburg untenable. On 2d No- 
 vember, 1862, Grant informed Halleck that he had com- 
 menced a movement on Grand Junction with three divisions 
 from Corinth and two from Bolivar, and that he would leave 
 the next day and take command in person. If found practica- 
 ble he would go to Holly Springs and perhaps to Grenada, 
 completing railroads as he marched. 
 
 To this Halleck replied : " I approve your plan of ad- 
 vancing on the enemy as soon as you are strong enough for 
 that purpose." On 4th November, Grant, having marched 
 to Grand Junction, ordered Sherman to co-operate by mov- 
 ing two divisions from Memphis, but on the 8th he informed 
 Sherman that he estimated Pemberton'3 force at thirty thou- 
 sand, and that he felt " strong enough to handle that num- 
 ber without gloves." Therefore, he countermanded the 
 march from Memphis. 
 
 Although his plan of advance along the Mississippi Cen- 
 tral Railroad had been approved at Washington, and he had 
 taken the initiative in that direction, there came a sudden 
 halt. An obstacle appeared so potent that it at once arrested 
 all movements. General Adam Badeau in his military his- 
 tory of General Grant, with a naivete that is charming, 
 plausibly tells us that this potent obstacle to the movement 
 of a hundred thousand men came in the form of what Gen- 
 eral Badeau is pleased to call a " political general." John 
 A. McClernand had entered the service from -civil life. This
 
 236 Life of Thomas. 
 
 was objectionable, but when he exhibited a natural turn for 
 soldiering, governed by an abundance of common sense, 
 the objection became fatal, and Grant, Sherman and Halleck 
 united in not only condemnation, but in a most astonishing 
 manner they all sought to baffle and cold-shoulder the am- 
 bitious civilian from the service* While moving his army 
 as he had outlined to Halleck he learned through the pub- 
 lic journals that General John A. McClernand had been au- 
 thorized to organize a column to open the Mississippi river. 
 This was precisely what Grant and Sherman had on hand. 
 The two West Pointers learned to their dismay that this was 
 President Lincoln's project, and although Halleck disap- 
 proved, the obstinate commander-in-chief of , all our naval 
 and military forces persisted. He would have the Mississippi 
 opened by his friend from Illinois, and nobody else, and in 
 his friend's own time and way. 
 
 Grant saw with consternation that if he continued and 
 defeated Pemberton, and thus made Vicksburg unten- 
 able, this political general would sweep down the Missis- 
 sippi unmolested, and not only occupy Vickeburg, but grasp 
 the glory reserved for himself. It is a monstrous proposition, 
 and one could well doubt it, were it not told in the very vol- 
 ume prepared by Badeau and approved by Grant, and from 
 this unquestionable source we learn that the objective point 
 shifted from Pemberton and his Confederate army to Mc- 
 Clernand, and the President's column organized to open the 
 Mississippi. Immediately all movements looking to the 
 proposed march along the Mississippi Central Railroad came 
 to a halt. 
 
 The descent of the Mississippi and an attack from ^the 
 river upon Vicksburg was an idiotic project, lifted into a 
 horror by the loss of ninety thousand brave men needlessly 
 sacrificed. The plan of campaign made by Grant was not 
 only admirable, but in fact the only one that had a show of 
 reason. The Confederate War Department, believing that 
 Vicksburg could be attacked only from the river, had failed 
 to furnish either a general or an army for successful opera- 
 tion in the field. Thirty thousand men under Pemberton 
 might possibly have been augmented to forty thousand, and
 
 Grant Move* on McClernand. 237 
 
 with Pemberton superseded by Joseph E. Johnston a gen- 
 eral would be had capable of resistance. . 
 
 As the political general loomed more clearly into sight 
 the movement along the Mississippi Central -Rail road not only 
 came to a halt, but Grant's objective point shifted from Pem- 
 berton to McClernand. In this he was encouraged by Hal- 
 leek. Indeed, all West Point officers put aside their personal 
 differences and united heartily in opposing and if possible 
 sacrificing any one from civil life who presumed to an in- 
 dependent command. It was to give Grant a hint that, on 
 the 5th of November, Halleck telegraphed : " Had not 
 troops sent to reinforce you better go to Memphis hereafter ? 
 I hope to give twenty thousand additional men in a few- 
 days." To this Grant responded in a tentative manner : 
 " Reinforcements are arriving very slowly. If they don't 
 come in more rapidly I will attack as I am." 
 
 This sounds strange in the presence of the fact that only 
 the day before he had sent Sherman back to Memphis with 
 two divisions, informing his lieutenant that he could handle 
 Pemberton with the troops he had. The next day, growing 
 unhappy over McCleruand, and more uneasy about him 
 than Pemberton, he telegraphed Halleck : "Am I to under- 
 stand that I lie here while an expedition is fitted out for 
 Memphis, or do you want me to push as far south as pos- 
 sible ? Am I to leave Sherman subject to my orders, or is 
 he and his force reserved for some especial service?" 
 
 It will be remembered that Grant had volunteered to 
 move south along the railroad and handle Pemberton. To 
 this project the War Department assented and expected, of 
 course, the handling to begin. Halleck promptly responded : 
 " You have command of all the troops sent to your depart- 
 ment, and have permission to fight the enemy when you 
 please." At this Grant concluded he had disposed of the 
 " political general," and on the 14th informed Sherman : "1 
 have now complete control of my department." His de- 
 partment was precisely the same as before, less McClernand. 
 He continues, " Move with two divisions of twelve full regi- 
 ments each, and, if possible, with three divisions, to Oxford 
 and Tallahatchie as soon as possible. I am ready to move
 
 238 Lift of Thomas. 
 
 from here (La Grange) any day, and only wait your move- 
 ments." 
 
 Thus, with the pestiferous " political general " out- 
 maneuvered, Grant turned his attention to the enemy. The 
 strange delay caused by thus moving on Washington, instead 
 of Vicksburg, had awakened the Confederates to their dan- 
 ger. An army of a hundred thousand men moving along 
 the Central Railroad could not well be met by a force under 
 Pemberton of only eight thousand men. Had Grant clung 
 to this plan of a campaign, it would have been as bloodless 
 as was Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia to the 
 sea with the army of ninety thousand men saved from the 
 doom of graves in swamps and bayous about Vicksburg. 
 
 The movement began. The forces at Helena were or- 
 dered by Halleck to co-operate by crossing the Mississippi at 
 Helena and cutting the Central Railroad in Pemberton's 
 rear. The campaign from the interior was well under way 
 when the ghost of the " political general " appeared to startle 
 Grant. "On the 25th, Halleck again," says Badeau ap- 
 proved by Grant, "broached that dismal river expedition, 
 doubtless urged on by President Lincoln. He inquired how 
 many men Grant had in his department, and what force 
 could be sent down the river to Vicksburg." Grant replied 
 that he had " in all 72,000 men, of whom 18,000 were at 
 Memphis, and 16,000 of these could be spared for the river 
 expedition." Halleck followed this information by tele- 
 graphing to Grant that he had given orders for the advance 
 of all the forces under his command, that he had written 
 Steele in Arkansas to threaten Grenada, and had asked Ad- 
 miral Porter to send boats to co-operate at the mouth of the 
 Yazoo. He concluded by asking, " Shall I countermand 
 the order for this move?" Of course Halleck responded, 
 " No." This expedition of McClernand, except that Grant 
 had been called on for men to make it practicable, had noth- 
 ing to do with Grant's proposed campaign in the mind of 
 the administration at Washington. The army did move. It 
 accomplished a march of twenty-five miles in twenty-three 
 days, but its commander had lost all interest in the move- 
 ment. While the Confederate government, alarmed at the
 
 Grant Plotting Against McClernand. 231) 
 
 menacing danger, was straining every resource to put in the 
 field another army equal to the emergency, the admirably 
 planned campaign was abandoned, and the high resolve died 
 out. On the 5th December, we find him telegraphing to 
 Ilalleck : " How far south would you like me to go ? " 
 About the same time, to indicate his entire abandonment of 
 his original plan, he suggested to Halleck that " if the Helena 
 troops were at my command, I think it would be practicable 
 to send Sherman to take them and the Memphis forces south 
 of the Yazoo river, and thus to secure Vicksburg and the 
 state of Mississippi." This meant to turn his back on Pem- 
 berton. Halleck, good easy Halleck, sharing in Grant's 
 horror of a political general, acquiesced, and so Grant 
 marched Sherman back to Memphis to command an expedi- 
 tion that would reduce Vicksburg from the river. Grant 
 promised co-operation. How, one is at a loss to compre- 
 hend, and as it was not given, we can well believe Grant 
 did not comprehend himself. He said to Sherman : " Pro- 
 ceed to reduce Vicksburg, assisted by the gun-boats, and I 
 will hold the forces here in readiness to co-operate with you 
 in such manner as the movements of the enemy make neces- 
 sary." 
 
 It seems so monstrous now, looking back upon the 
 events, to attribute such a motive to General Grant as that 
 found in the presence and purpose of General McClernand, 
 that we would hesitate even an intimation of it were it not 
 that Badeau, General Grant's accepted historian, in a work 
 that was submitted by the author to the general himself and 
 by him indorsed, tells us : 
 
 "Grant was still anxious lest McClernaud should obtain 
 the command of the river expedition, and, therefore, had 
 hxirried Sherman to Memphis on the very day that he secured 
 the authority, so that, if possible, the latter might start be- 
 fore McClernand could arrive. Halleck, too, sent the per- 
 mission without that deliberation which he sometimes dis- 
 played." 
 
 Thus it is put to historical record, and sanction by Gen- 
 eral Grant, that all the halts, hesitation, and eventual aban- 
 donment of a wise campaign for one that proved the most
 
 240 Life of Thomas. 
 
 disastrous of the war, had their origin in the jealousy of a 
 brother officer and the desperate resolve to defeat his am- 
 bitious designs, let the cost be what it might. Grant was 
 correct in his surmise. Had he persisted in his campaign 
 through the interior of Mississippi, his success would have 
 been the evacuation of Vicksburg and the triumphant occu- 
 pation of it by his rival. 
 
 To appreciate the pitiful meanness of this conspiracy, 
 to use the mildest term, where a hundred thousand lives 
 were involved and a loss of at least ten millions to the gov- 
 ernment threatened, one has only to suppose George II. 
 Thomas in the place of Grant. What a remonstrance would 
 have gone to "Washington against any river expedition until 
 after the occupation of the field in Mississippi had at least 
 divided the Confederate armies, and if this were persisted in, 
 what haste would have been given in hearty co-operation to 
 make the desperate river expedition a success. The man 
 whose high sense of honor held his ambition under calm 
 control, whose lofty patriotism annihilated self, and, above 
 all, whose tender love of the men whose lives were in his 
 keeping made him strike only when he knew his blow would 
 be fatal, towers Mke the eagle in his pride of place above 
 the mousing owls our poor country's misfortune had given 
 command. 
 
 On the 20th of December, a most disgraceful disaster 
 was seized on by Grant as a justification of his change of 
 plans. On that day, Van Dorn's cavalry made an expected 
 descent on Holly Springs, and destroyed all the supplies for 
 the army collected at that place. The value in money 
 amounted to over two millions; in the loss to the army, it 
 was incalculable. We say the attack was expected, for 
 Grant's defense, in Badeau's Confessions, is based on the 
 warning he sent to the miserable Colonel Murphy, who sur- 
 rendered his little force without a blow to overwhelming 
 numbers. 
 
 One readily learns the strength of the Washburne influ- 
 ence at Washington from this event. Had'any other general 
 in the army bejan guilty of such a shameful disaster, he would 
 have found himself at least relegated to the rear, if he es-
 
 Grant Loses His Depot. 241 
 
 caped a court of inquiry. While the War Department was 
 growling and grumbling over Rosecrans because of his delay 
 in repairing railroads and fortifying Nashville and Murfrees- 
 boro for the better security for his stores, General Grant is 
 permitted to waste a like time in meaningless marches, and 
 end by having his depot of supplies swept away, and his 
 campaign, approved of by the government, rendered of no 
 avail for at least two months to come. He was not even rep- 
 rimanded, the War Department finding relief in cashiering 
 the cowardly Murphy for not dying in defense of supplies 
 his general had left unprotected. 
 
 After this, Grant abandoned his proposed campaign 
 along the line of the Central Mississippi Railroad, contem- 
 plated at the best season of the year, for the roads were good, 
 and took up the river expedition, that he might wrest it from 
 the hands of the political general. To appreciate this, we 
 must remember that the plan of campaign did not at first 
 include the river expedition. Sherman, with two divisions, 
 was put in the field to co-operate with his general. These 
 movements, we have seen, were closed up when McClernand 
 appeared. Sherman, with these divisions, had joined Grant 
 south of the Tallahatchie, and then he was suddenly marched 
 back, as Badeau informs us, to take the river expedition 
 from McClernand. This was defeated by special orders from 
 President Lincoln putting McCleruaud in command. Noth- 
 ing would defeat this but a return to Memphis by Grant. 
 " Since Sherman was not to command it, he was anxious to 
 do it himself." To this end the entire army, with all the 
 supplies left to it, marched back to Memphis. He got there 
 in time to send Sherman dow.n the Mississippi before the 
 hated and dreaded McClernand could put in an appearance. 
 This expedition was composed of 42,000 men in 58 steam- 
 boats, and Commodore Porter's fleet of gunboats carrying 
 280 guns and 800 men. 
 
 We learn from Sherman's Memoirs that the preparations 
 were hasty. Of course they were. The dreadful McCler- 
 naud was expected daily with the order of the President in 
 his pocket. General Sherman says : 
 16
 
 242 Life of Thomas. 
 
 "The preparations were necessarily hasty in the ex- 
 treme, but this was the essence of the whole plan, viz., to 
 reach Vicksburg, as it were, by surprise, while General Grant 
 held in check Pemberton's army at Grenada, leaving me to 
 contend with the smaller garrison at Vicksburg and its well 
 known strong batteries and defenses." 
 
 The phrase of " as it were " is good, but not so suggest- 
 ive as " its well known strong batteries and defenses." The 
 Confederates at Richmond, as well as at Vicksburg, were 
 surprised that any such insane and murderous attempt would 
 be made. The grand Sherman combination descended the 
 river unmolested. In his memoirs, the hero of defeat says 
 that the sight was grand. The continuous roar of the high- 
 pressure steamboats, fifth-eight in number, sounded like so 
 many monsters breathing defiance to the foe. Crowded with 
 brave men being led to the slaughter, the many bands on 
 each boat made the air vibrate under the bass of the steam- 
 boats' bellow and the dash of wheels, and composed a sym- 
 phony of death long to be remembered by those who sur- 
 vived. 
 
 The Shermans that are more full of go without the nec- 
 essary ballast of brain, who mistake the confidence of con^ 
 ceit for the confidences of genius, are common to all armies. 
 The governments, however, are not many that are willing to 
 trust such with the lives of brave men and the destinies of 
 empires. It remains for us to be remarkable as the only 
 people found willing to elevate such into heroes, and build 
 monuments to their memories above the graves of the wan- 
 tonly slaughtered thousands on thousands. 
 
 Sherman's army was landed on an island at the mouth 
 of the Yazoo. We may well suppose the martial strains of 
 military music died out in the awful presence of the work 
 before them. The island that received the doomed men is 
 formed by the Yazoo, the Mississippi, and bayous, and lies 
 opposite to the place known as Chickasaw Bluffs. The 
 Chickasaw range, further up, changes its name to Haine's 
 Bluff, close under which the Yazoo in two places runs in 
 twelve and twenty miles above Vicksburg, so that Haine's 
 Bluff closed the Yazoo from our gun-boats. The winding
 
 Chickasaw Bluffs. 243 
 
 Yazoo forms the boundary of the island on the north. A 
 deep bayou, the Chickasaw, serves the same purpose on the 
 north-east, a deep, sluggish stream running from the Yazoo 
 toward Chickasaw Bluffs to what is known as Old river, 
 which runs between the island and the bluffs to the Mis- 
 sissippi at Vicksburg. The island is scarred with bayous 
 and dotted with lagoons and swamps. Nearly all of it is ten 
 feet under water during floods. The only part of this dis- 
 mal swamp of death that presented a possible approach to 
 the enemy's works, was below Chickasaw bayou, fronting 
 Chickasaw Bluffs, and that by narrow causeways over Old 
 river, each swept by concentrated tire. On the side next the 
 bluffs was a levee to keep Old river from a strip of land be- 
 tween it and the hills. This was an imposing parapet, well 
 lined with infantry. This levee was not only a fortification, 
 but it served to cover the road that ran parallel to and under it 
 so that troops could be marched without exposure from end 
 to end. On the face of the bluff rising tier upon tier were 
 rifle trenches until the crest was reached, and there artillery 
 was planted so as to sweep with round shot and shell all the 
 spaces in front. The best artillery from Krupp's works in 
 Germany crowned their heights. For nearly a year the 
 slaves of Vicksburg had been worked under intelligent su- 
 pervision, it being well known that these defenses held the 
 Mississippi. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the 
 War Department at Richmond felt relieved when it learned 
 that instead of a sensible campaign in the rear that would 
 have turned Vicksburg, the front had been selected, where, 
 owing to the natural and artificial defenses, ten thousand 
 men were as effective as ten hundred thousand; in a word, 
 that the place was as impregnable as Gibralter, as in the end, 
 under Grant, it was found to be. 
 
 To save ourselves from the charge of exaggeration, we 
 quote from Sherman's Report. He says : 
 
 " Immediately in our front was a bayou, passable only at 
 two points, on a narrow levee or sandbar, which was per- 
 fectly commanded by the enemy's sharpshooters that lined 
 the levee or parapet on its opposite bank. Behind this was 
 an irregular strip of bench or table land, on which were con-
 
 244 Life of Thomas. 
 
 structed a series of rifle pits and batteries, and behind that a 
 high, abrupt range of hills, whose scarred sides were marked 
 all the way up with rifle trenches, and the crowns of the 
 principal hills presented heavy batteries. 
 
 " The country road leading from Vicksburg to Yazoo 
 City runs along the foot of these hills, and answered an ad- 
 mirable purpose to the enemy as a covered way, along which 
 he moved his artillery and infantry, promptly to meet us at 
 any point at which we attempted to pass this difficult bayou. 
 Nevertheless, that bayou, with its levee parapets, backed by 
 the line of rifle pits, batteries, and frowning hills, had to be 
 passed before we could reach terra jirma, and meet our en- 
 emy on any thing like fair terms." 
 
 To demonstrate after the bloody event that to carry 
 these blufts by assault was an impossibility Sherman gives us 
 a condition that he must have known in advance. Unfor- 
 tunately for the army the brave men under his command 
 were not veterans, or they would have thrown down their 
 muskets, as they subsequently did at Cold Harbor, and told 
 their officers that if they wished to assault, to do so them- 
 selves. The noble fellows of the rank and file were new to 
 war, and never for an instant believed their general com- 
 manding would send them in to death without hope of suc- 
 cess, as he did since, to shield himself from censure in cold 
 words, he tells the world that the place could not be taken 
 by assault. 
 
 We are not called on to give the sickening details of the 
 horrible slaughter. Sherman would not be Sherman did he 
 not seek to shield his own stupidity under cover of blame to 
 others. Although in his own report he shows the place to 
 have been impregnable, this censure he launches at the heads 
 of Generals George "W. Morgan and J)eCourcy for not hav- 
 ing accomplished the impossible. After indulging in his 
 gratuitous fling at two brave and efficient officers, our gen- 
 eral says generously : 
 
 " I assume all the responsibility, and attach fault to no 
 one, and am generally satisfied with the high spirit mani- 
 fested by all. ... I attribute our failure to the strength
 
 A Useless Slaughter. 245 
 
 of the enemy's position, both natural and artificial, and not 
 to his superior fighting." 
 
 This general satisfaction must have been extremely com- 
 forting to the desolate households of the land where the 
 precious dead were mourned and the cripples tenderly cared 
 for. It is difficult to say which is the more exasperating, the 
 imbecility that ordered the assault, or the sublime conceit 
 that seeks to make his approbation a salve for death and 
 dishonor. 
 
 This great man, whose smile was salvation, re-embarked 
 all but the two thousand slaughtered at the foot of the 
 Chickasaw Bluffs, and, comforted by his satisfaction, steamed 
 up the river to Milliken's Bend, where he learned some- 
 thing. 
 
 Before taking up the thread of events, let us turn to 
 Badeau's work ever bearing in mind that it is the work 
 approved of by Grant as his military history and learn why 
 Grant did not co-operate with Sherman, for the belief was 
 prevalent throughout the land that the assault on Chickasaw 
 Bluff was a failure because of that absence of co-operation. 
 Turning to that valuable autobiography, for such it is, we 
 find the following points made and italicized so that the most 
 simple may not escape their meaning. It says : 
 
 1. Grant " meant, if he could, to hold Pemberton at 
 Grenada, and thus allow Sherman to enter Vicksburg with- 
 out any material opposition." 
 
 2. But if he had so held Pemberton, it would have made 
 no difference to Sherman; for "the strength of the works at 
 Vicksburg was not fully appreciated when this arrangement 
 was made ; they were so strong that had Grant been able to 
 keep Pemberton' s entire force in his own front, there would 
 have been no different result to Sherman's endeavor." 
 
 3. Sherman " never could have anticipated a tactical co- 
 operation from Grant ; for Grant had neither promised nor 
 suggested it;" therefore, when at Oxford he laid out the 
 plan of concerted movements and his part in the interior, he 
 said in his letter of instructions to Sherman " I will hold 
 the forces here in readiness to co-operate with you in such
 
 246 Life of Thomas. 
 
 manner as the movements of the enemy make necessary" 
 he meant not tactical, but moral co-operation. 
 
 4. Sherman, in his report of the assault, shows that he 
 was not looking for Grant's tactical co-operation in it, for he 
 says : " Not one word could I hear from General Grant, who 
 was supposed to be pushing south." " I proposed ... to 
 attack the enemy's right, which, if successful, would give us 
 substantial possession of the Yazoo river, and place us in 
 communication with General Grant." The italics and gaps are 
 Badeau's. 
 
 5. Sherman could not have expected "tactical co-opera- 
 tion" from Grant, nor even moral co-operation, in his as- 
 sault; for this remark in Sherman's report of the assault 
 shows that he had before heard that Grant was falling back : 
 " The rumor of General Grant having fallen back behind the 
 Tallahatchie became confirmed by my receiving no intelli- 
 gence from him." 
 
 6. Sherman himself declared that his failure was owing 
 to "the strength of the enemy's position, both natural and 
 artificial." As one sufficient cause is in logic sufficient, 
 therefore his failure was not owing to Grant. 
 
 7. Sherman's own report shows that the enemy's forces 
 at Vicksburg were so large that, without regard to Grant, 
 success was impossible, for he says : " I suppose their (the 
 rebel) organized forces to amount to about 15,000, which 
 could be reinforced at the rate of about 5,000 a day, provided 
 General Grant did not occupy all the attention of Pemberton's 
 forces at Grenada." The italics in all these citations are 
 Badeau's. 
 
 8. Sherman's general letter of information of the cam- 
 paign to the division commanders, which Badeau cites as 
 " before the attack " in fact, December 23d, while coming 
 down the river told the plan of co-operation as " to act in 
 concert with General Grant against Pemberton's forces, sup- 
 posed to have Jackson, Miss., as a point of concentration." 
 Also: "It maybe necessary (looking to Grant's approach), 
 before attacking Vicksburg, to reduce the battery at Haiue's 
 Bluff, so as to enable the gunboats and lighter transports to 
 ascend the Yazoo and communicate with General Grant."
 
 Grant Fails Sherman. 247 
 
 Also : Grant's left and center were at last accounts approaching 
 the Yallabusha near Grenada, and the railroad to his rear by 
 which he drew supplies was reported to be seriously dam- 
 aged. This may disconcert him somewhat, but only makes 
 more important our line of operations." Again : "At the 
 Yallabusha, General Grant may encounter the army of General 
 Pemberton, the same which refused him battle on the line of 
 the Tallahatchie, which was strongly fortified, but he (Pcm- 
 berton) will hardly have time to fortify the Yallabusha, and 
 in that event General Grunt will immediately advance down 
 the high ridge lying between the Big Black and the Yazoo, 
 and will expect to meet us on the Yazoo." 
 
 These appear as Sherman's expectations. 
 
 9. This same romantic letter of general intelligence by 
 Sherman to the general officers, issued while the grand flotilla 
 was descending the Mississippi, showed that he contem- 
 plated, among other things, landing above Vicksburg and 
 murchmg into the interior to attack Vicksburg from the east 
 on the line of the railroad from that place to Jackson, Miss. 
 " I propose to land our whole force on the Mississippi side, 
 and then reach the point where the Vicksburg and Jackson 
 Railroad crosses the Big Black, after which to attack Vicks- 
 burg by laud whilst the gunboats assail it by water." 
 
 10. Sherman himself absolves Grant from blame for 
 lack of "tactical co-operation" in this assault in his general 
 absolution in his report, when he says : " The effort was 
 necessary to a successful accomplishment of my orders, and 
 the combinations were the best possible under the circum- 
 stances. I assume all the responsibility, and attach the 
 blame to no one." 
 
 Grant, through Badeau, in this cold showing, so satis- 
 factory to himself, that Sherman could not have expected 
 him to co-operate either tactically or otherwise, is not un- 
 mindful of the fact that his and Sherman's glory are held 
 together by the same ligament, and that it is necessary to let 
 his lieutenant down gently, hence he says: " Sherman de- 
 serves all praise for his determination to attempt the assault 
 when he knew not only that Grant never intended to sup- 
 port him in its tactical execution, but that he was probably
 
 248 Life of Thomas. 
 
 unable to render even the strategical support to the move- 
 ment which had been originally planned." And then he 
 adds as a solace : " Indeed, when Grant threw both his armies 
 on the Mississippi, success still fled before him coyly as in 
 the interior." 
 
 We are inclined to attribute the last half of the above 
 sentence, so poetically referring to the subsequent slaughter of 
 men, to Adam Badeau, whose playful fancy is as sparkling as 
 his imagination is acute when dealing with history. But our 
 Chickasaw hero does not rest easy under this showing. In 
 his memoirs, that quiver and palpitate with valued informa- 
 tion, he gives us Grant's letter calling him to confer at Ox- 
 ford on the new plan, in which Grant says : " My notion is 
 to send two divisions back to Memphis and fix upon a day 
 when they should effect a landing and press from here with 
 this command at the proper time to co-operate." He also 
 asserts that Grant's letter meant practical co-operation. " In- 
 form me of the earliest practical day when you will embark 
 and such plans as may then be matured. I will hold the 
 forces here in readiness to co-operate with you in such man- 
 ner as the movements of the enemy may make necessary." 
 
 He also quotes a letter dated December 14th gotten by 
 him, Sherman, at Memphis, which he says : " Completes 
 all instructions received by me governing the first movement 
 against Vicksburg." And this as to co-operation. "The 
 enemy are as yet on the Yallabusha. I am pushing them 
 down slowly, but so as to keep up the impression of a con- 
 tinuous move. . . . My head-quarters will probably be at 
 Coffeeville one week hence. . . . It would he well if you 
 could have two or three small boats suitable for navigating the 
 Yazoo. It may be necessary for us to look to that base of 
 supplies before we get through." General Sherman follows 
 this up with the assurance that it was clearly understood 
 that he was to have co-operation of some sort, and that it 
 called on him to make the immediate assault on Vicksburg, 
 " as necessary to the successful accomplishment of my orders." 
 He adds : " Up to that moment I had not heard a word from 
 General Grant since leaving Memphis, and most assuredly I
 
 Grant Fails Sherman. 249 
 
 had listened for days for the sound of his guns in the direc- 
 tion of Yazoo City." 
 
 The picture of the general listening for guns that never 
 spoke, but were in fact at Memphis, is extremely pathetic, 
 and reminds one of Lady Percy's heartfelt appeal to her 
 
 father: 
 
 " O yet, for God's sake, go not to those wars, 
 The time was, father, when you broke your word, 
 When you were more endeared to it than now ; 
 When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry 
 Threw many a northward look to see his father 
 Lead his forces up ; but he did long in vain." 
 
 The pathos is somewhat marred by the fact that such 
 was Sherman's conceit that it was quite impossible for him 
 to feel any anxiety. Had he known the vital importance of 
 Grant's co-operation, he would have delayed the wanton and 
 cruel assault until he heard the roar of Grant's guns, which 
 he tells us he was wishing for. He had no anxiety in ad- 
 vance, no remorse for the two thousand gallant men killed 
 and crippled as he steamed back. " It was all right," he 
 said, complacently, " a most spirited affair." 
 
 The controversy between these rivals in disaster ap- 
 pears very mild. They could not afford to quarrel. Facts 
 developed in such a contention would have relegated both 
 to the rear, saved us ninety thousand men and the patriotic 
 North the shame of such a slaughter. It was gentle and 
 forgiving, for the two soon found that the government at 
 Washington, immersed in grave troubles nearer home, had 
 less thought of miseries on the Mississippi, while Elihu B. 
 Washburne and his immediate followers continued their ap- 
 plause in behalf of the tanner of Galena, who developed 
 through retreats the high capacity of a commander.
 
 250 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Assault of Vicksburg from the River given up as Hopeless " Employment 
 for Superfluous Troops " in a Campaign against the vexatious Waters 
 of the Mississippi Details of Four Thousand kept constantly at work 
 in an attempt to change the River's Current The Laborers exposed to 
 Fevers, Dysentery, Malaria, and a deadly Artillery Fire from the 
 Enemy Deaths by Thousands in the Ditches The Project a Fail- 
 ure Lake Providence Canal Scheme Tried and Abandoned Co-ope- 
 ration with Banks. 
 
 General Sherman went away from the point of Chicka- 
 eaw Bluff with two thousand men less, that number having 
 been killed or crippled in the bloody assault on an impreg- 
 nable position. This was on the 1st of January, 1863. On 
 the 2d, he learned that the dreadful political general was at 
 the mouth of the Yazoo. " He was there with orders from 
 the War Department to command the expeditionary force 
 on the Mississippi." This was simply atrocious. Two thou- 
 sand brave men had been sacrificed to prevent this result, 
 and yet the ghost of a political general would not down. 
 General Sherman, however, informed the detested com- 
 mander of his attempt on Vicksburg, and gave as a reason 
 for not continuing the wanton slaughter of his men that 
 Pemberton's army was pouring into the place, which fact 
 convinced him, Sherman, that Grant must be near. Mc- 
 Clernand quite assured the hero of defeats that Grant was 
 having a good time at Memphis and entertained no thought 
 of moving ; that his depot of supplies had been dislodged by 
 Van Horn, and that Grant had withdrawn his forces from 
 Coffeeville and Oxford to Holly Springs and La Grange; and 
 further that Quimby's division of Grant's army was actually 
 at Memphis for stores when he, McClernand, passed down. 
 
 As this condition made any attempt on Vicksburg from 
 the river utterly hopeless, all came out of the Yazoo and or- 
 ganized at Milliken's Bend. 
 
 What next to do puzzled these warriors. As a steamer
 
 The Speeter of Me demand. 251 
 
 having two barges in tow laden with ammunition for Sher- 
 man's army had been captuned and carried up the Arkansas 
 river forty miles to a place called Fort Hindman, Sherman 
 proposed that he should proceed up the Arkansas, reduce 
 the fort, and retake the vessels. The result was that Mc- 
 Clernami, having senior commission, went in command, and 
 after a bloody fight took the place. Badeau, the historian, 
 tells us that Grant, before he learned the result, was quite 
 indignant at the side issue thus gotten up his indignation 
 passed to disgust when he found that success had crowned 
 McClernand's effort. However, it would not do for the 
 political general to win victories something then unknown 
 to Grant's army. To avoid this Grant hurried to the army 
 that he found afloat at Napoleon. From Sherman's memoirs 
 we learn that Grant, on the 18th day of January, ordered 
 McClernand with his own and my own corps to return to 
 Vicksburg, to disembark on the west bank, and to resume 
 work on a canal across a peninsula,' which had been begun 
 by General Thomas Williams the summer before, the object 
 being to turn the Mississippi at that point so as to circum- 
 vent the Confederates at Vicksburg. 
 
 From facts developed since the close of the war, .we 
 learn that President Lincoln had more confidence in General 
 McClernand as a military possibility than he had in Grant, 
 and as Edwin M. Stanton shared in this, it is evident that the 
 political general would have superseded the West Point in- 
 competent had it not been for Washburne, who saw in Mc- 
 Clernaud other possibilities in the political arena. Thus 
 were affairs complicated at Washington by considerations 
 foreign to a mere military review of the situation. As Presi- 
 dent Lincoln could not well offend the Washburne combina- 
 tion, he sought to compromise by leaving Grant in command 
 of the department and especially designating a subordinate 
 to command the expedition down the Mississippi. Halleck, 
 Grant, and Sherman saw no objection to this, for they well 
 knew that it was possible to make the subordinate's position 
 so uncomfortable as to force a resignation. Had the three 
 melancholy warriors possessed the wisdom now attributed to 
 them, they would have had McClernand follow the fate of
 
 252 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Sherman, and waste his forces in front of impregnable bluffs 
 that stand guard about Vicksburg. Instead of this Grant 
 took command and proceeded to make himself more offensive 
 to McClernand than to the Confederates. In a fierce order 
 to his subordinate, he said, " this expedition must not fail," 
 and he might have added, as it failed under Sherman. And 
 so he set the particularly selected general to digging an im- 
 possible canal to divert the channel of the Mississippi and 
 leave Vicksburg and its bluffs six miles from this inland sea, 
 which it vexed according to President Lincoln. 
 
 The Father of Waters is strangely sinuous in its course ; 
 why it should be so, has never been and probably never will 
 be accounted for. Of course, it is subject to certain forces 
 that make it so snake-like in its course, but what they are 
 we can not blame Grant for not knowing. One of these ec- 
 centric bends is at Vicksburg. Looking at the map, one can 
 see that the river makes a short bend to the north-east and 
 runs five miles to the Vicksburg bluffs, and then turns yet 
 shorter and runs back south-west, creating a peninsula that 
 for five miles is nowhere more than two miles wide. It 
 struck Grant that if the fact were demonstrated to the Mis- 
 sissippi that a short cut of two miles would save over ten 
 miles, the river would at once ac<5ept the shorter route, and 
 so leave Vicksburg with all its natural defenses useless to the 
 Confederates. The project was not original with Grant. As 
 we have seen, the canal that was to have been the opening 
 suggestion to the mighty river was commenced the year be-' 
 fore. Grant, however, adopted it heartily, and, being his 
 own engineer, assumed all the responsibility. The attempted 
 change of the Mississippi was popular with the people who 
 knew nothing of the obstacles that proved in the end impos- 
 sibilities. Details of four thousand men were relieving each 
 other in a toil that continued from daylight until dark. 
 They uprooted huge trees, dug, plowed, scraped, and shov- 
 eled with dams and levees to protect them from the waters 
 of a river that was supposed to be only too willing to avail 
 itself of the new channel. In this hopeless task, the north- 
 ern men brought in contact with the wet lowlands of this 
 malarial region were seized with fevers, and soo*n the trans-
 
 Death Stalking Before Vicksburg. 253 
 
 ports, converted into hospitals, were crowded with the sick 
 and dying. This was had enough, but a worse condition was 
 soon demonstrated in the fact that the enemy's guns swept 
 the space devoted to the canal, and the men of the detailed 
 four thousand who escaped the malaria were exposed to the 
 shot and shell from batteries that could not be silenced or 
 even troubled by a reply. The Confederates practiced this 
 artillery fire on the poor men who had volunteered to fight, 
 and were condemned to die under fire and malaria as fatal 
 as the round shot or shell of the enemy. And the task was 
 hopeless. In indication of his sagacity, Grant says, through 
 Badeau, that, "on the 4th of February, he reported to 
 Halleck that he had lost all faith in the practicability 
 of the scheme. The canal, he said, is at right angles 
 with the thread of the current at both ends, and both ends 
 are in an eddy the lower coming out under bluffs com- 
 pletely commanding it. Warrenton, a few miles below, is 
 capable of as strong defenses as Vicksburg, and the en- 
 emy, seeing us at work, have turned their attention to that 
 point." 
 
 That discovery of these plain facts deferred to so late a 
 day as the 4th of February is brought forward as an indica- 
 tion of his sagacity, is somewhat amusing. And, having 
 made this discovery, why did he continue the dreadful work ? 
 The answer is simple and plain enough. He did not know 
 what else to do. He could not imitate the disastrous exam- 
 ple of Sherman, and hurl his army against the impregnable 
 bluffs. One wonders he did not. This heartless butcher of 
 his own men was much given to that sort of warfare. But 
 this was too hopeless, and what to do next he did not know. 
 To re-embark his army and steam up the Mississippi as Sher- 
 man had done, would be in effect to force the War Depart- 
 ment to find another commander. He could not get by 
 Vicksburg, and so the four thousand went on digging and 
 dying by the hundreds, while the Confederate gunners stead- 
 ily practiced throwing in round shot and shell upon them. 
 This attempt at changing the channel of the Mississippi 
 amused the Confederates. They were perfectly willing that 
 one-third of our forces in the field of war should remain idle
 
 254 Life of Thomas. 
 
 where they especially wanted them, and, if our general era- 
 ployed his time fighting malaria and the Mississippi under 
 fire from their guns, he was quite welcome. The War De- 
 partment at Richmond, under the circumstances, counted 
 Pemberton's eighteen thousand men equal to Grant's hun- 
 dred thousand, and greatly strengthened Bragg and Lee with 
 volunteers from west of the Mississippi. 
 
 Now that we have access to the real facts developed by the 
 government records of both sides, we have some strange reve- 
 lations. One of them is found in the treatment given General 
 Rosecrans while making preparation for the grandest cam- 
 paign of the* war, and that awarded Grant. The complaint 
 was made by not only Halleck but Grant that Rosecrans' de- 
 lay was giving the Confederates the opportunity to withdraw 
 men from behind the Army of the Cumberland to threaten 
 Grant. We now learn from the records that it was Grant 
 who was so completely in a hole that he could neither fight 
 nor fly, and his " bottled condition," to use the words he sub- 
 sequently applied to General Ben. Butler, enabled the Con- 
 federates to leave the bluffs, malaria, and Mississippi to fight 
 Grant, and actually to send their forces to strengthen Bragg. 
 Instead of there being any just complaint against Rosecrans, 
 it was Grant who could not march, and so threatened the 
 general move of the two other armies. 
 
 There is another strange revelation to be found in the 
 fact that while Rosecrans was snubbed in nearly all his ap- 
 peals for arms and men, Grant, although hopelessly swamped 
 before Vicksburg, was favored in a way that indicated soft- 
 ening of the brain at Washington. The transports that car- 
 ried the army down the Mississippi were needed by the War 
 Department. But Grant informed the President that the 
 marks on the trees about there indicated floods that would 
 cover the peninsula to the depth of ten feet, so the transports 
 were left to save the army from drowning. Grant, and 
 nearly all the officers from generals down to colonels, made 
 these transports their head-quarters, and to deprive them of 
 such luxuries would have been extremely unpleasant. 
 
 Meanwhile the digging and the dying went on. The 
 detail of four thousand continued while the hospitals on
 
 The Death-dealing Canal. 255 
 
 transports became crowded and graves multiplied. It has 
 been said that each railroad tie of the Panama railroad rep- 
 resented and was a grave-mark of fifty men. In like man- 
 ner, if the dead from fever could have been gathered that 
 Grant's canal struck down, enough bodies would have been 
 obtained to build a levee against the rising waters of a river 
 that had its surface above their heads, while a hundred and 
 twenty feet below the great world of water swept down at 
 the rate of six miles an hour. Grant, through Badeau, in- 
 forms us that this "plan of turning a mighty river from its 
 course attracted the attention of the civilized world ; that 
 the rebels loudly predicted failure, and the jibes of those 
 who opposed the war at the North were incessant." 
 
 Still Grant toiled on. Four thousand soldiers were con- 
 stantly employed on the work, besides negroes, who- were of 
 comparatively little use. But this work became more diffi- 
 cult and dangerous. Badeau informs us: " The troops who 
 were engaged for two months on the canal were encamped 
 immediately on its west bank, and protected from possible 
 inundation by a levee, but the continuing rise in the river 
 made a large expenditure of labor necessary to keep the water 
 out of the camps and canal." 
 
 The innocence of confession in Grant as given by Badeau 
 is amazing. While four thousand men kept at work in an 
 effort to change the channel of the river, another four 
 thousand were busy building a dam to keep the other detail 
 from drowning. He continues : . . . " The work was 
 tedious and difficult, and seemed interminable* and toward 
 the last it became dangerous, for the enemy threw shells all 
 over the peninsula, .and, as Grant had predicted, erected bat- 
 teries which commanded the lower end of the canal." 
 
 And yet this hopeless work with its terrible cost in life 
 and treasure was persisted in simply because the general 
 commanding did not know what else to do. The bristling 
 heights from. which the Confederates, unmolested, practiced 
 their artillery, were before him as they were before Sherman 
 on that fatal day when he sent "his thousands up to die, but 
 he dared not attack, and so he went on in a work in which 
 he acknowledges in Badeau he had almost from the begin-
 
 256 Life of Thomas. 
 
 uing no confidence. We are told, however, that he was, 
 nevertheless, on the edge of success when the unexpected 
 happened. Here it is in the general's own words, or rather 
 the general's account run through Badeau, is told as 
 follows : 
 
 " But at last there seemed some prospect of success, the 
 dredge-boats worked to a charm, the laborers reached a suffi- 
 cient depth in the soil, the wing was ready to connect with 
 the main artery, and the undertaking was apparently all but 
 completed when, on the 8th of March, an additional and 
 rapid rise in the river, and the consequent increase of 
 pressure caused the dam near the upper end of the canal to 
 give way, and every attempt to keep the rush of water out 
 proved abortive. 
 
 " The torrent thus admitted struggled for a while with 
 the obstacles that sought to stay its course, but finally, in- 
 stead of coming out below, broke the levee of the canal it- 
 self, and spread rapidly across the peninsula, overwhelming 
 every barrier, and separating the northern and southern 
 shores as effectually as if the Mississippi itself flowed be- 
 tween them. It swept far and wide into the interior, sub- 
 merging the camps and spreading itself into the bayous even 
 to the Tensas and Lower Red. The troops were obliged to 
 flee for their lives, horses were drowned, implements were 
 broken and borne away by the current, and all the labor of 
 many weeks was lost." 
 
 While prosecuting this hopeless task of turning the bed 
 of the Mississippi, the general commanding had in mind a 
 project equally hopeless of getting away from Vicksburg. 
 He could, of course, re-embark his army and return to Mem- 
 phis, as we have said, but this would be an acknowledgment 
 of defeat, and an immediate return to tanning hides at 
 Galena. To avoid this he sought to free himself of Vicks- 
 burg. To this end he conceived the plan of cutting a canal 
 from the river to lake Providence, a crescent-shaped body of 
 water supposed to be a former bed of the Mississippi. It is 
 six miles in length, and measured by an air line is forty miles 
 above Vicksburg. From this lake it was supposed that, 
 through a partly defined channel, called Bayou Baxter,
 
 Employing Superfluous Troops. 257 
 
 Bayou Macon could be reached. This would take the army 
 to a point opposite Vicksburg, about forty miles from the 
 river. Then following the Teusas river, the army could be 
 got, after a tortuous course of six hundred miles into the 
 Mississippi, some two hundred miles below Vicksburg. The 
 object of all this Grant, through Badeau, informs us : 
 " Through these various channels, is was thought possible to 
 open a route by which transports of light draught might 
 reach the Mississippi again below, and thus enable Grant to 
 re-enforce Banks (then either on the Red river or the Atcha- 
 falaya), and to co-operate with him against Port Hudson." 
 
 We do not find in any of the chronicles that this re- 
 markable engineer foretold the utter impossiblity of opening 
 and using this succession of narrow waterways through the 
 enemy's country. These bayous were almost impassable in 
 their natural state, and could readily be obstructed by felling 
 trees. Badeau, speaking for Grant, tells us all about it. He 
 says: 
 
 " The levee was cut and a canal opened between the 
 river and the lake, through which the water passed rapidly ; 
 but peculiar difficulties were encountered in clearing Bayou 
 Baxter of the overhanging forests and fallen timber with 
 which it was obstructed. The land from Lake Providence, 
 and also from Bayou Baxter, receded until the lowest inter- 
 val between the two widens out into a cypress swamp, where 
 the Bayou Baxter is lost. This flat was filled with water to 
 the depth of several feet, and the work of removing the 
 timber that choked the bayou for a distance of twelve or 
 fifteen miles was, in consequence, exceedingly difficult and 
 slow. But if this could have been accomplished, the chan- 
 nel in high water would have been continuous, though intri- 
 cate and circuitous to a remarkable degree. 
 
 " So McPherson's corps was engaged in the undertaking 
 for many weeks. The impossibility of obtaining the requi- 
 site number of light draught steamers, however, would have 
 rendered this route useless, even had it been thoroughly 
 opened. But no steamer ever passed through the tortuous 
 channel, which served only to employ the superfluous troops 
 17
 
 258 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and to demonstrate the fertility arid variety of devices de- 
 veloped during this anomalous campaign." 
 
 The last sentence in this extraordinary statement awak- 
 ens an indignation that no words can express. "But no 
 steamer ever passed through the tortuous channel, which served 
 only to employ the superfluous troops" This amazing confes- 
 sion of heartless imbecility is reinforced by another passage 
 on the same subject. It says: "The project exacted atten- 
 tion and speculation." "Well it might. He continues to say 
 that many thought it would divert the Mississippi to this 
 route from Vicksburg and all the lower towns. But he, 
 Grant, did not entertain this wild belief. " He believed that 
 Vicksburg was only to be won by hard fighting," and mean- 
 while he was "simply affording occupation for his men" 
 
 No fighting was being done. None could be done, and 
 while the general commanding through the weary months 
 was vainly striving to relieve himself and forces from the 
 condition into which he had led them, his wonderful brain 
 found occupation for the men in working out projects that 
 his sagacious mind saw in the beginning of each was im- 
 practicable. He had no confidence in the attempted change 
 in the channel by a canal cutting the peninsula, and yet for 
 weeks he continued the work continued until at last the 
 Mississippi drowned out his men and in one flood swept away 
 the work that was the work of death. He attempted a 
 passage through Lake Providence that would carry his army 
 four hundred miles from Vicksburg, and is careful to put it 
 to record that he had no faith in the project. And the as- 
 tounding plea in justification is, that it not only illustrated 
 the intellectual superiority of the commander, but gave oc- 
 cupation to his superfluous troops, While the commander 
 of the Army of the Potomac was crying aloud for more 
 men, while General Rosecrans was pleading in vain for rein- 
 forcements and supplies, while at every point of the conflict 
 the cry went up that the Confederates outnumbered us, 
 Grant had " his superfluous troops " to dig and die of dysen- 
 tery and fevers in swamps, when all the work, according to 
 Grant's confession, was utterly useless. 
 
 What this occupation was we have told. The brave,
 
 The Plague Before Vickvburg. 259 
 
 patriotic men of the North, who left their homes and bread- 
 winning for wives and children to tight for their country, 
 were found occupation as laborers in the swamps and bayous 
 of the Mississippi. The detail of four thousand at a time 
 upon a work that was prosecuted day and night under fire 
 of an enemy, could not have been designed as an occupation 
 to preserve health, for they fell by hundreds, stricken down 
 by a malarial fever as fatal as any plague that ever afflicted 
 humanity. The few escaping death were sent north living 
 skeletons, to languish a few years in their desolate homes. 
 One walking through the beautiful national cemetery at 
 Vicksburg sees it crowded with the graves of our gallant 
 dead, and takes no heed of the host sent home to die, whose 
 numbers would make another cemetery of like size. The 
 number of the lost from our forces about Vicksburg have 
 been reduced to 90,000. And why was this vast army, that 
 could have marched victorious from Memphis to New Or- 
 leans, rendering Vicksburg and Port Hudson untenable 
 -why was it sacrificed? Grant answers through Badeau, 
 "to give the men occupation," while the commander, at his 
 gorgeous head-quarters upon one of the transports, feasted, 
 and made merry, while he racked his dull brains to find 
 some way out of the awful dilemma in which he found 
 himself. 
 
 For fear our readers may think we exaggerate in chron- 
 icling the sad condition of our men under muskets, we turn to 
 Grant himself, when in the accepted biography, by Badeau, he 
 says : " These various attempts and expeditions on both sides 
 of the Mississippi, although unsuccessful in their main objects, 
 were yet productive of beneficial results. The national 
 forces so constantly employed became hardened by exposure, 
 and, of course, improved in spirits and health. They ob- 
 tained, also, a thorough knowledge of the peculiar difficulties 
 of the country in which they were operating, and were thus 
 better able to encounter those difficulties." 
 
 The story of suffering and death is better told by Gen- 
 eral Wm. E. Strong, one of the army, in his eloquent ad- 
 dress at the dedication of a monument to General McPher- 
 son at Clyde, Ohio, 22d July, 1881. He said :
 
 260 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " It was composed of men whose bodies were so inured 
 to hardships that disease could make no impression on them. 
 Each man represented five others who had started with him ; 
 the five had succumbed to disease or to the bullets of the 
 enemy; four out of the five were put under the sod that was 
 to be made free soil by their exertions and the exertions of 
 their comrades; the fifth was at home, discharged from the 
 service by reason of disability, broken in health for life or 
 with a leg or arm gone. The sixth man, to whom no swamp 
 could give a fever, to whom wet clothes for a week could not 
 give the rheumatism, to whom no march, however long was 
 a hardship this culled and selected sixth man was there, 
 robust, healthful, the ruddy glow of health coursing through 
 every thousandth part of a square inch of his body and 
 visible through every pore of the skin, the patent seal and 
 superscription of the Almighty that he was the genuine coin 
 of the realm." 
 
 We learn from the approved life of Grant by Badeau 
 that the country taught by the families of the afflicted men the 
 real condition of affairs became clamorous. The press took 
 up the cry. It was at this time the famous letter from M. 
 Halstead was written to Secretary Chase, in which he so se- 
 verely denounced the general commanding before Yicks- 
 burg as a drunken imbecile, and had it been published be- 
 fore Grant became a political quantity it would have been ac- 
 cepted as the truth, for Grant through Badeau says: 
 
 " The country, meanwhile, and the government, had be- 
 come very impatient. Clamors were raised every-where against 
 Grant's slowness; the old rumors about his personal character 
 were revived (for character read habits) ; his soldiers were said 
 to be dying of swamp fevers and dysentery in the morasses 
 around Vicksburg ; he was pronounced utterly destitute of 
 genius or energy ; his repeatedly baffled schemes were de- 
 clared to emanate from a brain unfitted for such trials ; his 
 persistency was dogged obstinacy; his patience sluggish 
 dullness." 
 
 The project of getting away from Vicksburg by the way 
 of hake Providence was tried and abandoned as impractica- 
 ble. And yet no fact was developed in the trial, but must
 
 Seeking to Let Go Vicksburg. 261 
 
 have been known at head-quarters in the beginning But 
 the surplus forces had to be employed, if only in sick serv- 
 ice at the hospitals and in funeral processions. This bayou 
 pass business seemed to have a fascination for the general. 
 Before he abandoned one we find him seizing on another. 
 The temptation came in the way of the Yazoo Pass. This 
 eccentric waterway is some six miles below Helena, Arkan- 
 sas, on the east side of the Mississippi ; one hundred and 
 sixty miles above Vicksburg by an air-line, and three times 
 that by the waterway that wound in and out like a serpent. 
 This narrow bayou led to Moon lake, from that the water- 
 way turned eastward to Goldwater river or bayou; thence to 
 the Tallahatchie; thence in a crooked course of over a hun- 
 dred miles united with the Yallabusha to form the Yazoo. 
 
 A madder project to destroy an enemy was never de- 
 vised than the one that had placed that army in the swamps 
 and bayous before Vicksburg from the river from which the 
 general was vainly devising means of extraction. For- 
 tunately a tentative effort of a force under Sherman, sus- 
 tained by Admiral Porter, not only failed but with reason to 
 thank God that it escaped destruction, demonstrated that a 
 campaign in that direction was not to be attempted. 
 
 Grant, through Badeau, sums up the campaign by com- 
 paring it to that of Napoleon about Ulm, in which the great 
 Napoleon suffers from the comparison. The text says com- 
 placently of the advantages that the famous French general 
 had over our eminent strategist that Grant " instead of mov- 
 ing fresh from a camp like that of Boulogne, the Army of 
 the Tennessee had spent months amid the swamps and 
 fevers of the Mississippi." Had Napoleon at Boulogne 
 quartered his army for months in a fever stricken swamp for 
 no other purpose than to cudgel his brain in a vain hope 
 to find some way out other than the one opened by com- 
 mon sense, to say nothing of common humanity, the com- 
 parison might not have helped Grant, but it would have low- 
 ered Europe's greatest general to the level of reasonable com- 
 parison. 
 
 The general commanding with his army in front of Vicks- 
 burg, which he dared not assault, was prolific of plans
 
 262 Life of Thomas. 
 
 by which he could extricate himself without a public con- 
 fession of defeat. This bayou business under Sherman that 
 proved such a ludicrous failure had scarcely ended ere Grant 
 bethought of another project. This consisted of cutting a 
 canal from the Mississippi at Duckport to a narrow bayou 
 known as Walnut bayou, thence through the tortuous wind- 
 ings of the most eccentric waters returned to the Mississippi 
 some eighty miles to New Carthage. Of this bayou move 
 Grant again advises Halleck. He says : 
 
 " The dredges are now engaged in cutting a canal from 
 here into these bayous. I am getting all the empty coal- 
 boats and other barges prepared for carrying troops and ar- 
 tillery, and have written to Colonel Allen for some more 
 and also for six tugs to tow them. With them it would be 
 easy to carry supplies to New Carthage and any points south 
 of that," 
 
 Through Badeau he informs the curious world that " he 
 proposed to send an army corps to co-operate with Banks. 
 With this increased force Port Hudson could certainly be 
 taken, and then Banks' entire army might be combined 
 with Grant's, and moving up from below a co-operative at- 
 tack be made on Vicksburg." 
 
 Grant had no men to spare for any such wild goose 
 affair as this, and his real object was to get his entire army 
 by this route away from not only the front of Vicksburg, 
 but the pestiferous place itself. He must have known that 
 such was the heavy draft for men made by the then great ag- 
 gressive armies in the field under Hooker, Rosecrans, and 
 himself, that Banks was allowed only enough to act on the 
 defensive in holding Louisiana. It is true, that Halleck, to 
 quiet President Lincoln's growing impatience, and well 
 believing that Grant was swamped before Vicksburg, kept 
 a continuous demand on the unhappy general to co-operate 
 with Banks in an attack on Port Hudson. Grant denies, 
 however, that he had any intent to move his entire army. 
 We are told that he meant to send or lead 20,000 by the 
 narrow way of winding bayous to Port Hudson, some four 
 hundred miles below, in a wild hope of finding Banks' army 
 there, and that a siege of Port Hudson would withdraw the
 
 Abandoning the Vicksburg Front. 263 
 
 irritated public mind from the failure at Vicksburg. In the 
 meantime, the main body was to remain in the stagnant 
 waters of Grand Gulf where the sick list was increasing as 
 the season advanced. 
 
 Had Grant consulted the War Department at Richmond, 
 hq could not have devised a plan more favorable to the Con- 
 federacy than this. In the first place, he so divided his 
 forces as to enable the enemy to attack in detail and defeat 
 with ease. The small force, for example, left at Milliken's 
 Bend, would be open to attack from Vicksburg. The Vicks- 
 burg forces, relieved from any menace of a great army with 
 the interior abandoned, could at any time assume the ag- 
 gressive with fatal effect. This, while the moving column 
 destined for Port Hudson would depend for its supplies on 
 Milliken's Bend where every transport would have to be ac- 
 companied by a small army to save it from destruction. The 
 fact is that Grant, whatever may have been his statements at 
 the time or his literary efforts after, meant to get his entire 
 army from before Vicksburg, let the cost be what it might. 
 This was so evidently the fact that it produced general dis- 
 may among the subordinate generals of the army. With 
 the charming simplicity of obtuseness that characterizes all 
 of Grant's literary efforts, he confesses to the truth of the 
 condition, and, through Badeau, says: 
 
 " When the idea became known to those in his in- 
 timacy to his staff and to his corps commanders, it seemed 
 to them full of danger. To move his army below Vicks- 
 burg was to separate it from the North and from all its sup- 
 plies ; to throw what seemed an insurmountable obstacle be- 
 tween himself and his own base ; to cut his communications 
 and to place iris army exactly where it is the whole object 
 and aim of war to get the enemy." 
 
 All the generals were alarmed; Sherman, especially, 
 was excited. "All strove," says the guileless Badeau, 
 " within the limits of soldierly subordination to divert their 
 chief from what they considered a fatal error." He con- 
 tinues : 
 
 " Even after the orders for the movement had been is- 
 sued, Sherman rode up to Grant's head-quarters and pro-
 
 264 Life of Thomas. 
 
 posed his plan. He asserted, emphatically, that the only 
 way to take Vicksburg was from the north, selecting some 
 high ground on the Mississippi for a base. Grant replied 
 that such a plan would require him to go back to Memphis. 
 * Exactly so,' said Sherman, ' that is what I mean.' ' 
 
 Sherman followed his verbal protest with a letter to the 
 same end addressed to Grant's chief of staff. Grant read the 
 letter in silence. The man who had moved his army down 
 the Mississippi because of his jealousy of a political general 
 after Sherman had demonstrated that Vicksburg could not 
 be taken at the front from the river, well knew that if, at the 
 end of the terrible loss of men and means, he returned to 
 Memphis, he would be relegated to the obscurity from which 
 he had so recently emerged. 
 
 Some move had to be made. Grant, in his military 
 biography edited by Badeau, states the situation fairly in 
 a paragraph written to show that he was in no worse con- 
 dition than the other generals in command. There is a 
 slight historical inaccuracy in his claiming Corinth and 
 luka as his temples and designating Banks' forces as a 
 mammoth expedition, when the fact was that Banks had but 
 thirty thousand men holding the lower Mississippi against a 
 capable active Confederate commander, supplied with troops 
 liberated from Vicksburg by Grant's bottled condition. But 
 these inaccuracies are so trivial in comparison with others 
 that we can well let them pass. He says : 
 
 " Indeed, it is not surprising that the government should 
 have urged him on. No substantial victory had cheered the 
 flagging spirits of the North since Grant's own successes at 
 Corinth and luka of the preceding autumn. Banka had 
 achieved no military results with his mammoth expedition ; 
 Burnside, in December, had suffered the repulse of Freder- 
 icksburg ; Rosecraus had not got further than Murfreesboro, 
 and the great force of 60,000 or 70,000 men at Grant's dis- 
 posal had accomplished absolutely nothing during six long, 
 weary months of effort and delay." 
 
 We have to remember, however, that the Army of the 
 Potomac, that of the Cumberland, and of Banks at New Or- 
 leans, were all organized for practical movements forward,
 
 Rosccrdns Endangered by Grant. 265 
 
 while the seventy thousand men under Grant were digging 
 their own graves in a hopeless position his incompetence 
 provided. So hopeless was this, that when his Port Hudson 
 plan was developed, there came a revolt against it from all 
 his subordinate generals. 
 
 We have referred to the fact that it was Grant, and not, 
 as generally believed, Rosecrans, whose helpless inactivity 
 relieved the Confederates of one great army. This hero of 
 disaster admits that the army, in the beginning of the canal 
 digging, bayou clearing, and general swamp life, numbered a 
 hundred and thirty thousand men, and at the time the above 
 paragraph referred to was reduced, without fighting, to sixty 
 or seventy thousand. As to liberating Confederates from 
 his front, he writes Halleck, 27th March, that the forces 
 were not to exceed ten thousand in the city (Vicksburg) to- 
 day. Thus, in a masterly movement, that is compared to 
 that of Napoleon at Ulm, he had so arranged as to be with 
 sixty or seventy thousand men fastened to a front manned 
 only by ten thousand, but equal under the circumstances to 
 a hundred thousand. Now, not only were the Confederates 
 relieved, but our armies were drained to continue the supply 
 of fever-stricken and swamp-suffering men under this man 
 so superior to Napoleon at Ulm. 
 
 At intervals few and far between, we strike a truth in 
 this singularly erroneous military life prepared by Badeau 
 from material supplied by Grant, such, for instance, as the 
 following, written to Halleck as late as the 4th of April : 
 
 " From information from the South by way Corinth, I 
 learn that the enemy in front of Rosecrans have been rein- 
 forced from Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and a 
 few from Vicksburg. They have also collected a large cav- 
 alry force of 20,000 men. All the bridges eastward from 
 Savannah (Tenn.) and north from Florence are being rapidly 
 repaired. Chalmers is put in command of North Mississippi, 
 and is collecting all the partisan rangers and loose inde- 
 pendent companies of cavalry that have been operating in 
 this department. He is now occupying the line of the Tal- 
 lahatchie. This portends preparations to attack Rosecrans,
 
 266 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and to be able to follow up any success with rapidity. Also, 
 to make a simultaneous raid into West Tennessee, both from 
 Mississippi and by crossing the Tennessee river." 
 
 The "few taken from Vicksburg" amounted in number 
 to an army of thirty thousand men.
 
 Plan of Escape from before Vicksburg. 2H7 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 The Port Hudson Plan of Escape from before Vicksburg Running Steam- 
 ers Past the Batteries McClernand Forces the Evacuation of Grand 
 Gulf and Port Gibson Grant Fails to Follow Up the Advantage, and 
 Moves Off in a Raid on Jackson Pembertou Moves Out of Vicksbunr^ 
 Intending to Form a Junction with Johnston and Attack Grant's Rear- 
 Bloody Battle of Champion's Hill Pemberton Retreats into Vicks- 
 burg The Assaults and Horrible Loss The Wounded Left to Die and 
 and the Dead to Rot Pemberton Surrenders Fearful Cost of the 
 Questionable Advantage. 
 
 The newspaper historians aud the egotistical memoirs 
 of the brainless bullet-heads, as the great Hawthorne desig- 
 nated a majority of our generals, are so occupied with mili- 
 tary operations that they take no note of the men at the head 
 of the government upon whom fell the great responsibility 
 of conducting the conflict to a successful issue. The time 
 the stolid and ignorant soldier was advising Halleck of the 
 perilous condition of the Union armies, April 4, 1863, was 
 the darkest period of the war. That ablest of our diplo- 
 matic statesmen, William H. Seward, of the State Depart- 
 ment, had days of anxiety and nights bereft of sleep over the 
 threatening attitude of Europe toward us. Our war was 
 being carried on in the cabinets abroad. Recognition of the 
 Richmond government was threatened hourly. Its fatal re- 
 sult would have been swift and conclusive. It looked to the 
 French and Russian powers, the most forward and potent 
 against us, that the revolted states would win without their 
 hazardous interference. No less heavy was the task assigned 
 Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury. The fearful 
 outlay of a million a day to keep our armies in the field upon 
 loans from the people, for capital that is' ever selfish, timid, 
 and unpatriotic, held aloof, and these loans in the shape of 
 currency, being the credit of an imperiled government, con- 
 tinued to depreciate until, at the time of which we write, the 
 premium on gold reached seventy-two, and bade fair ere long 
 to leave the paper money without value. The government,
 
 268 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of course, was bidding against itself in purchases that an 
 almost worthless currency steadily augmented. Edwin M. 
 Stanton, a strange compound of ill-temper, vindictive preju- 
 dices, lofty patriotism, and eminent ability, a man of errors 
 but no weaknesses, had the task of conducting a war in 
 which he had, as he claimed, no generals, but a vast army of 
 men under muskets, the bravest and best God ever gave to a 
 people. Back of, and more fatal, because insiduously sapping 
 the very foundation of popular faith, was a disJoyal senti- 
 ment at the North that fed and fattened on disaster, and day 
 by day, slowly but surely, honey-combed the faith that held 
 Lincoln's administration at Washington and our armies in 
 the field. These eminent men, with the most eminent at their 
 head, bore the strain of this terrible burden to the end. "The 
 coarse, tough fiber of the greatest man with which our 
 country was ever blessed not only enabled him to live through 
 the heavy responsibility of his task, but lifted him above de- 
 pression and the fatal effects of panics. It was this condi- 
 tion at Washington that enabled Washburne to keep the 
 most incapable of our commanders at the head of an army 
 being wasted in swamps and bayous. He was from Illinois, 
 Lincoln's own state, and he knew the popular power this 
 sagacious leader held. Then, again, Grant did not seem 
 more unfortunate than the other commanders. Lincoln said, 
 with his usual quaintness, that selecting a general " was like 
 putting one's hand in a sack to get one eel from a dozen 
 snakes." 
 
 But popular patience was drawing to a close. Army 
 correspondents for public journals writing from the horrible 
 fever-stricken camps of Grant's army, although petted and 
 wined, could not be controlled. Members of Congress be- 
 gan working their way to the front. The same law-makers, 
 discontented, thronged the executive mansion at Washington, 
 while the mails came laden with letters from people having 
 sons and brothers dead or dying of malaria. 
 
 Some sort of a movement became a necessity. This was 
 resolved on in the Port Hudson plan, that meant, if success- 
 ful, to get the entire army from before Vicksburg down to 
 Banks, at New Orleans. The man who resembled Napoleon
 
 Swamps and a Cuvious Canal. 269 
 
 at Ulm persisted. Orders were issued " in the last week of 
 March " for concentration of all the forces at Milliken's 
 Bend. Hurl but, at Memphis, was stripped of every man 
 that could be spared from the rear ; yawls and flatboatg were 
 collected from St. Louis and Chicago, and, on the 28th of 
 March, McClernand was sent, by the circuitous roads that 
 lead from Milliken's Bend by way of Richmond and west of 
 Roundaway Bayou, to New Carthage, twenty-seven miles 
 below. McPherson and Sherman were to follow as rapidly 
 as ammunition and rations could be forwarded. 
 
 The canal called the Duckport, through the looping Wal- 
 nut Bayou to Bayou Vidal, had not been completed ; supplies 
 were to follow as soon as the canal was opened. The troops 
 moved in light marching order, with only ten days rations 
 in their haversacks. The road, if it could be called such, 
 along which the troops were to march, had to be built of 
 rough logs to keep the horses and wagons from sinking hub 
 deep in the soft mud. In addition to the road bed of logs, 
 over two thousand feet of bridging had to be built, and to 
 get seventy thousand men of all arms, with the necessary 
 transportation of ammunition and food, along such a cause- 
 way was so hopeless that Grant relied altogether on the canal 
 he was digging to open water transportation. The canal 
 was at last completed, but not opened, for suddenly a situa- 
 tion presented itself that was more ludicrous than any ever 
 devised for opera-boufle. McClernand, with twenty thou- 
 sand men wading through swamps and swimming bayous, 
 was busy constructing the sixty miles of road. Now, this 
 rough causeway was but a few inches above the level of the 
 water, and to open the canal was to pour in on this pioneer 
 corps a flood that would sweep it off' in four feet of water. 
 The great engineer had not perceived this until he was about 
 to open the line. He was forced to wait until the high water 
 of the Mississippi subsided, and then he had another ludi- 
 crous surprise. There was not enough water in the canal 
 to float a shingle. And so the waterway for easy transporta- 
 tion dropped out, and with it disappeared the Port Hudson 
 project. 
 
 Again our commander met face to face the fact that his
 
 270 Life of Thomas. 
 
 only course out of his half-year's vain struggle with the im- 
 possible was to confess his failures and return his army to 
 Memphis and himself to Galena. A man of any thing like 
 a sensitive temperament would have long since acknowledged 
 his failure and asked to be relieved. Grant was not of that 
 sort. So long as the political influence at Washington 
 availed him so long would he hold the unfortunate army to 
 death by fevers in front of Vicksburg. The country, how- 
 ever, had to be kept interested in fresh events, and now one 
 presented itself that might with a better hope of success have 
 been tried in the beginning. This project was to run past 
 the batteries at night with gunboats and steamers laden with 
 men and supplies. Such perilous attempts had been made 
 successful by iron-clads, but now it was proposed to use the 
 light built unguarded steamboats of the Mississippi. Three 
 of these were selected and partly protected by bales of cotton 
 and wet hay. These were escorted by one wooden and six 
 iron-clad gunboats. These were to " run past twenty-eight 
 heavy guns that commanded the river for eighteen miles." 
 Illustrating the sort of men in our volunteer ranks the brave 
 fellows turned over to Grant, not as food for powder, but food 
 for fevers, small-pox and measles, we quote from Badeau's 
 Grant, the following : 
 
 " Only two of the steamboat masters were willing to en- 
 counter the danger ; the crew of one transport (barge) also 
 remained aboard, but all others shrank. When, however, it 
 became known in the army that volunteers were wanted for 
 the dangerous task, men enough to man a hundred steamers 
 pressed themselves upon the commanders; pilots, masters, 
 engineers and men all were found in the ranks and among 
 the officers on shore, and from these crews were speedily im- 
 provised for the transport fleet." 
 
 The Confederates, soon discerning our attempt, lit the 
 river with huge fires, in some instances houses, and poured 
 in upon the passing fleet an incessant fire. The damage in- 
 flicted is left in great obscurity. We know that of the three 
 steamboats but one escaped, and as the barges or transports, 
 as they were called, were cut loose from the steamers and 
 gunboats the moment they came under fire they were left to
 
 The Destruction of a Fleet. 271 
 
 a current of from five to six miles an hour to float slowly by 
 the death dealing shells of the enemy. Badeau reluctantly 
 admits a little light upon the affair by telling of an old rebel 
 in whose house McClernand made his head-quarters at New 
 Carthage. This aged son of the South was openly rejoicing 
 at the entire destruction of our venturesome fleet. " By 
 daylight, however," 'writes Badeau, " the wrecks had all 
 passed by and after awhile a gunboat appeared below the 
 line and then a transport; then one after another the whole 
 fleet of iron-clads and army steamers hove in sight from their 
 perilous passage." 
 
 As but three steamers had started, and two were de- 
 stroyed, the use of the plural is as obscure as the sentence which 
 says " the wrecks had all passed by." In Grant's memoirs 
 which supplement Badeau's military life and are evidently by 
 the same hand, we learn that the hideous resolve to remain 
 with his army upon the river front of Vicksburg for nearly 
 half a year without a practical move or a blow in battle came 
 of a patriotic desire to sustain the administration and 
 strengthen the hearts of the people by pretended moves for- 
 ward " to a great victory." This is queer reading to all who 
 remember that the most desponding event that chilled the 
 North, arrested volunteering and gave political victory to the 
 war opponents was Grant's encamped condition before 
 Yicksburg. This throughout the press was attributed to the 
 commander's incapacity and unfortunate alcoholic habits. 
 Perhaps it was this same motive not to discourage the war 
 sentiment that made him conceal his losses on all occasions. 
 That a greater part of the barges or transports were sunk 
 and the brave men who had volunteered to man them found 
 their graves in the mud of the Mississippi can not be ques- 
 tioned. The loss being carefully concealed Grant reports to 
 Halleck : " Our experiment of running the batteries at 
 Yicksburg, has demonstrated the entire practicability of 
 doing so with but little risk." 
 
 As we have said, what was accomplished with a great 
 loss in the end, could have been done almost without loss in 
 the beginning. If one, or at the farthest, two months, of 
 the time spent in hopeless canal digging and bayou explor-
 
 272 Lift of Thomas. 
 
 ing hud been given to preparing iron-clads, the batteries at 
 Vicksburg could have been run with the same success that 
 attended like attempts elsewhere. 
 
 As we have a large number of sensible people, quite in- 
 telligent and reasonable when apart from political prejudices, 
 who insist upon it that this hero of fevers, small-pox, and 
 measles, was a clear-brained, thoughtful man, who projected 
 his mind from the complications of the present into the fu- 
 ture of success, it is well to turn to his own record, made up 
 in communications to Halleck, at Washington. We have 
 seen that while digging the canal across the peninsula, he 
 claims to have predicted its failure. And yet he continued 
 to dig to the end. Of the attempt by the Duckport canal to 
 cut a waterway to New Carthage, we learn from Grant, as 
 seen through Badeau, that at a very early day he saw and 
 prophesied its failure. This is contradicted by a letter from 
 Grant as late as the 12th of April, when he says that he then 
 believed fully in the waterway, and he gives two reasons for 
 not availing himself of its immediate use. The first is that 
 he has not suitable vessels for the purpose, and second, given 
 after a return from Smith's plantation, to Halleck, dated 
 April 19, is embodied in his statement that " by clearing out 
 the bayous from timber, there will be good navigation from 
 here to New Carthage for tugs and barges, also small 
 stern-wheel steamers. The navigation can be kept good, I 
 think, by using our dredges constantly until there is twenty 
 feet fall." He throws an anchor to the windward by adding: 
 " On this subject, however, I have not taken the opinion of 
 an engineer officer, nor have I formed it upon sufficient in- 
 vestigation to warrant me in speaking positively." 
 
 This was a singular confession from a commander who, 
 at the time, based the entire campaign and the saving of his 
 army upon the very project he had failed to consult compe- 
 tent officers upon, or to investigate himself. 
 
 Three days after, however, he seems to have investigated, 
 for he writes Sherman, 24th of April, before he gave the 
 water route a trial, " The water in the bayous is falling very 
 rapidly, out of all proportion to the fall in the river, so that
 
 Moving to Grand Gulf. 273 
 
 it is exceedingly doubtful whether they can be, made use of 
 for the purpose of navigation." 
 
 There does not seem to have been much anxiety to keep 
 the government at Washington advised of the real condition 
 of our army at Vicksburg. Perhaps it was the same patriotic 
 desire to avoid depression that kept the army swamped and 
 dying there rather than by a movement back to Memphis, 
 take up again a sensible campaign abandoned six months be- 
 fore for the sole purpose of heading off a " political general." 
 "While Grant kept the War Department at Washington in 
 ignorance of his situation, he seems to have treated himself to 
 a like condition in regard to his front. While McClernand's 
 forces were toiling in the mud, strung along for twenty miles, 
 and not yet provided with means to cross intervening bayous 
 that were overflowed to transport an army and supplies for 
 the purpose of taking Grand Gulf, Grant was pleased to 
 treat himself to the belief that Grand Gulf had fallen, or if 
 not, that such success was only a question of short time. 
 Thus, on the 13th, Grant cautioned McClernand : " It is not 
 desirable that you should move in any direction from Grand 
 Gulf, but remain under protection of the gun-boats." 
 
 It seems to have been Job's greatest affliction that 
 brought Grant to a knowledge of his front. Porter 
 wrote him that he could not harmonize with the "po- 
 litical general," and Badeau informs us that his general, al- 
 though afflicted with boils, rode forty miles to Porter's land- 
 ing, and then gave McClernand further instruction. The 
 fact is that he rode but twenty miles. This, however, was 
 sufficient for the ride and boils to stimulate his military 
 mind to the necessity he was under to command his army at 
 the front. He found that instead of McClernand taking 
 Grand Gulf, his entire force was strung along between Rich- 
 mond and New Carthage. Grant also learned that the 
 greater number of the barges he had sent to run the block- 
 ade had either been knocked to pieces and sunk, or had 
 floated down to a possession of the enemy, and that even if 
 he had his army on the river he lacked boats to carry it 
 across to au attack on Grand Gulf. 
 18
 
 274 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Again the murderous process of sending unprotected 
 boats to run the batteries was tried. Grant dispatched to 
 Halleck the 23d of April : 
 
 " Six boats and a number of barges ran the Vicksburg 
 batteries last night. All the boats got by more or less dam- 
 aged. The Tigress sank at 3 A. M., and is a total loss crew 
 all saved. The Moderator was much damaged. I think all 
 the barges went through safely. . . . Casualties, so far 
 as reported, two men mortally wounded and several (number 
 not known) more or less severely wounded. About 500 
 shots were fired. I look upon this as a great success." 
 
 Badeau narrates the affair more succinctly, save that in 
 this place he calls the steamboats transports : 
 
 " On the 28th of April, six other transports (steamboats) 
 attempted to run by the Vicksburg batteries ; five of them 
 succeeded, although in a damaged condition ; one was sunk 
 by being struck in the hull by a solid shot. The crews of all 
 the transports (steamboats), like those of their predecessors, 
 were composed of volunteers for the purpose from the army. 
 Twelve barges, laden with forage and rations, were sent in 
 tow of the last six steamers, and half of them got safely by." 
 
 Six of the twelve barges, laden with supplies, went down 
 to form the Mississippi delta, likewise one steamboat, which 
 carried the hospital stores, preparatory to the Grand Gulf 
 action. This was a dear way of supplying a great army, and 
 this was to be the way until the Port Hudson expedition 
 was over. But Uncle Sam was rich and Grant said it was a 
 great success. And none of these steamers or barges could 
 return for another load. 
 
 A ship-yard was set up for repairs. In this, again, we 
 have a hint at the quality of these volunteers: 
 
 " Mechanics were found in the army to do the work ; 
 for it was a striking feature of the volunteer service through- 
 out the war that no mechanical or professional need arose 
 when accomplished adepts could not be found in almost any 
 regiment to perform the duty required." 
 
 The following shows that there is no mistake as to the 
 amount of destruction, and also the next move : 
 
 " The army craft was soon in a condition to be of use
 
 Me demand Finds a Road to Vicksburg. 275 
 
 in moving troops ; but the destruction of two transports and 
 six barges reduced the number so that it was found neces- 
 sary to march them from Perkins' Plantation to Hard Times, 
 twenty-two miles further and a distance of seventy miles 
 from Milliken's Bend." 
 
 After running the batteries of Vicksburg at a fearful 
 loss of men and material, as we have seen, it was determined, 
 as a part of the latest plan to get away from Vicksburg, to 
 take the Grand Gulf fortification by storm. Fortunately 
 the initiative in this desperate project was taken by the gun- 
 boats under Porter. A few minutes' work demonstrated 
 that Grand Gulf was more impregnable from the river front 
 than Vicksburg itself. Porter's boats were badly battered 
 and had to be hauled oft', thankful that they were not sunk. 
 Had this been accompanied by an assault by infantry, two 
 thousand would probably have been killed and crippled as 
 at Chickasaw Blufts when Sherman tried conclusions with 
 the impossible. 
 
 This failure made the latest project of how to get away 
 impracticable, and a new campaign had to be thought of. 
 The future was as desperate as the past was gloomy. The 
 water route being abandoned, the only means of supply to 
 fifty thousand men was by the road from Milliken's Bend 
 built by McClernand's twenty thousand, seventy miles in 
 length, so nearly impassable that the air was heavy with the 
 odor of decaying mules killed in the labor imposed upon 
 them. At this critical moment a bit of information came, 
 Grant claims, to him from an intelligent contraband. Me- 
 Clernand asserts that it was his through right of discovery. 
 It was to the effect that at an obscure village on the east 
 bank of the Mississippi, called Bruninsburg, there was not 
 only a landing, but a road on high ground that led to the 
 rear of Vicksburg. McClernand, in his report, tells how, 
 when road making, he kept on foot a series of explorations 
 that included every part of the river and was accompanied 
 by skirmishes with bodies of Confederates that sought to 
 impede his slow and heavy engineering and explorations. 
 But McClernand was a " political general " of vaulting am-
 
 276 Life of Thomas. 
 
 bition and exasperating conceit, so that it was better to rely 
 on the intelligent but mysterious contraband. 
 
 Bruinsburg was seized and the road referred to found 
 to be singularly favorable. The Port Hudson scheme of re- 
 treat was abandoned in mind as it had been abandoned in 
 matter. The half year's dismal problem had been solved. 
 Grant was on the east side of the river at last, and the 
 formidable batteries turned. That which might have been 
 done by a campaign along the Mississippi Central nearly 
 half a year before was accomplished, and Grant found him- 
 self with at least fifty thousand men against Pembertou's 
 twenty thousand, for such was the force of the enemy hastily 
 called together when it was discerned that the Union forces 
 had run the batteries with enough boats to ferry our army 
 across the river. The Confederates were caught unprepared. 
 The strange fact that the second grand army of the Union 
 had been kept in the swamps and bayous, where ten thou- 
 sand Confederates were equal to a hundred thousand, mis- 
 led the authorities at Richmond. They thought the stupidity 
 that inaugurated that strange monstrosity would continue 
 available to the end. They did not fully appreciate tenacity 
 of fool purpose, and the very stupidity on which the Con- 
 federates built proved their defeat in the end. 
 
 Grant lost no time in seizing on the chance that had 
 so strangely been thrown to him when, utterly bewildered 
 and desperate, McClernand's forces were pushed forward to 
 the interior. About seven miles from Bruinsburg, they en- 
 countered a thin line of about a thousand men. In brush- 
 ing this aside, they met some five thousand under General 
 Bo wen. A brisk engagement followed that ended in a vic- 
 tory to the heavier force under McClernand. This success 
 forced the evacuation of Grand Gulf and Port Gibson, the 
 troops in the two fortifications being called to the support 
 of Pemberton. The unexpected had again happened. That 
 Grant, instead of dying with his thousands on the river 
 front of Vicksburg or retreating up the Mississippi with the 
 forlorn remnant of his army to Memphis, should construct 
 i\ wretched road from Milliken's Bend nearly seventy miles 
 for his army and supply wagons to march over and then run
 
 Turning Away from Vicksburg. 277 
 
 enough steam and gunboats by the batteries of Vicksburg to 
 ferry his army across the river, seemed as wildly impossible 
 as his past six months' operation. And now that the way 
 was open to Vicksburg through a defeat of Pemberton, he 
 was attacked with a blindness more amazing than his 
 previous helplessness. The golden moment of a quick, de- 
 cisive seizure of the chances given him was strangely lost. 
 As we have seen, the Confederate government, relying on 
 the natural and artificial strength of Vicksburg from the 
 river, and satisfied that Grant could release himself only by 
 falling back to Memphis, and that such a move would give 
 them full time to gather an army at his front, left at Vicks- 
 burg only enough men to man the works, some ten thousand 
 in number. Now a new phase was put upon the condition, 
 and Pemberton was calling frantically for troops and pray- 
 ing for delay on our part to concentrate his forces for the 
 Held. 
 
 The prayer offered God was complied with by Grant. 
 Instead of moving on Pemberton, Grant marched from the 
 Confederates in a raid upon Jackson. 
 
 We can not better state that cause of delay than by 
 quoting from Mr. Samuel Rockwell Reed's book entitled 
 " The Vicksburg Campaign." On page 58 we find this : 
 
 "A distinct idea of the field of operation is essential to 
 the understanding of the strategic movements now to be 
 made. Attention to a few points of outline will enable the 
 reader to carry it in mind as well as if he had the map before 
 him. Hankinson's Ferry, now a bridge on the Big Black 
 river, was Grant's point of departure, and had been the 
 place from which he dated his head-quarters since the 3d. 
 
 " From Hankinson's Ferry due north over the upland 
 to Vicksburg is fifteen miles. From Vicksburg due east to 
 Jackson, to which was a railroad, is forty miles. From 
 Hankinson's Ferry east-north-east to Jackson is forty-five 
 miles. This boundary incloses the whole field of Grant's and 
 Pemberton's operations. The outline is that of a long right- 
 angle triangle, the perpendicular side being from Hankin- 
 eon's to Vickburg, the base side from Vicksburg to Jackson, 
 the hypothenuse from Jackson to the ferry ; or say like a
 
 278 Life of Thomas. 
 
 wedge, supposing the slant to be all on one side, the butt 
 being at the ferry and Vicksburg, arid the straight side 
 from Vicksburg to Jackson. The following diagram gives 
 the shape and proportions of the field of operations : 
 
 Vicksburg. o ~~^ Jackson. 
 
 Hankinson's. o 
 
 " This is the theater of the war. The main natural 
 feature crossing it is Big Black river, which, coming down 
 south-west, crosses the railroad ten miles east of Vicksburg, 
 and on down to Hankinson's Ferry, and to the Mississippi 
 at Grand Gulf. Five miles east of Big Black, on the 
 Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad is Edwards' Station, soon 
 to be historical. About seven and a half miles east of this 
 is Champion's Hill, soon to be called by the soldiers "the hill 
 of death ;" a little way east of this, Bolton Station ; then, 
 nearly nine miles east, Clinton ; from there to Jackson is 
 about nine miles. On diverging and converging roads from 
 Hankinson's to Jackson, along the hypothenuse, are Rocky 
 Springs, Utica, Cayuga, Auburn, New Auburn, Raymond 
 and Mississippi Springs. The diagram is on the direct lines. 
 The actual distance from Vicksburg to Jackson by the rail- 
 road is forty-four miles ; from Hankinson's Ferry to Jackson 
 by the common roads nearly fifty miles. From Hankinson's 
 to Vicksburg, or to the railroad in the rear of Vicksburg, 
 there need not be more than a mile or two variation from 
 the direct line of fifteen miles. 
 
 " Grant's immediate base is at Hankinson's Ferry. His 
 objective is Pemberton's army, covering Vicksburg, its line 
 of communication being the railroad to Jackson. A march 
 of fifteen miles from Hankinson's Ferry would bring Grant's 
 army upon this ralroad and compel Pemberton to come out 
 to fight a battle for his communications or be shut up in 
 Vicksburg without an effort. Badeau says Grant estimated
 
 Costly Strategy. 279 
 
 Pemberton's forces at thirty thousand. Grant was not sub- 
 ject to the military fault of underrating the number opposed 
 to him. At Pittsburg Landing he sent word to Buell that 
 he was attacked by one hundred thousand men. 
 
 " Of this estimated thirty thousand Grant reported that 
 he had engaged eleven thousand at Port Gibson, and had 
 1 entirely routed ' and ' thoroughly demoralized ' them. The 
 route direct to Vicksburg from Hankinson's Ferry had the 
 line of bluff on the one hand, which, with the wet bottoms 
 beyond, formed a rampart for the left flank and rear, all the 
 way to Vicksburg. On the other hand, the Big Black 
 river offered a natural intrenchment for the right flank and 
 rear all the way. The route would be over a rolling country 
 of plantations and roads, and with no serious natural ob- 
 stacles. 
 
 " The route taking VNTarrentou by the rear, the Confed- 
 erates would have to depart therefrom as soon as the march 
 began. At "Warrenton, Grant would strike the river a little 
 way below the lower end of this canal across the tongue of 
 land opposite Vicksburg, whereby the wagoning of his sup- 
 plies from Millikeu's Bend and Young's Point would be re- 
 duced to three miles, by a r6ad now practicable. Thus a 
 march of ten miles to Warrenton would fetch him back to 
 his base of supplies and re-inforcements. This would relieve 
 all the troops that were guarding the land route of sixty 
 miles, round by way of Richmond to Hard Times, and would 
 add these to his fighting force. 
 
 " The defeat of Pemberton in a pitched battle, while 
 covering Vicksburg, might be expected to carry with it the 
 immediate fall of the place, without the dreadful labor and 
 consuming of the army by a siege. Then Grant could turn 
 his army east, scatter the ineffectual force at Jackson, and 
 make that his base of operations. General J. E. Johnston's 
 narrative shows that he expected Grant to do this, and he 
 said that Grant's occupation of Jackson was the loss of the 
 State of Mississippi. It appears that at first Grant con- 
 templated the direct line, for he wrote Sherman, then at 
 Grand Gulf, May 7th : If Blair was now up I believe we
 
 280 Life of Thomas. 
 
 could be in Vicksburg in seven days.' Blair had only two 
 brigades, and was on the way from Milliken's Bend. 
 
 " To march, however, from Hankinson's Ferry, fifteen 
 miles, upon the communications of Pemberton's army, cov- 
 ering Vicksburg, and deciding the fate of the Confederate 
 army and of Vicksburg in one battle, would be so direct and 
 obvious that it could hardly be called 'any thing higher than 
 a grand tactical movement. It is what any general would do 
 if he thought he could beat the opposing army. And in gen- 
 eral, when a commander enters on an invading campaign, he 
 thinks he can beat the enemy's army. 
 
 " It is such a direct and obvious movement as Bonaparte 
 would have made, or Frederick the Great, but it would not 
 be strategic in the highest degree. But to depart from a 
 direct line of fifteen miles, and to march fifty miles to Jack- 
 son, lengthening it by zigzag marches to seventy, and then 
 back, leaving the enemy covering Vicksburg this is high 
 strategy. 
 
 " This is that which raised General Grant's military 
 fame to its zenith. In explaining this strategy, Badeau takes 
 the common mind into the uppermost realms of the military 
 art. The general and overruling reason was in Grant's na- 
 ture, as he has before stated : ' It was his nature in war al- 
 ways to prefer the immediate aggressive.' Therefore, he 
 went to Jackson and back, when the enemy was in his im- 
 mediate front. But Badeau has also an abundance of par- 
 ticular reasons. 
 
 " Badeau concedes the apparent advantages of the direct 
 or tactical line, but he mentions a serious obstacle. 'Appar- 
 ently, Grant's most natural course was to march direct upon 
 Vicksburg, and at once begin the seige, or at least at- 
 tack its garrison, should that come out to meet him. He 
 was not more than twelve (ten) miles from Warrenton, and 
 had only one formidable obstacle to encounter, the Big Black 
 river, the line of which would probably be taken by any en- 
 emy opposing him.' 
 
 " The adage celebrates the short memories of truthful 
 historians. After Adam Badeau has had Grant for several 
 days in possession of the crossing of the Big Black river, and
 
 The Long Way to Vicksburg. 281 
 
 after McFherson, on the 4th, had made reconnaissance north 
 along the west side of the Big Black to within six miles of 
 Vicksburg, and had found no enemy, he restores the Confed- 
 erate army to the Big Black river, in front of Grant, as a 
 * formidable natural obstacle ' which Grant would have to 
 encounter, with the Confederate army holding it, if he went 
 by the direct road. 
 
 " The statement of this reason by Adam Badeau, ap- 
 proved by Grant, is an indication of the abundance of reasons 
 Grant had for leaving a direct way of fifteen miles, and going 
 around one hundred and fifty miles to avoid the enemy at 
 Vicksburg. The other reason is that General Gregg was 
 'collecting another force toward the east and north, of whose 
 strength Grant was not well informed.' Therefore, he re- 
 solved to go east, 'to drive eastward the weaker one' before 
 the two could unite. Then he would seize Jackson, destroy 
 the railroads there, and thus would have 'Vicksburg and its 
 garrison isolated from the would-be Confederacy.' 
 
 " That no force arrived at Jackson or on the east till the 
 10th, only distinguishes Grant's foresight in making the im- 
 mediate objective of his plan a reinforcement which might 
 come on the east if he waited for it. That the Confederate 
 forces at Vicksburg and Jackson, having the inner line, 
 could unite by moving half the distance which Grant marched 
 to prevent them, might be a consideration in war as prac- 
 ticed in the old world ; but Adam Badeau says that Grant's 
 military methods were original ; that ' his mind, indeed, was 
 never much inclined to follow precedents, or to set store by 
 rules; he was not apt to study the means by which other 
 men had succeeded ; he seldom discussed the campaigns of 
 great commanders of European wars, and was utterly indif- 
 ferent to precept or example whenever these seemed to him 
 inapplicable.' And he was ' not apt to study ' these ; they 
 were always inapplicable." 
 
 A more admirable statement of the situation could not 
 be made. There is no profit to be found in following the 
 senseless marches and impotent raids that put the anxious 
 Pemberton on the flank, leaving him the inner line and all 
 the time he could ask to concentrate his forces and take the
 
 282 Life of Thomas. 
 
 field. Grant marched away from Pemberton, and found so 
 few Confederates at Jackson, that his capture of the place 
 could scarcely be called an engagement. Grant's blind move- 
 ments seemed to puzzle both Pemberton and Johnston. The 
 one in command of some six thousand men, the other with 
 only eighteen thousand, moved on a false scent, striving to 
 determine what the Yankee general was aiming to accom- 
 plish. -It resembled a skilled fencer fighting with a left- 
 handed opponent, or, rather, one who knew nothing of fence. 
 Grant destroyed the stores at Jackson, and immediately 
 sought by a return to secure what he had so strangely aban- 
 doned, some point on the Mississippi that he could make a 
 base of supply. While seeking to accomplish this, he con- 
 sidered it necessary to brush aside an enemy that was not in 
 his way. There was no Confederate force in Mississippi then 
 or at any time thereafter sufficient to cope with the seventy 
 thousand men under Grant. It was the only hope of Pem- 
 berton to gather all the troops available, and make a desper- 
 ate and hopeless resistance to the enemy. It was thus, while 
 the two opposing armies were blindly feeling their way, one 
 full of needless apprehension, the other in despair, that they 
 encountered by chance, and the bloody battle of Champion's 
 Hill went into history as the hill of death. 
 
 When Pemberton discovered that Grant had abandoned 
 his base upon the Mississippi, and moved on Jackson, thereby 
 no longer threatening Vicksburg, he came, in common with 
 Johnston, to the conclusion that, instead of a new raid, our 
 general sought to make Jackson his head-quarters, and from 
 there open communication with Memphis. This presented 
 itself to the military mind as a sensible maneuver, only sec- 
 ond in importance to Grant's original plan of campaign from 
 Memphis to the interior of Mississippi that was deflected, as 
 we have seen, by the loss of stores at Holly Springs and the 
 presence of McClernand, commissioned by the President to 
 open the Mississippi. Taking this view of the situation, 
 Pemberton concentrated his forces, eighteen thousand in all, 
 and moved out from Vicksburg and the Big Black to form 
 a junction with Johnston arid make an attack on Grant's 
 rear. He failed in both. Embarrassed by floods that carried
 
 Champion's Hilt. 283 
 
 < 
 
 away bridges, instead of a direct march to where he ex- 
 pected to meet Johnston, he lost valuable time in a retrograde 
 movement in search of bridges. While resting his troops, 
 three and a half miles from Edwardt's Station, he received 
 the following from Johnston : 
 
 "Banton Road, Ten Miles from Jackson, May 18, 1863, 
 8:30 o'clock A. M. Our being compelled to leave Jackson 
 makes your plan impracticable. The only mode by which 
 we can unite is by your moving directly to Clinton, and in- 
 forming me that we may move to that point with about 
 6,000. I have no means of estimating the enemy's force at 
 Jackson. The principal officers here difier very widely, and 
 I fear he will fortify if time is left him. Let me hear from 
 you immediately. . . ." 
 
 Seeking to comply with this and marching on to Clin- 
 ton, he came, much to his astonishment, not on Grant's rear, 
 but on the head of his column moving west. Pemberton's 
 amazement was only equaled by Grant's, when he heard the 
 roar of an artillery duel at his front. He claims, through 
 Badeau, to have been aware of Pemberton's movement from 
 the Big Black, but as the disposition of his entire force 
 looked to an attack on his left flank and rear from Johnston, 
 we can well believe that his first notice of Pemberton's pres- 
 ence came from his guns. This apprehension of danger from 
 Johnston, as we shall see, saved Pemberton's entire force 
 from being captured. Pemberton, in his dispatch to John- 
 ston, puts the number of his force at seventeen thousand 
 men. With this little army he had to encounter a force, 
 well in hand, that Grant, through Badeau, puts at forty-five 
 thousand men. As Pemberton's dispatch was to Johnston, 
 we can believe that he states the truth. But, as General 
 Thomas was wont to say, " what is the good of a hundred 
 thousand men when you can fight only a thousand?" Grant 
 had force enough to flank, envelope, and capture Pember- 
 ton's little army without firing a gun or losing a man. 
 Pemberton, finding the scrape into which fate had forced him, 
 with an eye of a soldier and he was every inch of him 
 that seized on a position which Grant described as follows : 
 
 " The enemy was strongly posted with his left on a high
 
 284 Life of Thomas. 
 
 9 
 
 wooded ridge called Champion Hills, over which the road to 
 Edward's Station runs, making a sharp turn to the south as 
 it strikes the hills. This ridge rises sixty or seventy feet 
 above the surrounding country, and is the highest land for 
 many miles around. The topmost point is bald and gave the 
 rebels "a commanding position for their artillery, but the re- 
 mainder of the crest, as well as a precipitous hillside to the 
 east of the road, is 'covered by a dense forest and under- 
 growth and scarred with deep ravines, through whose en- 
 tanglements troops could pass only with extreme difficulty." 
 
 This describes a natural fortress. Further along he 
 narrates that the deep-cut road running along the crest of 
 the ridge, then turning and running across and down to the 
 west, made an intrenchment for the Confederates when 
 driven to and along the top. 
 
 " To the north, the timber extends a short distance down 
 the hill, and then opens into cultivated fields in a gentle 
 slope toward Baker's creek, almost a mile away. The rebel 
 lines ran southward along the crest, its center covering the 
 middle road from Raymond, while the extreme right was on 
 the direct or southern road. The whole line was about four 
 miles long." 
 
 We have said that Pemberton seized on this natural 
 projection rising above and commanding the level country 
 of roads and ravines on all sides, with the eye of a soldier. 
 He must have known that Champion's Hill covered nothing, 
 and with such a superior force gathering at his front, right, 
 and left, he was in imminent danger of being surrounded 
 and captured. This movement, therefore, was only to give 
 the enemy so serious a check that he could retreat without 
 serious loss. To his amazement and much to his comfort, 
 Grant accepted the challenge given him, instead of engaging 
 the Confederate's attention by an artillery duel, and moving 
 to his rear by a road upon which Logan eventually stumbled 
 and from which he was recalled just in time to permit Pem- 
 berton's defeated army to retreat without loss. There was 
 no earthly occasion for an assault on Pemberton's front by 
 infantry. But as Grant informs us, through Badeau, he dis- 
 covered that " Champion's Hill, on the rebel left, was evi-
 
 Champion's Hill. 285 
 
 dently the^ key to the whole situation," and, as it was the 
 strongest, the place to attack. Here is the story as told by 
 Grant : 
 
 "A vigorous effort on the part of McClernand would 
 have accomplished the defeat by noon. . . . Or, later in 
 the fight, Logan could have kept in their rear, if McCler- 
 nand had come up in time, and, with all their retreat cut off, 
 the enemy might have been forced to surrender in mass.'' 
 
 This is all very well for an afterthought, but the records 
 are against the statement. Grant was not so much con- 
 cerned about the attack on Pemberton as he was apprehen- 
 sive of one on his flank and rear from the southern road by an 
 imaginary army under Johnston. Hovey's division, less in 
 number than Pemberton's so strongly posted, was in position 
 to move up and be slaughtered, as it eventually was, when 
 Grant heard from McClernaud. He now tells us, through 
 Badeau and in his memoirs, that "staff officers were sent to 
 him (McClernand) at once to push forward with all rapidity ; 
 but by the nearest practicable route of communication he 
 was at least two and a half miles away." The cold, brutal 
 record tells us the sort of "push forward" that was expected 
 of the "political general." At fifteen minutes past 10 A. M., 
 Grant sent him written orders: "From all information gath- 
 ered from citizens and prisoners, the mass of the army are 
 south of Hovey's division. McPherson is now up with 
 Hovey and can support him at any point. Close up your 
 forces as expeditiously as possible, but cautiously. The enemy 
 must not be permitted to get to our rear. If you can com- 
 municate with Blair and Ransom, do so, and direct them to 
 come up to your support by the most expeditious route." 
 
 This written order is conclusive as to Grant's condition 
 of mind at the time, and that while fighting on the de- 
 fensive, left to the enemy abundance of time to slaughter his 
 weight in Union soldiers, and thus get away from a defeat 
 that in consequences that followed, was equal to a victory. 
 There is other evidence equally conclusive, such for example 
 as that shown in Grant's orders to Ransom's brigade of Ar- 
 thur's division of McPherson's corps, then coming up from 
 Grand Gulf. Says Grant, through Badeau : " Grant there-
 
 286 Life of Thomas. 
 
 fore directed Ransom to move hie command so as to join 
 the forces north of him by the first road leading northward. 
 Enemy are reported as having sent a column to our left and 
 rear. Avoid being cut oft'." 
 
 Grant was on the defensive. In command of forty-five 
 thousand men, with only seventeen thousand at his front, he 
 disposed his forces to repel an imaginary enemy of vasi pro- 
 portions in his rear. The " political general " who, obeying 
 orders to watch his flank and rear, approached as directed, 
 cautiously, and was, therefore, held responsible for the safety 
 of Pemberton's army, did not seem to share in the troubled 
 dream of an impossible enemy. McClernand says in his 
 report, that he rode to Grant's head-quarters early that 
 morning to ask that McPherson support Hovey, "urging 
 among other things, that if his corps should not be needed 
 as a support, it might in the event that" I should beat the 
 enemy, fall upon his flank and rear and cut him off. Assur- 
 ances altogether satisfactory were given by the general, and 
 I felt confident of our superiority on the right. I went for- 
 ward with the center formed by Osterhaus and Carr." 
 
 We can not do better in giving a history of this extra- 
 ordinary battle than to accept the account and keen analysis 
 of the late Samuel R. Reed, whose disposal of Grant as a 
 capable general on this occasion has been ignored, no man 
 venturing to controvert the facts or question the criticisms. 
 Reed says : 
 
 " Thus did Grant order the battle defensively under the 
 belief that he was in danger of being taken in the rear and 
 cut off from a return to Grand Gulf, and thus his attack on 
 the Confederates left at Champion's Hill was to make a di- 
 version from that danger. Badeau now begins the battle 
 against the fortress of Champion's Hill. 
 
 " ' Continuous fighting had been kept up all the morn- 
 ing between Hovey's skirmishers and the rebel advance, and 
 by eleven o'clock this grew into a battle. At this time 
 Hovey's division was deployed to move westward against the 
 hill, the two brigades of Logan supporting him. Logan was 
 formed in the open field, facing the northern side of the 
 ridge, and only about four hundred yards from the enemy,
 
 Champion's Hill. 287 
 
 Logan's front, and the main front of Hovey's division being 
 nearly at right angles with each other. 
 
 " 'As Hovey advanced his line conformed to the shape of 
 the hill, and became crescent like, the concave toward the 
 hill. McPherson (Logan) now posted two batteries on his 
 extreme right, and well advanced. These poured a de- 
 structive enfilading fire upon the enemy, under cover of 
 which the national line began to mount the hill. (No enfilad- 
 ing fire could cover the movement of Hovey's crescent line up 
 the end of the ridge). The enemy at once replied with a 
 murderous discharge of musketry, and the battle soon raged 
 hotly all along the line from Hovey's extreme left to the 
 right of Logan ; but Hovey pushed steadily on and drove 
 the rebels back six hundred yards till eleven guns and three 
 hundred prisoners were captured, and the brow of the height 
 was gained.' 
 
 " When a division has stormed such a natural fortress, 
 and has taken ' the key to the whole position,' by that which 
 was equivalent to carrying strong entrenchments by assault, 
 it might naturally be expected that the commanding general, 
 who was observing this, would have support at hand to carry 
 this forward and make this * key ' turn the whole position. 
 But it was otherwise : 
 
 " * The road here formed a natural fortification which 
 the rebels made haste to use. It was cut through the crest 
 of the ridge at the steepest part, the bank on the upper side 
 commanding all below so that even when the national troops 
 had apparently gained the road the rebels stood behind this 
 novel breastwork, covered from every fire, and masters of 
 the whole declivity. Finding himself, however, in spite of 
 this advantage, losing ground on a point so vitally import- 
 ant, the enemy now pushed re-enforcements rapidly, and 
 when these arrived, rallied under cover of the woods, and 
 poured down the road in great numbers on the position oc- 
 cupied by Hovey. 
 
 " l For awhile Hovey bore the whole brunt of the battle, 
 and after a desperate resistance was compelled to fall back, 
 though slowly and stubbornly, losing several of the guns he 
 had taken an hour before. But Grant was watching the
 
 288 Life of Thomas. 
 
 fight on the first spur of the hill under fire, and seeing that 
 the enemy was getting too strong for Hovey, he sent in a 
 brigade of Crocker's division, which had just arrived.' 
 
 " Hovey's report relates the same incident thus : 
 
 < Brigadier-General Quimby's division, commanded by 
 General Crocker, was near at hand, and had not yet been 
 under fire. I sent to them for support, but, being unknown 
 to the officers of that command, considerable delay ensued, 
 and I was compelled to resort to General Grant to procure 
 the order for their aid. Colonel Boomer, commanding Third 
 Brigade of Quimby's division, on receiving the command 
 from General Grant, came gallantly up the hill; Colonel 
 Holmes, with two small regiments Tenth Missouri and 
 Seventeenth Iowa soon followed. The entire force sent 
 amounted to about two thousand men.' 
 
 " Badeau continues : ' These fresh troops gave Hovey 
 confidence, and the height that had been gained with fear- 
 ful loss was still retained. The preponderance, however, was 
 even yet in favor of the enemy.' But Hovey's lack was 
 more of battalions than confidence, and he says : 
 
 " ' My division, in the meantime, had been compelled to 
 yield ground before overwhelming numbers. Slowly and 
 stubbornly they fell back, contesting with death every inch 
 of the field they had won. Colonel Boomer and Colonel 
 Holmes gallantly and heroically rushed with their commands 
 into the conflict, but the enemy had massed his forces and 
 slowly pressed our whole line with reinforcements backward 
 to a point near the brow of the hill. Here a stubborn stand 
 was made.' 
 
 " To resume now Badeau's narrative at the point where 
 Grant sent the reinforcement : 
 
 " ' Meanwhile the rebels had made a desperate attempt 
 on their left to capture the battery in McPherson's corps 
 which was doing them so much damage ; they were, how- 
 ever, promptly repelled by Smith's brigade of Logan's di- 
 vision, which drove them back with great slaughter, captur- 
 ing many prisoners. Discovering now that his own left was 
 nearly turned, the enemy made a determined effort to turn 
 the left of Hovey, precipitating on that commander all his
 
 Champion's Hill. 289 
 
 available force; and while Logan was carrying every thing 
 before him, the closely pressed and nearly exhausted troops 
 of Ilovey were again compelled to retire. They had been 
 lighting nearly three hours, and were fatigued and out of 
 ammunition ; but fell back doggedly, and not far.' 
 
 "Outnumbered, fatigued, and out of ammunition, too, 
 is reason enough. Continues Badeau: 
 
 " k The tide of battle at this point seemed turning against 
 the National forces, and Hovey sent back repeatedly to Grant 
 for support. Grant, however, was momentarily expecting 
 the advance of McClernand's four divisions, and never 
 doubted the result.' 
 
 " Still, more battalions to Hovey, outnumbered and out 
 of ammunition might be as useful at the moment as Grant's 
 never doubting the result. 
 
 " But was Grant momentarily expecting this? Badeau 
 continues : 'At thirty minutes past twelve he had again 
 dispatched to McClernand : "As soon as your command is all 
 at hand, throw forward skirmishers and feel the enemy, 
 and attack him in force if an opportunity occurs. I am with 
 Hovey and McPherson, and will see that they co-operate." ' 
 
 " So he was promising McClernand that he would see 
 that Hovey co-operated ; likewise McPherson. And McCler- 
 nand, after he had got his men well in hand which they had 
 been since daylight was to throw forward skirmishers and 
 feel the enemy, and 'if an opportunity occurred' to attack 
 him in force. He was left to wait for his opportunity. 
 
 " Considering what was going on where Grant was ' un- 
 der fire,' his orders to McClernand seem almost too energetic 
 and peremptory, indicating an undue excitement or the glow 
 of battle. Badeau says : ' That commander, however, did 
 not arrive.' But as Grant, in answer to McClernand's in- 
 quiry whether McPherson would support Hovey and whether 
 he should bring on the battle, had sent the above order, fol- 
 lowing another, telling him that the mass of the enemy was 
 in his (McClernand's) front, aiming to turn his left, Grant 
 could hardly expect him ' to arrive.' And now Badeau con- 
 tinues: 
 19
 
 290 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " * Grant, seeing the critical condition of affairs, now 
 directed McPherson to move what troops he could by a left 
 flank around to the enemy's right front on the crest of the 
 ridfire. The prolongation of Logan to the right had left a 
 gap between him and Hovey, and into this the two remain- 
 ing brigades of Crocker were thrown. The movement was 
 promptly executed ; Boomer's brigade went at and into the 
 fight, and checked the rebel advance till Holmes' brigade 
 came up, when a dashing charge was made, and Hovey and 
 Crocker were engaged for forty minutes, Hovey recaptur- 
 ing five of the guns he had already taken and lost.' 
 
 " Badeau by this has made two affairs of the sending of 
 Boomer and Holmes to Hovey's aid, of which Hovey makes 
 but one. The muddle is explained by Crocker's report, 
 which says that two regiments of Colonel Sanborn's brigade 
 were taken from the right to support Colonel Boomer, and 
 that Colonel Holmes came after. Crocker continues: 'At 
 this critical moment, Colonel Holmes arrived in the field 
 with two regiments . . . and proceeded ... to the 
 front, relieving Colonel Boomer, who by this time was out 
 of ammunition.' This situation on the left of Hovey, and 
 nearest to Grant, was that which impressed him that ' the 
 position was in danger;' that is to say, that his right wing 
 was in danger of being turned by its left and cut off. 
 
 " Badeau continues: 'But the enemy had massed his 
 forces on this point, and the irregularity of the ground pre- 
 vented the use of artillery in enfilading him. Though 
 baffled and enraged, he still fought with courage and ob- 
 stinacy, and it was apparent that the national line was in 
 dire need of assistance.. In fact, the position was in danger/ 
 
 " This seems a remarkable achievement of generalship, 
 with 45,000 men at hand against 17,000, desiring only to 
 retreat. And now comes another stroke of generalship. 
 Badeau goes on : 
 
 " ' At this crisis, Stevenson's brigade of Logan's division 
 was moved forward at a double quick into a piece of wood 
 on the extreme right of the command ; the brigade moved 
 parallel with Logan's general line of battle, charged across 
 the ravines, up the hill, and through an open field, driving
 
 Champion's Hill. 291 
 
 the enemy from an important position, where he was about 
 to establish his batteries, capturing seven guns and several 
 hundred prisoners. The main Vicksburg road, after follow- 
 ing the ridge in a southerly direction for about a mile to the 
 point of intersection with the middle or Raymond road, 
 turns almost to the west again, running down hill and across 
 the valley where Logan was now operating in the rear of the 
 enemy.' 
 
 "At length the battle, after slaughtering men for hours 
 in assaulting a steep and broken hill, naturally so strong a 
 position that practically it tripled the enemy's force, had 
 stumbled upon a clear way around the head of the ridge by 
 which Pemberton could be turned and captured. Continues 
 Badeau : 
 
 " ' Unconscious of the immense advantage, Logan swept 
 directly across the road, and absolutely cut oft' the rebel line 
 of retreat to Edward's Station without being aware of it.' 
 
 " But at this juncture, the essential part played by the 
 commanding general in this battle is again to be exempli- 
 fied. 
 
 '"At this very juncture, Grant, finding that there was 
 no prospect of McClernand reaching the field (McClernand 
 was following Grant's instructions), and that the scales were 
 still balanced at the critical point, thought himself obliged, 
 in order to still further re-inforce Hovey and Crocker in front 
 to recall Logan from the right, where he was overlapping 
 and outflanking the rebel left. 
 
 " ' Had the national commander been acquainted with 
 the country, he would, of course, have ordered Logan to 
 push on in the rear of the enemy, and thus secure the cap- 
 ture or annihilation of the whole rebel army. But the en- 
 tire region was new to the national troops (to Grant), and 
 this great opportunity was unknown.' 
 
 "And now comes a singular incident, reversing the usual 
 effect. When Logan withdrew from this road, to march by 
 a long circuit to Hovey's left, then the Confederates became 
 alarmed for the road, and gave up the fight. Says Badeau : 
 'As it was, however, the moment Logan left the road, the 
 enemy, alarmed for his line of retreat, finding it, indeed.
 
 292 Life of Thomas. 
 
 not only threatened, but almost gone, at once abandoned his 
 position in front.' 
 
 " But there was a coincidence at the front : 
 
 "'At this crisis a national battery (Badeau is too delicate 
 to say Hovey's division in fact three batteries) opened from 
 the right a well directed fire, and the victorious troops of 
 Hovey and Crocker pressing on, the enemy once more gave 
 way ; the rebel line was driven back for the third time and 
 the battle decided.' 
 
 " But before this consummation, an episode had come 
 off which had an important effect : 
 
 " ' Before the effect of the final charge was known, Logan 
 rode eagerly up to Grant declaring that if one more dash 
 could be made in front, he would advance in the rear and 
 complete the capture* of the rebel army. Grant at once 
 rode forward in person, and found the troops that had been 
 so gallantly engaged for hours withdrawn from their most 
 advanced positions and refilling their cartridge boxes. Ex- 
 plaining to them the position of Logan's forces, he directed 
 them to use all dispatch and push forward as rapidly as pos- 
 sible.' 
 
 "By this it appears that Grant was going to send Logan 
 back to the road from which he had withdrawn him to re- 
 inforce Hovey's left, and that he passed by commanding 
 officers and mingled with the soldiers and explained the 
 situation to them and directed them to use all dispatch and 
 make another dash at the enemy. Badeau relates that 
 then 
 
 "'He proceeded himself in haste to what had been 
 Pemberton's line, expecting every moment to come up with 
 the enemy, but found the rebels had entirely broken and fled 
 from the field. Logan's attack had precipitated the rout, 
 and the battle of Champion's Hill was won. This was be- 
 tween three and four in the afternoon.' " 
 
 The attentive reader of this battle narrative must won- 
 der what made the Confederates " break and fly from the 
 field." Badeau's narrative makes out that General Grant 
 had withdrawn Logan from his attack on their flank and 
 rear, and that Hovey's troops had drawn from their most ad-
 
 Champion's Hill. 293 
 
 vanced position, and, as it appears, were not engaged at the 
 time, as they were "refilling their cartridge boxes," and that 
 Grant went among them and explained Logan's position and 
 directed them to make one more assault, and then himself 
 rode in haste toward Pemberton's line. 
 
 Such a suppression of the attack and such retiring 
 movement does not usually cause the strongly placed adver- 
 sary to break and run. The only explanation suggested of 
 the cause of the sudden turn of the battle to victory at this 
 juncture is Grant and staff, including the redoubtable Ba- 
 deau, riding in haste to Pemberton's line. This would make 
 at least one instance in which the victory was won, according 
 to the battle pictures, by a cunning commanding general 
 riding furiously at the enemy's ranks. Perhaps, however, by 
 going back to the next preceding citation, and adding thereto 
 Hovey's and Crocker's reports and the fact that Logan con- 
 tinued to attack, an idea may be had of the cause of Pem- 
 berton's giving up the battle. 
 
 By referring back to Hovey's account of what followed 
 when he had been reinforced from Crocker's divisions, it 
 will be seen that, before reinforcements arrived, his division 
 had been forced to give ground, and that this continued 
 thereafter till all had been driven back to the brow of the 
 hill, when a stubborn stand was made. At this point Hovey 
 relates that which was the turning point in this "key to the 
 position :" 
 
 " The irregularity of our line had previously prevented 
 me from using artillery in enfilading the enemy's line, but as 
 our forces were compelled to fall back slowly, the lines be- 
 came marked and distinct and about 2:30 P. M. I could easily 
 perceive by the sound of firearms through the woods the po- 
 sition of the respective armies. 
 
 "I at once ordered the First Missouri Battery, com- 
 manded by Captain Schofield, and the Sixteenth Ohio Bat- 
 tery, under First Lieutenant Murdock, to take position in an 
 open field beyond a slight mound on my right in advance of 
 and with parallel ranges of their guns with our lines. About 
 the same time, Captain Dillon's Wisconsin Battery was put 
 in position ; two sections of the Sixteenth Ohio Battery on
 
 294 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the left, the Wisconsin battery in the center, and Captain 
 Schofield's on the right. Through the rebel ranks these bat- 
 teries hailed an incessant shower of shot and shell, entirely 
 enfilading the rebel columns. 
 
 "The fire was terrific for several minutes, and the cheers 
 from our men on the brow of the hill told of our success. 
 The enemy gave back, and our forces, under General McGiu- 
 nis, Colonel Stark, Colonel Boomer, and Colonel Holmes, 
 drove them again over the ground which had been hotly 
 contested for a third time during the day, five more of the 
 eleven guns not taken down the hill falling a second time into 
 our possession. . . . Thus ended the battle of Champion's 
 Hill at about 3 p. M." 
 
 While this gives a reason for the retreat of the enemy 
 which the common mind can understand, Adam Badeau's 
 account of Grant's action at this crisis can be reconciled 
 with it by taking in Crocker's report, which states that 
 Colonel Holmes' arrival at the point "relieved Colonel 
 Boomer, who by this time was out of ammunition." It is 
 probable, therefore, that it was to Boomer's men, while re- 
 filling their cartridge boxes, that General Grant was explain- 
 ing Logan's situation while the rest of the line was dealing 
 the finishing stroke to the enemy. 
 
 At the time Mr. Reed wrote his history of and masterly 
 comment upon the battle of Champion's Hill, the Confeder- 
 ate account was not known to him. We now learn that it 
 was not the fierce fighting under Hovey, nor his artillery 
 fire, that drove the Confederates from their strong position. 
 Pemberton, who was fighting on the defensive for the pur- 
 pose of retreat under cover of the night, saw in alarm his 
 only road in the rear occupied by Logan's troops. He was 
 completely hemmed in, and while galloping along his line in 
 utter desperation, he saw the enemy strangely disappear, and 
 he was quick to seize the opening offered him. He could 
 not wait for night, and in consequence suffered from a rout 
 his hasty retreat engendered. 
 
 According to Grant's account, given through Badeau, 
 the entire fight on our side was made by Hovey and a part 
 of Logan's division, about five thousand men, sent in at the
 
 Champion's Hill. 295 
 
 almost impregnable part of the natural fortification. What 
 the other forty thousand were doing i8 lost in mystery. 
 " What is the good of a hundred thousand men when you 
 can fight only a thousand ?" What is the good of forty-five 
 thousand when you can not fight even the one? When 
 Grant says, through Badeau, " that had he known of that 
 road to the rear of Pemberton's army, he would have availed 
 himself of it, he acknowledges to a dazed condition of mind 
 that can be defended only by sheltering its owner behind 
 that fatal habit that always asserted itself at the most critical 
 moment. While that artillery duel was in progress at 11 
 A. M., had he swung his right under.Logan to the* unguarded 
 rear of the Confederates, he would have captured the entire 
 seventeen thousand without the necessary loss of a man. 
 His loss in the assault upon the ridge above aggregated two 
 thousand, six hundred and sixty-two. Considering the 
 number engaged, it was on our side the bloodiest of the war, 
 and, as we now see, a wanton destruction of life. 
 
 General Grant, as we learn from Hay and Nicolay's Life 
 of Lincoln, was learning the art of war. This was the first 
 battle in which he commanded in person since the miserable 
 fiasco at Belrnont. It will be observed that his instructions 
 were written in blood. Of it Mr. Reed says: 
 
 " The circumstances, conditions, and ideas of this battle 
 are so well revealed by Adam Badeau's narrative that a sim- 
 ple summing up of these constitutes a complete judgment on 
 the generalship. By taking this, the reviewer can avoid all 
 disputing criticism, and can let the whole question rest on 
 the authority of the commanding general and his authorized 
 biographer. Their history sets forth tl^e following facts and 
 conclusions: 
 
 " 1. General Grant, up to the morning of the 16th, was 
 ignorant that Pemberton's army had crossed the Big Black 
 river, while in fact it had advanced to Edward's Station on 
 the 13th; therefore, all his railroad destroying and other 
 diffusive operations were in the belief that Pemberton was 
 wrst of Big Black river, keeping guard over Yicksburg. 
 
 " 2. General Grant, at five o'clock in the morning of the 
 16th, was surprised by the intelligence from two railroad la-
 
 296 Life of Thomas. 
 
 borers that Pemberton, with a force which these wonderfully- 
 informed persons estimated at 25,000, was at Edward's Sta- 
 tion, and advancing with the 'design to attack his rear 7 
 around his left. 
 
 " 3. General Grant was greatly alarmed by this intelli- 
 gence, as was shown by the alarming orders he issued to 
 Sherman, McPherson, McClernand, Blair, and Ransom. 
 
 " 4. General Grant's orders and conduct of the battle, after 
 he had come to the front, was upon his idea that Pember- 
 ton's main force was moving south-east into the rear, while 
 in fact Pemberton was trying to retreat to the north. In 
 this persistent delusion, Grant ordered the battle to be de- 
 fensive, with extreme caution, on the center and left, em- 
 bracing, Badeau says, 15,000 men, and he ordered the assault 
 on the head of Champion's Hill as a co-operation in the de- 
 fense of his extreme left and rear. 
 
 " 5. Through open fields around the head of Champion's 
 Hill, was a clear way or road in the rear of the ridge, which 
 was the road of retreat from the hill, which, had Grant 
 known, he need not have assaulted the hill, but could have 
 'thus secured the capture or annihilation of the whole rebel 
 army.' 
 
 " 6. General Grant, having reached the front about ten 
 A. M., still holding to his delusion that Pemberton's main 
 force was on the offensive to his (Grant's) left and rear, sent 
 orders to McClernand to make his dispositions accordingly, 
 and then he, without reconnoitering the open country around 
 the north end of the ridge, in ignorance that it could easily 
 be turned, without waiting for Sherman's corps, without 
 waiting even till all of McPherson's had come up, ordered 
 Hovey's division, supported by Logan's, to assault the most 
 difficult point on the ridge." 
 
 What puzzles the ordinary understanding is that, while 
 taking Grant's belief that the enemy threatened his flank 
 and rear, his mistake of a murderous assault on the ridge 
 not only fails to prevent such an attempt, but actually would 
 have played into the hands of the enemy. Had Grant been 
 correct in his surmise, he could not have favored Pember- 
 ton's design more effectually than he did while holding the
 
 The Road Open to Vicksburg. 297 
 
 great mass of his array inactive, instead of swinging around 
 to the Confederates' rear, and pouring in, we will say, five 
 thousand to be uselessly slaughtered. He assisted, as far as 
 he possibly could, to co-operate with Pemberton in precisely 
 what he feared. 
 
 Pemberton reported a loss of 1,429 killed and 2,196 
 missing. These last came of disasters during and immedi- 
 ately after the conflict. He had accomplished all that could 
 have been expected of him. He had given a force vastly su- 
 perior in numbers such a stunning reception that, in its con- 
 sequences, it was a victory. The force of his blow is shown 
 in the fact that the pursuit was so feeble that it could scarcely 
 be called a pursuit. However, Pemberton had to be thank- 
 ful for the composed condition of our commander's mind 
 that was yet haunted by a supposed army under Johnston. 
 The Confederacy had no men for Mississippi. Rosecrans 
 and Thomas, at this time, were moving on an objective point 
 of more vital importance than Vicksburg; while the Army 
 of the Potomac, as we have seen, was menacing the forces 
 under Lee in a way that taught the Confederates that no vic- 
 tory, to their side, however decisive in itself, served to effect 
 the great result of the war. Bowen made a stand at Baker's 
 creek, when Loring, with 5,778, moved off on his own mo- 
 tion, leaving eleven guns to fall into our hands. Bowen and 
 Stevenson fell back at night, and covered the Big Black at 
 the railroad bridge, without loss, and here turned to face 
 their pursuers. It was a strong position, and, had they pos- 
 sessed sufficient force, would have been an ugly obstacle to 
 our army. Again, the stand was taken in behalf of the miss- 
 ing Loring, who was on his way to Jackson. In a short and 
 sharp engagement, the force of the Confederates was brushed 
 aside. The road was open for us to Vicksburg, for this was 
 the last effort made to stay the pursuit, and Pemberton's de- 
 moralized and disorganized force entered unmolested a place 
 so fortified by nature, and improved on by two years work of 
 slave labor, that ten thousand men immediately grew in ef- 
 fective resistance to fifty thousand. In "A Rebel Narrative 
 of the Seige by H. S. Adams," we learn of the actual con- 
 dition of the defeated. He writes:
 
 298 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " Late on a Sunday night the main body of the vanquished 
 forces began pouring into the town. Neither order nor disci- 
 pline had been maintained on the march ; the men were 
 scattered for miles along the road, declaring their readiness 
 to desert rather than serve again under Pemberton. The 
 planters and population of the country, fleeing from the 
 presence of the victorious enemy, added to the crowd and 
 confusion, and the inhabitants of the city awoke in terror to 
 find their streets thronged with fugitives one vast uproari- 
 ous mass, in which, with shrinking citizens and timid wo- 
 men and children, were mingled the remnants of Pember- 
 ton's dismayed and disorganized army. And these were the 
 troops that were now the reliance of Vicksburg." 
 
 This was on the night of the 17th. Had the head of 
 Grant's columns pushed in the rear of this disorganized 
 crowd of fugitives, it would have been impossible for Pem- 
 berton to have reorganized in time to man the defenses, and 
 the campaign against Vicksburg would have terminated 
 there and then in a possession of Vicksburg and a capture 
 of the enemy's entire army. That such energetic pursuit 
 was not made, we learn from the history given us by Grant, 
 and while reading it we remember this commander's little 
 complaint of Rosecrans, for after that hard fought victory over 
 Van Dorn at Corinth, Rosecrans did not follow and an- 
 nihilate the enemy. And again, how he earnestly urged 
 Halleck and Stanton not to promote George H. Thomas 
 after his great battle at Nashville, until he, Grant, saw 
 whether Thomas was energetic in the pursuit. Here was an 
 instance of criminal delay in pursuit that held the lives of 
 thousands and vast expenditure of treasure in its result. 
 But then our hero of disaster was learning the art of war 
 (see Hay and Nicolay's Life of Lincoln) and had not yet ar- 
 rived at a knowledge of how to annihilate a defeated and 
 disorganized enemy. 
 
 On the 18th the head of Sherman's corps, that had seen 
 no fighting, struck the Benton road three and a half miles 
 from Vicksburg, and by night of that day nearly all of 
 Grant's army was in position. An interesting event is told 
 us by the historian, Adam Badeau, indorsed by U. S. Grant,
 
 A Result at Last. 209 
 
 that gives us the condition of the military mind at that try- 
 ing period. We are told : 
 
 "Grant was with Sherman when his column struck the 
 Walnut Hills. As they rode together up the furtherest 
 height, where it looks down on the Yazoo river, and stood 
 upon the very bluffs from which Sherman had been repulsed 
 six months before, the two soldiers gazed for a moment on 
 the long-wished for goal of the campaign the high, dry 
 ground on the north of Vicksburg, and the base of their sup- 
 plies. Sherman at last turned abruptly around and ex- 
 claimed to Grant : ' Until this moment I never thought your 
 expedition a success. I never could see the end clearly until 
 now. But this is a campaign ; this is a success if we never 
 take tke town.'" 
 
 , This speech of Sherman's, ending in the exclamation 
 " this is a campaign ; this is a success if we do not take the 
 town," is so ludicrous that it would be laughable were it not 
 for the smear of blood over all that makes a horror too deep 
 for ridicule. Poor man, for half a year he had followed his 
 leader, vainly endeavoring to discover what they were driv- 
 ing at. He had seen an immense army wasted away in canal 
 digging and bayou clearing, that his chief condemned in 
 each instance to be in vain, and when at last the army was 
 brought in striking distance of the foe so long sought for 
 within fifteen miles of Pemberton's small force, startled and 
 demoralized by our army appearing in the interior with a 
 fair base of supplies, the puzzled Sherman saw nearly fifty 
 thousand men led off on a raid. Cutting loose from the 
 base, he saw this same army marched a hundred and seventy 
 miles, when one of fifteen would have carried them over the 
 Big Black, then undefended, and forced Pemberfon into 
 Vicksburg, or to battle when Grant's great superiority of 
 numbers would have insured him an easy victory. The un- 
 happy general was so relieved to find himself and corps be- 
 fore Yicksburg, that he said it was a success, even if they 
 did not take the town. Considering that all the loss of life, 
 time, and treasure had been sacrificed for this one objective 
 point, his exclamation was as grotesque as any point in 
 opera bouffe.
 
 300 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 But the town w*as to be taken, and to this end a general 
 assault was ordered. That our readers may comprehend 
 what this order meant, we quote from the report of the en- 
 gineers : 
 
 " The ground upon which Vicksburg stands, is supposed 
 by some to have been originally a plateau, four or five miles 
 long, and about two miles wide, and 200 or 300 feet above 
 the Mississippi river. This plateau has been gradually washed 
 away by rains and streams, until it is transformed into a 
 labyrinth of sharp ridges and deep, irregular ravines. The 
 soil is fine, and when cut vertically by the action of the 
 water, remains in a perpendicular position for years, and 
 smaller and newer ravines are often so deep that their as- 
 cent is difficult to a footman. The sides of the declivities 
 are thickly wooded, the bottoms of the ravines never level, 
 except when the streams that formed them have been un- 
 usually large. 
 
 "At Vicksburg the Mississippi runs a little west of 
 south, and all the streams that enter it from the east run 
 south-west. One of these empties into the river five miles 
 below the city, and the dividing ridge that separates two of 
 its branches, was that in which the rebel line, east of Vicks- 
 burg, was built. On the northern side of the town, the line 
 also ran along a dividing ridge between two small streams 
 that enter the Mississippi just above Vicksburg. These 
 ridges are generally higher than any ground in their imme- 
 diate vicinity. 
 
 "Leaving the Mississippi on the northern side of Vicks- 
 burg, where the bluffs strike the river, the line stretched 
 back two miles into the interior, crossed the valley of two 
 small streams, and reached the river again below at a point 
 where the bluff' falls back from the Mississippi nearly a mile. 
 Here the works followed the bluff up the river for a mile 
 or more, so as to give fire toward the south on any troops 
 that might attempt an attack from that direction by mov- 
 ing along the bottom land between the bluff and the Mis- 
 sissippi. 
 
 " The whole line was between seven and eight miles 
 long. ... It consisted of a series of detached works on
 
 The Works of Vicksburg First Assault. 301 
 
 prominent and commanding points, connected by a continu- 
 ous line of trench or rifle-pit. . . . They were placed 
 at distances of from seventy -five to five hundred yards from 
 each other. . . . The ravines were the only ditches, but 
 no others were needed, trees being felled in front of the 
 whole line and forming in many places entanglements which 
 under fire were absolutely impassible. . . . The difficult 
 nature of the ground rendered rapidity of movement and 
 unity of effort in an assault absolutely impossible. 
 
 " North of the railroad the hills are higher, the wood 
 denser, and the line naturally stronger, but south of that 
 road, although the ridges were lower and the country cleared, 
 the ground was still rough and entirely unfitted for any united 
 tactical movement, and the artificial works were stronger. 
 
 " The whole aspect of the rugged fastness, bristling with 
 bayonets, and crowned with artillery that swept the narrow 
 defiles in every direction, was calculated to inspire new cour- 
 age in those who came . . . from their succession of 
 disasters in the open field. Here, too, were at least eight 
 thousand fresh troops who as yet had suffered none of the 
 demoralization of defeat." 
 
 The general commanding was not left long in doubt as 
 to the result of a general assault made by one of the three 
 corps the other two not yet reaching within striking distance. 
 It was most disastrous. No report was ever made of the 
 killed and wounded on our side. General T. Kilby Smith, 
 who gallantly led his brigade, in a private letter written not 
 long after the event says : 
 
 " We are just now out of hell. Why we were sent there 
 no man can tell. For two years the rebels have been fortifying 
 their position here that is naturally so strong that little art 
 is called for. Against these we were hurled. Down ravines 
 so steep that if unobstructed no man could make way, but 
 with trees felled into thick chevaux de frise the attempt was 
 utterly hopeless. At every turn we found a concentrated 
 fire that wiped off the head of columns as if it had been 
 mowed down. We went in with a rush, and came out some 
 of us in a hurry. We could not have lost less than a thou- 
 sand men, while I doubt whether a rebel was even wounded."
 
 302 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Such an experience one would think quite sufficient. 
 But our general commanding was not satisfied it seems, for 
 another murderous attempt on a larger scale was made but 
 four days after. 
 
 It is claimed by and in behalf of General Grant by 
 Badeau that a sufficient compensation for the awful loss 
 sustained in the first assault was found in the knowledge 
 gained of " the nature of the enemy's works, and their ap- 
 proaches, the character of the ground and the unusual ob- 
 stacles by which it was incumbered, together with the policy 
 of the defense." The value of all this information obtained 
 at the cost acknowledged is shown in the fact that the sec- 
 ond assault made on the 22d May was precisely the same as 
 the first, except that McPherson's and McClernand's corps 
 were in position before the assault was made. One studies 
 the movement in vain to find wherein is the boasted knowl- 
 edge bought in blood by the first assault. What had we 
 gained in learning the nature of the enemy's works and 
 their approaches? Was a way found open that our army 
 could take advantage of? Did such awful experience give 
 us knowledge " of the ground " blazoned with blood that 
 would enable our men to do better in a second attempt ? 
 What had we gained in being made acquainted with the " un- 
 usual obstacles " together with " the policy of defense ?" In 
 what respect did the general commanding avail himself of 
 his newly made information to save life or insure success? 
 The answer is a silent one, more eloquent than words. 
 
 Our army naturally adapted itself to the situation. War- 
 renton was made a base of supplies. This is the Warrenton 
 that could have been reached by Grant in a day's march from 
 Hankinson's ferry. Two days were given to fetching up 
 supplies and distributing tents to troops that so far had been 
 marching without shelter. 
 
 From Badeau and Grant's Memoirs, but not from his 
 reports, we learn that at the time of the second assault, 
 Vicksburg was not invested. The length of our works was 
 only eight miles. When completely invested this measured 
 twelve miles. Our three corps had a front of about four 
 miles on the 22d. Between McClernand's left and the river
 
 Preparing for a Second Assault. 803 
 
 below Vicksburg there was an opening of four miles, a like 
 gap between McPherson's and McClernand's forces. There 
 were no advanced works, nor had we any force in reserve to 
 sustain the thin line thrown around an enemy, that, holding 
 the inner line, could easily concentrate on any point. It was 
 this disposition of his forces that tempted Floyd at Donelson 
 to cut his way out and enabled Pemberton, as we shall see 
 directly, to regain the only point lost by the Confederates. 
 The simultaneous attack ordered at 10 A. M. on the 22d could 
 be had only on these terms. What the general commanding 
 expected to accomplish he has not volunteered to inform 
 either the War Department or the world. The valuable in- 
 formation boasted of furnished no change in the order of 
 attack. The thin line broken into fragments by the nature 
 of the ground and the artificial obstacles, presented groups 
 in spaces where front and flank batteries made killing easy 
 to the sheltered Confederates. A diversion had been at- 
 tempted by Admiral Porter, who brought his mortar and 
 gunboats down on the 20th, and for forty-eight hours kept 
 up an incessant bombardment that was innocent of any harm 
 done the enemy. The citizens of Vicksburg were driven 
 from their homes into holes, it is true, but they accepted the 
 hardship and danger with cheerful alacrity, and Admiral 
 Porter could as well have dropped his ammunition in the 
 Mississippi river for all the harm he did the enemy. At an 
 early hour on the 22d the artillery fire accompanied by skir- 
 mishes began and continued until the assault was made. 
 Neither the skirmish line nor the artillery effected any dam- 
 age to the enemy. All our guns were field pieces save six 
 thirty-two pound Parrotts in McClernand's corps. The fire 
 on our part was delivered with alacrity, and Vicksburg was 
 girt with a heavy roar, but with the exception of the Parrott 
 guns our batteries were beyond range and as helpless as Ad- 
 miral Porter, swinging his shells up from the river to drop 
 in the streets of the town. 
 
 We quote from Badeau, who gets his information from 
 Sherman and gives that narrative as a sample of all the work 
 done on that fatal day. Sherman approached the grave- 
 yard road which ran along an inferior ridge across great
 
 304 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ravines toward the enemy's works, but as it approached the 
 intrenchments, it turned to the left running parallel with 
 them for some distance closely swept by musketry from the 
 parapet. Says Badeau : 
 
 " Its general direction was perpendicular to the rebel 
 line, but as it approached the works, it bent to the left, pass- 
 ing along the edge of the ditch of the enemy's bastion and 
 entering at a shoulder of the bastion. The timber on the 
 sides of the ridge and in the ravine had been felled so that 
 an assault at any other point in front of the Fifteenth Corp.s 
 was almost impossible. The rebel line, rifle trench as well 
 as small works for artillery, was higher than the ground oc- 
 cupied by the national troops, and nowhere between the 
 Jackson road and the Mississippi on the north could it be 
 reached without crossing a ravine a hundred and twenty 
 feet below the level of the hills, and then scaling an acclivity 
 whose natural slope was every-where made more difficult by 
 fallen trees and entanglements of brush and vines. 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive of a more impassable 
 front than this. Given a ravine 120 feet deep with sides so 
 steep that in themselves they presented an impregnable de- 
 fense, these sides further protected by artificial works made 
 up of chevaux de frise of fallen trees, tangled vines, and 
 stakes, a single road on an inferior cross-ridge, this road 
 enfiladed by the guns of a bastion, and as it approached 
 the works turning' so as to be swept broadside by mus- 
 ketry at short range, and we have a defense to assault 
 which is to send men to certain failure and cruel death. We 
 have learned all this the valuable knowledge boasted of by 
 General Grant and of what avail ? The assault was or- 
 dered and attempted. A forlorn hope of 150 men men who 
 volunteered to enter these jaws of hell headed the column 
 of doomed volunteers. They carried boards and poles with 
 which to cross the ditch. After came Ewing's brigade, then 
 Charles Smith's, then that of Kilby Smith's, making Blair's 
 division. The forlorn hope dashed forward on the road, fol- 
 lowed by the Thirtieth Ohio, the artillery playing upon the 
 bastion which commanded the road. This fire made no im- 
 pression on the bastion, and suddenly, when the road was
 
 Persisting in Murderous Assaults. 305 
 
 crowded with our brave fellows, a double line of gray-backs 
 rose cooly above the parapet and poured a concentric fire on 
 the head of the column that seemed to eliminate it from ex- 
 istence. 
 
 We quote from General Sherman's report. He says : 
 "It halted, swerved, and sought cover. The rear pressed 
 on, but the fire was so terrific that very soon all sought cover. 
 The head of the column crossed the ditch of the left face of 
 the bastion, and climbed upon the exterior slope where the 
 colors were planted, and the men burrowed in the earth to shield 
 themselves from the flank fire. The leading brigade of Ewing 
 being unable to carry that point, the next brigade of Giles 
 Smith was turned down a ravine, and by a circuit to the left 
 found cover, formed line, and threatened the parapet some 
 three hundred yards to the left of the bastion and the brig- 
 ade of Kilby Smith deployed on the off slope of one of the 
 spurs, where, with Ewing's brigade, they kept up a constant fire 
 against any object that presented itself above the parapet." 
 
 The italics in this abstract are our own. We call at- 
 tention to the accuracy of statement generally indulged in by 
 General Sherman. How the men burrowed is left to our 
 imagination. As the brave fellows had boards and poles 
 with which to cross the ditch, we wonder with what instru- 
 ments they dug holes in the earth. However, as General 
 Sherman did not witness the terrible assault, we may con- 
 clude that he was misinformed by some subordinate whose 
 frightened imagination ran away with the facts. 
 
 However, the assault was a disastrous failure, and one 
 would suppose that enough had been done to demonstrate 
 the utter impossibility of carrying such a work in this way. 
 But the murderous sacrifice of life was not to cease here. 
 General Sherman continues : 
 
 "About 2 P. M. General Blair reported to me that none of 
 his brigades could pass the point of the road swept by the 
 terrific fire encountered by Ewing's, but that Giles Smith 
 had got a position to the left, in connection with General 
 Ransom, of McPherson's corps, and was ready to assault. I 
 ordered a constant fire of artillery to be kept up to occupy 
 20
 
 306 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the attention of the enemy in our front. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, Ransom's and Giles Smith's brigades charged 
 up against the parapet, but also met a staggering fire, before 
 which they recoiled under cover of the hillside." 
 
 Badeau says of this second attack : " The ground over 
 which they passed is the most difficult about Vicksburg. 
 Three ravines cover the entire distance between the grave- 
 yard and Jackson roads, and opening into one still larger, 
 rendered this portion of the line unapproachable, except for 
 individuals. Nowhere between these points could a com- 
 pany march by a flank in any thing like order, so broken is 
 the ground, and so much is it obstructed by the slashing 
 which had been made by felling forest timber and the 
 luxurious vines along the sides of the ravines. . . . The 
 troops pushed on and in the blazing sun sought to reach 
 the enemy's stronghold; but, like the column of Ewing, they 
 became hopelessly broken up into small parties, and only a 
 "few, more daring than the rest, succeeded in getting close 
 enough to give the rebels any serious cause for alarm. But 
 these were met by a staggering fire, and recoiled under cover 
 of the hillside. Many a brave man fell after he had passed 
 through the difficulties of the approach and reached the rebel 
 line. The foremost were soon compelled to crawl behind 
 logs and under the brows of the hill, where they waited for 
 single opportunities to bring down the enemy as he showed 
 himself along the parapet or in the rifle trench." 
 
 General Steele's brigade, which was Sherman's right, 
 had a less difficult country to cross, but a cleared valley in- 
 stead of precipitous ravines exposed his troops " for three- 
 quarters of a mile to a plunging fire from every point of the 
 adjacent rebel line. The distance to pass under fire was not less 
 than four hundred yards, and, though the obstacles to overcome 
 were less, the exposure to fire being greater, made the result 
 here the same as the assault on Sherman's left. By 2 o'clock 
 it was evident that the national forces could not reach the 
 rebel fortifications at any point in Sherman's front in numbers 
 or order sufficient to carry the line, and all further operations 
 were suspended." 
 
 The line of works in front of McPherson's corps fol-
 
 An Impossible Assault. 307 
 
 lowed the line of the high ridge nearly north and south ; 
 " they were strongly constructed and well arranged to sweep 
 the approaches in each direction." The only road to them 
 " was completely swept at many points by direct and cross 
 fires." In Logan's division, Leggett's brigade was on the 
 road, supported by John E. Smith's brigade; Stevenson's 
 brigade in the ravines and on the slopes to the south. At 
 the appointed time all moved forward. Sherman tells the 
 result : 
 
 " Their order of battle, however, was weak, from the 
 nature of the ground ; columns of regiments not greater 
 than a platoon front, battalions by the flank, in columns of 
 fours, or regiments in a single line of battle, supported by 
 troops in position, and covered by skirmishers. 
 
 "Notwithstanding the bravery of the troops, they be- 
 came broken and disorganized by the difficult nature of the 
 ground and the fire of the enemy from trench and parapet ; 
 and they, too, were compelled to seek cover under the brows 
 of the hills along which they had advanced. John E. Smith 
 was thus checked by the cross-fire of artillery commanding 
 the road. . . . Stevenson was somewhat protected by the 
 uneven nature of the ground. . . . His advance' was 
 bold, and had nearly reached the top of the slope in his 
 front, but being only in line, and, therefore, without any 
 great weight, unsupported by columns or heavy bodies to 
 give it confidence or momentum, it also failed." 
 
 Quimby's division was McPherson's left. Badeau says : 
 "Quimby's troops moved out, but the enemy's line in their 
 front being a strong re-entrant (turning by an angle inward), 
 no great effort was made by them. At this time they were 
 simply useful from the menacing attitude they held." 
 Neither McPherson nor any of his generals made any report 
 of this assault; at least none was forwarded to the War De- 
 partment. The reason will appear further along. 
 
 McClernand's corps held the left of the line first A. J. 
 Smith's division, then Carr's, then Hovey's. Badeau's de- 
 scription makes the ground of the same difficult character, 
 deeply cut up by ravines, but less incumbered with timber, 
 save in Hovey's front. McCleruand's report says :
 
 308 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " Five minutes before 10 o'clock the bugle sounded the 
 charge, and at 10 o'clock my columns of attack moved for- 
 ward, and within fifteen minutes Lawler's and Landrum's 
 brigades had carried the ditch slope and bastion of a fort. 
 Some of their men rushed into the fort, finding a piece of 
 artillery, and in time to see the men who had been working 
 and supporting it escape behind another defense command- 
 ing the interior of the former. All of this daring and heroic 
 party were shot down except one, who, recovering from the 
 stunning effect of a shot, seized his musket and captured and 
 brought away thirteen rebels who had returned and fired 
 their gun." 
 
 The actor in this extraordinary affair was Sergeant 
 Joseph Griffith, Twenty-second Iowa, and for his amazing 
 achievement he was promoted to be first lieutenant. This 
 capture of thirteen men by one soldier has a Munchausen 
 look, until we learn that these Confederates were in between 
 two fires, and that a quick surrender was all that saved their 
 lives. As it was, four were killed while in the act of surren- 
 dering, and probably by a fire from their own side. 
 
 McClernand continues: "The colors of the One Hun- 
 dred and Thirtieth Illinois were planted upon the counter- 
 scarp of the ditch, while those of the Forty-eighth Ohio 
 and Seventy-seventh Illinois waved over the bastion. Within 
 fifteen minutes after Lawler's and Landrum's success, Ben- 
 ton's and Burbridge's brigades carried the ditch and slope of 
 another earth-work and planted their colors upon the latter. 
 Captain White, of the Chicago Mercantile Battery, carried 
 one of his pieces by hand quite to the ditch, and, double- 
 shotting it, fired into an embrasure, disabling a gun in it 
 ready to be discharged and scattering death among the rebel 
 cannoneers. A curtain connected the works forming these 
 two points of attack." "There," he says, "for more than 
 eight long hours, they (our troops) maintained their ground 
 with deathlike tenacity." Osterhaus' and Hovey's forces, 
 forming the column of assault on the left, had a longer 
 march over the most difficult ground to pass over. " They 
 pushed forward under a withering fire upon a more extended 
 line until an enfilading fire from a strong redoubt on their
 
 The Murderous Assaults. 309 
 
 left front and physical exhaustion compelled them to take 
 shelter behind a ridge. Their skirmishers, however, kept up 
 the conflict." Pembertori, alarmed at the success of our 
 troops under McClernand, now massed troops to drive the 
 four brigades from the points they had gained in the works. 
 McClernand, well knowing that sooner or later this would 
 be done, sent to General McArthur, then on the march from 
 Warrenton, urging him to hurry up, and he also advised 
 General Grant of the situation and begged for troops. 
 
 The conduct of the general commanding at the time of 
 the assault, and the subsequent controversy between Grant 
 and McClernand, throw such light on the murderous mode 
 of warfare indulged in that both become important. We 
 have seen that a second assault was ordered because the first 
 had given us a knowledge of the enemy's mode of defense, 
 the nature of the ground fortifications, and other unknown 
 circumstances that after became plain to the military mind 
 and of great advantage to the assaulting party. When the 
 bloody encounter occurred again, these supposed advantages 
 seemed in some way to have disappeared. The reports made 
 by the general commanding, and especially by the subordi- 
 date generals, tell us of an advance over and among obstacles 
 that seem all of them to be as surprising in their newness as 
 in the first attempt. At ten o'clock A. M., an advance along 
 the entire line was made. At twenty minutes past ten, it 
 was at an end, with two thousand of our gallant fellows dead 
 or wounded outside the enemy's works. Save at one point, 
 the attack was a complete failure, a most disastrous failure. 
 At noon, along the entire line, save that part under McCler- 
 nand, the fighting ceased. Sherman and McPherson confessed 
 their signal defeat, and asserted that to take Vicksburg by 
 assault was impossible. In face of these facts, fully com- 
 municated to General Grant at three P. M., he ordered a re- 
 newed assault, and in less than an hour, according to General 
 Grant's report, the dead and wounded were increased to four 
 thousand, and the result, so far as the capture of Vicksburg 
 was concerned, was the same. 
 
 These four thousand we now know were wantonly butch- 
 ered; but, at the time, there was no question as to the last
 
 310 Life of Thomas. 
 
 two thousand. The commanding general might have be- 
 lieved in the first assault of that fatal day there was hope 
 a forlorn one, perhaps, but yet a hope of success. But, for 
 the second, acknowledged by him to have doubled his loss, 
 there was demand for explanation. That subtle yet ever 
 present guardian of the people and voice of power, the press, 
 took up the matter, and, after detailing the mad attempt, 
 said, in explanation, that the general commanding was so 
 under the influence of liquor that he had no head, and, of 
 consequence, no mercy on his troops. Of course, the polit- 
 ical general, McClernand, is made the scape-goat. McCler- 
 nand claimed to have captured two forts and so broken the 
 enemy's line. He asked for a vigorous blow by McPherson 
 to make a diversion in his, McClernand's, behalf. Grant, in 
 response, ordered a general assault, and then came the 
 slaughter. McClernand had deceived him. The political 
 general had made no such success. 
 
 Let us see. When did the excuse suggest itself to Gen- 
 eral Grant? Certainly not on the day the assault occurred. 
 On that night Grant wrote Halleck : " We have possession 
 of two of the enemy's forts." This letter is in strange vari- 
 ance with Grant's conduct during the day. At eleven A. M., 
 he received from McClernand this note : 
 
 " I am hotly engaged with the enemy. He is massing 
 on me from right and left. A vigorous blow from McPherson 
 would make a diversion in my favor." 
 
 Grant says that he received this note at twelve noon ; 
 his answer, however, bears date 11:50, and reads: "If your 
 advance is weak, strengthen it from your reserves or other 
 parts of the line." We quote this to show the condition of 
 mind in which this terrible affair was conducted. The note 
 sent back to McClernand is not in response to the one re- 
 ceived. McClernand had not asked for reinforcements. He 
 knew that the entire army, stretched along a line four miles 
 in extent, had no reserves. But the fighting of all that army 
 save his own had ceased, and, fearing a concentration on his 
 forces fiercely engaged and gaining important advantage, he 
 asked that the fight might be renewed. General Grant af- 
 fected not to believe this. In his report to Halleck, he says i
 
 The Murderous Assaults. 311 
 
 " The position occupied by me during most of the time of 
 the assault gave me a better opportunity of seeing what was 
 going on in front of the Thirteenth Army Corps (McCler- 
 nand's) than I believe it possible for the commander to 
 have." 
 
 And yet, strange to say, he left this commanding position 
 to go around on foot to Sherman, and then order the assault 
 that he was satisfied was uncalled for. 
 
 General Sherman, in his Memoirs, says of this event : 
 "After our men had been fairly beaten back from off the par- 
 apet, and had got cover behind the spur of ground close up 
 to the rebel works, General Grant came to where I was, on 
 foot, having left his horse some distance to the rear. I 
 pointed out to him the rebel works, admitted that my assault 
 had failed, and he said the result with McPherson and Mc- 
 Clernand was about the same." 
 
 In relation to McClernand's claim of having gained a de- 
 cided advantage, Sherman, in his Memoirs, continues : " Gen- 
 eral Grant said, < I don't believe a word of it,' but I reasoned 
 with him that this note was official and must be credited, 
 and I offered to renew the assault at once with new troops. 
 He said he would instantly ride down to McClernand's front, 
 and, if I did not receive orders to the^contrary by three 
 o'clock P. M., I might try it again. Mower's fresh brigade 
 was brought up under cover, and some changes were made 
 in Giles Smith's brigade, and punctually at three o'clock p. 
 M., hearing heavy firing down along the line to my left, I 
 ordered the second assault. It was a repetition of the first 
 equally unsuccessful and bloody. The same thing occurred 
 with McPherson, who lost in this second assault some valua- 
 ble officers and men, without adequate result." 
 
 And the general commanding disappeared from Sher- 
 man's front. It appears that he did not return to his com- 
 manding position in the rear of McClernand's, but went on 
 foot, we presume, to McPhersou's center and showed McCler- 
 nand's dispatch. Now, McClernand never claimed what 
 Grant asserts. The celebrated note reads as follows : 
 
 " We have gained the enemy's intrenchments at several 
 points, but are brought to a stand. I have sent word to
 
 312 Life of Thomas. 
 
 McArthur to reinforce me if he can. Would it not be best 
 to concentrate the whole or a part of his command at this 
 point? P. S. I have received your dispatch. My troops 
 are all engaged and I can not withdraw any to reinforce 
 others." 
 
 Again, this follows : 
 
 " We are hotly engaged with the enemy. We have part 
 possession of two forts and the stars and stripes are floating 
 over them. A vigorous push ought to be made all along the 
 line." 
 
 That General Grant had intervals of confidence in Mc- 
 Clernand's success is shown by the following dispatches : 
 
 " FROM FIELD SIGNAL STATION. 
 " To GENERAL MCCLERNAND : 
 
 " McArthur advanced from Warrenton last night. He 
 is on our left. Concentrate with him and use his forces to 
 the best advantage." 
 
 " FROM FIELD SIGNAL STATION. 
 " To GENERAL MCCLERNAND : 
 
 " Sherman and McPherson are pressing the enemy. If 
 one portion of your troops are pressed reinforce them from 
 another. Sherman has gained some successes." 
 
 The next dispatch reads : 
 
 " General, I have sent a dispatch to you saying that 
 McArthur left Warrenton last night; was about half way 
 1 about 1 A. M. this morning. Communicate with him and use 
 his forces to the best advantage. McPherson is directed to 
 send Quimby's division to you if he can not effect a lodgment 
 where he is. Quimby is next to your right, and you will be 
 aided as much by his penetrating into the enemy's lines as 
 by having him to support the column you have already got. 
 Sherman is getting on well." 
 
 The vacillating conduct of the commander in going from 
 where he could see the McClernand assault to Sherman and 
 refusing to resume the attack, then seeking McPherson and 
 giving the fatal order referring Quimby to McClernand and 
 then ordering Quimby to his support ; saying to Sherman that
 
 Making Me demand a Scape-goat. 313 
 
 he did not believe a word of McClernand's gain while penning 
 the above dispatches that show he did believe, all go to prove 
 that General Grant was not himself on this trying occasion. 
 
 The end of the struggle that had been going on for ten 
 hours is given in McClernand's report. It says : " Colonel 
 Boomer's and Sanborn's brigade of General Quimby's divis- 
 ion, much exhausted, came up, but before either of them 
 could be fully applied indeed, before one of them was en- 
 tirely formed night set in and terminated the struggle. 
 Colonel Boomer early fell while leading his men forward, 
 lamented by all. Meanwhile the enemy, seeing Quimby's divis- 
 ion moving in the direction of my position, hastened to concen- 
 trate additional forces in front of it and made a sortie, which 
 was repelled. About 8 p. M., after ten hour's continuous 
 fighting my men withdrew to the nearest shelter and rested 
 for the night, holding by a strong picket most of the ground 
 they had gained." 
 
 The grave question which Grant is permitted to settle 
 against the political general, who was guilty of having at 
 one time won the confidence of President Lincoln, has 
 a reverse finding in history. Grant admits that if Mc- 
 Clernaud effected a lodgment in the enemy's works so as to 
 break the line and open the road to reserves, supposing he 
 had such, through to Vicksburg, it was the duty of the general 
 commanding to renew the general assault whatever the con- 
 sequences as to mortality might be and to afford McClernand 
 as many troops as he possibly could use in the way of rein- 
 forcements. Grant's letter of that night in which he reports 
 two forts had been taken can be credited to his condition, 
 for at the very time he penned these words night was on 
 them and the advantages were lost. We may question the 
 testimony of McClernand's subordinates, although the bodies 
 of their comrades were lying cold in death within the works 
 they had carried, for the judgment of such witnesses is apt 
 to be dazed by their imaginations. They might have taken 
 works of really no avail, as Grant claimed to see from his 
 coign of vantage, so far as seeing was concerned. But we have 
 since the Confederate records have come into our possession 
 witnesses whose testimony is evidence beyond impeachment.
 
 314 Life of Thomas. 
 
 We have General Pemberton's report, which says: "It was 
 of vital importance to drive them out." From General 
 Stevenson's report we learn : " The work was constructed in. 
 such a manner that the ditch was commanded by no part of 
 the line, and the only means by which they could be dis- 
 lodged was to retake the angle by a desperate charge. . . 
 . A more gallant feat than this charge has not illustrated 
 our arms during the war." 
 
 Brigadier-General Lee was in the immediate command 
 of that part of the line, but died without making a report. 
 Colonel Dockery, commanding a brigade of the reserve, says : 
 " While on the way to General Moore's lines, a courier from 
 Brigadier-General Lee to General Green reported that Gen- 
 eral Lee's line had been broken by the enemy." 
 
 Colonel Waul, of the Texas Legion, who organized the 
 force which retook the works, says: "Alive to the impor- 
 tance of the position, General Lee issued and reiterated or- 
 ders to Colonel Shelly, commanding the Twenty-third Ala- 
 bama, and Lieutenant-Colonel Pettus, commanding the 
 Forty-sixth Alabama, who occupied the fort, to retake it at all 
 hazards, offering the flags to the commands capturing them. 
 After several vain attempts, they refused to volunteer, nor 
 could the most strenuous efforts of their chivalric commander 
 urge or incite them to the assault. 
 
 " General Lee then directed the colonel of the Legion to 
 have the fort taken. He immediately went there, taking 
 with him one battalion of the Legion to aid or support the 
 assailants, if necessary, informing Captain Bradley and Lieu- 
 tenant Hagan, who respectively commanded the companies 
 that had previously been sent as a support to the garrison. 
 These gallant officers not only willingly agreed, but solicited, 
 the honor of leading those companies to the assault. . . . 
 Three of Colonel Shelly's regiment also volunteered. . . . 
 This feat, considered with the accompanying circumstances, 
 the occupation of the enemy, the narrow pass through which 
 the party had to enter, the enfilading fire of musketry and 
 artillery they had to encounter in the approach, the unwill- 
 ingness of the garrison, consisting of two regiments, to vol- 
 unteer, and permitting the flags to float for three hours over
 
 Me demand 's Success. 315 
 
 the parapet, the coolness, courage, and intrepidity mani- 
 fested, deserve highest praise for every officer and man en- 
 gaged in the hazardous enterprise." 
 
 The truth is, however, that whether McClernand effected 
 a lodgment of grave importance or not, the condition was 
 such that gallant service was of no avail. Had McArthur's 
 forces been on the field, as a reserve to McClernand, so as to 
 have troops on hand to take advantage of the break, an as- 
 sault then, while a general attack was going on, might have 
 ended in the capture of Vicksburg. But this was not the 
 situation. Vicksburg depended on its fortifications. These 
 swelled the strength of eighteen thousand men to at least 
 sixty thousand for holding the river line. Pemberton, giv- 
 ing ten thousand to man the works, could throw a heavy re- 
 serve upon any point sorely pressed or fight an engagement 
 in any breach their enemy could make. Grant, in employ- 
 ing his entire army as an assaulting force, without a reserve, 
 was in no condition to avail himself of such a break in the 
 Confederate lines as McClernand gave him. He simply 
 drove his devoted troops like sheep to the slaughter against 
 works he had demonstrated before were impregnable. 
 
 We have, however, the grim satisfaction of knowing 
 that, while our general commanding was not himself, the 
 gentleman commanding the Confederates was himself, and 
 was cursed for that by the authories at Richmond. He was 
 denounced for fighting the battle of Champion's Hill before 
 securing a conjunction with Johnston's six thousand. And 
 after being driven to Vicksburg, he did not take advantage 
 of the latest assault, with its fearful slaughter of our troops, 
 by making a sortie from the part of Vicksburg not then in- 
 vested, and driving Grant's army into the Mississippi by an 
 attack in its rear. 
 
 While poor Pemberton, however, is consigned to an un- 
 marked grave, true history will come in time to rot the gar- 
 lands and deepen the dust upon the monuments erected to 
 the memory of Grant. We will seek in shame to forget a 
 man whose bloody blunders at Vicksburg were crowned by 
 an act that makes us shudder to know and sicken to remem- 
 ber. This is strong language, but justified by facts. A
 
 316 Life of Thomas. 
 
 I 
 
 frightful Ios8 of over four thousand men had occurred. The 
 mass of these lay where they fell. Badeau, in his Grant- 
 indorsed version of his master's life, says: "The hill-sides 
 were covered with the slain and with unfortunates who lay 
 panting in the heat, crying for water which none could 
 bring them, and writhing in pain that might not be re- 
 lieved." 
 
 For three days the four thousand were left, the dead to 
 rot, and the wounded to writhe in agony under that hot 
 Southern sun, a hideous neglect which was terminated only 
 by the following note sent under flag of truce from Pem- 
 berton : 
 
 " Two days having elapsed since your dead and wounded 
 have been lying in our front, and as yet no disposition on 
 your part of a desire to remove them being exhibited, in the 
 name of humanity, I have the honor to propose a cessation 
 of hostilities for two and a half hours that you may be en- 
 abled to remove your dead and dying men. If you can not 
 do this, on notification from you that hostilities will be sus- 
 pended on your part for the time specified, I will endeavor 
 to have the dead buried and the wounded cared for." 
 
 To this Grant replied at 3:30 p. M., and it was agreed 
 that hostilities should cease at 6 P. M., that our dead, for all 
 were dead by this time, might be buried. A flag of truce, 
 asking a suspension of hostilities until the dead were in- 
 terred and the wounded cared for, might have been at once 
 resorted to from the first, but Grant, who had reported to 
 Halleck and published to the people that the assault was 
 enough of a success to put us in possession of the battle- 
 field, could not thus confess his falsehood by asking a flag of 
 truce. And so the slow torture of wounds under that hot 
 June sun of the fiery south with agonizing thirst, went on, 
 our poor fellows dying slowly by torture that a lie might be 
 palmed off" upon the people who had sent their sons and 
 brothers down to die for their country. 
 
 Badeau in a foot note makes a feeble eflbrt at a defense 
 against Pemberton's imputations of inhumanity, that the 
 impossibility of relieving those wounded, " was occasioned 
 by Pemberton's troops." He adds, philosophically : " The
 
 Savage Cruelty to the Wounded. 317 
 
 wounded suffer frightfully after every battle, and the party 
 which is repelled is always unable to bestow attention on 
 those whom it leaves on the field." 
 
 But it will be observed that Grant, in his report to Hal- 
 leek, and in his publications in the press, denies that our 
 forces were repelled. According to that report, we held the 
 field up to the very trenches of the enemy. 
 
 Badeau, the Grant-indorsed biographer, allows no sense 
 of humanity to General Pemberton in his offer of permission 
 to Grant to bury his dead. He asserts that Pemberton 
 sought to escape a pestilence bred by the stench of these 
 dead Union volunteers. He says : " For two days the un- 
 buried corpses were left festering between the two armies, 
 when the stench became so intolerable to the garrison that 
 Pemberton was afraid it might breed a pestilence. He there- 
 fore proposed an armistice." 
 
 General Pemberton had another stratagem in this, and 
 this reveals a fine stratagem on Grant's part. Continues 
 Badeau : 
 
 " The offer was promptly accepted, and the rebels also 
 availed themselves of the opportunity to carry off the dead 
 horses and mules that lay in their front, and were becoming 
 very offensive to the besieged. These were the animals that 
 Pemberton had turned loose from the city and driven over 
 the lines from want of forage. They were shot wherever 
 they were seen by the sharpshooters from the besieging 
 army, that the stench arising from their putrefaction might 
 annoy the enemy." 
 
 War at best is cruel and barbarous. But in the hands 
 of heartless men it becomes a hell, far beyond the dreams of 
 the fanatic. In its better aspects, under the guidance of hu- 
 mane men, the atrocities are excused because of their neces- 
 sity. This is terrible, we say, but it is war. But in all the 
 annals of killing, no such infamy as this at Vicksburg ap- 
 pears of record, and it lies outside of plea found in neces- 
 sity. Then the cool indifference in which we are told that 
 the starving brutes that came staggering from behind the 
 Confederate works were shot down that their stench might 
 breed a pestilence. The proposition was as idiotic as it was.
 
 318 Life of Thomas. 
 
 cruel. Our northern troops poured in to reinforce the lines 
 thinned by sickness, were in a condition to be the first suf- 
 ferers from this premeditated pestilence. Crowded into forti- 
 fied camps, digging like moles in the earth, or crowded in 
 open ditches, they sickened and died as they had been dying 
 for half a year. Not satisfied with this, we are told that our 
 able general organized a pestilence by leaving the dead upon 
 the outer slope of the enemy's fortification, and killing the 
 starved animals ' driven from the beleaguered town. This 
 surpasses even the uncalled-for order to lay waste a wide 
 stretch of fertile country, and so make war on helpless age, 
 or defenseless women and children by fetching such a popu- 
 lation face to face with death from starvation. Nor will we 
 walk backward and cover with the blanket of ignorance 
 these awful crimes against God and Christian civilization. 
 
 There is official evidence of General Grant's personal 
 habits and condition in these dreadful days. How terrible 
 and sickening the situation must have been, will appear with 
 horrible distinctness from the following letter written a few 
 days after the assaults to Grant by General John Rawlins, 
 his chief-of-staif, and delivered by Rawlins in person. No 
 lapses of ordinary degree would have induced a staff officer 
 to venture upon thus sharply arraigning the commander-in- 
 chief : 
 
 " BEFORE VICKSBURG, Miss., June 6, 1863, \ 
 
 1 o'clock A. M. j 
 
 DEAR GENERAL: The great solicitude I feel for the 
 safety of this army leads me to mention what I had hoped 
 never again to do the subject of your drinking. This may 
 surprise you, for I may be (and I trust I am) doing you an 
 injustice by unfounded suspicions, but if an error it better be 
 on the side of his country's safety than in fear of offending 
 a friend. I have heard that Dr. McMillan, at General Sher- 
 man's a few days ago, induced you, notwithstanding your 
 pledge to me, to take a glass of wine, and to-day, when I 
 found a box of wine in front of your tent and proposed to 
 move it, which I did, I was told you had forbid its being 
 taken away, for you intended to keep it until you entered 
 Vicksburg, that you might have it for your friends ; and to-
 
 General Rawiins on Grant's Drinking. 319 
 
 night, when you should, because of the condition of your 
 health if nothing else, have been in bed, I find you where the 
 wine bottle has just been emptied, in company with those 
 who drink and urge you to do likewise, and the lack 
 of your usual promptness of decision and clearness in 
 expressing yourself in writing tended to confirm my sus- 
 picions. 
 
 You have the full control of your appetite and can let 
 drinking alone. Had you not pledged me the sincerity of 
 your honor early last March that you would drink no more 
 during the war, and kept that pledge during your recent 
 campaign, you would not to-day have stood first in the 
 world's history as a successful military leader. Your only 
 salvation depends upon your strict adherence to that pledge. 
 You can not succeed in aiiy other way. As I have before 
 stated, I may be wrong in my suspicions, but if one sees that 
 which leads him to suppose a sentinel is falling asleep on his 
 post, it is his duty to arouse him; and if one sees that which 
 leads him to fear the general commanding a great army is 
 being seduced to that step which he knows will bring dis- 
 grace upon that general and defeat to his command, if he 
 fails to sound the proper note of warning, the friends, wives, 
 and children of those brave men whose lives he permits to 
 remain thus imperiled will accuse him while he lives and 
 stand swift witnesses of wrath against him in the day when 
 all shall be tried. If my suspicions are unfounded, let my 
 friendship for you and my zeal for my country be my excuse 
 for this letter; and if they are correctly founded, and you 
 determine not to heed the admonitions and the prayers of 
 this hasty note by immediately ceasing to touch a single drop 
 of any kind of liquor, no matter by whom asked or under 
 what circumstances, let my immediate relief from duty in 
 this department be the result. I am, General, your friend, 
 
 JOHN A. RAWLINS. 
 
 The biography of the lackey and the memoirs of overfed 
 egotism give as a reason for these vain assaults, the con- 
 tinued menace of General Joseph E. Johnston in Grant's 
 rear, and the fear that Bragg would abandon Rosecrans'
 
 320 Life of Thomas. 
 
 front and come to the relief of Pemberton.. We now know 
 that General Johnston, after the most strenuous, efforts had 
 collected twenty-eight thousand men of all arms, but these 
 were so deficient in transportation, in supplies of all sorts, in 
 muskets and artillery, that his available forces numbered but 
 eight thousand men. As for Bragg, the authorities at Rich- 
 mond so recognized the importance of his objective point, 
 Chattanooga, that had they thought it in immediate danger, 
 they would have transferred Lee's army from the Potomac 
 to the Tennessee. 
 
 A little of the sagacity given in imagination to General 
 Grant would have relieved his military mind of all fears of 
 interference on the part of either Johnston or Bragg. 
 While Pemberton was almost shrieking to Johnston for aid 
 to raise the siege, Johnston was sending his subordinate 
 officer orders to cut his way out and so join their forces 
 for operations in the interior. Johnston held that Vicks- 
 burg was not worth the struggle being made to hold it. As 
 the enemy had, with the exception of Port Hudson, entire 
 control of the Mississippi river, the Confederacy was as 
 much cut in two as it would be had our forces possessed 
 Vicksburg and Port Hudson. 
 
 Grant began the siege of Vicksburg with forty thou- 
 sand men. Through frantic appeals for reinforcements from 
 Grant, this number was doubled from troops that should 
 have gone to the Army of the Cumberland. The general 
 who organized slaughter for his own troops and made such 
 frantic demand for more men ought to have known that with 
 forty thousand men he outnumbered the two armies of the 
 Confederacy, and when this force was augmented to eighty 
 thousand, he could have left enough men to man the works 
 about Vicksburg and marching to the interior have driven 
 Johnston from the field. To have defeated Johnston thus was 
 to have made Vicksburg and Port Hudson untenable to the ' 
 enemy. Had he six months before marched his huge army, 
 as he at that time contemplated, through the interior of 
 Mississippi along the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad, 
 he had a chance of brushing General Pemberton aside, and 
 a campaign of six weeks would, in all human probability,
 
 Making Occasion against Me demand. 321 
 
 have brought the evacuation of Vicksburg and Port Hud- 
 son, instead of six months' campaign, if it can he called such, 
 and its awful mortality from disease as well as bullets. We 
 have seen how the general commanding came to change his 
 objective point from Pemberton's army to the person of Mc- 
 Clernand, and so drifted into the bayous, swamps, and bluffs 
 of the Mississippi. 
 
 This history of bloody blunders would be incomplete 
 were we to fail recounting how, on the 18th June, General 
 Grant succeeded in finally capturing his objective found in 
 the political general the real author of all our woes. It 
 will be observed that, as early as the 6th of May, Grant got 
 from the War Department full authority to dispense with 
 the services of the man who had originated this mad attack 
 on Vicksburg from the river. It was difficult, however, for 
 the general commanding to avail himself of this authority. 
 The camps about Vicksburg fairly swarmed with newspaper 
 correspondents, and while Grant reported to the War De- 
 partment, these gentlemen of gifted pens reported to the 
 sovereign people, whose sons were in the trenches and rap- 
 idly filling cemeteries about the city. General McClernand 
 was guilty of being General McClernand no more nor less. 
 Now, while this was sufficient in the mind of the general 
 commanding, it was no offense whatever in the eyes of the 
 gifted press men. On the contrary, so far McClernand's 
 military career contrasted favorably with that of either 
 Grant or Sherman. Indeed, looking at the political general 
 from that point of view, his character and military career 
 appear brilliant. We have seen that he carried a fortifica- 
 tion by storm long before Vicksburg was assailed an 
 achievement neither Grant nor Sherman ever accomplished. 
 It was McClernand's corps that made the arduous march 
 from Milliken's Bend to Hard Times, in which, while fight- 
 ing the enemy he invariably defeated, he built that road for 
 Grant and his army from the Slough of Despond to the 
 blood-stained victory of Disaster. It was McClernand's 
 corps that completed the highway by which Grant hoped to 
 get away from Vicksburg, then by a forced march reached 
 21
 
 322 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Port Gibson, and beat the enemy there after a surprise almost 
 as great as that which came to Grant when he discovered 
 that he was on the rear of the enemy, and could change his 
 proposed retreat from Vicksburg to an advance upon that 
 citadel. It was McClernand who shifted from the right to 
 the left so that he might not lead in the raid upon Jackson, 
 came unexpectedly upon Pemberton at Champion's Hill, 
 and, although sent to slaughter, won a victory. Then it 
 was McClernand's corps that came upon the enemy's strong 
 position at Big Black river and carried the same by assault, 
 the most brilliant action of the campaign. Then, again, it 
 was McClernand's troops that gained a grave advantage in 
 the second storming of Vicksburg, that, had it been followed 
 up and sustained, would have given us Vicksburg. 
 
 For none of these marked successes had the general 
 commanding a word of commendation or even mention. 
 General McClernand was evidently not a sensitive gentle- 
 man, but the melancholy fact stared him in the face that so 
 long as he remained in command the troops under him could 
 get no recognition for their gallant efforts. While achieving 
 unnamed victories, they were rapidly filling unnamed graves. 
 Under this stress, McClernand saw that he would have to be 
 relieved from command, but before this could overtake him, 
 resolved that all Grant neglected in the way of praise he 
 would do in behalf of his brave but badly abused soldiers. 
 One hot June morning, Grant's head-quarters were suddenly 
 invaded by Sherman, shaking with wrath over a newspaper 
 he held in his hand. It was some seconds ere he could gain 
 breath to express his indignation. It had been aroused by 
 " that fellow McClernand," who had dared make a con- 
 gratulatory report to his corps, not through head-quarters, 
 where it would have been properly suppressed, but through 
 the newspapers. Of course, the fellow, who had ever been 
 a nuisance, must be cashiered for this gross breach of dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 Grant' had been authorized by a cipher dispatch sent 
 him by Charles A. Dana at an early day to discharge any 
 subordinate whom he found in his way, but until now no 
 opportunity had occurred. The cunning political nuisance
 
 Cause Found against Me demand. 323 
 
 under epaulettes had perversely continued to win successes, 
 and although these were ignored by the general commanding 
 and pooh-poohed by all right-minded West Pointers, the no 
 less troublesome public believed the armed politician could 
 not well be defied. Now, however, the epauletted nuisance 
 was clearly in the wrong, and vengeance was swift and final. 
 General McClernand was brusquely notified that his services 
 were no longer required, and retiring to the shades of private 
 life, could study at his leisure Halleck's Art of War as illus- 
 trated by Grant before Vicksburg. 
 
 We have no tears to shed over the fall of McClernand. 
 He was really the author of all the woe that befell us at 
 Vicksburg. He first conceived of the fatal expedition down 
 the Mississippi to the bayous and swamps of that dreadful 
 locality. After winning Lincoln over to the idiotic design, 
 he forced, as we have seen, Grant to abandon his campaign 
 through the center of the State of Mississippi and move 
 eighty thousand men to a locality where for six months they 
 remained utterly helpless, dying of malarial fevers and 
 measles, small-pox, and kindred diseases. Without firing a 
 gun, the ten thousand men left under Pemberton to man the 
 fortifications, while thirty thousand were transferred to 
 Bragg's army without, we say, doing aught but idly look- 
 ing on as they watched the hopeless canal digging and bayou 
 clearing and listened to the wail of dead marches, the Con- 
 federates achieved a victory every hour over these blind 
 leaders of the blind, who sent their brave men down to in- 
 glorious death. We are content, therefore, to consign our 
 political general to the obscurity of unrecorded eulogy. It 
 is not well, however, for the man who was neither an able 
 soldier nor a successful politician to look down with much 
 contempt upon the man who made for him all the gain to be 
 gathered from that murderous performance. 
 
 What the net-purport and upshot of half a year's opera- 
 tions about Vicksburg were to the government at Washing- 
 ton by an army of never less than sixty thousand men, can 
 be gathered from accounts made on the 4th of July, 1863, 
 when the Confederates surrendered.
 
 324 Life of Thomas. 
 
 We took prisoners something over eighteen thousand 
 men under arms. This would give Pemberton as strong a 
 force when he submitted as when he retreated into Vicks- 
 burg. As his ranks were thinned by disease, and to a small 
 extent by casualties in the defense, it is not to be supposed 
 that his force increased or even remained stationary. The 
 general commanding consulted his interest by counting the 
 rations issued to the surrendered. As the city of Yicksburg 
 was in the most sore distress as to food, the starving inhab- 
 itants were included in the number provided for, so General 
 Grant, never nice when it came to a question involving credit 
 to himself, was enabled to swell the number of his pension- 
 ers to any figure he cared to make. 
 
 He gained, let us admit, eighteen thousand men. 
 
 For these, we lost, from the time the army under Sher- 
 man left Memphis on this fatal Chickasaw slaughter until the 
 surrender on the 4th of July, in casualties of killed and 
 wounded, from men missing and taken prisoners, exclusive 
 of the many thousands who died from disease, 11,28.9 men. 
 
 And when at last, with this fearful showing of loss in 
 money and in life, we took the place, it was of no advantage 
 no use whatever to our government. All the months that 
 Grant was studying how to get away from Vicksburg save 
 by a return to Memphis, and had his army dying like dis- 
 eased sheep in digging canals and struggling through im- 
 passable bayous, the war went on. It all swept by him. The 
 importance of the Mississippi was lost in the advance of 
 Rosecrans upon Chattanooga, our great objective point of 
 the war. 
 
 Looking back now to these strangely unrecorded facts, 
 we feel ashamed to know that victories were so rare with us, 
 that we were willing to accept this capture of eighteen 
 thousand men by eighty thousand, with all the bloody disas- 
 ters that accompanied the campaign, as a great triumph, and 
 out of its incompetent leader construct a grotesque great- 
 ness that would be laughable, were it not such a melancholy 
 disgrace. It is hard for us as a people that the history of the 
 Vicksburg hero can not be left to the political organization
 
 Eighty Thousand Capture Eighteen Thousand. 825 
 
 that made of him a political quantity. In that case, we need 
 never fear that the truth might rear its ghastly head and put 
 to record the facts that make one shudder to read. But, un- 
 fortunately, this faction that sought to make Grant's life a 
 private, sacred, confidential subject, is but a part of the 
 American people, and at least one-half of our population is 
 uot prepared to cover his nakedness as a politician with an 
 imaginary mantle of military glory. The cold, impartial 
 hand of history, inscribing facts for the English speaking 
 world and all the civilized peoples of the earth, will not be 
 influenced in reading the record by the little faction that has 
 an impure motive for its extravagant fictions.
 
 326 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Preparations for the Advance on Chattanooga Concentration and Forti- 
 fication of Supplies Impatience -of the War Department at the Delay 
 Re-inforcements and Supplies forwarded Reluctantly Treachery to 
 Rosecrans in his Chief of Staff Testing the Front of the Enemy 
 Training Raw Recruits into Veterans. 
 
 It is a great relief to turn from the dreary record of dis- 
 aster found in the half year's burials about Vicksburg to the 
 history of a campaign where the fortunes of the Republic 
 were carried to the front in a succession of victories that had 
 a great objective for a purpose. We pass from petty jeal- 
 ousies, mean ambitions and selfish indulgence to the more 
 elevated plane and purer atmosphere ever found about George 
 H. Thomas and William S. Rosecrans. We left the great 
 leaders after the victory at Stone river making active prepa- 
 rations for a move of a mighty army upon Chattanooga, the 
 rugged gate-way of the South, the possession of which 
 would be the fall of the Confederacy. The most important 
 part of this preparation was to gather at Murfreesboro sup- 
 plies sufficient to support an army for at least a year. We 
 have seen how Grant, making the same preparations, left his 
 supplies at Holly Springs under gua-rd of a man who had been 
 proven 1 a miserable coward and won death by hanging in his 
 loss of four millions of supplies provided the general plac- 
 ing him in command was promptly cashiered. General 
 Rosecrans took no chances. Strongly posting his army so 
 as to cover all approaches from "the enemy, he called a halt 
 first for the purpose of repairing the railroad from Nashville 
 to Murfreesboro, and then to get over such the supplies 
 necessary to justify an advance. While the railway remained 
 unavailable these supplies, barely sufficient to support the 
 army day by day, were wagoned over the wornout turnpikes 
 and country roads. During the delay incident to this con- 
 dition the depots at Murfreesboro, indeed, the town itself,
 
 Ignorance and Impatience at Washington. 327 
 
 was so fortified that comparatively speaking a small force 
 could hold the place in the absence of the army. 
 
 All these preparations called for time, and as time wore 
 on the victory at Stone river seemed to lose its significance 
 at Washington, and anon inquiries and complaints from the 
 War Department were impatiently ticked out to head- 
 quarters. Rosecrans after consultation with Thomas re- 
 sponded as best he might. The care of the sick and wounded 
 that he reported for awhile seemed to allay irritation, then 
 the difficulties attending the transportation, all given in de- 
 tail, served a like purpose. Much of this irritation came of 
 Secretary Stanton's personal feeling toward Rosecrans. He 
 had no confidence in the general and this excited and deep- 
 ened his hostility. Rosecrans would soon have been re- 
 lieved but for the calm judgment of President Lincoln and 
 the influence of Salmon P. Chase. Again, to every propo- 
 sition made by the impatient Secretary of War looking to 
 the removal of Rosecrans came the question from the Pres- 
 ident, " Well, who will we put in command?" There was 
 but one response to this, that came in the name of Thomas. 
 The President's one answer invariably was, " Let the Vir- 
 ginian wait." Lincoln did not know that the Virginian was 
 the only officer in his armies who could afford to wait. 
 
 After a time the lack of confidence at Washington, felt 
 especially in the War Department, began to cripple the Army 
 of the Cumberland. While necessary supplies were forwarded 
 grudgingly, the necessary reinforcements, not to fill out the 
 thinned ranks of old regiments which during the entire war 
 was never done, but to keep the force at the number consid- 
 ered necessary for the campaign, were actually denied the 
 general commanding. It seems strange, looking back now 
 at the military events of that day, to see how infatuated 
 the authorities were at Washington. To the armies on the 
 right and left of our center the department actually antici- 
 pated demands. Men and supplies were hurried forward 
 without question or complaint. And yet all the efforts of 
 the Potomac were purposeless, ending in blood and with one 
 exception disaster, while the army at Vicksburg was, to use 
 Grant's words in reference to General Butler, " completely
 
 328 Life of Thomas. 
 
 bottled up." The false assertion in the shape of a complaint 
 was made, and it has its echo to-day, that Rosecrans by his 
 inactivity enabled the Confederates to send troops from his 
 front to reinforce Pemberton and Lee. We now know that 
 the reverse was the truth. We have seen that the moment 
 the authorities at Richmond learned that Grant's army was 
 in the swamps before Vicksburg, they withdrew thirty thou- 
 sand troops from Pemberton's command to strengthen Bragg. 
 They saw that with the Mississippi in possession of our gov- 
 ernment above Vicksburg and below Port Hudson these two 
 points had lost much if not all their significance. The fate 
 of empire, so far as the South was concerned, rested on 
 the Army of the Cumberland, that if successful would make 
 Virginia untenable. To conquer and hold Chattanooga was 
 to flank the army under Lee and confine all that was left of 
 the war to the cotton states. 
 
 The eulogist of Abraham Lincoln, not content with the 
 real greatness all his own, now are claiming for him that 
 he was possessed of the best military mind on the side of our 
 government. How preposterous this claim is a few indis- 
 putable facts prove beyond question. When General 
 Thomas proposed his advance into East Tennessee with 
 Chatanooga as the objective point, the military importance 
 of the campaign was lost on him. He only saw the loyal 
 citizens of that region, and sanctioned the movement on 
 their account. All the talk to him of thereby flanking the 
 armed Confederacy and so selecting our own line of advance 
 was as much uncomprehended as if it had been given in 
 Greek or Latin. In his subsequent enterprise with McClel- 
 lan while urging an approach on Richmond from the interior 
 he could not see that he was accepting the road offered us 
 by the enemy, where the mountain ranges and numerous 
 rivers made so many impregnable fortifications to be carried 
 by assaults. We have seen that he listened to McClernand 
 and sanctioned that descent of the Mississippi which carried 
 with it Grant's army and buried ninety thousand brave men 
 in unhonored graves. The only comment he could give 
 after the capture of Vicksburg in his congratulatory order 
 was that "the Father of Waters now rolled its waves un-
 
 Lincoln as a General. 329 
 
 vexed to the sea." The military significance of this political 
 sentence remains to this day a mystery. Why the Father of 
 Waters should be vexed by one side or the other makes a 
 proposition quite beyond solution by the common mind. 
 President Lincoln so far as he was concerned had but one 
 thought and that was the conquest of territory. There was 
 a political significance to this that blinded him to the fact 
 that the title to all the Confederate territory was carried as 
 Wendell Phillips tersely expressed it at the bow of Lee's 
 saddle. Common sense should have taught him that when 
 he conquered the armies of the Confederacy he repossessed 
 himself of all the territory lost. It was this infatuation that 
 opened his ears to Governors Morton and Johnson and drove 
 one of the most capable of our generals, Don Carlos Buell, 
 from the service. The fact is, that President Lincoln knew 
 BO little about how to conduct the war that he -feebly left the 
 entire business to West Point, when he could as well have 
 given it to an orphan asylum or a medical college. While 
 impregnated as his entire cabinet was with a contempt of 
 the military mind he yet permitted that mind in its feeblest 
 form to dominate the field. 
 
 Recognizing these facts, one is not surprised, much as one 
 may be disgusted, to read the correspondence carried on by 
 telegraph and mail between the War Department and head- 
 quarters at Murfreesboro during the half year of preparations 
 that preceded the advance on Chattanooga. The ill-concealed 
 contemptuous impatience on one side, the pleadings on the 
 other for reinforcements and supplies that ignore the snubs 
 and insults, make any thing but pleasant reading to a just 
 mind. Nothing but the presence and influence of General 
 Thomas prevented the fiery Rosecrans from throwing his 
 commission in the face of Stanton. In the great work be- 
 fore them Thomas would permit no irritation however just 
 to interfere. " Our government is struggling under a heavy 
 weight that we in the field have no knowledge of," he was 
 wont to say to the writer of this. " We must take it for 
 granted that they are doing all in their power meet our 
 demands." 
 
 Again : " The War Department is impatient of this ap-
 
 330 Life of Thomas. 
 
 parent delay on our part. It is to be regretted some one 
 the Secretary and President have confidence in is not sent 
 here to learn and report the actual condition. We can 
 not move from our base of supplies until this place is ren- 
 dered secure. It would not only be the loss of millions in 
 money, but the loss of our army." 
 
 Again : " I am satisfied and they are right at Washing- 
 ton. Bragg has no larger force than we have, but they do 
 not note that he is acting on the defensive and can select 
 his line of defense so as to more than double the effective- 
 ness of his resistance. That stand at Duck river is far bet- 
 ter than his on Stone river and we all know what that was." 
 
 He believed that Rosecrans was in error when he at- 
 tributed the neglect under which the Army of the Cum- 
 berland suffered to Secretary Stanton's personal prejudice. 
 He could not 'be made to accept such weakness in a man he 
 recognized as not only a great man but a true and earnest 
 patriot. General Thomas was altogether right in his esti- 
 mate of the great War Secretary, but he forgot that we have 
 disturbing spots on the sun, and human experience has taught 
 us that errors go with virtues in great characters and have 
 equal strength. 
 
 Had General Rosecrans to contend only with the open 
 hostility of the ill-tempered Secretary Stanton, he would 
 have been, however uncomfortable, at least safe. But he 
 suffered from a treachery unknown to him at the time, a 
 treachery that brought misfortune to him in the end, and to- 
 day makes popular belief which we are pleased to call his- 
 tory. In brief, the history of this infamous affair is as fol- 
 lows : On the death of the gallant Garesche, General Rose- 
 crans' chief of staff, General Garfield, then out of employ 
 and seeking work, got Secretary Chase to solicit Rosecrans 
 to ask for Garfield. One fault with Rosecrans was his 
 anxiety to stand well with the government at Washington. 
 Bitter experience had taught the inconvenience, to use the 
 mildest term, of operating without such confidence. We 
 have seen how he put General McCook in command of his 
 right wing to placate Stanton, and on this suggestion he at 
 once asked for Garfield. He did this against his own judg-
 
 Garfield's Unfaithfulness. 331 
 
 merit, not that he had aught against Garfield personally, but 
 Rosecrans had West Point as a superstition, and Garfield 
 was direct from civil life. However, it was a life-long habit 
 of Garfield to make a study of any pursuit he contemplated 
 adopting, and Rosecrans was delighted to find his new and 
 very entertaining chief of staff well up in all that West 
 Point taught, or rather trained for. Rosecrans was remark- 
 able for the easy way in which he put aside the cares of his 
 occupation and found relief in talks about war, religion, 
 science, literature, and politics. He soon learned that his 
 chief of staff was a most fascinating conversationalist. 
 Without being either deep or original, Garfield had a most 
 suggestive mind, and although brought up on the tow-path 
 of a canal, there was enough of courtier to make him win 
 the confidence of a superior in place by a sympathizing list- 
 ening to his superior's views. The position of chief of staff 
 gave Garfield the full official confidence of his general. In 
 addition to this, he was soon incited to partake of the per- 
 sonal as well. The consequence of all this was an infamy 
 upon the part of James A. Garfield that one contemplates 
 with deepest grief and horror. General Garfield, when he 
 asked Secretary Chase to intercede in his behalf, knew that 
 Resecraus had but one active influential friend at Washing- 
 ton, and that friend Garfield sought to poison against him. 
 In the ugliest period of impatient complaint at the War De- 
 partment, when Secretary Chase was called continually to 
 defend his pet general, Rosecrans, our chief of staff, made 
 such by Chase, volunteered a private, confidential letter, in 
 which he expressed without qualification his lack of con- 
 fidence in Rosecrans as a military man. Fortunately for 
 Rosecrans, Chase, possessed of little knowledge of human 
 nature, suffered from that complaint common to that class 
 of attributing a selfish motive for every evil deed, and he 
 jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Garfield was anx- 
 ious to displace Rosecrans so that he might occupy his position. 
 The eminent Secretary read between the lines, as he thought, 
 and saw the mean, selfish face of a snake striking from a 
 cover at an honest, capable man. He refused to accept the 
 letter as true, and not only became more active in his ad-
 
 332 Life of Thornm. 
 
 vocacy of his friend, but he put the letter on file for future 
 use. The use came after his death in its publication. It 
 crumbles the base from beneath the fame of the " Martyr 
 President," and one reads on the face that the hand of 
 Ward sought to idealize the mean, treacherous letter from 
 Garfield to Chase. 
 
 To render unto Satan that which is Satan's, we must 
 say that Secretary Chase was in error as to the motive he 
 attributed to Garfield. Garfield was ambitious enough. 
 Painfully full of self-distrust, his inordinate ambition drove 
 him on to positions that when attained he hastened to turn 
 over to others, as when elected President he gave his ad- 
 ministration into the hands of Blaine, and himself to death. 
 This was the extent of his martyrdom. He died a victim to 
 his self-distrust. He would not have hesitated accepting the 
 place made vacant by Rosecrans, and he would have turned 
 the army over to Thomas, contenting himself with being its 
 figurehead. But Garfield was no fool. He knew that con- 
 stituted as the administration was it was impossible for a 
 volunteer officer to vault into such a responsibility. West 
 Point ruled in all promotions and Garfield could as well have 
 asked for the trumpet of the arch-angel as for an independ- 
 ent command. 
 
 General Gartield, in joining the Army of the Cumber- 
 land, had made an acquaintance who ranked Rosecrans in his 
 love and admiration and that was General George H. Thomas. 
 He knew how Chase and Stanton regarded this strangely 
 silent man, and he was satisfied that to make room for one 
 he so admired it was only necessary to remove Rosecrans. 
 He set about this work in the manner common to his nature. 
 An open attack on his general would only have served to 
 throw the chief of stafi" out of employ. To some minds 
 there is no warfare worthy of a subtle, intellectual charac- 
 ter, but one of strategem based on treachery. A frank, open 
 attack is simply brutal in its simplicity. Garfield reminds 
 one of the Turkish Sultan who being given enough money 
 to liquidate his debts spent it all in bribing his creditors 
 without reducing the indebtedness. Why he should prefer 
 Thomas to Rosecrans is sufficiently clear. He not only
 
 Thomcu Training His Troops. 333 
 
 found Thomas a more congenial man in his attainments, 
 depth of thought and originality of views, but he felt assured 
 that under Thomas the army that carried both the fate of the 
 Republic and the fortunes of Garfield would be certain of a 
 glorious success. He sought to be the king-maker, and bur- 
 rowing under Rosecrans, deposited the dynamite that only 
 exploded years after to his own injury. 
 
 The six months' delay at Murfreesboro was utilized by 
 General Thomas in training and disciplining his men. He 
 not only took the supply departments in his own hands, and 
 satisfied the rank and file that their wants were considered 
 with loving care so much so that he came to be called 
 " Pap " Thomas but the training was limited to the actual 
 demands of the service. 
 
 " Most of these tactics were gotten up for show," he 
 would say, " and are something worse than useless, for we 
 waste time on what are as unnecessary in actual war as a 
 dancing-school would be. By simplifying the movements 
 to the actual demand of the service we have full time to 
 make veterans." 
 
 Again : " What splendid material we have for soldiers ! 
 The adaptibility of the American character is something 
 amazing. It is not that I can order a regiment to build a 
 bridge, repair a locomotive or rebuild a railroad that comes 
 of the mechanics who sought service but the rawest re- 
 cruit becomes an efficient soldier iu thirty days." 
 
 Again : " The solution of the vexed question as to how 
 we may have an army under a republic, is solved by the 
 French axiom, ' Soldiers on duty, comrades when off*.' This 
 is attainable with us because of the good common sense of 
 our men. The trouble, indeed, is not with the men so much 
 as with officers. It is too common with the last to believe 
 that they can maintain discipline and enhance their own dig- 
 nity by degrading the men. This may do with Europeans, 
 but is not possible with Americans. While stern and exact- 
 ing in the line of service when on duty the officer can be the 
 comrade when off without any loss to the service or the official 
 dignity. I am naturally reserved and have found it difficult 
 to be on familiar, easy terms with my men. I have envied my
 
 334 Life of Thomas. 
 
 fellow-officers their tact in this respect, but in all the efforts I 
 have made I have never suffered loss from them. We owe 
 this to the intelligence of our Americans. I said to a ser- 
 geant, the only man left in command of two guns at Stone 
 river, who, of course, was about getting away, * I want you 
 to save these pieces, my good fellow.' He reported to me 
 that night that the guns were right where I saw them, only 
 he ' shoved 'em round.' The good fellow did not seem to 
 think he had accomplished any thing extraordinary, for when 
 I made him a lieutenant he hesitated about accepting as he 
 preferred remaining with the boys, but took it on the ground 
 that it would enable him to run home and see the old 
 woman." 
 
 General Thomas loved his men, took great delight in 
 studying their nature and was full of anecdotes about their 
 ways and character. It was at Murfreesboro that he had an 
 earnest appeal from a private for a furlough. The man 
 said, as if the saying concluded the argument: "I aint seen 
 my old woman, general, for four months." 
 
 "And I," replied Thomas, " have not seen mine for two 
 years if your general can submit to such privation surely a 
 private can." 
 
 " Don't know about that, general, you see me and my 
 wife ain't made that way." 
 
 There was nothing more fascinating than the face of 
 General Thomas when it broke into a smile. In this it was 
 winning because of the frank expression that told one that 
 it was more than lip deep and came from the heart. His 
 laugh was of the same sort, not loud but musical in its 
 brief, hearty enjoyment. The rarity of the expression made 
 them in their surprise all the pleasanter. The general's 
 seriousness was ever sweet. His religious nature, although 
 earnest and deep, was not austere. It affected his entire 
 life, however. 
 
 " I can not see," he said, " how a man can be an infidel 
 and remain a brave man. Belief in God is like confidence in 
 one's general, it holds us to the front. We feel that the 
 power above has a wise design in making us face the deadly 
 peril. I doubt whether any sane mind ever does positively
 
 Effective Preparations for Advance. 335 
 
 disbelieve. One may have painful doubts, for we are brought 
 continually face to face with mysterious and apparent contra- 
 dictions, but back and above all these, we feel that there is 
 an overruling power ever wise and ever just." 
 
 All of the many months of delay at Murfreesboro, while 
 the general commanding was laboring night and day in 
 gathering supplies and rendering the stores safe from raids, 
 General Thomas was as actively and earnestly employed in 
 organizing the center, and not only drilling so continuously 
 that the troops grew into veterans, but seeing that their 
 food, tents, clothes and arms were of the best, so that when 
 the army came to move he had one under his immediate com- 
 mand that was invincible. Elsewhere throughout the war we 
 search in vain for a body of men that never knew defeat; we 
 search in vain for one to whom a victory would not be a 
 casualty. The Army of the Cumberland swung, its eagles 
 through the smoke of battle to assured victory, and was the 
 first body of men to teach the veterans under Longstreet 
 that the Rock of Chickamauga was more firm and immovable 
 than the stone-walls that came of Jackson. 
 
 General Rosecrans well knew that the day he withdrew 
 his army from along the line of railroad which the troops 
 protected and this duty called for an army the Confed- 
 erate raiders would seize upon and destroy this, the only 
 line of supply. In view of this, these fortifications were 
 made accordingly heavy. They could resist successfully an 
 army of fifty thousand men. No such force tried conclusions 
 with these earthworks, but as we will see they made the ad- 
 vance possible, and not only gave security to the millions 
 worth of stores where collected, but served to keep open the 
 line between Murfreesboro and the advancing army. The 
 contempt openly expressed at the War Department was of 
 course discouraging, and kept the general commanding in 
 hourly expectation of an order relieving him. That such 
 would have greeted him we now know but for the fact that 
 Generals McCook and Thomas earnestly approved of all the 
 preparations made. 
 
 By order of the War Department the army was re- 
 organized 9th January, 1863, by a formation into three army
 
 336 Life of Thomas. 
 
 corps, designated as Fourteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first, 
 and as this corresponded to the old Right, Left and Center, 
 the same commanders were left as they were. In the same 
 month a notable event occurred in transferring General 
 James B. Steedman to Rosecrans' command. On the 25th of 
 January, by order of the War Department, Forts Henry and 
 Donelson were transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. 
 This put the river under immediate control of General Rose- 
 crans, a proper disposal of that stream, as it was one of the 
 two lines of supply afforded his army. 
 
 The Confederates learning of the delay and the purpose 
 of our army at Murfreesboro felt at liberty to organize a cav- 
 alry raid to our rear. All the cavalry of Wheeler, Forrest 
 and Wharton, under command of General Wheeler, suddenly 
 appeared at Triune. General Wheeler was one of the bright- 
 est stars in the galaxy of well-remembered cavalry officers 
 of the South of a force that was so brilliant and so brief. 
 But the South had no more a store of horses to draw upon 
 than it had a population of laborers. Both were soon ex- 
 hausted. This expedition of Wheeler's was not fortunate. 
 At Triune in our rear he awakened to the fact that a superior 
 body as to numbers of cavalry was in his rear under Generals 
 Davis and Steedman. At Rover, Colonel Minty, of Davis' 
 command, captured a regiment of three hundred and fifty 
 men. Wheeler eluded the infantry and cavalry that at one 
 time seemed to have him surrounded and suddenly appeared 
 before Dover, Tennessee. Colonel A. C. Harding held this 
 fort with seven hundred men, and although amazed at the 
 sudden and unexpected appearance of a large force made 
 such a gallant resistance to Wheeler's repeated attacks that 
 Wheeler was repulsed with a loss of two hundred killed, 
 six hundred wounded and one hundred captured. Colonel 
 Harding lost but thirteen killed, fifty wounded and twenty 
 captured. Wheeler in the face of this disaster intended con- 
 tinuing the attack, but that night several gun- boats convey- 
 ing transports laden with reinforcements for Rosecrans' 
 army arrived at Fort Donelson and / Wheeler withdrew. 
 Every effort was made to intercept and capture this bold
 
 The Arrival of Recruits. 337 
 
 raider, but in vain. He succeeded afterward in riding across 
 Duck river at Centerville. 
 
 The force that appeared February 2, 1863, at Donelson 
 and warned off Wheeler called itself the Array of Kentucky, 
 under the general command of Gordon Granger, then at 
 Louisville. From Fort Donelson this force continued by 
 boat to Nashville, where it was augmented by two regiments 
 of infantry and four of cavalry, and numbered when thus 
 increased fourteen thousand men. They were mostly raw 
 recruits, however. All reinforcements to the Union army 
 came, as we have seen, in this form. No recruits were ever 
 forwarded to fill out and make part of regiments deciminated 
 by loss in the service. There was official patronage in the 
 less efficient means found in the formation of new regiments. 
 In every regiment thus newly created there was a host of 
 office-seekers, men engaged in enlisting others in the hopes 
 that they, the volunteer agents for recruits, would be elected 
 officers. In this way our army continued hindered to the 
 last in reaping the advantage that came of experience in the 
 service. 
 
 It is remembered that this force approaching Nashville 
 by the river struck a chill through the disloyal element of 
 that historic town. The river is narrow, deep and tortu- 
 ous, so that to those looking on from the banks the crowded 
 transports with the gayly uniformed recruits with their 
 bands filling the air with martial music while silken ban- 
 ners not yet torn by shot nor stained with blood floated in 
 the sunny air, made such a contrast to the half-starved, rag- 
 ged veterans under Johnston, that had almost doubled-quick 
 from a protection of the town, that the Confederate heart 
 was made sick. 
 
 The lesson taught the Confederacy by such exhibits 
 of great resources on the part of the Union was lost on us. 
 The wanton destruction of life and material on our side by a 
 government hopelessly at sea in a knowledge of war and the 
 inflated eqauletted nonentities we set up as generals very 
 nearly equalized conditions ere the war came to a close. 
 Both of our financial and military systems were trembling 
 22
 
 338 Life of Thomas. 
 
 on the verge of utter ruin when the Confederacy suddenly 
 went down from the same causes only a few days in advance. 
 When Richmond was lost and Lee's army surrendered Jeffer- 
 son Davis pleaded with the leaders with tears in his eyes to 
 continue the struggle, for he knew even in their despair the 
 cause was on the eve of success. He knew how the giant 
 foe had wasted resources, thrown away with reckless ex- 
 travagance both men and money, until in these respects 
 there was small difference, but while the South was without 
 both, back of the North was a growing discontent of a dis- 
 loyal class, while in Mexico the army of Napoleon was im- 
 patient to move upon us, and the combined fleets of France 
 and Russia were sailing silently to our coast. The lack of 
 body to the South, the absence of a sturdy class of laborers 
 which makes the foundations of a state, was so keenly felt 
 that the great Southern President's earnest pleadings fell on 
 unheeding ears. 
 
 Wishing to ascertain the position and force of the enemy 
 at his front, General Rosecrans, on March the 4th, ordered a 
 general reconnoissance. The force employed of all arms 
 numbered about five thousand. A movement was made 
 from Murfreesboro on Rover by General Sheridan with four 
 brigades of infantry and Minty's cavalry. Colonel Minty, 
 being in advance, attacked.four hundred of the enemy's cav- 
 alry at Rover and drove them back on six hundred at Union- 
 ville. He routed the combined forces, capturing fifty two 
 prisoners. He joined Sheridan at Eaglesville. In the mean- 
 time, General Steedman, marching toward Chapel Hill, met 
 and drove back Roddy's cavalry. While these efforts were 
 being successfully made, General Gilbert was organizing a 
 disaster. He sent Colonel John Coburn, of the Thirty-third 
 Indiana, south of Franklin with instructions to form a junc- 
 tion with a column moving from Murfreesboro toward 
 Columbia and to fill a train of eighty wagons with forage. 
 Colonel Coburn had his own regiment, the Eighty-fifth In- 
 diana, the Nineteenth and Twenty-second of Michigan. To 
 this were added six hundred cavalrymen commanded by 
 Colonel Thomas J. Jordon, making in all two thousand, 
 eight hundred and thirty-seven men. Colonel Coburn, in ac-
 
 An Unfortunate Expedition. 339 
 
 cordance with hie instructions arriving on the 4th at Spring 
 Hill, divided his force, sending one-half to meet the column 
 from Murfreesboro at Rally Hill, and the other half toward 
 Columbia with orders to return that night and form a 
 junction again at Spring Hill, unless the expected column 
 should be met by the force sent in the direction of Rally 
 Hill. 
 
 The cavalry, marching in advance of the infantry, came 
 upon the enemy near Franklin. A lively skirmish followed 
 that the enemy found too severe because of the rapid service of 
 Aleshire's guns, and they retreated toward Spring Hill. They 
 rallied, however, at Thompson's Station in a strong position 
 sustained by other forces on their left flank. Dismounting 
 his men, Colonel Jordan charged the enemy to find their 
 first line a mere feint to cover a yet stronger position on the 
 hills beyond ; when joined by Coburn, the combined forces 
 were checked by well directed artillery fire from both right 
 and left flanks. It became evident that the retreat of the 
 first line of the enemy was to draw our men into a position 
 where they could be enfiladed from both sides. Coburn had 
 received assuring information the day before and that morn- 
 ing of a superior force to his own at his front, and had so 
 advised General Gilbert. But, as he received no reponse ta 
 his report, he determined to move forward as he had been 
 instructed. That discretion we were taught to know by the 
 Fitz John Porter court of extraordinary review, as lodges in 
 a subordinate officer executing an order on a field the gen- 
 eral commanding could not see, did not effect the gallant, 
 but imprudent Coburn. He had been ambuscaded, and, suf- 
 fering wofully from cannon on the right of him and cannon 
 on the left of him, ordered a charge upon the first named. 
 Before this could be executed, the enemy not only disap- 
 peared from the front, but developed a large force in the rear. 
 The gallant Indianian did not lose his head, although he did 
 lose his little army. He ordered retreat when too late, and 
 in twenty minutes he was forced to surrender thirteen hun- 
 dred men. Our loss in killed and wounded numbered forty 
 killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. Our other 
 forces escaped.
 
 340 Life of Thomas. 
 
 The Confederates were commanded by Van Dorn and 
 Wheeler, and it was claimed at the time that their combined 
 forces numbered fifteen thousand men. As this would call 
 for all the cavalry of Bragg' s army, and as reconnoissance in 
 force was going on along the entire front of the Confederate 
 army, it is not likely that Coburn and Jordan fought more 
 than their own number. It was a neat strategem planned 
 by Wheeler that drove our little force into a position where 
 success on our part was simply impossible. 
 
 While this unhappy skirmish was taking place, General 
 Sheridan occupied the junction of the Chapel Hill and Shel- 
 byville turnpikes, and General Steedman drove the enemy's 
 cavalry under Roddy across Duck river, capturing sixty men 
 and eighty horses. General Granger, receiving news of 
 Colonel Coburn's surrender, ordered General Baird's brigade 
 to occupy Franklin. This force was transported by rail 
 from Nashville and was followed immediately by General 
 Granger in person. March the 6th, Colonels Jones' and 
 Heg's brigades drove the enemy from Middletown, after 
 which both brigades returned to Murfreesboro. 
 
 General Granger on the same date brought forward 
 his cavalry under General Smith, with orders from head- 
 quarters to make a general co-operative movement against 
 Van Dorn and Wheeler. On the 7th, General Sheridan's 
 brigade reached the front at Franklin, and immediatly after 
 .a brigade arrived from Nashville. On the arrival of the two 
 regiments, the enemy's cavalry that was said to be six thou- 
 sand strong fell back to College Grove. On the 7th of 
 March, Colonel Minty marched to Franklin, and on the 9th, 
 General Granger with his own and Sheridan's and Minty's 
 forces drove Van Dorn from Spring Hill. As a part of this 
 movement, General Davis advanced from Salem to Eagles- 
 ville to relieve General Steedman's front while General R. 
 S. Granger moved to his support. On the 10th, General 
 Gordon Granger drove Van Dorn across Rutherford's Creek 
 near Columbia. Further demonstration was rendered im- 
 practicable by the high water that prevented the passage of 
 infantry and artillery. The main object of this extended 
 and heavy reconnoissance was obtained. The general com-
 
 Generals who Cared for Life. 341 
 
 manding was thereby possessed of the points at which the 
 enemy was posted in force at his front and the space it 
 would be necessary for him to cover for the purpose of 
 flanking Bragg out of a position from which he could not be 
 driven by assault without heavy and useless loss. 
 
 We are now dealing with generals whose knowledge of 
 war rose above inhuman slaughter of their troops in the face 
 of impregnable positions. It was a dangerous art of war. 
 We huve seen how a most capable general, Don Carlos Buell, 
 was relegated to the rear for steadily refusing to sacrifice his 
 men in hopeless attacks. We have seen that at times General 
 Buell carried this commendable quality to an extreme, but 
 this humane consideration met with no approval at Wash- 
 ington, where Secretary Stanton had resolved on one mode 
 only of ending the war in behalf of the Union, and that was 
 by "attrition," which meant to crowd in troops until the gi- 
 gantic revolt was stamped out. The proposition to give 
 three men for the enemy's one made the generals of Shiloh, 
 Chickasaw Bluft", Champion's Hill, and the two assaults on 
 Vicksburg acceptable at Washington. Nothing, as we have 
 said, but the approval of Thomas and McCook prevented 
 Rosecrans getting an early dismissal. We must remember 
 in this connection some facts now clear to our comprehension, 
 but once obscured by the glare and blaze of an armed con- 
 flict, that our war for the Union was really being fought in 
 the courts of Europe, where the smallest war power once 
 recognizing the Confederacy could have ended the strife 
 against us. Delay was fatal. The longer the war was pro- 
 tracted, and the more evident it became that we could not 
 conquer the revolted states, the more certain the recognition 
 grew. The government then at Washington wanted quick, 
 heavy blows, and, under the circumstances, the brutal butch- 
 ers who would fight without knowing how to fight were pre- 
 ferred to abler men who knew what preparations were nec- 
 essary to make fighting available. In addition to this, the 
 authorities at Washington saw our financial and military sys- 
 tems rapidly breaking down. It had come to be a mere 
 question of time when volunteering would cease and the
 
 342 Life of Thomas. 
 
 paper money of the government drop to the same worthless 
 level that had overtaken that of the Confederacy. 
 
 "We will consider the matter hereafter, when we reach 
 a point in our record where such consideration is more nec- 
 essary to a clear understanding of our hero's worth and serv- 
 ices. But, looking back now, it is strange that Rosecrans 
 was permitted to remain in command. There is a fact not 
 generally known that probably weighed heavy in his favor, and 
 this was that General Rosecrans was a devout Catholic, the 
 brother of Bishop Rosecrans and the warm friend and asso- 
 ciate of Archbishop Purcell. Secretary Stanton had a kindly 
 feeling for the Catholic Church, and President Lincoln had 
 the sagacity to see, as did Secretaries Seward and Chase, that 
 through that element much might be accomplished in Eu- 
 rope in behalf of the Union. "We well know that Arch- 
 bishop Hughes was sent abroad by Mr. Seward as a diplo- 
 matic agent, while Archbishop Purcell and his able brother, 
 Father Edward, remaining loyal to the Union, were in con- 
 tinuous and close relation with President Lincoln and Messrs. 
 Chase and Stanton, of the cabinet. Whatsoever may have 
 been the influence of this element, it did not save Rosecrans 
 from continual annoyance or from serious loss. 
 
 It was a part of General Thomas's system of train- 
 ing to keep the raw volunteer regiments that were con- 
 tinuously poured in under fire as much as possible by skir- 
 mishes at the front. This not only inured them to actual 
 war, but dissipated the vague fear of war that paralyses the 
 newly enlisted. One learns from actual experience that the 
 roar is out of all proportion to the danger, that for one man 
 killed there is his weight of lead wasted. 
 
 General Thomas seldom indulged in comment scarcely 
 ever in criticism of his brother officers; but one night 
 when he returned from head-quarters, where he had solicited 
 in vain permission to make a demonstration at his front, 
 he said, with some feeling: "It is a great error in the gov- 
 ernment not to supply us with enough horses to enable us to 
 feel daily the enemy at our front. It is the best training to 
 give our men, while it gives us information and the enemy a 
 healthy regard for us. McClellan made a grave mistake in
 
 Rosecrans' Lack of Cavalry. 343 
 
 not skirmishing every day of the nine months he was organ- 
 izing at Washington. It was like the poor woman who con- 
 sented to have her daughter learn to swim, but warned her 
 not to go near the water.'* 
 
 General Rosecrans recognized the weight of General 
 Thomas's wishes, but the enemy had such a heavy force of 
 cavalry at his front that to attempt to skirmish was to invite 
 such a disaster as the gallant Colonel Coburn suffered. Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans, therefore, asked again and again forhorseson 
 which to mount his infantry so as to feel the enemy in force at 
 his front. With nearly all of Pembertoh's forces before him, 
 and even Lee refused reinforcement that Bragg's army might 
 be strengthened, he learned from Washington that his ex- 
 traordinary delay was endangering our army at Vicksburg 
 and the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 It would have been well for General Rosecrans had he 
 accepted the situation, and provided energetically for an ad- 
 vance. But the continued success of raids by Confederate 
 cavalry to the rear of our armies provoked imitation. This 
 was stimulated by an event that occurred in the latter part 
 of May. At a dinner given to a member of Congress by 
 General Rosecrans, the law-maker repeated a conversation 
 he had but a short time before with President Lincoln. In 
 this the President said : " I can not understand this difference 
 between rebel and Union soldiers. We are all of the same 
 people, and our men ought to march as far and fast and fight 
 precisely the same as the rebels. They make impudent raids 
 to the rear of our armies, why can we not teach them that 
 two can play at that game ? I think the fault is in our gen- 
 erals. As soon as we commission one, he sits down and yells 
 for more men. He won't move, and he will yell." 
 
 The President should have been informed that the fault 
 was with him, or rather with his War Department, in not 
 providing our armies in the field with an efficient cavalry. 
 While the enemy had the finest in the world, as long as it 
 lasted, we had the worst. When the arm was forced on it, it 
 was left to volunteers. Country lads born and bred among 
 horses preferred the infantry or artillery, while denizens of 
 towns who knew nothing about riding and management of
 
 344 Life of Thomas. 
 
 horses were eager to enter that arm of the service. The re- 
 sult was that the poor beast was killed by ill-usage in ninety 
 days. There was but one gait known to all the service and 
 that was a gallop, or as frequently a run. As for efficiency, 
 it was said that to brush against one of our mounted men was 
 to knock him off' his horse. The officers accepted the situ- 
 ation and the so-called cavalry. Before the war ended the 
 War Department seemed to see the error of its ways, and about 
 the time the Southern cavalry disappeared our cavalry came 
 efficiently to the front. 
 
 At the time we write of, while our mounted men con- 
 sisted of clerks from town, tailors, hatters and shoemakers, 
 who were thrown into the service very much as raw mules 
 were broken into army wagons, without instruction or train- 
 ing, the young men of the South, fond of horses from their 
 birth and possessed of a large body of blooded steeds, fell into 
 line as veterans. The dash that distinguished the Southern 
 character was as fatal to their cavalry as ignorance was to 
 ours In a brief time of hard service the beautiful and dar- 
 ing horsemen disappeared never to return. The South had 
 neither a store of riders nor horses to draw from. The fact 
 is, the entire people was made up of surface. There was 
 nothing but negroes beneath on which to build the state. 
 
 There was another fact greatly affecting the situation 
 that President Lincoln failed to observe. The swift and de- 
 structive cavalry raids to our rear were through the enemy's 
 country where every man, woman and child was a spy and 
 an agent of information to help on the bold efforts. This, 
 while our men, making a feeble imitation, had to grope their 
 way through the same land slowly and cautiously where ev- 
 ery human-being was a plausible liar and every bush con- 
 cealed a guerrilla. 
 
 Instead of submitting these truths to a sensible Presi- 
 dent, General Rosecrans undertook to gratify the speculative 
 Chief Secretary's hate. To this end he organized an independ- 
 ent force of seventeen hundred men and assigned Colonel A. 
 D. Streight to its command. The unfortunate colonel was 
 instructed to return to Nashville and march out from that 
 into Alabama and Qeorgia to sever important lines of rail-
 
 The Streiyht Raid. 345 
 
 road supply and destroy all property likely to be of service 
 to the enemy. General Rosecrans had no horses with which 
 to mount his independent command, so he gave all the un- 
 serviceable mules thrown out from the artillery and trans- 
 portation service. The men were therefore mounted on the 
 sick, lame and blind refuse of the camp. They were told, 
 however, to seize on all the horses in the enemy's country 
 that came in their way. Colonel Streight was a brave gen- 
 tleman and did his best to make his forlorn mount a success. 
 He marched to Palmyra, thence to Fort Henry, improving 
 his animals by an exchange of broken-down mules for poor 
 horses of the country. He embarked from Fort Henry for 
 Eastport, Mississippi. Leaving Eastport on the 21st, he 
 reached Tuscumbia on the 24th, and moved thence on the 
 28th for Moulton at midnight of the 28th. He left Moulton, 
 and passing through Day's Gap toward Blountsville. He 
 was attacked in the rear while passing the Gap by Forrest's 
 cavalry. He defeated Forrest, but all the same that daring 
 cavalryman continued to harrass his rear, capturing the 
 weary and now helpless men by the dozens, for they had so 
 damaged their ammunition by swimming streams as to ren- 
 der it useless. This sort of progress was made through 
 Blountville and Gadsden. The desperate colonel made an 
 effort to put the Chattahoochie river between his sorely 
 reduced force and the pertinacious Forrest by destroying the 
 bridge at Rome. He failed, of course, and soon found him- 
 self and men so surrounded and fatigued that nothing was 
 left but an ignominious surrender. This occurred on the 
 3d of May. We now learn that from the start every move 
 of the doomed force was known to the enemy and antici- 
 pated. For years after the recuperated mules were shown 
 by the natives and laughed at. Instead of being cause for 
 rejoicing at Washington the unhappy result that had to be 
 acknowledged in the loss of seventeen hundred men went far 
 toward strengthening the enemies of General Rosecrans in 
 the War Department. 
 
 The fighting along the front continued. On the 9th of 
 April, General Stanley was ordered to the support of Gen- 
 eral Granger at Franklin. Granger had reported that he
 
 346 Life of Thomas. 
 
 was menaced by about nine thousand cavalry and two regi- 
 ments of infantry under General Van Dorn. There was not 
 one-half this force threatening Granger, who had about five 
 thousand infantry and two thousand seven hundred cavalry. 
 Our infantry was strongly posted on the south bank of Har- 
 peth river, and from the manner the enemy suffered in its 
 approach to Franklin from one regiment, the Forty-first 
 Ohio, that fought as it fell back, it is very evident we could 
 have assumed the offensive with every prospect of success. 
 General Stanley did cross the river and attack the enemy in 
 flank, but failed to follow up his advantage. As it was, the 
 warm reception given him made General Van Dorn fall back 
 without further demonstration. 
 
 The continued employment of new enlisted men in the 
 skirmish line soon began to tell in our favor. On the 20th, 
 General Reynolds, in command of four thousand infantry, 
 and Colonel Wilder's mounted infantry, numbering two 
 thousand six hundred men, made a reconnoissance north- 
 east and south-east from Murfreesboro. This force de- 
 stroyed the railroad between Manchester and McMinnville, 
 all the mills at the last named place, and one at Liberty. 
 He captured a large amount of supples, one hundred and 
 eighty prisoners, over six hundred animals, and returned to 
 Murfreesboro with the loss of one man wounded. 
 
 On the 27th, Colonel Watkins' cavalry, marching from 
 Franklin, surprised and captured the Texas Legion between 
 Columbia and Carter Creek turnpikes, and this within a mile 
 of General Van Dorn's main forces. One hundred and 
 eighty prisoners, three hundred horses and mules, wagons, 
 and all the camp and garrison equipage were our spoils with- 
 out the loss of a man. Again, Colonel Campbell, in com- 
 mand of a brigade of cavalry, moved out from Franklin on 
 the 30th and surprised the enemy on the Columbia and 
 Jonesboro turnpikes. The loss to the Confederates was 
 fourteen killed, twenty-five wounded, and thirteen captured. 
 
 Again, General Stanley marched from Murfreesboro to 
 attack a force encamped near Middleboro. The general had 
 one regiment of mounted infantry with a portion of General 
 Turchin's cavalry. Lieutenant O'Connell, heading the ad-
 
 Thomas' Method of Teaching War. 347 
 
 vance, charged the enemy with such success that the little 
 conflict was over before our main body came up. General 
 Stanley brought in three hundred horses and seven hundred 
 stand of arms. 
 
 We mention these little affairs to show that General 
 Thomas's system of training under fire was bearing fruit. 
 "We have given but few of them and the more important, 
 but the fighting along the front was almost continuous, and 
 the entire army learned before it was called on to move as an 
 army that the supposed superiority of the Confederates in 
 the way of fighting was a myth. As our men gained con- 
 fidence, the Confederates lost, so that the morale so necessary 
 to success in an armed force shifted from the Confederate side 
 to the Union lines, from the fact that allowing largely for an 
 equality of merit as brave men, our superior equipment gave 
 us largely the odds. 
 
 One night after a daring exploit of a few men had been 
 reported to General Thomas, he said with a glow on his 
 cheeks and a brighter light in his eyes : " My men are be- 
 ing taught the art of war in the only school of practical in- 
 struction, and that is in the field. All the training, however 
 necessary, is as nothing to that training which is done in the 
 face of death. Put a plank six inches wide and twelve feet 
 long five feet from the ground, and a thousand men will 
 walk it easily. Lift that plank five hundred feet from the 
 ground, and one man in a thousand will walk it in safety. 
 It is a question of nerve we have to solve and not of dex- 
 terity. It is not how to touch elbows and fire a gun ; it is 
 how to touch elbows and fire a gun under fire. We are all 
 cowards in the presence of immediate death. This is the 
 law of our being. It is as necessary to keep the earth in- 
 habited as hunger. We can overcome that fear in war 
 through familiarity. The South came into the field better 
 equipped in this respect than the North, for at the South 
 men were more accustomed to violence and, therefore, more 
 familiar with death. What we have to do is to make vet- 
 erans. The great error in McClellan's organization was in 
 his avoidance in fighting. He let that force on Ball's Bluff 
 be killed and captured while a heavy support lay idle within
 
 348 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the crack of musketry, for fear of a general engagement. 
 His one congratulatory report was 'All quiet on the Poto- 
 mac.' The result was a loss of morale. Our troops came 
 to have a mysterious fear of the enemy." 
 
 Observing the attention given him, General Thomas 
 seemed called to himself and said hastily : " Well, gentle- 
 men, we will defer bragging until we capture Bragg." This 
 was more of a surprise than his military comments, for, al- 
 though the general had a keen, yet delicate, sense of humor, 
 he seldom indulged in it, and was never known before or since 
 to indulge in a pun. His staff recognized in it a hasty re- 
 treat from what the general thought an improper utterance. 
 
 The telegraphic correspondence between Rosecrans and 
 Halleck during the half year of delay affords interesting in- 
 formation, especially when taken in connection with that 
 between Grant and Halleck during the same period. We 
 are taught some of the evils affecting an army organization. 
 In the process through which a mass of men is molded into 
 a machine under control of one mind, the individual, while 
 not entirely lost, is of necessity degraded. When a man be- 
 comes a private, he surrenders for the time being and for the 
 purposes of the army his right to life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness to his superior officer. With the officer the 
 deprivation of these rights is not so stringent, but the neces- 
 sities of the service call for a weak submission that in the 
 common mind breeds snobbery. The higher officers are the 
 fountains of honor, and as such become tin gods on wheels 
 to the subordinates. Discipline demands blind obedience, 
 but this blindness is not so complete as to deprive the sub- 
 ordinate of a knowledge where to find the blind side of his 
 commander and play on it for his promotion. This was 
 what troubled General Halleck. He had been called to 
 Washington as the military adviser of the President. He 
 was, did he dare exercise the functions alloted him, the com- 
 mander in chief of all our armies. But Halleck soon learned 
 that President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton were men who 
 had or thought they had military views much affected by 
 politics, and back of both two of the strongest characters 
 ever molded in human shape. Now, to question these views
 
 How Halleck Gave Advice. 349 
 
 on the part of General Halleck was to question his office. 
 He came quickly to the sage conclusion that he was military 
 adviser in name, but really a scape-goat in case of any great 
 disaster. He accepted the situation and immediately set 
 about to learn, not what the service needed, but what the 
 President and Secretary wanted. He knew that both were 
 at fault in nearly all military matters, but he knew that they 
 were shrewd gentlemen, deeply learned in political affairs, of 
 which he, Halleck, was remarkably ignorant, and so he felt 
 his way cautiously along and never gave one opinion until 
 he learned that of his superior officers, and then he was very 
 emphatic in his approval. 
 
 The writer of this first learned his lesson in army or- 
 ganization when acting as one of the board of officers or- 
 ganized to investigate the circumstances and cause of the 
 surrender of Harper's Ferry. We had not been in session 
 twenty-four hours before it was understood at the Executive 
 Mansion, and in the War Department it was well known, 
 that the fault was in McClellan. How this came to be the 
 opinion of the board no one could explain. It seemed to 
 pervade the atmosphere. Now we all know, as well as facts 
 could control conviction, that Harper's Ferry was lost, not 
 through any fault of McClellan, but from the treachery, 
 cowardice, and stupidity of the officers left there for the de- 
 fense. Had not Maryland Heights been abandoned by Gen- 
 eral Miles and Colonel Ford, the place could easily have 
 been held until McClellan came to the rescue. McClellan 
 was not only a Democrat, but he had forced his political 
 opinions into the army, and instead of fighting the country's 
 battles with some sense and a little success, he had impu- 
 dently elevated his shallow mind to the post of adviser on 
 political subjects. This was enough to brush aside Miles's 
 treachery and Ford's cowardice. The writer of this, the 
 younger member, was called on to write the opinion of the 
 court. It was not his opinion, and so he embodied in the 
 judgment Halleck's testimony, which said, truly enough, 
 that had McClellan marched an hour more or a mile further 
 a day, he would have reached Harper's Ferry in time to 
 rescue the garrison. The fact was that McClellan, after ad-
 
 360 -Life of Thomas. 
 
 vising the evacution of the place, was feeling his way along 
 in utter ignorance of the enemy's whereabouts or intentions. 
 The finding of the board, so far as McClellan was concerned, 
 is an historical infamy, and so impressed with such a conclu- 
 sion was he that he inserted a sentence in the finding that 
 rendered the entire judgment a ludicrous absurdity. It 
 read : " By reference to the evidence, it will be seen that, at 
 the very moment Colonel Ford abandoned Maryland Heights, 
 his little army was in reality relieved by Generals Franklin's 
 and Sumner's corps at Crampton's Gap, within seven miles 
 of his position." 
 
 Halleck was not only influenced but guided by these 
 conditions in his telegrams to Grant and Rosecrans. He 
 knew that, while Rosecrans, without the loss of a man or a 
 mule, was opening his communications so as to gather sup- 
 plies, while at the same time he fortified his base for the 
 most important campaign of the war, Grant was wasting an 
 army in bayous and swamps before a place that would be 
 untenable were it approached from the interior and yet, 
 while his telegrams were highly encouraging to the hopeless 
 canal digger and bayou cleaner, and men and supplies were 
 hurried forward in advance of demands, the messages to 
 Rosecrans were brusque to insult, and it was almost impossi- 
 ble to get reinforcements and supplies. What makes all this 
 the more striking is the fact that Halleck had the highest 
 admiration of George H. Thomas, and knew that he was 
 Rosecrans' one adviser. 
 
 NOTE. Early in June, a strangely romantic event occurred at Franklin, 
 Tennessee. Two young men, in the uniform of colonel and major of the 
 Union army, and well mounted, presented themselves at the tent of Colonel 
 Baird, commander of the post, giving their names and ranks as Colonel 
 Anton and Major Dunlap, and claiming to be authorized by an order from 
 General E. D. Townsend, assistant adjutant-general at Washington, in- 
 dorsed by General Rosecrans, to inspect our posts. Colonel Baird was at 
 first deceived, and he permitted the two to ride away in the direction of 
 the enemy's lines. A slight suspicion grew to such magnitude that he sent 
 after the supposed colonel and major. There was something about the 
 uniforms that appeared mysterious. They did not fit the wearers. Again, 
 the major, Dunlap, was too young to hold the rank claimed, even in a serv- 
 ice where promotions were so rapid. Again, they were without escort and 
 seemed to come up out of the earth to execute their strange mission.
 
 A Romance of Spies. 351 
 
 Colonel Baird sent an officer with a corporal's guard to arrest the men. On 
 telegraphing General Rosecrans, he learned that no such duty as claimed 
 had been authorized, nor had he ever heard of Messrs. Anton and Dunlap. 
 Faced with this evidence, the colonel, Anton, confessed that he was no 
 such man, but Colonel Lawrence A. Williams, formerly of the Union army, 
 but asserted that his companion was Lieutenant Dunlap, of the Confeder- 
 ate army. He denied that they were spies and asked clemency. General 
 Rosecrans issued a prompt order calling for a drum-head court-martial. 
 
 The court was puzzled to know what these men hoped to gain inside 
 our lines. Every man, woman, and child left at home was a spy, and at 
 Bragg's head-quarters our forces were correctly counted to a man, our 
 works described, our stores enumerated, while contemplated moves were 
 better known than in the War Department. 
 
 The order was duly executed in the execution of the unfortunate men. 
 At least such appears of record. There is another story, however, in circu- 
 lation in the army, that not only solves the mystery, but tells the wildest 
 romance that ever occurred in real life. It is to the effect that the court 
 organized in such haste discovered that the boy, Major Duntap, was a 
 woman, and from Colonel Williams it was learned that, in an insane love 
 of the Southern cause, and stimulated by the spirit of adventure, this girl 
 had procured this disguise and ridden into our lines as a spy. Colonel 
 Williams, learning the fact and knowing the family, put on a Union 
 officer's uniform that had come into his possession from an officer who had 
 died from wounds in the colonel's tent. He overtook the mad girl, and the 
 two were on their return when arrested. 
 
 So far the story is plausible, but what follows and tells how the officer 
 detailed to execute the spies substituted dead bodies to personate the of- 
 fenders on the gallows scene, draws rather heavy on one's credulity. How- 
 ever, we are reminded that truth is stranger than fiction, and is generally 
 more disagreeable. When we find a story, therefore, that favors our viewg, 
 we may be well satisfied that it is falae.
 
 352 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Tullahoma Campaign Impatient Orders from Washington for an Im- 
 mediate Advance Catholic Influence Sustains Rosecrans The Natural 
 Defenses of Chattanooga Bragg Flanked Out Battle of Chickamauga 
 Thomas Holds the Center and Saves the Army Retreat to Rossville 
 In Possession of the Granite Gateway to the South. 
 
 In his retreat from Murfreesboro, after the disastrous en- 
 gagement at that place, to Duck river, General Bragg exhib- 
 ited rare judgment in selecting a line of defense. It pre- 
 sented to General Rosecrans' army an irregular curve with 
 a strong force of infantry extending from Shelbyville to 
 Wartrace, and where, from the formation of the ground, a 
 natural defense was given almost as perfect as artificial forti- 
 fications. At Shelbyville, where General Folk's corps was 
 stationed, a redan line covered with an abatis guarded the 
 front. Bragg's cavalry was posted at McMinnville, on his 
 right, and was thrown out as far as Guy's Gap. Hoover's, 
 Liberty, and Bellbuckle gaps were held by General Hardee's 
 corps. While Tullahoma was his great depot of supplies, 
 Chattanooga made, of course, his base. 
 
 This was the condition in June, 1863, when General 
 Rosecrans determined to move upon the enemy. To this 
 end, he concentrated the three corps of Generals Thomas, 
 McCook, and Crittenden on the enemy's right, and, to con- 
 ceal this from Bragg, he made a feint upon his left with the 
 main body of his cavalry and General Granger's corps. On 
 the 23d of June, General Granger was ordered to advance. 
 It was soon developed that Bragg could not be easily dis-- 
 turbed. The approaches to his front were by narrow gaps 
 in a rough country that forced our armies to keep the roads 
 through these narrow openings. To advance along such nar- 
 row ways, and then attack the strongly-fortified position at 
 Shelbyville, made a lin-e so hazardous that General Rosecrans 
 abandoned, if he 'ever entertained the intent of such assault.
 
 Opening the Tullahoma Campaign. 353 
 
 He differed, we see, from his associate commander whose 
 sole military movement resulted in finding an impregnable 
 position held by the enemy and attacking the same. Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans had but one thought, and that was to ma- 
 neuver the enemy into accepting a battle field of his own se- 
 lecting instead of one tendered us by the enemy. This is 
 called the art of war, and consists as much in saving our own 
 men and material as in inflicting all the Damage possible on 
 the foe. General Rosecrans felt his way along Bragg's front, 
 and declined accepting the slaughter tendered him on a line 
 that would be fiercely fought for and conquered, if conquered 
 at all, at a fearful loss to us, while it left open to the enemy 
 a line of retreat that would rob us of our victory precisely 
 as Grant was served at the bloody fight of Champion's HilL 
 Arriving at Shelbyville, General Rosecrans proposed turning 
 General Bragg's right, and, forcing him out of his intrench- 
 ments, give battle on ground of his own selecting. 
 
 The first movement looking to a blinding of the enemy 
 was at Triune as if a direct attack on Shelbyville was con- 
 templated. General R. B. Mitchell was ordered from Triune 
 to skirmish vigorously at Eagleville, Rover, and Unionville. 
 This was done while cavalry operated on General Rosecrans' 
 left, and an infantry force was sent toward Woodbury. All 
 this was done to blind the enemy as to the real movement. 
 On the 24th, the entire army abandoned camp and took the 
 field. General McCook advanced toward Liberty Gap. The 
 direct march on that point was soon abandoned and turned 
 toward Millersburg, where Sheridan's and Davis's divisions 
 bivouacked at night, while Johnson's advanced to the gap. 
 After some severe skirmishing by the regiment commanded 
 by Colonel Harrison, the Confederates, finding themselves 
 flanked on both sides, fell back, fighting, to the further end 
 of the gap, when our forces, taking possession of the nat- 
 ural gateway, encamped for the night. 
 
 During the same day, General Thomas's command, with 
 
 Reynolds' division in advance, followed by Rousseau's and 
 
 Negley's division, moved out on the Manchester turnpike. 
 
 The brigade of mounted infantry of Reynolds' division, un- 
 
 23
 
 354 Life of Thomas. 
 
 der Colonel Wilder, attacked the Confederates at Hoover's 
 Gap, and, after a fierce resistance, drove them back to the 
 southern entrance of the gap, where they held possession un- 
 til General Reynolds, with two brigades, and General Bran- 
 nan, with three, came to the rescue, when the Confederates 
 retreated, giving up possession of another defile which Bragg 
 relied on to make his position on Duck river secure. 
 
 The several movements of troops that day corresponded 
 with the campaign determined on, and were severally made 
 in time. General Crittenden moved from Murfreesboro to 
 Bradyville ; General Granger marched from Salem to Chris- 
 tiana. From Murfreesboro, at the same date, General Stan- 
 ley marched through Salem to reinforce General Mitchell. 
 The next day, General Crittenden held Holly Springs. Gen- 
 eral Thomas, as soon as General Brannan joined him, put 
 that officer in command at Hoover's Gap. General Reynolds, 
 having pressed the enemy all day, had General Rousseau 
 close up on his rear for the purpose of attacking the enemy 
 next day. General Stanley concentrated with Generals 
 Granger's and Mitchell's divisions, and Negley's brigade, at 
 Christiana, intending to move on the enemy's right flank. 
 Laboring under the delusion that the main body of our army 
 had to advance through Liberty Gap, Bragg made a des- 
 perate effort to dislodge our forces under General Johnson. 
 A fierce encounter followed. The enemy, having assailed 
 the center of Johnson's line, and failed to pierce it, next at- 
 tempted to turn our flank by an artillery and infantry attack 
 from the hills. This, too, was met and repulsed, after which 
 the enemy abandoned the field with a loss of one hundred 
 killed and seven hundred and fifty to our two hundred and 
 thirty-one killed and wounded. The cool, courageous con- 
 duct of our troops awakened both surprise and gratification 
 on the part of our officers. 
 
 General Thomas, while advancing on the 26th toward 
 Fairfield encountered Confederates in force on the heights 
 north of Garrison creek. From this they were driven by 
 Generals Rousseau and Brannan on their left flank and 
 General Reynolds in the front. With the flank movements 
 successfully executed the heights were untenable. An at-
 
 Rosecrans' Brilliant 'Strategy. 355 
 
 tempt was made by the enemy to rally on a new position, 
 but no time was given him and he retired, but in good 
 order, behind a heavy rear-guard supported by artillery 
 in the rear and cavalry on the flanks. In executing this re- 
 treat the Confederates exhibited in officers and men a cour- 
 age that was most admirable. It is something for an officer 
 in command to understand the emergency and give orders 
 looking to relief. It is another thing to have those orders 
 executed in a way to make them effective. 
 
 The heavy downpour of rain that visited the country on 
 the first movement and continued until long after the last, 
 rendered the roads almost impassable. Bragg relied strongly 
 on this condition to render his defense on Duck river im- 
 pregnable. It is to be doubted that he ever thought of a 
 flank movement. He had no reason to expect such work up 
 to the 6th of June, 1863. No attempt at such a maneuver 
 had been made by our armies. It had been merely chance 
 encounter and stupid slaughter in which we hoped to win 
 through excess of numbers. Bragg wakened to the startling 
 fact that a force larger than his entire army was on his right 
 flank. His once strong position on Duck river was no longer 
 available to him. He could either march out and fight on 
 ground selected by General Thomas, or he could fall back 
 upon Chattanooga. This last was not done, however, with- 
 out protest from General Thomas. Without a moment's 
 delay after hearing of General Bragg's defeat he put his 
 army on the pursuit. But the almost impassable roads, the 
 swollen streams, especially the River Elk, so favored Bragg 
 that he crossed the Cumberland Mountains in safety, and 
 occupying Chattanooga left Middle Tennessee to the Union 
 army. This great result was achieved by us with a loss of 
 eighty -five men killed, four hundred and eighty-two wounded 
 and thirteen missing. Bragg's killed and wounded were not 
 reported, but he left as prisoners fifty-nine officers, and one 
 thousand five hundred and seventy-five men and lost eight 
 field pieces and three rifled siege guns, while the destruc- 
 tion of material incident to a hasty retreat was enormous. 
 
 This masterly campaign was neither appreciated at 
 "Washington nor known to the people. So accustomed were
 
 356 Life of Thomas. 
 
 we to big battles and frightful slaughter that a great victory 
 like this obtained without the useless loss of a man seemed 
 tame and insignificant. It is true that Secretary Seward 
 hastened to make the most of the success, and notified the 
 War Powers of Europe that Tennessee was again in pos- 
 session of our government. This was not strictly true, for 
 Bragg carried into Chattanooga the title deed to the state, 
 and until he could be defeated or dislodged the mere occu- 
 pancy of the state amounted to little. 
 
 That Bragg had abandoned the aggressive and fallen 
 back upon the rugged gateway of the South left to Rose- 
 crans and Thomas the old employment of repairing railways, 
 rebuilding bridges and gathering supplies before again mov- 
 ing forward. This was, of course, resisted in the War De- 
 partment at Washington. But the opposition had weak- 
 ened. Grant's disastrous siege of Vicksburg, the forlorn' 
 and almost hopeless condition of the Army of the Potomac, 
 served to impress President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton and 
 the obsequious Halleck that the Army of the Cumberland 
 was after all the only one under command of capable officers, 
 who seemed to know what they had in hand and were suc- 
 cessful in its accomplishment. One fact made the army un- 
 der command of Rosecrans comparatively independent of 
 the War Department. In the wide, fertile region thrown 
 open to us there was enough within reach to support our 
 army, and the incessant demand on the Department for sup- 
 plies became less, indeed almost ceased for a time. When 
 our forces under Buell fell back to the Ohio the farmers of 
 Tennessee and North Alabama were assured by the Confed- 
 erate authorities that they could rebuild their fences and re- 
 plant their fields with a certainty that the Yankee forces 
 would never again disturb their crops. The poor deluded 
 people were quick to accept what they wished to believe and 
 had planted and cultivated vast stores for our- forces to 
 seize and live upon. Bragg and his army behind the fortress 
 of Chattanooga were forced to rest unmoved by the cries 
 that arose from the state they had so lately occupied. 
 
 In this helpless condition, the South was again feeling 
 her great weakness. Had there been a population of sturdy-
 
 The Faithful Slaves. 357 
 
 laborers on which to draw, it would not have been possible 
 for an army to live upon the country as did that of the 
 Cumberland. Every wagon train guarded by cavalry sent 
 out to gather in the harvest would have been waylaid and 
 surrounded by hastily armed but wrathful citizens, and 
 every bushel of wheat or pound of meat would have been 
 dearly paid for in blood. But the soil owners and white 
 bread winners had been already absorbed by the armies, and 
 none left to guard the homes but aged men, boys, and negroes. 
 The negroes were in no wise guardians to be relied on. It 
 can not be truthfully said that they were not discontented 
 with their woful lot of hard, unrequited toil, but if such 
 discontent existed, it was not sufficiently strong to make 
 them take advantage of the conflict going on about them. 
 They humbly tilled the soil for their masters and cared for 
 the households in their masters' absence as if no war were in 
 progress. But this was the end of their service. To put 
 arms in their hands even to protect their own cabins would 
 have caused a fear the North could not create. When Ossa- 
 watomie Brown wrote the emancipation proclamation on the 
 mountains of Virginia with a handful of crazy followers, 
 gaunt-eyed fear sat trembling in every household of a state 
 that subsequently sent the bravest of the brave to the field 
 of battle. There was no calamity known to humanity more 
 terrible than a servile insurrection. Grim danger, therefore, 
 sat at every household, and uneasy sleep came to pillows laid 
 on revolvers throughout the South. That the slaves re- 
 mained faithful to their masters and cared for crops that 
 grew without overseers, has been instanced as evidence of 
 the kind arid Christian influences of that crime of all crimes 
 known as slavery. This is erroneous. Had this system of 
 unrequited toil possessed the slightest trait of good, it would 
 have taught even the dullest intellect of the negro the wrong 
 being done him. Had there been any good whatever in the 
 whip, the South would not so readily have submitted to a 
 return to the Union, after the fierce resistance that stained 
 with blood the pledge of undying hatred in a people. Their 
 every act since the last fight in behalf of the lost cause has
 
 358 Life of Thomas. 
 
 been that of a people not only conscious of having been 
 wrong, but of a wrong they are glad to vbe relieved of. 
 
 In the brief but stormy campaign conceived by Rose- 
 crans but made practicable by Thomas, our hero exhibited 
 those high qualities as a soldier that lifted him head and 
 shoulders above the epauletted crowd on either side. He 
 was making the noble army that he subsequently said made 
 him, and now, putting his men to their first test of excel- 
 lence, he felt assured that his orders would be executed with 
 promptness and precision, if such lay within the bounds of 
 human possibility. Riding silent at the head of his column, 
 he kept himself in touch with the forces under his command, 
 and every part of the wide and shifting movement was under 
 his immediate control. The entire army moved as a huge 
 but perfect machine at his will, and his mind took in and 
 held every part, and the aides dashing to and from him 
 bringing reports and carrying orders continued without in- 
 terruption the story of a grand plan being successfully exe- 
 cuted. The fact that the extraordinary storm, lasting 
 through a week, in which the very heavens seemed open to 
 the falling rain, rendered, as we have said, the road so nearly 
 impassable that men marched with extreme fatigue, and, for 
 the wagons and artillery, teams had to be doubled in many 
 places to get on at all. 
 
 " We have time to accomplish all that is necessary for 
 m y boys to do, and the storms that embarrass us keep the 
 enemy from annoying us or discovering our intent," said 
 General Thomas to an officer who feared the entire force 
 would stick in the mud. 
 
 This was the first campaign in which the men under 
 Thomas began to appreciate his real strength. From the 
 first, they were impressed with the thoughtful kindness that 
 gained Mm distinction at an early day ; but now, as he rode 
 on through the storm or camped at night in some rude shel- 
 ter before a camp-fire, never for an instant losing command 
 of the entire army intrusted to him by General Rosecrans, 
 his presence and power were felt through all the masses 
 down to the most obscure private in the ranks. Both officers 
 and men took a pride in executing his orders, and their
 
 Thomas' Faith in Religion. 359 
 
 highest reward came in his simple approbation, that never 
 got beyond the phrase of " Very well." 
 
 It was on this march of driving rains, when the electric 
 artillery of the clouds vied with our guns in the reverbera- 
 tions that seemed to shake the earth, that General Thomas, 
 looking from his tent opening one night at the blinding 
 flashes of lightning, and listening to the crash that followed 
 with little or no space of time between, said, as if speaking 
 to himself: 
 
 " We are getting more cold water thrown on our cam- 
 paign than we deserve." 
 
 " General," demanded a young aide, " do you believe in 
 an overruling Providence?" 
 
 *" Most assuredly," was the reply. 
 
 " I would like to know, then, why he is not on our side," 
 continued the young man. 
 
 "Are you satisfied such is not the case ? " asked General 
 Thomas. 
 
 " Why, it looks that way, General, if the Almighty is 
 interfering. We are getting the worst of it all the time. 
 Where God is there is the majority, you know." 
 
 All who sat listening expected to see this young man 
 abruptly snubbed, not that they knew the general ever 
 snubbed any one, but the manner was worse than the matter 
 in the question, and, knowing the general's deeply religious 
 nature, they expected to see their impertinent comrade sat 
 upon. Instead of this, the general said in the kindest 
 manner: 
 
 " I am not prepared, my young friend, to throw any 
 light upon that matter. I have never made religion a study, 
 and I am not equipped for its discussion. I never was 
 tempted to question what came to me so sweetly, and so full 
 of consolation and comfort, any more than I would doubt 
 and question the love of my mother. I know that it is here, 
 and I know that it is divine because it is good." 
 
 " Do you refer in that to natural religion or revealed re- 
 ligion, General?" 
 
 "Revealed religion, of course. I fail to comprehend 
 what is meant by natural religion, it is so vague and uu-
 
 StiO Life of Thomas. 
 
 certain ; but revealed religion, that is given us in the teach- 
 ings and character of Christ, is clear in all things. I never 
 met an infidel who questioned the goodness of Christ or the 
 purity or divinity of his teachings. Whether they will get 
 us into heaven or not after death, there is one thing certain, 
 and that is, to obey them is to make us better and happier 
 on earth. Accepting that, I will chance the rest." 
 
 Instead of congratulatory orders over a great victory 
 achieved without loss, the old irritating and unreasonable 
 demands for an immediate advance were received. General 
 Halleck saw nothing in the way of a movement on the en- 
 emy south of the Tennessee. It never entered the military 
 mind at Washington that Chattanooga was our objective 
 point and of such importance that were it severely threat- 
 ened, it would be fought for if such defense called for all 
 Lee's army. It was the key to the whole situation as the 
 gate- way to the South, but one we could easily hold when 
 once possessed with the loyal population of East Tennessee 
 on one side and the Tennessee river on the other. Chat- 
 tanooga opened the way to the weak point of the Confed- 
 eracy. " It enabled us to strike at its belly where it lived," 
 as General Thomas was wont to express himself. General 
 Rosecrans fully appreciated not only the fact that to his 
 army had been given the honor of striking the last fatal 
 blow at the alien government in our midst, but that to deal 
 such a blow called for preparation that was unknown or un- 
 appreciated at Washington. To Halleck he urged three 
 requisites to an advance. One was the repair of the rail- 
 road to the Tennessee river, the second ripe corn in the 
 field, and lastly that he should have force enough on both 
 sides to protect his flanks. Repairing the railroad to the 
 Tennessee was about equal to building a new road. Bragg 
 in his retreat fully appreciated the importance of this high- 
 way to our army, and he left no bridges and few rails in his 
 rear. This important work could be hastened, but the ripe 
 corn could not be stimulated, and the tassel does not appear 
 unless the season is unusually favorable until about the 15th 
 of July. For the forces on the flank, the War Department, 
 that had wasted an army of ninety thousand men about
 
 Weak Support from Washington. 361 
 
 Vicksburg, responded by giving a column to General Burn- 
 aide, the most inefficient general in the army, to move on 
 Knoxville, and made no effort whatever to protect the right 
 flank of the Army of the Cumberland. 
 
 One reads with amazement the telegrams and orders 
 that illustrate the feeling at Washington in reference to this 
 most important movement of the whole war. "Why, under 
 the circumstances, as Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck regarded 
 them, the Army of the Cumberland was maintained at all, 
 puzzles the understanding. There was but one reason, and 
 that based upon the conquest of territory. We had annexed 
 Tennessee to the Union, and once more set up Andrew 
 Johnson as military governor at Nashville. This failed to ' 
 gratify the Abolitionists, for such conquest was not followed 
 by an act of emancipation, and on this account President 
 Lincoln was rapidly losing the confidence and support of the 
 men mainly instrumental in calling him to the Presidency. 
 The only member of the government who made a reasonable 
 use of the otherwise useless conquest was Secretary Seward, 
 who hastened to call attention of the European govern- 
 ments to the fact that two states, Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 had been added to the government, and the rebellion, there- 
 fore, was near its collapse. 
 
 As the Cumberland river became in summer an uncer- 
 tain source of supply from the Ohio river to Nashville, the 
 one line of railway from Louisville to the state capital was 
 the only transportation to be relied on. To keep this open 
 and intact called for at least one-fourth of the army of in- 
 vasion. And then we were not always successful. Nothing 
 but the existence of a dissatisfied minority called Union men 
 scattered at wide intervals served to preserve this road. 
 These men, too timid to avow themselves, were none the less 
 alive to the business of informers, and if any of their neigh- 
 bors indulged in the luxury of pulling up a rail, such wrong- 
 doers were immediately visited by Union troops and had 
 their houses burned, out-houses and fields laid waste, as not 
 only a punishment but a warning. This illustrates the stern 
 warlike character of General Thomas. Kind and just as he 
 was, he yet recognized the necessities of war, and was the
 
 362 Life of Thomas. 
 
 one to instruct our officers along the line of the railroad 
 that they should select certain secessionists and hold them 
 as hostages. That is, without depriving them of their lib- 
 erty, or, indeed, interfering with them in their ordinary pur- 
 suits, they were to be told that they were to be held re- 
 sponsible for any injury done the railroad. If such injury 
 was done, their possessions were to suffer in consequence. 
 When this order went into execution, and a few examples 
 illustrated its working, that chief of the raiders, John Mor- 
 gan, found not only his main sources of information gone, 
 but prominent secessionists in whose behalf he appeared 
 begging him to desist, for he was only doing what would 
 prove their immediate ruin. When such persuasions failed, 
 the same men hasten by night to our officers and gave valu- 
 able information that they might save themselves. 
 
 On the 25th of July, the Elk river bridge had been re- 
 built and the railroad so far repaired that trains were run- 
 ning to Bridgeport, Alabama. But General Burnside was 
 as slow moving on Knoxville as the corn was to ripen in 
 July. There were no troops and the promise of none on our 
 right flank, so General Rosecrans, backed by General 
 Thomas, refused positively to move. A crisis in his career 
 seemed to have reached him. On the 5th of August, he 
 received from General Halleck a positive order to march. 
 To disobey this was to court an immediate dismissal. Bet- 
 ter that, said both Rosecraus and Thomas, than to jeopardize 
 the army. But although the peremptory order was disobeyed 
 the dismissal did not appear. But it was no military con- 
 sideration that made the administration hesitate. The 
 cause was purely political. We have seen that the Catholic 
 Church was not in sympathy with our government. The 
 war on the South was looked on at Rome, by the light of 
 events that had justified our War of Independence, as cruel 
 and unjust. If the axiom set up in 1776, that all govern- 
 ments were established by the consent and for the benefit of 
 the governed, what shadow of a right had the Republic at 
 Washington to crowd down the throats of Southern people 
 a form of government they did not recognize or believe in ? 
 Secretary Seward and President Lincoln were not slow to
 
 Support of American Catholics. 363 
 
 recognize the power of Rome in Europe and the danger of 
 that influence being exercised against us. 
 
 Now, as exceptions to the great body of the Catholic 
 clergy in the United States appeared Archbishop Purcell of 
 Cincinnati, and his gifted and pious brother the Rev. Edward 
 Purcell. They were patriots of the purest and most active sort. 
 Standing at the head and front of Catholicism, they had won 
 the loving admiration of laymen and priests at home while 
 standing high in the confidence of the Pope at Rome. 
 They were not silent or at all secretive in their faith. They 
 taught what they thought and proved a salutary restraint 
 to the more impetuous Catholics in this country, while their 
 influence abroad saved the Church the scandal and our gov- 
 ernment the wrong of a political interference from that quar- 
 ter. When the Archbishop of Baltimore died, Archbishop 
 Purcell invited General Schenck and staff to appear at the 
 imposing ceremonies of the funeral in full uniform. And 
 when a successor was appointed to fill the Archbishopric 
 of Baltimore, the leading See of America, the two Purcells 
 succeeded in securing a prelate in sympathy with our gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Archbishop and Father Edward Purcell were attached 
 to General Rosecrans. Through the general's brother, 
 Bishop Rosecrans, an estimable and eloquent priest, they 
 learned to believe in as well as love the general. The true 
 nature and importance of the campaign in which General 
 Rosecrans had so much to do in planning and executing 
 came home to their gifted minds, and so this group of emi- 
 nent Catholic prelates stood between Stanton's wrath and 
 the general's dismissal. 
 
 On the 15th of August, General Rosecrans made his 
 initial move. While the fields possessed abundant forage, 
 the protection asked for on his right and left flanks had not 
 appeared, and to partially protect his right he sent Colonel 
 E. M. McCook in command of Brigadier-General R. B. 
 Mitchell's Cavalry Division on the llth of August from 
 Fayetteville, Tennessee, to Huntsville, Alabama, thence 
 along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to protect that
 
 364 Life of Thomas. 
 
 road and guard the line of the Tennessee river from Vicks- 
 burg to Bridgeport. 
 
 From "Winchester to McMinnville was a line made up 
 of the Fourteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Corps in 
 readiness to move, while as a reserve was a heavy body of 
 troops in the rear occupying all the country north of Duck river 
 in connection with troops garrisoned at Fort Donelson, Clark- 
 ville, Gallatin, Carthage, Nashville, Murfreesboro, Shelby ville 
 and Watrace. The army in advance and the force in reserve 
 were well in hand, and as an advance had been resolved upon 
 there was no reason for a longer delay. General Rosecrans 
 was called on with an inadequate force to flank Lee's army 
 at Richmond and force the abandonment of Virginia for a 
 war in the cotton states. This great work was to be ac- 
 complished by the smaller and poorer equipped of the armies 
 in the field. To make the situation yet worse no opera- 
 tions were being made on either Rosecrans' right or left, so 
 there was nothing to prevent a concentration of troops upon 
 his front. 
 
 After all, the neglect and disfavor from which he suffered 
 at Washington were in his favor. The authorities at Rich- 
 mond kept themselves well advised of military affairs at our 
 capital. Washington City, sandwiched between Maryland and 
 Virginia, was, of course, a Southern town, and while the dis- 
 loyal sentiment was kept under more from force of habit 
 than fear for this little municipal dependence had so long 
 looked up to and lived upon the government that any thing 
 like independence was regarded as monstrous such restless 
 discontent found expression in keeping the officials at Rich- 
 mond well advised as to the condition of our White House 
 and War Department. The President of the Confederacy 
 and his Secretary blessed themselves in the fact that Stanton's 
 hate and Lincoln's ignorance with Halleck's subserviency left 
 their stronghold without menace and their choice for disas- 
 trous campaigns to us undisturbed. Had the new govern- 
 ment measured its own military men with the same sagacity 
 it did ours it would have been saved many grave blunders. 
 While making no mistake as to McClellan, Burnside, Hooker 
 and Grant, it could not see that Stonewall Jackson was their
 
 Moving on Chattanooga. 365 
 
 * 
 
 genius of war beside whom Lee was a gorgeous drum-major. 
 Resting secure in the indifference and contempt of the War 
 Department at Washington, no troops were gathered at Rose- 
 crans' front nor were his flanks threatened. " Let the fool 
 heat his head against the granite rocks of Chattanooga," said 
 Jefferson Davis, " he will lind it quite another thing from 
 Duck river." 
 
 Nature made Chattanooga a stronghold before which 
 any army, however large and well equipped, might well hesi- 
 tate. It lies on the east bank of the Tennessee, that here 
 makes an abrupt turn and runs, hemmed in by the mountains, 
 from north to south. Below Chattanooga, this wide, deep, 
 and rapid river encounters a range of mountains that forces 
 it almost due north, when, again driven by rocky barriers, it 
 takes a north-westerly course, then again the mountains give 
 it a sudden turn and it goes winding through lofty ranges to 
 the south. To one approaching Chattanooga on this deep, 
 swift river from the north-east, there is on the right, and 
 generally on the left, a range of impassable mountains. The 
 traveler reaches an open plain, fortressed about by frowning 
 heights, and from that down he sweeps by towering palisades 
 that for sixty miles present no gap through which, as it ap- 
 pears below, a bridle-path could be made for a mule. Long 
 before Chattanooga could be reached from East Tennessee, 
 an army would be exhausted, and when gained, to assault it 
 from the front would be as hopeless as Vicksburg was to 
 Grant as he approached from the Mississippi. To get at it 
 from other than the front appeared more hopeless still. So, 
 at least, thought General Bragg and his masters at Rich- 
 mond, and they had, in consequence, deprived him of an 
 army, leaving only men enough to man the works at the 
 front. Bragg was lamenting his misfortune in being left idly 
 to man an impregnable position, while grand campaigns 
 were to be fought out by men who were his juniors in rank 
 and inferiors in ability. One day, a courier, -white with fear 
 and foul from dust and perspiration, dashed in on General 
 Bragg's head-quarters with the startling intelligence that a 
 large force of all arms threatened his communications at 
 Stevenson. His flank was turned.
 
 366 Life of Thomas. 
 
 A 
 
 To tell how this was accomplished, we return to the 
 Army of the Cumberland. Recognizing the fact that it 
 would be madness to assault Chattanooga from the front, 
 General Rosecrans resolved to flank Bragg out. This could 
 not be done on Bragg's right. In addition to the mountain 
 ranges and the river, the line of attack would be over a 
 country so barren and dry that an army would perish in the 
 attempt. So, while making a feint in force upon the 
 enemy's right, Rosecrans moved the main body upon the left. 
 This not only seemed to deceive the enemy, but gave us pos- 
 session of the railroad directly in our rear, for supplies and 
 reinforcements. 
 
 "When General Rosecrans submitted his plan of advance 
 to General Thomas, our hero for the first time made positive 
 dissent, and this upon the ground of the peril in the attempt. 
 He called his commanding officer's attention to the fact that 
 our three corps of the army would be separated and the 
 right from the left some thirty miles, leaving each without 
 support from the others. Supposing we were allowed to 
 cross the river unmolested, the Confederates could assault 
 the separated columns and detain and annihilate each in 
 turn. General Rosecrans persisted. He was satisfied that 
 not enough men had been left to Bragg for such a campaign, 
 and, if he could get upon his flank in time, Bragg was the 
 one to suffer annihilation. It was never safe to calculate 
 upon the weakness of the enemy, and Rosecrans hearkened 
 to the wisdom of Thomas's warning when too late. We 
 must remember that Rosecrans was under positive orders to 
 move on the enemy, and the plan favored by Thomas, to 
 flank the fastness by the way of Knoxville, called for more 
 time than the War Department would allow. 
 
 At this part of our work, we avail ourself of the mas- 
 terly account and criticism from the pen of one who not 
 only took part in the campaigns about Chattanooga, but car- 
 ried from the slopes of Missionary Ridge a decoration in the 
 shape of a wound that, so long as he lives, will bear evidence 
 to his gallant conduct upon the field of battle-r-General H. 
 V. Boynton. This soldier, author, and gentleman gives lus- 
 ter to our pages in his clear, incisive, and conclusive story
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 367 
 
 of the campaign and fight that won us Chattanooga. The 
 account to which we give a more permanent form appeared 
 originally in the Cincinnati Commercial- Gazette, and reads as 
 follows : 
 
 "WASHINGTON, August 3. [Special.] In two preliminary 
 letters about Chickamauga, the attempt was made to describe 
 the field as it appears to-day, and to present some of the 
 scenes of the battle which came rushing back over the plains 
 of memory with a power suggestive of the departed legions 
 that once clothed these farms, forests, and ridges with the 
 terrible magnificence of battle. 
 
 " In a sense, to write of Chickamauga, is to try to excite 
 interest in a subject which far too many regard as worn ; but 
 to the veterans who fought there it will never be a thread- 
 bare story. For that generation which has been born and 
 has come to manhood since Chattanooga was won by the 
 Union arms, there is no campaign which can be studied with 
 greater profit, or which will more richly repay the reader. 
 History has not yet done justice to Chickamauga, but its ver- 
 dict is sure. Many of the misconceptions of the days follow- 
 ing the battle still exist in the popular mind. It may be 
 years before they are cleared away; but eventually the 
 Chickamauga campaign will stand in the history of our war 
 as unequaled in its strategy by any other movement of the 
 contest, and as unsurpassed, and probably not equaled, for 
 the stubbornness and deadliness which marked the splendid 
 fighting of Unionist and rebel alike; and, furthermore, it 
 will stand as a substantial Union victory. 
 
 "Just in proportion as the credit due is awarded to those 
 who planned and executed the campaign will well-merited 
 condemnation be meted out to those at Washington who in- 
 sisted upon forcing the movement without regard to proper 
 and vital preparation, who withheld reinforcements, and 
 who, in spite of public and private warnings which it was 
 criminal not to heed, made rebel concentrations against Rose- 
 crans possible from in front of Washington itself, and from 
 Charleston, Mobile, and Mississippi. 
 
 " It will be the purpose of a few letters to go over some
 
 368 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of the well-known ground of this campaign with a view of 
 enforcing the ideas expressed in general terms above, and 
 attempting to present a clear account of this most involved 
 and still seriously misunderstood battle. The strategy 
 matchless in our war which compelled Bragg to abandon 
 Chattanooga ; the life and death struggle for concentrating 
 the Union army when Rosecrans, against the protests of 
 Washington authorities that it could not be true, found his 
 widely-separated corps confronted with reinforcements from 
 every part of the Confederacy ; and, lastly, the great battle 
 in the Chickamauga forests for the possession of Chattanooga, 
 are each most fruitful and interesting themes. The present 
 letter will relate to the first-named subject, the strategy of 
 the Chickamauga campaign. 
 
 " Marching from Murfreesboro, on the 23d of June, 1863, 
 General Rosecrans had advanced against Bragg, who was 
 strongly fortified, and whose lines, besides, occupied gaps 
 and ranges of great natural strength. By brilliant strategy, 
 with the loss of only 586 killed and wounded, and thirteen 
 captured or missing, the Army of the Cumberland, with its 
 nine divisions and twenty brigades, operating through six- 
 teen days of continuous rain, maneuvered Bragg, with his 
 seven divisions and twenty-three brigades, out of his natural 
 and artificial strongholds, and forced him across the Tennes- 
 see. Up to that time there had been no strategic campaign 
 to equal this, and it was soon to be far surpassed, except in 
 the one element of loss, by the campaign to follow it. So 
 brilliant had been the conception and the execution that all 
 the corps commanders, headed by General Thomas, hastened 
 to call on General Rosecrans and offer the warmest congratu- 
 lations. 
 
 "At the close of the Tullahoma campaign, Bragg occu- 
 pied Chattanooga and the mountain passes above and below 
 it. Rosecrans' army lay along the western base of the Cum- 
 berland Mountains, its right above "Winchester and its left at 
 McMinnville. Here General Rosecrans at once began the 
 most vigorous preparations for another campaign for the 
 occupation of Chattanooga. Because the necessities of the
 
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 ISUMUERVILLE. 
 
 CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN THE STRATEGY.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 369 
 
 case compelled secrecy as one of the main elements of success, 
 there was soon at Washington a manifestation of unreasoning 
 impatience over what was criticized as the inaction of the 
 Union commander ; but those who were on the ground know 
 well the unceasing activity and energy with which the work 
 progressed of accumulating sufficient supplies of food, mate- 
 rial, and ammunition, preparing the means for crossing the 
 Tennessee and obtaining the necessary knowledge of the 
 mountain passes, roads, and trails by which the army must 
 move. Rosecrans' supplies reached him over a badly equip- 
 ped line of worn railroad, a hundred and thirteen miles in 
 length, and, as can be readily understood, when the daily 
 wants of a great army preparing for extended movement and 
 battle are considered, the matter of accumulating a surplus 
 of supplies was not the task of a day or a week. With ev- 
 ery effort the railroad was not prepared until July 25th, and 
 the forward movement began on the 14th of August. 
 
 "A glance at the map will disclose the great natural ob- 
 stacles which lay between General Rosecrans and Chattanooga. 
 As his army faced toward the latter point, the Cumberland 
 Mountains, with a general elevation of 2,200 feet, rose before 
 it. The escarpment was every-where precipitous, and desti- 
 tute of every means of approach except narrow mountain 
 roads and trails, with the one exception that a short railroad 
 ran from Cowan to Tracy City, on the summit of the range. 
 To the eastward this range dropped by like precipitous and 
 difficult slopes into the valley of the Sequatchee River. Be- 
 yond that stream rose the equally sharp cliffs of Walden's 
 Ridge, with a general elevation of 1,300 feet. This fell off 
 along the eastern and southern edge of the plateau into the 
 valley of the Tennessee, and overlooked it from the mouth 
 of the Sequatchee River to a point far above Chattanooga. 
 It was fifty miles as the crow flies from the lines of Rose- 
 crans' army across this continuous mountain region to the 
 valley of the Tennessee. This river was broad and deep, 
 and presented in itself the most serious natural obstacle 
 which the Union army had encountered since it left the Ohio 
 river. It was 2,700 feet wide at Bridgeport, and 1,254 feet 
 24
 
 370 Life of Thomas. 
 
 at Caperton, the points where the bridges were subsequently 
 thrown. 
 
 " On the left bank of the river, the stronghold of Chat- 
 tanooga lying behind the river, and the great ranges to the 
 westward between Rosecrans' position and his own, might 
 well seem to Bragg impregnable, in fact almost unassailable. 
 First, toward the west, came the Lookout range, rising 
 abruptly from the river to the height of 2,200 feet, and 
 stretching south -westwardly far into Georgia and Alabama. 
 Its western precipices looked down into the narrow valley of 
 Lookout Creek. Beyond the latter rose the equally precipi- 
 tous cliffs *)f the Raccoon Mountains, the latter having the 
 same general elevation as the Lookout range. 
 
 " The gorge of the Tennessee where it breaks through 
 these mountain ranges is so narrow and so thoroughly com- 
 manded from the heights on both sides as to render it im- 
 practicable to so move an army as to attack it from the front 
 or river side. 
 
 " With these giant obstacles to the progress of his 
 columns, most serious even if they had been within the 
 Union lines, but almost insuperable when found in an 
 enemy's territory, and while he was bending every energy to 
 complete preparations for carrying out a brilliant plan of his 
 own for overcoming them, General Rosecrans was astonished 
 at receiving on August 4th, only ten days after his railroad 
 had been repaired to the Tennessee River, a dispatch from 
 Halleck saying : ' Your forces must move forward without 
 delay. You will daily report the movement of each corps 
 till you cross the Tennessee River.' 
 
 " To a commander who was building boats, opening 
 mountain roads, rushing the accumulation of stores, getting 
 out material for four thousand feet of bridges, preparing to 
 leave his base carrying provisions for twenty-five days, and 
 ammunition for two .battles, and crossing three mountain 
 ranges and a deep and broad river, in an enemy's country, 
 and in the face of an army, this dispatch was not only 
 astounding, but discouraging and exasperating to the last 
 degree. 
 
 " It had become a habit at Washington to sneer at the
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 371 
 
 slowness of General Rosecrans, as it was later to denounce 
 General Thomas in similar terms at Nashville. There was 
 no more reason or justice in the one case than in the other. 
 The verdict of history has been reached in the case of Gen- 
 eral Thomas. It is sure to come, and to be the same in this 
 matter, for Rosecrans. 
 
 " To this dispatch, which can only be excused on the 
 ground of wholly inexcusable ignorance of the active prepa- 
 rations in progress and the natural difficulties of an advance, 
 General Rosecrans replied with his accustomed clearness 
 and spirit : ' Your dispatch ordering me to move forward 
 without delay, reporting the movements of each corps till I 
 cross the Tennessee, is received. As I have determined to 
 cross the river as soon as practicable, and have been making 
 all preparations and getting such information as may enable 
 me to do so without being driven back, like Hooker, I wish 
 to know if your order is intended to take away my discretion 
 as to the time and manner of moving my troops.' To this 
 Halleck responded: 'The orders for the advance of your 
 army, and that it be reported daily, are peremptory.' Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans immediately wrote the following reply, and, 
 calling his corps commanders together, read the dispatches 
 given above. There was no dissent from the proposition 
 that at that stage of their preparations it was impossible to 
 move. He then read his reply as follows, and all approved 
 and agreed that they would support him : 
 
 " ; GENERAL HALLECK : My arrangements for beginning 
 a continuous movement will be completed and the execution 
 begun Monday next. We have information to show that 
 crossing the Tennessee between Bridgeport and Chattanooga 
 is impracticable, but not enough to show whether we had 
 better cross above Chattanooga and strike Cleveland, or be- 
 low Bridgeport and strike in their rear. The preliminary 
 movement of troops for the two cases are very different. It 
 is necessary to have our means of crossing the river com- 
 pleted, and our supplies provided to cross sixty miles of 
 mountains and sustain ourselves during the operations of 
 crossing and fighting, before we move. To obey your order 
 literally would be to push our troops into the mountains on
 
 372 Life of Thomas. 
 
 narrow and difficult roads, destitute of pasture and forage, 
 and short of water, where they would not be able to maneuver 
 as exigencies may demand, and would certainly cause ulti- 
 mate delay and probable disaster. If, therefore, the move- 
 ment which I propose can not be regarded as obedience to 
 your order, I respectfully request a modification of it or to be 
 relieved from the command.' 
 
 "On the following day Halleck replied as follows: 
 
 "'I have communicated to you the wishes of the gov- 
 ernment in plain and unequivocal terms. The objective has 
 been stated, and you have been directed to lose no time in 
 reaching it. The means you are to employ and the roads 
 you are to follow are left to your own discretion. If you 
 wish to promptly carry out the wishes of the government, 
 you will not stop to discuss mere details. In such matters I 
 do not interfere.' 
 
 " This was answered the same day by General Rosecrana 
 as follows: 
 
 " ' Your dispatch received. I can only repeat the assur- 
 ance given before the issuance of the order. This army shall 
 move with all dispatch compatible with the successful execu- 
 tion of our work. We are pressing every thing to bring up 
 forage for our animals. The present rolling stock of the 
 road will barely suffice to keep us day by day here, but I 
 have bought fifty more freight cars, which are arriving. 
 Will advise you daily.' 
 
 " This was the last of interference from Washington, 
 but, accustomed as all there were to interfering at will, and 
 directing affairs according to the situation as they saw it, 
 they could not brook such manifestly proper independence 
 as was shown by Rosecraus, and from that time forward 
 there was needed only an excuse to insure his removal. 
 
 " Had there been a tithe of the attention given to pre- 
 venting the rebels from concentrating on his front from 
 every part of the Confederacy in fact, bringing Longstreet's 
 veterans from the lines under Halleck's own eyes that there 
 was to the kind of interference which has been noticed, 
 Bragg would have been destroyed in front of Chattanooga. 
 But this subject properly belongs in a succeeding letter.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 373 
 
 The dispatches given above are well known, but their repro- 
 duction will prove a convenience to readers who may not 
 carry their exact terms in mind. 
 
 " Ten days later, namely, on August 14th, the movement 
 to secure Chattanooga began. A glance at the map will re- 
 veal its strategy. 
 
 " Rosecrans had decided to cross the Tennessee in the 
 vicinity of Bridgeport, and subsequently the Raccoon and 
 Lookout Mountain ranges at points south of Chattanooga, 
 and thus compel Bragg to evacuate the place or to come out 
 of it and fight for his line of communications. It is easily 
 seen that if, after crossing the river, the enemy, warned in 
 time, should be found in force on the western slopes of these 
 ranges, further progress in that direction would have been 
 impossible, and a return to the north bank of the river ob- 
 ligatory. It was, therefore, necessary to wholly deceive 
 Bragg as to the points of crossing. 
 
 " Burnside was marching from Kentucky into East Ten- 
 nessee. Any apparent movement of the Army of the Cum- 
 berland in force in that direction would naturally lead Bragg 
 to believe that a junction of the Union forces was contem- 
 plated on his right. 
 
 "Every thing being ready, Crittenden opened the cam- 
 paign with the Twenty-first Corps. Leaving his camps at 
 Hillsboro', Manchester, and McMinnville on the 16th of Au- 
 gust, he crossed the Cumberland Mountains and pccupied the 
 Sequatchee Valley from a point between Jasper and Dunlap 
 to Pikeville. Van Cleve held the latter place, Palmer was 
 established at Dunlap, and Wood at Anderson, between 
 Dunlap and Jasper. All built extensive camp-fires and 
 moved about in such ways as to convey to observers from the 
 heights the impression that the whole army was moving. 
 Meantime Minty's active cavalry had moved through Sparta 
 and driven Dibrell's cavalry eastward through Crossville, on 
 to the Tennessee, and over it, and Dibrell, having come to 
 reconnoiter and see what was going on, naturally got the 
 idea that Rosecrans' army was coming. The crossing of the 
 Cumberlands was but the first step of the imposing diversion. 
 Though the mountain roads were few and very difficult,
 
 374 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Crittenden's movements over them had been completed ex- 
 actly on time. The advance over Walden's Ridge, equally 
 difficult, though it was not quite so high as the main range, 
 was immediately undertaken. Minty, on the extreme left, 
 appeared on the Tennessee more than thirty miles above 
 Blythe's Ferry, where he made most energetic commotion. 
 Hazen reached the river in the vicinity of Dallas. Two 
 brigades were strung out along the edge of the cliffs on the 
 top of Walden's Ridge, where they overlooked Blythe's 
 Ferry, and could be seen from the other side of the river. 
 Minty, with his troopers, swept down the valley of the Ten- 
 nessee to near Chattanooga. Wilder and Wagner also ap- 
 peared in the valley. While a show of building boats was 
 made in the small streams about Blythe's Ferry, Wilder, 
 from the heights of Walden's Ridge, opposite Chattanooga, 
 opened fire on the town with artillery. Bragg was thor- 
 oughly deceived. Forrest was ordered far up the Tennessee 
 to Kingston to watch for the expected crossing. Buckner 
 was ordered from East Tennessee toward Blythe's Ferry. 
 
 "As may be supposed, "Wilder's cannonading produced 
 the wildest excitement in Chattanooga. The rolling-stock 
 of the railroads was hastened out of reach. The depots of 
 supplies were moved out of the range of the unexpected 
 bombardment. D. H. Hill's corps was hurried off to guard 
 the river above, and other heavy forces were moved in the 
 same direction. Every thing done by Bragg was based upon 
 the idea that Rosecrans was moving in force to points on the 
 river above the city. 
 
 " Meantime the real movement was going on quietly 
 sixty to eighty miles in the opposite direction, in the 
 vicinity of Bridgeport and Stevenson. A force of cavalry 
 for the purposes of observation, and to convey the idea by 
 quick movements that Rosecrans was feigning below, while 
 really expecting to cross above the city, was sent as far 
 westward as Decatur. Thus Rosecrans was operating along 
 the river through a hundred miles of mountain region, and 
 fifty miles of low country beyond, and in spite of the 
 natural difficulties, every part of the plan was working with 
 precision.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 375 
 
 " Thomas and McCook on the right moved at the same 
 time with Crittenden. Reynolds, of Thomas's corps, had 
 marched in advance and repaired the roads by way of Uni- 
 versity, and down the eastern slope of the mountain to Jas- 
 per. Brannan followed him, and both were at first kept 
 well out of sight of the river. Baird and Negley came 
 down nearer to Bridgeport, and McCook descended back of 
 Stevenson. With the exception of Sheridan, at Bridgeport, 
 all were kept well concealed from the enemy's cavalry on 
 the left bank. 
 
 " Sheridan alone made a show of his presence, and 
 openly began the construction of a trestle through the shoal 
 water, in order to lessen the length of the floating bridge. 
 As this was without a decided show of strength, it deepened 
 the impression that the movements on this wing were the 
 feint, and those toward the upper river the real move. In 
 fact, after watching Sheridan's trestle building for a while 
 from the other side of the river, Anderson's brigade of in- 
 fantry, the only infantry force available to oppose a passage 
 of the river, was withdrawn and sent to Chattanooga. 
 
 " The bridge for Caperton's Ferry was brought down on 
 a train, which was halted out of sight, and a road cut for its 
 transportation through the woods to a point near its destina- 
 tion, where the troops which were to lay it were drilled in 
 their work. 
 
 " Early on the 29th, fifty boats, each carrying fifty men, 
 were brought out of the woods near Caperton's, rushed 
 across an open field, launched, and quickly rowed to the op- 
 posite shore. The Confederate cavalry pickets were driven 
 off, and twenty-five hundred men held the south bank. 
 The bridge was promptly laid. Davis was soon over, and 
 then McCook's entire corps, with cavalry, started promptly 
 for Valley Head, forty miles down the Lookout range. 
 Reynolds collected boats at Shellmound, Brannan had built 
 rafts and cut out canoes at the mouth of Battle Creek. 
 The long bridge was successfully laid at Bridgeport, and be- 
 fore Bragg had recovered from his surprise, in fact, before 
 he had comprehended the extent of the movement, Rose-
 
 376 Life of Thomas. 
 
 crane, with two corps, was over the river and moving on his 
 communications. 
 
 "As soon as the crossing was assured, Crittenden 
 marched with celerity by way of the Sequatchee Valley to- 
 ward the bridges, and was soon across with the main ^>ody 
 and advancing on the left of it directly toward Chattanooga. 
 
 " This crossing of the Tennessee was a great feat. The 
 bridges were not sufficient for the army. Reynolds gathered 
 small boats and improvised his own means of crossing. 
 Brannan's men had cut out canoes from immense poplars, 
 and launched them in Battle Creek out of sight. Some of 
 them would hold fifty men. They also built rafts, one of 
 them large enough to carry artillery. These, with an aban- 
 doned rebel pontoon boat, constituted Brannan's flotilla. 
 When the signal was given, the whole swept out from be- 
 hind the bushes which concealed the mouth of Battle Creek, 
 and made for the opposite shore. The rebel pickets with- 
 drew, and the crossing was secured. Then all his men who 
 could swim, piling their guns, clothing, and accouterments 
 on a few fence rails, pushed these before them, and thus 
 gained the opposite bank. Later, Wilder swam his mounted 
 brigade across the river and joined Crittenden south of Chat- 
 tanooga. Halleck must have had this ability for crossing a 
 river in the presence of an enemy in mind when he tele- 
 graphed Rosecrans, a few weeks before, to move at once, and 
 keep moving. 
 
 " But this crossing, and the grand diversion which made 
 it possible, were only the preliminary, and by no means the 
 formidable parts of the movement. To complete it, Rose- 
 crans was to cut loose from his base, carry twenty-five days' 
 supplies, and sufficient ammunition for two battles, cross two 
 precipitous and difficult mountain ranges, wholly within the 
 enemy's territory, and their passes presumably strengthened 
 and defended, and, after crossing the last range at widely 
 separated points, to descend into the valley in the rear of 
 that enemy's stronghold, prepared for battle or any other 
 contingencies which might arise on this distant and isolated 
 theater of action. 
 
 " When Bragg discovered the real point of crossing and
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 377 
 
 the lines of actual movement it was too late to recall the forces 
 dispatched up the Tennessee or to post columns of sufficient 
 strength on the slopes before Rosecrans to impede his ad- 
 vance in force. How strong the positions thus turned by 
 the Union forces were will appear from the statement that 
 so precipitous and otherwise difficult were the roads over 
 these ranges that at several of them it required a day and a 
 night for a division with its artillery and reduced trains to 
 make the ascent. 
 
 " The Union commander had delayed his movement until 
 the corn was ripe in order that it might not be necessary to 
 carry grain for his animals, which would have largely in- 
 creased his trains so careful, thoughtful and wise was he in 
 every detail of preparation. 
 
 " Bragg's failure to resist in the vicinity of Rosecrans' 
 crossings and at the crossing of Raccoon Mountains was due 
 in part to the fact that even after he knew that the heads of 
 columns were over the river he was still inclined to look 
 upon their movements as a feint, and to regard the real point 
 of danger to be above the city. Rosecrans, even after cross- 
 ing, sought successfully to strengthen such impressions in 
 Bragg's mind. He directed Wagner's, Wilder's, and Minty's 
 brigades to report to Hazen, and with this force, some 7,000 
 strong, the latter was ordered to make a conspicuous show 
 of crossing the river far above Chattanooga. This active and 
 efficient officer admirably executed his orders. By extended 
 fires, by marching and countermarchings, by moving his 
 artillery continuously across openings in sight from the oppo- 
 site bank, by buglers at widely separated points, and other 
 similar devices, he easily created the belief that an army was 
 encamped on the right bank intending to cross. 
 
 " With the exception of this force, all of .Rosecrans' army 
 was south of the river on September 4th, and on the move. 
 The right was already well on its way. On the 6th his army 
 had descended from Raccoon Mountain and occupied the 
 valley between that range and the western slope of Lookout 
 from a point seven miles from Chattanooga to Valley Head, 
 forty-two miles from the city. The next day McCook and 
 Thomas began to ascend Lookout at points respectively forty-
 
 378 Life of Thomas. 
 
 two and twenty-six miles from Chattanooga. Pn the 8th 
 McCook's troops were in motion down the eastern slope of 
 the mountain toward Alpine, and Thomas was descending 
 from Steven's and Frick's Gap, both of which were near 
 where the road from Trenton, after running southwardly, is 
 represented as leading over Lookout. Crittenden had pushed 
 small portions of his command up mere mountain trails, and 
 on the 9th these gained position where they could look down 
 upon Chattanooga. They saw no flags, and soon discovered 
 that Bragg had evacuated. The day before, Wagner, still 
 watching from the north bank of the river, had reported to 
 Rosecrans that .the enemy was leaving. The news came in 
 the night, and Rosecrans ordered Crittenden to ascertain the 
 situation. His detachments on the mountain had already 
 discovered that the city was deserted. Crittenden was at 
 once ordered to march around the north point of Lookout, 
 and follow Bragg toward Ringgold. At night on the 9th 
 Palmer and Van Cleve's divisions were established at Ross- 
 ville, five miles south of Chattanooga. 
 
 " Thus, in three weeks from the time his diversion toward 
 Bragg's right began, and in five days from the time his army 
 was over the river, Rosecrans had repeated the Tullahoma 
 campaign on a far greater scale, and in the face of much more 
 formidable obstacles, and absolutely without fighting, except 
 as Minty's cavalry had been slightly engaged with DibrelPs 
 -near Sparta in the outset of the movement, had driven Bragg 
 from the mountain stronghold of Chattanooga, the objective of 
 the campaign. It was well said later by General Meigs, who 
 came from Washington to Chattanooga after its final occupa- 
 tion by the Union army, and spent some days in studying 
 the movements by which it had been secured : i It is not 
 only the greatest operation in our war, but a great thing 
 when compared with any war.' 
 
 " But the occupation of Chattanooga, in a military sense, 
 was not accomplished by sending Crittenden's divisions be- 
 yond it and one brigade into it. Bragg had only with- 
 drawn to save his communications and supplies, and to await 
 the reinforcements he knew to be hastening from Virginia, 
 from Mobile, and from Mississippi. The battle for Chatta-
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 379 
 
 nooga was yet to be fought. Bragg had retired with delib- 
 eration. He established his head-quarters at Lafayette, be- 
 hind Pigeon Mountains, but his rear guard never passed 
 beyond Lee and Gordon's Mills. 
 
 " The news that Rosecrans' troops were in Chattanooga, 
 and that he had pushed out after the retreating Bragg, made 
 a tremendous impression upon the North. It was accepted 
 as a capture, and a military occupation of that long-coveted 
 stronghold. It is true it was occupied, but not in a military 
 sense, since the Union army had not been brought into it, 
 or concentrated between it and the enemy. 
 
 "Hence arose that misconception, which is widespread 
 still, that the Army of the Cumberland had occupied Chatta- 
 nooga, and thence marching out to attack Bragg, had been 
 defeated by the latter at Chickamauga, and driven back in 
 disorder into Chattanooga. 
 
 " But, instead, Chickamauga was the battle for Chatta- 
 nooga, fought by Rosecrans while on the way to take mili- 
 tary possession of it, and while he was concentrating his 
 army between Bragg and that city, the objective of the 
 Union campaign. The battle was not for the Chickamauga 
 woods, but for the passes behind them which controlled the 
 way to Chattanooga. These were secured as the immediate 
 result of the battle, and the successful occupation of Chatta- 
 nooga in the military sense followed an occupation which 
 lasted till the close of the war. 
 
 " In connection with the fact of Crittenden's unopposed 
 movement into Chattanooga, another point of general mis- 
 apprehension arose, which, through the years, has formed 
 the basis of unfair and unthinking, if not ignorant, criticism 
 of General Rosecrans' brilliant strategy. Why did not Rose- 
 crans face Thomas and McCook about in the valley west of 
 Lookout, where their movements would have been concealed, 
 and hurry them after Crittenden into Chattanooga ? It was 
 simply because with McCook's advance nearly fifty miles 
 from Chattanooga by the roads west of Lookout, and 
 Thomas's head of column already down and over Missionary 
 Ridge, full thirty miles away, to withdraw and send them in 
 succession after Crittenden would have been to have invited
 
 380 Life of Thomas. 
 
 attack in detail from Bragg upon each head of column as it 
 followed Critteuden, with all the chances in favor of Bragg's 
 success. Besides, the shortest and surest, in fact the only 
 practicable line of concentration looking to the safety of the 
 widely-separated corps was through a movement to the left 
 along the eastern bases of Lookout and Missionary Ridge. 
 It was this movement of Rosecrans for concentrating on 
 Crittenden's position south of Rossville that led to the bat- 
 tle of Chickamauga. Bragg, having been heavily re-en- 
 forced, started at the same time from Lafayette to interpose 
 between Rosecrans and Chattanooga, the Union objective of 
 the campaign. 
 
 " Subsequent letters will follow this exciting concentra- 
 tion, and the desperate contests of each army for position, 
 and the bloody battles which ensued, and by which Chatta- 
 nooga was finally won." 
 
 " WASHINGTON, August 7. [Special."] In the movements 
 of the Union armies, none, from first to last, presented such 
 brilliant strategy as the two which brought General Rose- 
 crans from Murfreesboro to the rear of Chattanooga. Al- 
 most equally wonderful was the successful concentration of 
 his widely scattered corps. This was accomplished in the 
 face of an enemy that had been heavily re -enforced with 
 veteran troops, and largely outnumbered General Rosecrans. 
 The concentration, moreover, united the Army of the Cum- 
 berland for battle between this confident enemy and the city 
 which was the objective of the Union forces. 
 
 " The story is crowded with brilliant and successful 
 operations of detached corps against greatly superior forces 
 and of minor strategy, which blend harmoniously with the 
 more striking features of the great campaign. It covers a 
 period of intense anxiety for General Rosecrans and his sub- 
 ordinate commanders, of most skillful action, and continued 
 danger to destruction in detail. It culminated in the deliv- 
 ery of a battle, which, though still widely misunderstood, 
 unquestionably ranks for the stubbornness and effectiveness 
 of its fighting and the importance of its results with the 
 most notable battles of the war.
 
 MvLKMORK'S COVE.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 381 
 
 "A previous letter left the Army of the Cumberland 
 where its strategy had thrown it across three mountain 
 ranges and the Tennessee River, and brought it without loss 
 to the rear of Chattanooga, at the foot of the eastern base of 
 the Lookout Mountains. This had compelled Bragg to 
 withdraw toward Lafayette. The left of the Union army, 
 under General Crittenden, had passed around the north end 
 of Lookout September 9th, marched by Chattanooga after 
 Bragg, and occupied Rossville Gap. General McCook, forty.- 
 two miles to the right, had descended to Alpine, while the 
 center, under General Thomas, was at Steven's Gap, directly 
 opposite Bragg's center, at Lafayette. 
 
 "Finding that the enemy had withdrawn behind Pigeon 
 Mountains, General Rosecrans, having been assured from 
 Washington that no re-enforcements had been sent from 
 Lee's army, determined to push Bragg vigorously at all 
 points for the purpose of gaining every advantage which a 
 retreat presented, and of inflicting all the damage possible. 
 Beyond question, this put his army in serious peril, since 
 Bragg had only retired to meet re-enforcements promised 
 and actually arriving from all quarters, and was even then 
 concentrated and ready to strike. McCook, on the right, 
 pushed in from Alpine and Summerville with Stanley's cav- 
 alry to within seven miles of Lafayette without finding any 
 signs of retreat. He, therefore, wisely kept his trains and 
 main force near the mountain. 
 
 " Negley, of Thomas, marched out from Steven's Gap 
 beyond the Chickamauga, and his skirmishers deployed in 
 front of Dug Gap. This advanced position he held during 
 the 10th, and early next morning was supported in it by 
 Baird's division. Here Bragg attempted his initiative, and 
 developed 'his preparations for advance. Two corps of in- 
 fantry, Hill's and Walker's, a division from Folk's command, 
 and a division of cavalry, were in the gaps of Pigeon Moun- 
 tains, or the woods behind them, under orders to advance on 
 Negley. By a fortunate delay their combinations for attack 
 were not completed until Baird had arrived. The bold front 
 displayed by both of these officers still further held back 
 those overwhelming forces of Bragg. When the latter were
 
 382 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ready to move, the skill, sharp fighting, and able maneuver- 
 ing under fire enabled these Onion officers to bring their 
 troops back to the shelter of the mountain with compara- 
 tively little loss. It was a thrilling and difficult situation, 
 and the day a most anxious one for Generals Rosecrans and 
 Thomas. 
 
 " The disappointment was great to Bragg when he 
 learned that his heavy converging columns from Catlett's 
 Gap on his right, Dug Gap in the center, and Blue Bird Gap 
 on his left, had met on the ground held by Negley and Baird, 
 only to find them retiring with such show of strength and 
 with such well ordered lines as enabled them to elude even 
 serious attack. Both these officers deserve far greater credit 
 than they have ever received for their courage, coolness, and 
 ability. At night they were supported by the arrival of 
 Brannan and Reynolds from the west side of the mountain, 
 and the position of Thomas at Steven's Gap was secure. 
 
 " Rosecrans' anxiety and Bragg's attention were in- 
 stantly turned to the Union left. The discovery on the llth 
 that the rebel rear-guard under Cheatham had not moved 
 south of Lee and Gordon's mill showed Rosecrans that, what- 
 ever Bragg's intention may have been, he was then concen- 
 trating for battle. As General Rosecrans himself declares in 
 his official report, the concentration of the Army of the Cum- 
 berland became a matter of life and death. 
 
 " Crittenden, from the 9th to the 12th, had carried on 
 most vigorous operations. Palmer and Van Cleve had ad- 
 vanced to Ringgold. Wood was close at hand. Hazen, 
 flinty, and Wilder, fresh from their part in the brilliant feint 
 north of the river, had joined Crittenden, and some lively 
 minor battles were the result. The discovery that the rebel 
 rear-guard was still at Lee and Gordon's suddenly stopped 
 these operations, and on the 12th, under an order to concen- 
 trate with the utmost celerity north of the Chickamauga, Crit- 
 tenden established himself along that river near and above 
 Lee and Gordon's. 
 
 " On the 13th, Bragg had ordered an attack upon him 
 by Polk, with two corps, and the promise of the support of 
 a third, hoping to overthrow this wing, in continuance of his
 
 The Chiekamauga Campaign. 383 
 
 plan of defeating the Union corps in detail, before the cen- 
 ter or right could afford relief. In the face of such threat- 
 ening, with McCook over fifty miles away, and Thomas un- 
 able to move from the center till McCook should be within 
 supporting distance, Rosecrans undertook the concentration 
 of his army. 
 
 "At. this point, that justice may be done, it is well to 
 contrast the attitude which the governments at Washington 
 and Richmond had assumed toward this movement on the 
 rebel center. 
 
 | 
 
 " For weeks before General Rosecrans had moved for- 
 ward, he had tried to impress upon the authorities at Wash- 
 ington the importance of giving him strong support. Prom- 
 ising offers to raise veteran mounted troops from several 
 Eastern governors were laid before the War Department and 
 refused with insulting warmth. Two weeks later came the 
 order from Halleck to move at once and keep moving, which 
 is treated of at length in a former letter. 
 
 " This gross ignorance at Washington of the gigantic 
 difficulties of the situation was equaled, if not surpassed, by 
 a telegram on September llth, the very day that Bragg's re- 
 enforced army was moving against Rosecrans' center and or- 
 ganizing for an attack on his left, and while Rosecrans and 
 Thomas and McCook were straining every nerve in a life and 
 death effort to concentrate their army. Said Halleck, by 
 telegraph of this date : 
 
 " 'After holding the mountain passes on the west and 
 Dalton, or some point on the railroad, to prevent the return 
 of Bragg's army, it will.be decided whether your army shall 
 move further South into Georgia and Alabama. It is re- 
 ported here that a part of Bragg's army is re-enforcing Lee. 
 It is important that the truth of this should be ascertained 
 as early as possible.' 
 
 " This showed that Halleck shared the general and ig- 
 norant belief that Rosecrans had occupied Chattanooga in a 
 military sense. 
 
 "At this time Longstreet's advance had been gone a 
 week from under Halleck's eyes near Washington, and two 
 divisions of Johnston's troops from Mississippi, and Buck-
 
 384 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ner, from East Tennessee, had already joined Bragg, and 
 others were on the way. 
 
 "The failure to give Bosecrans effective flanking sup- 
 ports was inexcusable. The only explanation for it is found 
 in the irritation and dislike which his straightforward and 
 independent dealings had aroused in Washington, and a fail- 
 ure to understand the natural obstacles of the position and 
 the contemplated advance. Meade was in a state of enforced 
 inactivity before Lee. Grant's army was doing nothing to 
 occupy .Johnston in Mississippi, and there was no such Union 
 activity in front of Mobile and Charleston as prevented troops 
 being spared to Bragg from those points. And so, while the 
 "Washington authorities were finding fault with Rosecrans 
 while he was pushing some" of the most brilliant and effectual 
 moves of the war, and were not even lifting a finger to en- 
 courage or even to protect him, the Richmond government 
 was neglecting no means to strengthen Bragg to the extent 
 of its powers. As a result, in one week from the date of 
 Halleck's telegram inquiring whether Bragg was reinforcing 
 Lee, Longtreet and Johnston and Walker and Buckner had 
 reached Bragg from the extremes of the Confederacy, and he 
 had moved to attack Rosecrans with 70,000 men. 
 
 "In this criminal neglect of Rosecrans the authorities 
 were without excuse. No friends of Stanton's or Halleck's 
 have even yet attempted to explain, much less defend it. 
 These and other high ofiicers, at one time or another, ar- 
 raigned General Rosecrans as solely responsible for what they 
 chose to designate as the disaster and defeat of Chickamatiga. 
 It was the shortest way for some of .them to divert attention 
 from the terrible neglect and responsibility which rested on 
 their heads. But even if the favorable chances for the con- 
 centration of Confederate forces against Rosecrans had es- 
 caped unwilling observation at Washington, the authorities 
 there were without excuse, since the case was very pointedly 
 placed before them in an editorial of the Cincinnati Commer- 
 cial, which excited so much attention that the editor was 
 officially notified that such articles were highly indiscreet. 
 This was as early as September 1st. In view of what oc-
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 385 
 
 curred a few weeks later, and of the evidence it gives of 
 ample warning, it is interesting to reproduce this editorial 
 of Mr. Halstead, printed on the date named, under a title, a 
 'Point of Danger.' Said the editor: 
 
 " 'Jeff Davis and his generals are as well informed as we 
 are of the presence of a considerable part of the Army of the 
 Potomac in New York City to enforce the draft, and that 
 consequently an advance on Richmond need not be appre- 
 hended for some weeks. They have also heard of the pres- 
 ence of Admiral Farragut in New York, and infer from the 
 circumstance that there is no immediate danger of an attack 
 on Mobile. They know the situation at Charleston, and are 
 not mistaken in the opinion that the advance upon that city 
 must be slow, by process of engineering, digging, and heavy 
 cannonading. They do not need large bodies of troops to 
 make the defense ; negro laborers, engineer officers, and gun- 
 ners being all that are required. General Grant's army, as 
 is well known, is, for the most part, resting from its labors 
 in undisputed possession of an enormous territory. The real 
 aggressive movement of the Federal forces is upon the rebel 
 center; that is to say, East Tennessee, and it is extremely 
 unlikely that the rebels are deficient in information as to the 
 strength and intentions of Generals Rosecrans and Burnside. 
 
 " ' The important question is whether they will improve 
 the opportunity by concentrating upon their center. The 
 reports that General Joe Johnston has joined his forces to 
 those recently under Bragg, and has thus gathered a force 
 almost if not quite equal numerically to those in the hands 
 of General Rosecrans, have in addition the immense advan- 
 tages of the occupation of mountain passes, and that are to 
 be found in pursuing a defensive system of warfare. Gen- 
 eral Lee is reported to have sent troops to East Tennessee, 
 nnd it is probable that he has done so, as, thanks to the New 
 York riots, he has some divisions temporarily to spare from 
 Virginia. If the rebels do give up East Tennessee and 
 Northern Georgia without a struggle, that is to say, if Gen- 
 erals Rosecrans and Burnside complete the operations in 
 which they are engaged without meeting serious resistance, 
 25
 
 386 Life of Thomas. 
 
 it may be taken as conclusive evidence of the exhaustion of 
 the rebellion.' 
 
 " Several subsequent editorials enforced these ideas, and 
 were even so definite as to point out Johnston, Longstreet, 
 and Buckner as the commands which were likely to re-en- 
 force Bragg. 
 
 " General Rosecrans had had these general points of 
 danger in mind, and made them known to the Government 
 nearly a month before he crossed the Tennessee. But his 
 request for more men and flanking supports was refused at 
 the War Department with much warmth and most incon- 
 siderate emphasis. This Commercial editorial, therefore, 
 startled him, and his records show that* he sent Mr. Halstead 
 a sharp letter intimating that such an editorial was little 
 better than a call to the Jeff Davis government to fall on 
 him. It was, however, the clear common sense of the sit- 
 uation ; and if the Washington authorities had heeded it, 
 instead as was their custom, sneering at * newspaper gen- 
 erals ' and newspaper ways of carrying on the war, many 
 lives would have been saved at Chickamauga which were 
 lost because of the unequal contest, and there would never 
 have been any questioning of that costly, but no less decided 
 victory. 
 
 " It is further true that General Peck, stationed in North 
 Carolina, sent word to General Rosecrans, under date of 
 September 6, that Longstreet's corps was N passing southward 
 over the railroads. Colonel Jacques, of the Seventy-third 
 Illinois, who had come up from the South, tried in vain for 
 ten days to gain admittance in Washington, to communi- 
 cate this fact of Longstreet's movement to Halleck and 
 Stanton, and then, without accomplishing it, started West, 
 and reached his command in time to fight with his regi- 
 ment at Chickamauga. There had been time enough, after 
 General Rosecrans' explanations of his proposed plan, to 
 force Burnside, with twenty thousand men, down from East 
 Tennessee, and to have brought all needed strength for the 
 other flank from the Army of the Tennessee on the Missis- 
 sippi. Even when ordered up, after the battle, this latter
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 387 
 
 at first loitered to a degree that its commander will never be 
 able to satisfactorily explain. 
 
 " To return from this digression, Bragg, on the 13th, had 
 ordered an attack by three corps on Crittenden. The latter, 
 by his great activity, and by the bold operations of Van 
 Cleve, Wood, Palmer, and the brigades of Hazen, Minty, 
 and Wilder, had created the impression of much greater 
 strength than they really had, and Polk moved cautiously. 
 Finally, just as Polk was ready to attack, his column on the 
 Lafayette road encountered Van Cleve moving on him with 
 a single brigade of infantry. So vigorously did this officer 
 attack, that he forced Polk's advance back for three miles, 
 and created the impression of a general Union advance. 
 This disconcerted Polk, and instead of ordering his forces 
 forward, he halted, took up a defensive position, and sent to 
 Bragg for reinforcements. Thus, Negley and Baird, by 
 their pluck and skill in front of overwhelming forces, and 
 Palmer and Crittenden's active divisions and attached 
 brigades on the left, by their unhesitating attacks when- 
 ever they developed the enemy, and by this last one de- 
 livered in the face of an advance of three full corps on one, 
 had made the concentration of the army possible, and had 
 saved it. The next day, Steedman, that lion of battle, had 
 reached Rossville, in immediate support of Crittenden, with 
 two brigades of his own command, and two regiments and 
 two batteries temporarily attached, having marched from 
 Bridgeport, a distance of forty miles, in twenty-eight hours. 
 
 "The appearance and wonderful activity of Hazen's, 
 Wilder' s, and Minty's brigades on the left of Crittenden, and 
 Steedman's forces of the reserve corps at Rossville, with the 
 fact that McCopk was nearing Thomas, and that the latter 
 had extended his left to within near supporting distance of 
 Crittenden, seem to have restrained Bragg from attack in 
 any direction after the failure of his orders to Polk to at- 
 tack on the 13th until his orders of the night of the 17th for 
 an attack the next day upon Crittenden's left and rear. 
 
 "During this period of comparative inaction against the 
 Union front, Rosecrans insured the concentration of his 
 army in time for battle. McCook, not understanding the
 
 388 Life of Thomas. 
 
 roads along the top of the mountain, and not deeming it 
 prudent to consume the time necessary to explore them, had 
 crossed Lookout twice, at the cost of more than a full day, 
 and appeared with his head of column at General Thomas's 
 camps during the 16th. On the 17th the latter closed the 
 heads of his columns toward Crittenden. 
 
 " The days of concentration had been a period of the 
 most intense anxiety, of unceasing watchfulness, of unbend- 
 ing determination, of brilliant minor affairs, of unflinching 
 courage, and, withal, of cool calculation and precise execu- 
 tion for every part of the army. 
 
 " While, on the morning of the 18th, the three corps of 
 the Union army and its reserve were in position where each 
 could support the other if attacked, its supreme effort for 
 position was to come. Bragg's order for the battle contem- 
 plated crossing the Chickamauga some miles below Lee and 
 Gordon's and driving the Union left under Crittenden back 
 on the center and right under Thomas and McCook, and 
 thus, by thrusting his colums between Roseerans and Chat- 
 tanooga, recovering that place and forcing the Union army 
 back into the mountains, from which position it is doubtful 
 if it could have extricated itself. 
 
 " Bragg's order for attack on the 18th could not be ex- 
 ecuted. His army was concentrated between Lee and Gor- 
 don's and Lafayette. He moved with five infantry and two 
 cavalry corps. Narrow roads, small bridges, difficult fords, 
 and dense forests delayed operations, so that at nightfall of 
 the 18th his troops were not in position to attack. In fact, 
 he was scarcely ready to deliver battle under his plan on the 
 morning of the 19th, when Thomas's unexpected attack, far 
 on the rebel right and rear, deranged Bragg's plan, and forced 
 him to battle several miles from the point where he was about 
 to open it on Crittenden, who he supposed still constituted 
 the Union left. 
 
 " It was nothing less than the inversion of the Union 
 army under cover of a night that had thus disconcerted 
 Bragg and enabled Rosecrans to array himself for battle be- 
 tween Bragg and Chattanooga, and across the roads, and in 
 front of the passes which led to that city. It was this night
 
 SATURDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 19.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 389 
 
 march of two corps which constituted the supreme move- 
 ment of the concentration, and which at the same time de- 
 feated Bragg's purpose to fight with the back of his own 
 army to Chattanooga with a view to its recovery. 
 
 " The map given below will make this inversion and final 
 concentration clear, and show the position of the two armies 
 at daylight on the 19th, when the battle began. 
 
 " On the 17th General Thomas's corps was in the vicinity 
 of Pond Spring, Negley on the left, and so nearest to a junc- 
 tion with Crittenden at Lee and Gordon's, Baird next to the 
 right, and Brannan next. Keynolds was thrown to the front. 
 The left of McCook had closed on Thomas at Pond Spring. 
 
 "During the day Bragg, strongly threatening Critten- 
 den at Lee and Gordon's with two divisions, held him fast, 
 and started the rest of his army down the Chickamauga to 
 cross and sweep in on Crittenden's left and rear, expecting 
 to find him still constituting the left of the Union army, and 
 to double this left back on Thomas and McCook. 
 
 " Bushrod Johnson had crossed at Reed's Bridge, driven 
 Wilder nearly to the state road at Viniard's, and bivou- 
 acked a mile and a half from Crittendeu's left. Walker had 
 also crossed at Lambert's Ford with three divisions and For- 
 rest's cavalry division, and halted for the night about a mile 
 in the rear of Hood. For the most part Bragg's army had 
 the full night for rest. 
 
 " On the other hand, the Union columns were alive with 
 motion. That night was to cover the inversion of an army. 
 About 4 o'clock Thomas started his whole corps from Pond 
 Spring toward Crittenden, McCook following him. This was 
 doubtless interpreted by Bragg as a closing in on Crittenden. 
 But it was far more than that. 
 
 "As soon as night shut the columns in they were pressed 
 rapidly to the left. Negley, as he drew near to Crittenden, 
 was moved to the Chickamauga in front of Crawfish Springs. 
 This prevented a night attempt to cut the column by occupy- 
 ing the roads intersecting at that point. Meantime Thomas, 
 with his other three divisions, pushed on. It was a long, 
 weary night. Heavy trains of supplies and ammunition 
 occupied the road. The troops moved mostly through the
 
 390 Life of Thomas. 
 
 adjacent fields, both for celerity of marching and as guards 
 to the trains. Heavy flanking forces streamed along parallel 
 to the road, and well out toward the river. There were 
 constant interruptions to continuous movement, causing fre- 
 quent halts of the infantry. The night was cool, and, as 
 the commands stopped, the men warmed themselves by start- 
 ing fires in the fences. The result was that toward midnight 
 the trains were every-where driving between two continuous 
 lines of fires, and the men on either side, or in the road, had 
 constant facilities for warming themselves. It was a tedious 
 and most fatiguing night, but at daylight the vitally im- 
 portant task was done. Thomas's head of column, Baird in 
 advance, reached the Kelly farm at daylight, with Brannan 
 well closed up and Reynolds a short distance in the rear. 
 Brannan was on the State or Lafayette road, near the inter- 
 section of the road leading into it from Reed's Bridge. McCook 
 had reached a point to the right and rear of Crittenden, near 
 Crawfish Springs. And so at sunrise the Union right, in- 
 stead of resting far up the Chickamauga from Crittenden's 
 position, as Bragg expected to find it, had become the left of 
 Rosecrans' army and Crittenden was the right. More than 
 this, Rosecrans had established his lines two miles beyond 
 Bragg's right, and between it and Chattanooga. The victory 
 of concentration had been followed by the equally important 
 success of inverting the army and thus thrusting its columns 
 between the enemy and the objective of the campaign. These 
 second stages of the movement deserve to take rank with the 
 matchless strategy with which it was inaugurated. 
 
 " But the battle for the firm and final possession of Chat- 
 tanooga was still to come. It opened suddenly for both sides, 
 and for Bragg in a wholly unexpected quarter. The weary 
 Union troops had scarcely time to cook their coffee after the 
 night march, and some of them no time at all, before the 
 storm broke and the army was summoned to the battle which 
 Thomas had opened." 
 
 " WASHINGTON, August 14. [Special.'] The last letter in 
 this series left the Army of the Cumberland on the morning 
 of the 19th of September, concentrated for battle on the field 
 of Chickamauga. By an energetic night march the army
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign, 391 
 
 had been thrown forward on its left by inversion into line, 
 and thrust between the enemy and Chattanooga, the objective 
 of the campaign. It was a difficult and dangerous move- 
 ment, where two armies, intent on battle, were only separated 
 by such a stream as the Chickamauga, which was every- where 
 easily fordable above Lee and Gordon's. But General Thomas, 
 who led this column, is the one commander of a great army 
 of whom it can be said with accuracy that from the first of 
 the war to the close no movement of his miscarried. At day- 
 light of the 19th he held the Lafayette and Chattanooga road 
 at the Kelly farm. 
 
 " Bragg's army, though reinforced from all parts of the 
 Confederacy, and though it had been well concentrated be- 
 tween Lafayette and Gordon's mills for several preceding 
 days, had been skillfully foiled by General Rosecrans in the 
 efforts to strike his isolated corps. During the 18th it had 
 been pressed by Bragg down the winding and thickly- 
 wooded valley of the Chickamauga in execution of an order 
 for battle. This order was based upon the idea that Critten- 
 den's corps at Lee and Gordon's was the left of the Union 
 army. While he was to be held there by strong force threat- 
 ening attack from the other side of the stream, the bulk of 
 Bragg's army was to cross at the various fords and bridges 
 below, and, turning up stream, was the.n to join in sweeping 
 Crittenden back on Thomas and McCook, whom Bragg sup- 
 posed still to constitute the Union center and right. In exe- 
 cution of this plan Bushrod Johnson had crossed at Reed's 
 Bridge, and pushed up to within a mile and a half of Lee and 
 Gordon's, and westward to within a mile of the Lafayette 
 road, where night overtook him. Walker's corps had crossed 
 below Alexander's Bridge, and bivouacked after a short ad- 
 vance toward Crittenden. Minty and Wilder, with their 
 mounted brigades, and Dan McCook, with his brigade, had 
 stoutly resisted and greatly delayed these columns. The most 
 of Bragg's army had rested through the night. Two corps 
 of Rosecrans' forces had marched continuously since four 
 o'clock the preceding afternoon. They were about to move 
 into battle without time for breakfast or further rest. Bragg, 
 upon Longstreet's arrival, would have 70,000 men available
 
 392 Life of Thomas. 
 
 for the fight. Rosecrans' strength for battle was not over 
 56,000. 
 
 "At daylight all of Bragg's army, wholly concealed by the 
 forests, was in motion. A considerable portion of it was still 
 crossing the river at the various fords and bridges from Thed- 
 ford's to Reed's Bridge, and deploying on the other side 
 toward Crittenden, who was still supposed to hold the Union 
 left. 
 
 " Suddenly, about 9 o'clock, there came to Bragg's ears 
 the sounds of heavy and unexpected battle far down the Chick- 
 amauga and well toward Rossville. Thomas, whose head of 
 column rested at the Kelly farm, for the double purpose of 
 exploring the forests in his front and to test the truth of a 
 report that an isolated brigade of the enemy was on the west 
 side of the river near Reed's Bridge, moved Brannan and Baird 
 directly into the forest on the road toward Reed's Bridge. At 
 this time two-thirds of Bragg's army, concealed by the for- 
 ests, had crossed the Chickamauga and was directing its col- 
 umns up that stream toward Crittenden. Just at the time 
 when Bragg expected that his right would have swung 
 across the Lafayette road, and that his center division would 
 have opened on Crittenden's position at Lee and Gordon's, 
 these portentious sounds of battle from Thomas's line aston- 
 ished and perplexed him. After vainly waiting for them 
 to cease, under the first impression that the affair was a move- 
 ment of his forces in reconnoissance, and that some Union 
 cavalry had been encountered, he found it so serious as to de- 
 range his whole plan of battle, and force him to meet an 
 enemy who had turned his right. To do this he was obliged 
 to move a portion of his troops that had not crossed the river 
 down stream to Reed's. By the circuitous roads which they 
 were obliged to travel, it required a march of six miles to 
 reach the left of Thomas. 
 
 " This destruction of the rebel plan was due to Thomas 
 opening the battle with the divisions of Brannan and Baird 
 in the vicinity of Reed's Bridge. At 6:30 o'clock Brannan left 
 Kelly's, and moving north, turned in from the Lafayette 
 road at McDonald's toward Reed's. A quarter of a mile from 
 McDonald's he deployed his division. Van Derveer was on
 
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 The Chickamauga Campaign. 393 
 
 the left, and thus became the left of the Union army. Con- 
 nell's brigade was in the center, and Croxton on the right. 
 In like manner Baird advanced with a front line of two bri- 
 gades. King, with the regulars, was on the left next to 
 Bran nan, and Scribner on the right of King, while Stark- 
 weather marched by the flank behind Scribner's right. 
 
 " The last disposition was promptly made by Baird upon 
 his discovering that the enemy was in strong force to his 
 right. 
 
 " Thus while neither army was aware that the other was 
 in heavy force in the woods which surrounded them, and while 
 Bragg's forces were forming to move up the Chickamauga, and 
 so away from Thomas's line of march, both Brannan and Baird 
 came in force on Bragg's right, in front of Reed's Bridge, at 
 a point near Jay's Mills, and opened the battle of Chicka- 
 mauga. Croxton struck first with a vigorous attack on For- 
 rest, who, with the two divisions of his corps, was guarding 
 the Confederate right. The cavalrymen were forced back to 
 the sawmill, where they rallied, dismounted, and began to 
 fight as infantry. Croxton held his own, and even ad- 
 vanced slightly. Forrest sent for infantry, and Wilson's 
 brigade of Walker's division hurried from near Alexander's 
 and rushed into the fight. 
 
 " Meantime re-enforcements were turning from all por- 
 tions of Bragg's line toward the sound of furious battle. 
 Shortly the advance toward Crittenden ceased, so vigorous 
 had Thomas's battle become. Connell and Van Derveer at 
 first meeting no enemy on their fronts pressed toward the 
 vortex of Croxton's fighting. Forrest, relieved by Walker's 
 infantry, met this advance of Brannan's left with his whole 
 force and fought for the most part on foot. Croxton, out of 
 ammunition, was obliged to retire somewhat before Walker, 
 when Baird pushed King in to support him, while Van Der- 
 veer and Connell moved in first on Forrest and next on 
 Ector's brigade of Walker's reserve. The battle became 
 terrific. Forrest hurried in person after infantry supports 
 and for portions of his own command left near Alexander's. 
 
 "At 11 o'clock Bragg had become convinced that Rose- 
 crans had forced battle upon him on the extreme rebel right.
 
 394 Life of Thomas. 
 
 With such vigor did Thomas's two divisions fight that 
 Walker was ordered at that hour to go to Forrest with all 
 his force, and Cheatham, of Folk's corps, who had the 
 strongest division of the army, consisting of five brigades, 
 then stationed as the reserve of Bragg's left. Hardly had 
 Cheatham started before Stewart, of Buckner's corps, which 
 was near Thedford's Ford, ready to move toward Crittenden, 
 was also dispatched in haste to the Confederate right, and 
 at 1 o'clock, Cleburne, of Hill's corps, posted near the ex- 
 treme left of the Confederate line, was ordered to the scene 
 of action before Brannan and Baird. These movements 
 show how Bragg's plan of battle had been wholly over- 
 turned, and how fierce the fighting of these two divisions 
 of Thomas must have been to decide Bragg to send four 
 infantry divisions to the assistance of Forrest's corps of two 
 divisions. 
 
 "Meantime Walker had moved Govan's. brigade ob- 
 liquely on the right flank of Scribner and forced him back. 
 Simultaneously Walthall's brigade struck King in flank and 
 drove him in disorder over Van Derveer's brigade. Gueu- 
 ther's regular battery, one of the best and most efficient in 
 the service, was captured. We shall see how it was shortly 
 after re-taken by the splendid Ninth Ohio. 
 
 " Thus, while Baird's lines were shaken by the over- 
 whelming concentration against them, and Brannan was 
 facing and fighting superior numbers, matters were hot for 
 Thomas, who was slowly moving to and fro along his divisions 
 and closely watching them. Baird was restoring his lines 
 under fire and in the face of a flank attack. Croxton's men, 
 with fresh ammunition, were holding their place. Connell's 
 brigade was immovable, and poured its fire into the very 
 faces of the enemy. Van Derveer, on the left, was busily 
 maneuvering to meet flank attacks, and fighting desperately, 
 but with unvarying success. 
 
 "At this moment, when Baird was scarcely able to main- 
 tain position, and must have soon yielded to numbers, John- 
 son, of McCook's corps, came on the field from Crawfish 
 Springs, and was led by Thomas to the right of Baird. 
 Here, with the brigades of Willich and Baldwin on the front
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 395 
 
 and Dodge in reserve, Johnson, by heavy fighting, relieved 
 the pressure on Baird, restored the line, and checked Bragg's 
 new center. 
 
 "Following came Palmer, most opportunely ordered 
 forward by Crittenden from Lee and Gordon's, who saw 
 plainly from the development of furious battle on the Union 
 left that troops would surely be wanted there. Palmer fol- 
 lowed Johnson into line, and under the personal direction 
 of Rosecrans, the brigades of Hazen, Cruft, and Grose were 
 formed in echelon and ordered forward, immediately en- 
 countering Cheatham's men and becoming fiercely engaged. 
 Hazen on the left fell with great vigor on Walker's left and 
 relieved Starkweather, of Baird, from precarious position. 
 At the same time, Van Derveer was thrown by Bran nan on 
 the right of Walker and by terrific fighting checked Wal- 
 thall's line and drove it well back into the forests. 
 
 " It was here that the Ninth Ohio, the German Turner 
 regiment of Bob McCook both regiment and commander 
 of glorious memory recaptured the regular battery and 
 it was brought into the Union lines. The Ninth had been 
 with the trains during the night march, and it was chafing 
 far in the rear when Van Derveer sent for it. Sore was his 
 need. The repeated attacks of the enemy on his front and 
 flank in the attempt to crush the Union left and reach the 
 Lafayette road in its rear were becoming so frequent and 
 heavy that, in spite of the fact that every man under him 
 was fighting where he stood and yielding no inch of ground, 
 it seemed as if the limit of human endurance even for iron 
 veterans must soon be reached. Then from the near distance 
 came the well-known hurrah of the Ninth advancing from 
 the rear. As all waited to welcome the head of its column, 
 its charging shout was heard to the front of its line of ad- 
 vance, followed at once by rapid musketry, and then their 
 great " hurrah " of victory. The story is brief. Colonel 
 Kammerling at the head of his regiment, coming on at a 
 double-quick, saw to his right and front the captured artillery 
 of the regulars, just taken by Govan. Without orders he 
 halted his line, fronted it, and with the command "Links 
 Schwengket," swung it to the left, faced toward the hill
 
 396 Life of Thomas. 
 
 where the battery stood in the hands of its captors, and, with 
 a sweeping charge, drove the rebels back, bayoneting some 
 among the guns, and rushed with guns and many prisoners 
 back to the Union line. A few minutes after he came in on 
 the run to Van Dervee,r, just in time to take part in the last 
 and supreme effort of the enemy to crush that unyielding 
 left. Forrest's men had passed beyond Van Derveer's left 
 and formed for assault on his front, and also directly on his 
 flank. But the vigilant skirmishers and prisoners taken by 
 them made known the movement. The left was thrown back 
 in time, and the line presented an obtuse angle opening 
 toward the enemy. Into this, and heavily against the left of 
 it, Forrest hurled his columns, four deep. On came these 
 men in gray in magnificent lines, which showed clearly 
 through the open forest bending their faces before the sleet 
 of the storm, and firing hotly as they advanced. As they 
 came within the range of the oblique fire from Van Der- 
 veer's right they halted within forty yards of his left, and for 
 a few moments poured in a destructive fire. A wheel of 
 Smith's regular battery, and of a section of Church's guns 
 which had reported, brought them where they poured a 
 nearly enfilading fire of cannister down those long lines, 
 standing bravely there and fighting almost under the mouths 
 of the guns. Thomas and Brannan and Van Derveer were 
 looking on and encouraging the line. It had seemed almost 
 beyond the probabilities to hold it till those well served bat- 
 teries opened. An instant later it seemed as if the lines of 
 gray had sunk into the earth. When the smoke lifted from 
 the third round the front was clear of every thing but the 
 heaps of dead and wounded, and the work of the day at that 
 point of the Union left was done. 
 
 " The fight still raged bitterly, however, along the lines 
 of Johnson, and of Palmer to the right of him. Braunan and 
 Baird were withdrawn from the front which they had held, the 
 former being sent toward the center to provide against contin- 
 gencies there, and the latter posted to prevent any movement 
 toward the Lafayette road at McDonald's. Forrest, with 
 cavalry, and Cheatham's brigades of infantry next attacked 
 Johnson (of McCook), who then held the advanced portion
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 397 
 
 of the Union left. Here the contest soon became furious 
 again, partly on the ground of Baird'a morning battle. 
 Maney's splendid brigade rushed to a hand-to-hand fight, but 
 was borne back. Wright, Strahl, Jackson, and Smith, with 
 their brigades, all under Cheatham, each delivered bold and 
 most courageous attacks, but without carrying the Union 
 line. Rosecrans' army, under the successive hammering of 
 the Confederate onslaughts, was fast being solidly formed 
 from left to right. "Willich, Baldwin, and Dodge, of John- 
 eon, and Hazeu, Cruft, and Grose, of Palmer, were fairly 
 aligned, having fought themselves forward into good po- 
 sitions. 
 
 " The battle next fell heavily on the right of Palmer, as 
 Bragg at last had his whole army in rapid motion toward his 
 right. As Palmer's ammunition began to fail, Reynolds 
 moved up to his right and rear, and made most excellent dis- 
 positions just east of the Lafayette road. Upon call, he 
 pushed Turchin in on Palmer's left, and the troops of Edward 
 King in on Palmer's right, and at once became hotly engaged. 
 Crittenden sent Van Cleve with Samuel Beatty's and Dick's 
 brigades to the right of Reynolds', leaving Barnes' brigade 
 with General Wood at Lee and Gordon's. 
 
 "As fast as the Union line could be extended to the left, 
 it became sorely pressed by Bragg's troops, then well massed 
 west of the Chickamauga. General Davis, from McCook, 
 pressed rapidly to the left, and was sent in near Viniard's. 
 At 3 o'clock Wood was ordered from Lee and Gordon's to 
 the field of the growing fight. As Bragg still had some 
 forces opposite this point, General Lytle's brigade, of Sheri- 
 dan's division, was directed to relieve Wood and hold the 
 crossing. Thus, in six hours from the time Bragg was di- 
 recting his army on Crittenden at Lee and Gordon's, a single 
 brigade, posted there only from prudence, served for all de- 
 mands against Confederate movement from that direction. 
 This indicates how completely Bragg had been driven from 
 his plan. 
 
 u Wood and Davis had not been dispatched a moment 
 too soon. Van Cleve, Davis, and Wood, were confronted 
 with solid masses of Bragg's concentrated troops, and the
 
 398 Life of Thomas. 
 
 scenes and splendid fighting of the morning at the left were 
 repeated here by these divisions. Stewart, Johnson, and 
 Preston, of Buckner's corps, and Hindman, of Longstreet's 
 advance, were assaulting these lines. Davis had been 
 ordered to wheel in on the enemy's left flank, and this move- 
 ment led to one of the bravest and bloodiest contests of the 
 day in front of Viniard's. Wood advanced his lines into 
 the vortex just when Davis was hardest pressed, and, when 
 all seemed about to be compelled to yield, Sheridan appeared 
 on the flank, and Wilder's mounted brigade came up in the 
 rear. Every division of the Union army was in line except 
 the reserve under Granger, which was some miles away to- 
 ward Ringgold, with orders to hold Red House Bridge. 
 
 " The battle along Rosecrans' center and right waxed 
 hotter and fiercer. He seemed every-where present and he 
 was every-where alert. Van Cleve encountered the left of 
 Stewart marching to relieve Cheatham, and a fight muzzle 
 to muzzle took place between Clayton of Stewart's and the 
 two brigades of Van Cleve, Sam Beatty and Dick. 
 
 " Reynolds, by magnificent generalship and fighting, re- 
 stored the broken line in his front, and firmly established 
 himself there. His brigades, under Turchiu and Edward 
 King, covered themselves with laurels as they swayed back 
 and forth on the tides of battle which rushed and swirled 
 over all that portion of the field. 
 
 "Davis, with the brigades of Carlin and Heg, delivered 
 their fire at short range, and stood their ground long and 
 well, till born back by overwhelming forces. It was just as 
 this slow retrograde movement began that Wood had ap- 
 peared, having marched rapidly from Lee and Gordon's with 
 Barker's and BuelPs brigade of his own division and Barnes's 
 of Van Cleve's. They swept in on the right, and by splen- 
 did fighting checked the rebel line and held it on their front 
 in spite of its vigorous and splendid fighting. 
 
 "At this point two exactly opposite movements were in 
 progress along the lines of the armies. Bragg, who seemed 
 determined to push his right between the Union left and 
 Chattanooga, ordered Cleburne from Thedford's Ford to the 
 extreme right, the scene of the morning fighting. At the
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 399 
 
 same time, General Thomas, convinced that no perilous at- 
 tack could be delivered at that hour from that extreme point, 
 was bringing Bran nan from the left to the support of Rey- 
 nolds just as the latter was fighting to push the enemy from 
 the Lafayette road. Bran nan arrived in time to help, and 
 with Croxton's assistance Reynolds restored the lines on his 
 front and flank, and regained possession of the road. Negley 
 also arrived opportunely from the right and took active part 
 at this point. Wood repulsed Bushrod Johnson's division, 
 though at great cost. Trigg, of Preston's division, entirely 
 fresh, moved in with splendid pluck and movement to restore 
 the line, but Sheridan, from McCook, with Bradley and 
 Laiboldt's brigades, met and checked this advance, and with 
 its recoil the heat of battle on the Union right began to 
 subside. 
 
 "About 5 o'clock the field on both sides was still. But 
 Cleburne and Walker were moving again far on the rebel 
 right, in obedience to Bragg's order to again attack the 
 Union left. The Confederate march was over the field of the 
 morning, where the dead of Walker were thickly strewed. 
 It was a depressing advance. Still those veterans formed 
 and moved on without a sign of shrinking, and about six 
 o'clock the hour of silence was broken by a terrific attack in 
 the gathering dusk upon Johnson, near the ground occupied 
 by Baird in the morning. The assault fell also upon Baird 
 further to the left. Cleburne, with a front of a mile, filled 
 by three brigades, had suddenly burst upon Thomas's left. 
 Cleburne had three brigades Polk, Wood, and Deshler. 
 Walthall and Govan, of Liddell's division, and three bri- 
 gades of Cheatham Strahl, Jackson, and Preston Smith 
 supported him. The assault was tremendous. Night was 
 falling, and the aim of each side was directed by the flashes 
 of the guns. 
 
 " Willich, Dodge, and Baldwin, of Johnson, fought their 
 brigades with undaunted pluck and endurance. Baldwin 
 fell on his line. Baird, with Scribner and Starkweather, held 
 his ground, though vigorously attacked. Preston Smith, on 
 the Confederate side, was killed here. Darkness put an end
 
 400 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to the movement and the fighting, and each army sought 
 
 rest. 
 
 "For the commanders of all grades it was a busy night. 
 While the Union line was continuous and measurably com- 
 pact between the enemy and practicable roads to Chatta- 
 nooga, there was much realignment to be done to better the 
 position for the morrow. The Union troops obtained only 
 snatches of rest on ground white with frost. No fires were 
 lighted, lest the direction of the lines might be revealed. 
 This made supper a dry meal. But the fact that for most 
 there had been no time for breakfast and none at all for 
 dinner, gave excellent relish even to a dry supper. 
 
 " Rosecrans' purpose of establishing his lines between 
 the enemy and Chattanooga had been accomplished. Bragg's 
 plan of thrusting his army between the Union advance and 
 that city had been defeated. At the close of this first day 
 victory rested with Rosecrans. He had found himself largely 
 outnumbered,*and had thrown every available man into the 
 fight. 
 
 " Bragg had many brigades which were not engaged, 
 and Longstreet, with the greater part of his force, was yet 
 to arrive. The spirit of the Union army had risen to a high 
 pitch under the splendid and most effective fighting which 
 it had done, and it looked forward to the morrow with a 
 confidence born of the consciousness of fighting and staying 
 powers. 
 
 " But hard as the work of the day had been, and stubborn 
 and bitter as was the fighting in each army, the coming 
 of Sunday was to witness a battle eclipsing this and surpassing 
 all the war for its pluck and deadliness. While the weary 
 commanders were preparing for this day, and tired sentinels 
 kept faithful watch, the wounded suffered and the armies 
 slept." 
 
 "WASHINGTON, August 17. [Special.] The second and 
 final fight for the possession of Chattanooga opened on Sun- 
 day, September 20th. We have seen how through the pre- 
 ceding day, in the white heat of battle, the Union lines had 
 established themselves on the field of Chickamauga, and that
 
 THE SECOND DAY'S BATTLE.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 401 
 
 at nightfall they were still between Bragg and the city for 
 which they were fighting. 
 
 " It was a cool and beautiful morning, though heavy fog 
 hung over the lower parts of the field, greatly impeding tKe 
 preparations of each commander. For an hour or two after 
 daylight there were few indications of the terrific scenes 
 which were to be crowded into that Sabbath-day. 
 
 " Both sides had improved the night to rectify and 
 strengthen the alignment. Bragg had received important re- 
 inforcements. General Longstreet arrived in the night and 
 was placed in command of the left wing. Polk was assigned 
 to the right wing. With Longstreet came the bulk of his two 
 divisions from Virginia, Hood and McLaws. Three brigades 
 only of the former had taken part with Hood in the first day's 
 fight. Gist's brigade of Walker's corps also arrived from 
 Meridian. The Army of the Tennessee, with all the warn- 
 ings and requests of Rosecrans to the authorities at Wash- 
 ington had done nothing to prevent a general exodus of* 
 rebel forces from Mississippi. Even a portion of Pemberton's 
 paroled men came, and two brigades, relieved by paroled 
 prisoners, were in time for the first day's battle. Bragg re- 
 adjusted his lines during the night. The most important 
 change was to bring Breckinridge from his extreme left, east 
 of the Chickamauga, to the extreme right. Cleburne and 
 Cheatham were both moved close to Breckinridge. Forrest, 
 with twd divisions, one to fight on foot, was placed still to 
 the right of Breckinridge, to observe the Lafayette road. 
 With this heavy force, strengthened on its left with Stewart, 
 he intended to attack the Union left at daylight. 
 
 " Rosecrans, on the other hand, had no reinforcements 
 with which to relieve or help his lines, and most of his army 
 had marched a night and fought a day without rest and with 
 little food, and every available man had been engaged. Burn- 
 side had been for weeks where he could easily have formed a 
 junction. In fact, slowly as he had moved, his infantry had 
 reached Kingston about the time Rosecrans had finished con- 
 centrating his army. It was the duty and the business of 
 26
 
 402 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Halleck and others at Washington to have had it on the field 
 for the first day's battle. 
 
 " It was grim business for this contracted line of Union 
 heroes to face the eleven divisions of infantry and two of 
 cavalry, one of the latter fighting as infantry, which Bragg 
 had before them. Their only advantage was in their shorter 
 lines and the fact that it was necessary for Bragg to attack, 
 while for the most part they could remain on the defensive. 
 They were besides in excellent spirits and confident of their 
 powers. 
 
 "A glance at the map will show the rearrangement of the 
 Union line. Beginning on the left, which covered Bragg's 
 objective namely, the control of the Lafayette road to Chat- 
 tanooga Baird, Johnson, Palmer, and Reynolds were with- 
 drawn slightly from the ground on which they had fought 
 the day before, and placed in strong position east of that 
 road in the edge of the woods which skirted the Kelly farm. 
 Brannan remained near the position to which he had been 
 called to support Reynolds the night before. The divisions 
 of Negley, Wood, Davis, and Sheridan and the brigade of 
 Wilder had all been drawn back of the Lafayette road, their 
 lines being slightly advanced from the road, leading from 
 Cfrawfish Springs to the Lafayette road at Kelly's farm. 
 
 " The order of the Confederate line from its right to a point 
 in front of Brannan's has already been stated. Here Stewart, 
 of Buckner's corps, formed the right of Longstreet, who com- 
 manded the left wing, and, counting toward the enemy's 
 left, the succeeding divisions were Bushrod Johnson, with 
 Law and Kershaw in reserve, Hinman, and Preston. Buck- 
 ner's corps from East Tennessee was present with this wing by 
 the courtesy of Burnside and the Washington authorities, 
 while the latter alone were responsible for the inaction at the 
 East which allowed Longstreet's corps to be present. By the 
 same courtesy Walker's division from Mississippi was present 
 with Hill's corps, and was to fight again, splendidly but un- 
 successfully, on Bragg's right, as it had all the day before. 
 
 " Under cover of the fog, in the shelter of the woods, 
 and in the painful quiet of that Sabbath morning, the two 
 armies had brought their lines face to face. At 9 o'clock
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 403 
 
 there was scarcely any point the length of a tiger's spring 
 between them. 
 
 " Bragg had 212 regiments, organized into 42 brigades, 
 3,nd these into 7 divisions. There were in all 173 infantry reg- 
 iments and 11 of cavalry which were dismounted and fought 
 as infantry, 28 cavalry regiments and 50 batteries. Rose- 
 <?rans had 158 regiments, 33 brigades, 14 divisions, and 5 
 corps. There were 141 regiments of infantry and 18 of cav- 
 alry and 36 batteries. 
 
 " Of Bragg's corps two were cavalry Wheeler and For- 
 rest. One division of Forrest's fought as infantry. Rose- 
 crans had one cavalry corps of two divisions. This tre- 
 mendous array was pushed close against a Union front of 
 only two miles and a half. 
 
 "At 9 o'clock that Sabbath service of all the gods of war 
 began. It broke full-toned with its infernal music over the 
 Union left, and that morning service continued there till 
 noon. 
 
 " Let us look a moment at the Union line. John Beatty's 
 brigade had been stretched as a thin line from Baird's left 
 to the Lafayette road and across it. King's regulars formed 
 the left of Baird, Scribner his center, and Starkweather his 
 right. He had no reserve. Johnston's division was 'on the 
 right of Baird ; Dodge and Baldwin, of his brigades, on the 
 front, and Willich in reserve. Next was Palmer, with Cruft 
 and Hazen on the line, and Grose in reserve. Reynolds, on 
 Palmer's right, reached the Lafayette or State road again. He 
 had Turchin in line and King in reserve. The Union line was 
 protected by log barricades. It thus ran around the Kelley 
 farm and was established from fifty to a hundred yards within 
 the woods which skirted the great open space in their rear. 
 This field, which lay along the State road for half a mile and 
 was a quarter of a mile wide, became the scene of almost 
 continuous and ever brilliant fighting. Besides the great 
 battle along the main lines surrounding it, there were during 
 the day five distinct brigade charges over it, one of Stanley, 
 one of Van Derveer, one of Grose, a fourth by Willich, and a 
 fifth by Turchin. 
 
 " Bragg's orders were to attack successively by divisions,
 
 404 Life of Thomas. 
 
 from right to left. Breckin ridge struck first. He came on- 
 in single Hue, swinging around toward the State road to gain 
 Baird's rear. Adams was on his right, Stovall in the center, 
 and Helm on the left. This latter brigade struck Baird's 
 breastworks, and was instantly shattered there. Helm rode 
 bravely among his troops, enthusiastically urging them for- 
 ward, and fell dead while thus engaged. Two of his colonels 
 were killed, and two were wounded. 
 
 " Stovall pushed in with dauntless pluck against the reg- 
 ulars on the left of Scribner, but King's men fought splen- 
 didly. The rebels assaulted bravely but uselessly. Adams 
 had swept in on John Beatty's thin line, and broken it. Still- 
 it fought with undaunted courage, yielding doggedly, and by 
 the inch, and finally Adams, retarded by the disaster on his 
 left, was at bay. At this juncture came Stanley's brigade, 
 from Negley, near the center, with deployed lines, and the 
 sun on its banners. It swept over the Kelly field, from near 
 the house, and plunged into the woods in the rear of Beatty. 
 Well might those who were witnessing that threatening 
 move toward the Union rear hold their breaths as Stanley 
 disappeared, and thus wait for his volleys and their effect. In 
 a moment they came, then his rattling line fire, then the 
 cheer of a charge. The first attack of Breckinridge had 
 ended in a sore defeat. 
 
 " But Cleburne had in turn advanced. He, like Breck- 
 inridge, came in single line. Polk, of Cleburne, assaulted 
 Starkweather's front, while Wood of the same command ex- 
 tended the attack as far as the right of Baldwin. The rem- 
 nants of Helm, under Colonel Lewis, still assisted against 
 Scribner, but soon Cleburne's division was repelled at every 
 point with terrible loss. The Confederate officers engaged 
 describe the effect of the Union artillery throughout this 
 attack as the most destructive in their experience. Thus 
 Bragg's first attack had wholly failed. The Union forces 
 were exultant, and so strong were their skirmish demonstra- 
 tions that Hill, who was under orders to organize a second 
 and much stronger attack, paused to first prepare his own 
 lines against assault. 
 
 "Walker's reserve corps of two divisions was brought
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 405 
 
 up, and its five brigades distributed along the shattered points 
 of Breckinridge's and Cleburne's lines. The organizations 
 of rebel divisions being thus destroyed, the attack became 
 largely one of brigades acting independently, each rushing 
 at the Union works. There were ten rebel brigaaes engaged 
 in the movement from the Union left to Palmer's position, 
 and beyond this point Stewart's division co-operated by as- 
 saulting Reynolds' narrow front and Brannan's lines. Wood, 
 of Cleburne, who had previously stormed the angle of the 
 Union works on Johnson's right and been repulsed, assisted 
 by Deshler, of the same division, thinking this angle the 
 flank of the barricades, again struck obliquely and with fury 
 with the idea of turning them. Instead, these dashing Con- 
 federates went to pieces on Baldwin's brigade, of Johnson, 
 and on Palmer's front. Walthall assaulted the corresponding 
 angle at Scribner's position, and though he carried his men 
 within pistol range of the crests, he was beaten back with 
 heavy loss. Gist, acting with Helm's (now Lewis') broken 
 line, attacked with power, but in turn was driven back. Col- 
 quitt, still further to the right, came upon the regular bri- 
 gade of King. But his line had missed direction, and was 
 at once exposed to a withering flank fire, and overwhelmed. 
 Oolquitt fell. Several of his most prominent officers were 
 killed. Ector and Wilson, of Walker's second division (Lid- 
 dell's), advanced to help, but without effect. Govan, how- 
 ever, of this same division, was successful, and, by hot fights 
 ing and the weight of numbers, he bore back John Beatty's 
 weakened line, and the situation on the Union left became at 
 once most serious. Every thing but this along the line of 
 the second attack by Bragg's right had failed. It fyegan to 
 look as if rebel victory was dawning here, and that the tri- 
 umph of Bragg's plan of turning the Union left had come. 
 
 " For Breckinridge, in the second advance, had swung 
 his lines much further to his right, and by a wide left wheel, 
 had brought his right across the State road, and so between 
 the Union left and Rossville. His left reached and slightly 
 overlapped Beatty's left. Thus formed with lines perpendic- 
 ular to the State road, he began a march directly toward the 
 Kelley house and the rear of Reynolds, just beyond it.
 
 400 Life of Thomas. 
 
 While the remnants of the left, so badly broken, first under 
 Helm and then under his successor, were entangled with 
 Beatty and Stanley, his two other brigades, Adams on the 
 right and Stovall to the left, burst out of the woods on the 
 north side of the Kelley field, quickly rectified their lines, 
 threw out a heavy skirmish force, and bore rapidly down 
 toward Reynolds. It was half a mile to his position over 
 smooth and open ground. From the start the skirmishers 
 could throw their bullets into Reynolds' rear. It was a move- 
 ment threatening dire disaster. The moment it developed 
 in the rear of Baird, Walker's corps and Cleburne's brigades 
 reopened their fire on the front of the barricades, while 
 Stewart advanced on Reynolds and Bran nan. Thus, taken 
 on flank, front, and full in the rear, and outnumbered at 
 every point, it seemed as if there was no salvation for the 
 Union left. But it came, and at that point where Confeder- 
 ate victory seemed sure, full defeat fell suddenly upon them. 
 Thomas, watching the progress of Breckinridge's flank at- 
 tack, had sent to Rosecrans for Brannan. At that moment 
 the battle had not extended to the latter. But just as Rose- 
 crans' order to -go to Thomas reached Brannan, signs of 
 heavy and immediate attack on his front became apparent. 
 He well used his discretion, and remained on the line until he 
 could report the situation to Rosecrans. But in the mean- 
 time, in partial compliance with the order, he sent Fred -Van 
 Derveer's brigade, which constituted his reserve, to the help 
 of the left. This brigade deployed, marched rapidly in two 
 lines toward the Kelley house, and came into the field less 
 than two hundred yards in advance of Breckinridge's line. 
 Though, presenting its flank to the enemy when he was first 
 discovered, it changed front in the open ground under fire, 
 charged the rebel line, broke it, following it back into the 
 woods, and after an hour's fighting, drove these two brigades 
 with their artillery northward and entirely clear of the Union 
 left. It then returned to a point near the Kelle}' house. 
 
 "Govan, of Walker, next on the left of Breckinridge, 
 had, however, gained a lodgment on the line which Beatt\~ 
 had so stubbornly held. Then came another Union charge 
 over the Kelley field. Palmer, under Thomas's orders, sent
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 407 
 
 Grose with his reserve brigade to clear Baird's immediate 
 left. Moving from the edge of the woods back into the open 
 field, Grose formed in double lines, moved at double-quick 
 across the rear of Johnson and Baird, and rushed with cheers 
 into the woods on the north side of the field. In a few mo- 
 ments his volleys were pouring into the face of Govan. The 
 latter's troops fought desperately, .but their supports on each 
 flank had been previously broken, and soon, after bitter loss, 
 gave way. The Union left was then further strengthened by 
 placing Barnes, of Van Cleve, on the left of Baird. It was 
 then noon. So badly shattered was Bragg's right that it was 
 nearly 5 o'clock before another attack could be organized on 
 this ground. Thenceforth the Union left was safe. 
 
 " Simultaneously with the appearance of Breckinridge 
 in the Kelley field, events were hastening to an appalling con- 
 summation on the Union center. Stewart, the right of Long- 
 street's wing, moved to the assault in Reynolds' front. With 
 three brigades he rushed upon Turchin, who formed Rey- 
 nolds' advance, and Hazen, of Palmer, next on the left, while 
 his left also involved Bannan's left. On his right he also had 
 the co-operation of Woods' and Deshler's brigades, of Cle- 
 burne. Deshler was killed as the movement began, and 
 Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, succeeded him. 
 
 "As this was the opening of the memorable attack 
 which led to the break in the Union center, it is worthy of 
 close attention. General Stewart, in his report, thus de- 
 scribes it : 
 
 " ' For several hundred yards, both lines* pressed on un- 
 der the most terrific tire it has ever been my fortune to wit- 
 ness. -The enemy retired, and our men, though mowed down 
 at every step, rushed on at double-quick, until at length the 
 brigade on the right of Brown broke in confusion, exposing 
 him to an enfilading fire. He continued on, however, some 
 fifty to seventy-five yards further, when his two right regi- 
 ments gave way in disorder and retired to their original po- 
 sition. His center and left, however, followed by the gallant 
 Clayton and indomitable Bate, pressed on, passing the corn- 
 field in front of the burnt house, and to a distance of two 
 hundred to three hundred yards beyond the Chattanooga
 
 408 Life of Thomas. 
 
 road, driving the enemy within his line of intrench ments, 
 and passing a battery of four guns, which were afterward 
 taken possession of by a regiment from another division. 
 Here new batteries being opened by the enemy on our front 
 and flank, heavily supported by infantry, it became necessary 
 to retire, the command reforming on the ground occupied 
 before the advance.' 
 
 "All this was going on in the front of Reynolds and 
 Palmer, while Breckin ridge, as already described, was enter- 
 ing the open field from the north in plain sight from their 
 rear. Yet not a single Union soldier left the line. Standing 
 steadfast, they first resisted, as Stewart describes, and then 
 were incited to still greater action by the brilliant fighting 
 of Van Derveer in their rear, which so unexpectedly brought 
 them the much needed relief. 
 
 " Here the story reaches the event of the break in the 
 Union lines, which is widely misunderstood, and has been 
 most unjustly used to throw discredit on General Rosecrans. 
 Just as Longstreet's attack was developing upon Wood's 
 front, the latter received an order from General Rosecrans 
 to 'close upon Reynolds as fast as possible and support 
 him.' As Brannan was between himself and Reynolds, 
 Wood saw no other way of executing the order, which he 
 deemed imperative, except to withdraw from line, and pass 
 to the rear of Brannan. This he did, although the attack 
 was just bursting on his front. 
 
 " It has been persistently claimed, to General Rose- 
 crans' detriment, that in the excitement of the height of bat- 
 tle, he had issued a blundering order. Nothing could be 
 more unjust. The explanation is perfectly simple. General 
 Thomas had sent for Brannan to meet Breckinridge's flank 
 attack. Stewart's attack had struck Reynolds with force 
 and was rapidly developing on Brannan's front. The latter 
 hastily consulted with Reynolds as to the propriety of with- 
 drawing, and both being clear that to obey the order would 
 open the line to the enemy, Brannan dispatched Van Der- 
 veer, his reserve, to the left, in partial compliance with its 
 terms, and then reported to Rosecrans that he had deemed 
 it vitally important to maintain his line till the commanding
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 409 
 
 officer could be advised of the situation. He instantly ap- 
 proved Brannan's action. But just before his message ar- 
 rived, upon the supposition that he had obeyed the order 
 and gone to Thomas, the noted order to Wood to close to 
 the left on Reynolds had been dispatched. When it reached 
 Wood, the attack, rolling along Brannan's front, had reached 
 his own. Had he exercised the same discretion which Bran- 
 nan had so wisely displayed, all would have been well, and 
 that nearly fatal break in the Union lines would not have 
 occurred. But instantly on reading it, Wood rapidly with- 
 drew his division and started in the rear of Brannan toward 
 Reynolds. Longstreet, who had waited most impatiently 
 till 11 o'clock before he could move a man to the attack, had 
 solidified his lines before the Union center and left, and at the 
 moment Wood left this wide gap for him, Longstreet thrust 
 into it the eight brigades of his central column of attack. 
 They were formed in three lines, and advancing rapidly they 
 opened on Brannan's right and rear and Davis' left, and 
 greatly widened the gap. Brannan threw back his right, 
 losing something from Council's brigade on that flank, but, 
 stubbornly resisting Longstreet's advance as he retired that 
 wing of his division, he soon re-established it on Horseshoe 
 Ridge, near the Snodgrass House, on a line nearly perpen- 
 dicular to the one he had occupied when Longstreet pushed 
 through the gap left by Wood. The latter had pushed rap- 
 idly to the rear of Brannan, and, though subjected to heavy 
 attack after passing Brannan's left, he was able to establish 
 his line on a lower ridge in the prolongation of Brannan's 
 new position, and reaching in the direction of Reynolds. The 
 latter officer soon retired his right slightly, and the line was 
 again continuous, except a break between Wood and Rey- 
 nolds, from Brannan's right to Barnes on Baird's left. Into 
 this vacant space Hazen moved later under orders from 
 Palmer, and then the line on that part of the field was 
 firmly established. 
 
 "All to the right of Brannan had gone. Negley, with 
 one brigade of his division, which was caught in the gap, 
 had drifted toward Brannan. Here, gathering up much 
 artillery, which he was ordered by Thomas to post on the
 
 410 Life of Thomas. 
 
 crest overlooking the field in front of Baird's left, he took 
 it instead to Brannan's right, and soon, without waiting to 
 be attacked in his strong position, and although he had 
 promised Brannan to hold this, abandoned it, and retired in 
 haste toward Rossville, ordering all the artillery to follow 
 him. 
 
 " Davis had moved rapidly into the breastworks which 
 Negley had occupied, and there placed his weak force of two 
 brigades across Longstreet's advance. But, after his terrific 
 fighting of the day before, he had only twelve hundred men 
 for action, and though Carlin, and Heg's men under Martin, 
 fought with desperation, they could do nothing but yield. 
 They were driven in disorder to the right and rear. 
 
 "At the same time, Van Cleve, with his two remaining 
 brigades in motion toward Thomas, was thrown into great 
 disorder, though a considerable portion of them rallied with 
 Wood. 
 
 "As Davis was borne back, McCook, of the Twentieth 
 Corps, in person led Laibolt's brigade, of Sheridairs division, 
 against Longstreet's advancing columns. The attack was 
 delivered with spirit and power, but it failed in 'the face of 
 overwhelming numbers, and the brigade was utterly routed. 
 McCook was carried to the rear with it. 
 
 " Next came Sheridan, with his two remaining brigades 
 under Lytle and Bradley. The former, with splendid bearing 
 and courage, rallied his columns, and though they were taken 
 at every disadvantage, under the inspiration which he im- 
 parted they faced the resistless advance with desperate valor. 
 Lytle fell where death was thickest for his comrades. His 
 brigade, and that of Bradley, with Wilder, who had also 
 fought to the extremity to assist, were all borne to the rear 
 and forced to join the fugitive columns falling off from the 
 Union right toward Rossville. General Rosecrans had just 
 ridden the lines from the left, and had passed in the rear of 
 McCook's position, when the line was severed. Finding the 
 roads in rear of the right filled with retreating columns rep- 
 resenting all corps of the army, for Negley was there from 
 Thomas, he deemed it prudent to ride to Chattanooga 'and 
 decide upon a new position in front of the place. General
 
 KELLEY FIELD SNODGRASS HILL SUNDAY.
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 411 
 
 Crittenden's whole command, that is, three divisions, having 
 been ordered in succession to Thomas before the break, Crit- 
 tenden himself, being without command, rode into Chatta- 
 nooga after Rosecrans, as did also McCook. Sheridan's divis- 
 ion was in good order by the time it reached Rossville, and 
 most of the troops which left the field were about that place 
 and McFarland's Gap in fighting condition throughout the 
 afternoon. Their numbers at 2 o'clock were from seven to 
 ten thousand. They could easily have been led to Baird's 
 left or Brannan's right, as the way to either flank was open. 
 This was proved by the fact that General Garfield, Colonel 
 Gates P. Tburston, and Surgeons Gross and Perkins, the 
 medical directors of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps, rode 
 back and joined General Thomas. It is one of the myths of 
 current Chickamauga history that Sheridan marched with his 
 division back to the fighting line, but this is an error. He 
 received a request at McFarland's Gap from General Thomas 
 to return to the field, but decided instead to retire to Ross- 
 ville. Upon reaching the latter point he moved out on the 
 Lafayette road toward General Thomas, but did not form a 
 junction with him. He reached the Cloud House at 7 P. M. 
 and soon after withdrew to Rossville. 
 
 " Six Confederate divisions under Longstreet had taken 
 part in breaking the Union center and sweeping its right off 
 the field. These were Stewart, Bushrod Johnson, and Pres- 
 ton, of Buckner's corps ; Hood and McLaws, of Longstreet's 
 Virginia troops, and Hindman's division of Polk's corps. 
 Eight brigades of this force had first entered the gap left by 
 Wood, and from that time till Rosecrans, McCook, Critten- 
 den, and Sheridan had gone, and Brannan had established 
 himself on Horseshoe Ridge, each of these six divisions had 
 advanced and fought with vigor. Finally Hindman, finding 
 no resistance on his left, moved to the right to assist Long- 
 street's center and right, which had been checked by Brannan 
 and Wood. This brought Longstreet's six divisions together 
 in the vicinity of Horseshoe Ridge. 
 
 " Shortly after 2 o'clock Longstreet ordered a general as- 
 sault by his wing. It was delivered with confidence and 
 tremendous power. To meet these six divisions Brannan on
 
 412 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the right had Croxton's brigade and part of ConnelPs; Wood, 
 on the left, had Barker's brigade. With these organized 
 commands were a part of John Beatty's, a good part of Stan- 
 ley's and the Twenty-first Ohio, of Sirwell's, all of Negley; 
 parts of the Ninth -and the Seventeenth Kentucky ; Forty- 
 fourth Indiana and Thirteenth Ohio, of Yan Cleave's divis- 
 ion, with the fifty-eighth Indiana, of Buell's brigade in 
 all about 4,000 men. 
 
 "Against this line, hastily formed and without reserves, 
 Longstreet launched his solid columns. They came on mag- 
 nificently, wave behind wave. They met sheeted fire from 
 the summits, and yet pressed on to hand encounters, but from 
 these they soon recoiled. The whole line retired to the 
 foot of the slopes, and covered by the forests organized for a 
 second attack. It was delivered soon after 3 o'clock. Like 
 the first, it fell on the fronts of Wood and Bran-nan. But 
 while Hindman assaulted the latter in front he also sent 
 a brigade through the gap to Brannan's right to scale 
 the ridge and gain his rear. Negley, who had held this 
 point with abundant artillery and infantry supports, and' 
 who had promised to stay there, had promptly fled before 
 any attack had reached him and was even then in Rossville. 
 There was absolutely nothing to send against Hindman's 
 left, towering there with its fringe of bayonets on the com- 
 manding ridge, and forming to sweep down on Brannan's 
 right and rear. Longstreet and all his general officers were 
 exultant, and though their second attack had failed every- 
 where, except as this lodgment was obtained on the ridge 
 beyond Brannan, they rapidly arranged their lines for what 
 they believed would be a final assault leading to sure victory. 
 
 " But not a Union soldier moved from his place. The 
 men clutched their guns tighter. Officers every-where moved 
 closer to the lines to encourage and steady them. The color- 
 bearers set their flags firmer. And then, as if to repay such 
 courage, help came as unexpectedly as if the hand of the 
 Lord had been visibly extended to save. Suddenly a Union 
 column appeared, moving with speed across the fields from 
 the direction of the McDaniel house. It was Granger, of 
 the reserve, with two brigades of Steedman's division. Be-
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 413 
 
 ing stationed four miles away toward Ringgold, Granger, 
 agreeing with Steedman that they must be sorely needed on 
 the field, had started without orders, and though shelled by 
 Forrest on his flank for two miles of the way, had not al- 
 lowed his columns to be greatly delayed. And now Steed- 
 man was sweeping up to the foot of the hill below the Suod- 
 grass House. As he reported to Thomas, coming in from 
 toward the Kelley farm was another well-ordered column. It 
 proved to be Van Derveer returning from the charge upon 
 Breckinridge in the Kelley field. The map shows how he 
 had left Brannan's line just before the break, and hastened 
 with deployed lines toward the left ; how thus deployed he 
 had marched from the woods to be enfiladed from Breckin- 
 ridge's front as the latter emerged from the woods and burst 
 upon the Union rear. Here, under this fire, he whirled his 
 brigade to the left, delivered a full volley at pistol range into 
 the enemy's faces, charged into their lines on a run, drove 
 them back on their batteries, and pursued both infantry and 
 artillery to a point beyond the Union left, where Grose, com- 
 ing from the rear of Palmer, completed the work. The 
 dotted line shows Van Derveer's return. He, too, had 
 moved without orders to the sound of tremendous firing 
 about the Snodgrass House. Just as Steedman had hastily 
 formed and assaulted Hindman's forces beyond the right of 
 Brannan, Van Derveer joined his brigade to Steedman's left 
 and moved also to the assault. Steedman seized a regimental 
 flag and rode with it in his hands to the top. His command 
 was the brigades of those splendid soldiers, John G. Mitchell 
 and Walter C. "Whitaker. 
 
 " One (Whitaker' s) plunged into the gorge through 
 which Hindman's left was pouring, the rest of the line, with 
 Van Derveer on its left, charged for the ridge. In twenty 
 minutes it was carried, and all of Hindman's forces were 
 driven from it and out of the ravine. Whitaker had been 
 wounded, and four of his five staff officers either killed or 
 mortally wounded. One-fifth of Steedman's force had been 
 disabled in the charge. Van Derveer's loss was considerable, 
 but less in proportion, as he was not fairly in front of Hind- 
 man, as Steedman was. Twice Hindmau turned his recoil-
 
 414 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ing troops to recapture the position, but finally abandoned 
 the effort and relinquished the ridge to Steedman. The 
 center and right of Longstreet's third assault was in like 
 manner repelled. In this movement the Fourth Kentucky, 
 Colonel R. M. Kelley, joined Van Derveer and fought with 
 him till night. 
 
 " The corning of Steedman was more than an inspira- 
 tion. It was more than the holding of the right. He 
 brought 100,000 rounds of cartridges and artillery ammuni- 
 tion far more welcome than diamonds. Regiments in the 
 line had been fighting, even at that early hour, with the bay- 
 onet and clubbed muskets. Now, when Longstreet's right 
 came on in aid of the attempt of Hindman to hold his posi- 
 tion on the crest, they were received with terrific and contin- 
 uing fire, and as the lines of gray, with desperate valor, 
 neared the summit, Wood's men and Brannan's rushed at 
 them with the bayonet and broke their ranks, rolled them 
 down the slopes, and on Wood's front, with the help of a di- 
 rect fire from Aleshire's battery on the left, and a terrible 
 enfilading fire from Battery I, Fourth Regular Artillery, on 
 Brannan's left, under those splendid young soldiers, Lieu- 
 tenants Frank G. Smith and George B. Rodney, drove them 
 in disorder beyond their artillery. 
 
 " At this time both Confederate wings, were calling for 
 reinforcements. Bragg's reply to Longstreet was that the 
 right was so badly shattered that it could not help him. 
 
 " When Steedman's coming with four thousand men had 
 so changed the whole current of the battle, what if the 
 seven thousand men under Sheridan and Negley about Mc- 
 Farland's and Rossville, much nearer than Steedman was, had 
 been brought up ? How the officers who were there could 
 stay themselves, or manage to keep the men, is a mystery 
 sickening to think about. 
 
 "Hindman thus tells of the attack by which he car- 
 ried the ridge t6 the right of Brannan, before Steedman ar- 
 rived : 
 
 " ' In a few minutes a terrific contest ensued, which con- 
 tinued, at close quarters, without any intermission, over four 
 hours. Our troops attacked again and again with a courage
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 415 
 
 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 were also killed and wounded with 
 clubbed muskets.' 
 
 " Of the attack of Steedman's men in the ravine, where 
 they rushed on the Confederate line with the bayonet, 
 pushed in among the guns and killed gunners at their posts, 
 Hindman further says : ' I have never known Federal troops 
 to fight so well. It is just to say, also, that I never saw Con- 
 federate soldiers fight better.' Of the second attack upon 
 Brannan's position, which was repulsed, Kershaw, command- 
 ing in Longstreet's troops from Virginia, said : ' This was 
 one of the heaviest attacks of the war on a single point.' 
 
 " Up to the time of Steedman's arrival, there had been 
 a break between Reynolds and Wood, but the flank of the 
 former in advance of the latter somewhat covered it. Upon 
 this point Longstreet now organized a heavy attack. But 
 the lull on the left, arising from the rebels having been, as 
 Bragg expressed it, * so badly beaten back ' there that they 
 could be of no service on his left, made it practicable to 
 strengthen the Union center. Hazen was found to have am- 
 munition, and was moved with celerity into the gap, and 
 Grose, Johnson's reserve, replaced him. Hazen arrived none 
 too soon. His lines were hardly established before Long- 
 street's right was upon him, lapping over upon Reynolds' 
 front, and then, from Reynolds to Steedman, there was one 
 continuing hell of battle. Garfield, who had come up with 
 an escort, having ridden from Rossville, after reporting to 
 Thomas, moved along the ranks of his old brigade (Harker, 
 of Wood), encouraging the men, and giving evidence against 
 all loiterers at the gaps in the rear that every officer and man 
 of them could easily have reached the field. 
 
 " Longstreet's columns assaulted at every point as rapidly 
 as his lines rolled back from the crest could be reformed. 
 He had ten brigades in front of Brannan and Steedman, 
 while these officers had only four unbroken in organization, 
 and fragments of two others. One brigade of Preston, which
 
 416 Life of Thomas. 
 
 assaulted Wood's and Hazen's line, had over 2,000 men iu the 
 movement. The successive movements, rather the tremen- 
 dous dashes of these lines against the hill, was like the ad- 
 vance of breakers with which ocean storms attack the shore. 
 But, as surely, each wave with its crest of steel, its spray of 
 smoke,, and its glitter of fire broke and swept back with dead 
 and wounded in its terrible undertow. It was treason, but 
 magnificent. Such was the scene which these soldiers of 
 Thomas saw on the Snodgrass Hill throughout the afternoon 
 till dusk. 
 
 " To relieve the left, Polk was ordered at 3 o'clock to 
 attack in force with the whole right wing. But it required 
 much time to organize those battered lines for assault, but 
 when done, it was, indeed, formidable. The second map will 
 make it plain. Cleburne, with four brigades, was deployed 
 before Palmer and Johnson. Jackson and Polk's brigades 
 lapped over Baird. Cheatham was in a second line. The 
 map gives his position wrongly, though it is taken from the 
 original official map in the War Department. Ranged fur- 
 ther to the right, and crossing the State and Lafayette road 
 at McDaniel's, and thus massed against the Union left, were 
 the divisions of Breckinridge and Liddell, Armstrong's dis- 
 mounted cavalry division of Forrest, and Forrest's artillery. 
 While Grade's brigade, of Preston, was assaulting Hazen and 
 Wood, this attack on the Union left began. But, as before, 
 the brigades that moved up to the log breastworks were 
 speedily shattered, though this time they took their artillery 
 forward through the thickets with them, pushing it by hand. 
 
 " Once more, as the assault was made on Baird's left, 
 there came a Union charge across the Kelley field, the fourth 
 for the day. This time it was Willich, the reserve of John- 
 son. Withdrawing from line and facing north, he swept 
 along on the run and with cheers. His lines dashed into 
 the woods at the point where Stanley and Grose had charged 
 before, and without a halt sprang into the faces of the ad- 
 vancing Confederates. King's regulars and Barnes gave 
 brave help, and once more the immediate left was cleared. 
 The force on the road by the McDaniel house, though un- 
 broken, was not advanced. Later, an assault on Reynolds
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 417 
 
 and Palmer was ordered, but, naturally, it was feeble after so 
 many repulses at the breastworks. At half-past 5 there was 
 quiet again along the Union left. Longstreet, however, in 
 front of the right, was active for another hour, though at 
 every point unsuccessful. 
 
 At half-after 5, General Thomas, having full discretion, 
 decided to withdraw to occupy the passes in his rear at Me- 
 Farland's and Rossville, which controlled the roads to Chatta- 
 nooga. His line was solid at every point. Both wings of 
 the Confederates were at bay. Their right was too much 
 broken to successfully assault the Union left. The Union 
 right, though its ammunition ran low, and its officers were 
 constantly searching the boxes of the killed and wounded 
 for cartridges, was becoming practiced in the use of the 
 bayonet against assaulting lines, and, in spite of the persist- 
 ence of Longstreet's men, had begun to feel comfortable in 
 its position. The whole line could have been held until 
 night. But daylight was wanted to set the army in orderly 
 motion toward the gaps which controlled the city. After 
 that was accomplished, the darkness afforded the needed 
 cover, to complete the movement. It was because Chatta- 
 nooga, and not the Chickamauga woods, was the objective 
 of the campaign that the army withdrew to Rossville. It 
 was in no sense a military retreat. It was, in fact, an advance. 
 
 " If Thomas had not occupied these passes in the night, 
 Bragg could have done so, and the object he had in view 
 would then have been accomplished. Had Thomas allowed 
 it, Bragg would have been only to glad to have withdrawn 
 from the field and ' retreated ' on Rossville. Thomas did not 
 permit it, but went there first, and Chattanooga was won. 
 
 " The withdrawal involved some fighting. The move- 
 ment began on the right of Reynolds. Palmer, Johnson, 
 and Baird were to follow in succession, all leaving their 
 skirmishers in their works. 
 
 " Reynolds formed his brigades by the flank on each side 
 
 of the Lafayette road, Edward King on the right and Turchin 
 
 on the left. Thus he advanced northward along the Kelley field 
 
 toward Rossville. General Thomas followed at the head of 
 
 27
 
 418 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the column. As they passed a short distance beyond the 
 south line of the field they encountered the advancing troops 
 which had taken part in the last rebel attack. Instantly 
 Thomas ordered Reynolds to cause Turchin to file to the 
 left, and after thus changing front to ' charge and clear 
 them out.' The line of Turchin's charge is shown on the 
 map. Filing into the woods to the left at double-quick, he 
 faced to the front while thus moving, and his lines darted at 
 a run into the faces of the enemy. It was one of the bravest 
 and most brilliant, most important and effective charges of 
 the day the fifth over those Kelley fields. At the same 
 moment King, forcing his way along the road, fell on the 
 flank of Liddell's division and broke it. Dan McCook, who 
 had been active during the day on the flank of Forrest, ad- 
 vanced and opened with his artillery on the rebel rear, and 
 after short but sharp fighting the formidable array was 
 driven back and the way to Rossvllle was open. 
 
 " Turchin and King moved by the roads to McFarland's 
 Gap. Baird, Johnson, and Palmer followed over the same 
 roads. They were attacked as they left their works and crossed 
 the Kelley field, but order in their columns was restored as soon 
 as they gained the shelter of the woods on the west of the road. 
 Hazen and Wood followed at 7 P. M. without molestation. 
 Steedman withdrew at six o'clock from the extreme right, 
 and Brannan was left alone on Horseshoe Ridge. The sun 
 was down. The shadows were thickening in the woods be- 
 fore him, and yet Longstreet's men remained on the slopes, 
 and several times appeared in detachments close along his 
 lines. Suddenly a line of Preston's men were found on the 
 slope where Steedman had been. By some strange over- 
 sight Brannan had not been notified that his right was un- 
 protected. A hasty examination in the gathering dusk 
 showed another rebel line on the slope directly in the rear, 
 which had come round through the gap where Steed- 
 man's right had been, and was evidently forming for an 
 assault. The Thirty-fifth Ohio, of Van Derveer's brigade, 
 was thrown back to face both these lines. Fragments of 
 five regiments more, which had opportunely arrived, were 
 given to the commander of the Thirty -fifth. His own regi-
 
 The Chickamanga Campaign. 413 
 
 merit had one round and one in the guns. This was placed 
 in front. The others, with fixed bayonets, were formed in 
 the rear. Just before dark a rebel officer rode in on the line 
 and asked what troops were here. He was shot by the near 
 outposts. 
 
 " Then came a scattering fire from the flank of the rebel 
 line along the ridge, next a volley from the Thirty-fifth, and a 
 a silent awaiting results behind its line of bayonets The vol- 
 ley had scattered the enemy on the ridge, and the force in the 
 rear had withdrawn. These were the last shots on the right. 
 Following them there was absolute quiet every- where on the 
 field. The stillness was painful and awful. Brannan's officers 
 and men, peering down into the dim and smoking ravine, 
 saw long lines of fire creeping over the leaves, and in and out 
 among the wounded and the dead. It was a sight far more 
 horrible than any of the pictured presentations of Dante's 
 Inferno. From this scene, with the low wailings of the suf- 
 ferers in their ears, they turned in triumph and exultant to 
 form the rear guard of Thomas's advance to Rossville. Tur- 
 chin and Willich fought last on the left and formed the rear 
 guard there ; Van Derveer covered the right. At midnight 
 the Army of the Cumberland occupied the passes which 
 made the possession of Chattanooga secure. 
 
 " There had been no such disordered rush of the broken 
 portions of the army on Chattanooga as the panic-stricken 
 correspondent of an Eastern paper, who gave visions of his own 
 early flight to the country as news, depicted. Only a small 
 part of the broken wing drifted to Chattanooga. From 7,000 
 to 10,000 stopped at Rossville, and were fairly organized there. 
 When Thomas's forces arrived the whole army was placed in 
 position on Missionary Ridge, and in front of it, and remained 
 in line of battle at Rossville throughout the whole of the 21st. 
 
 "At nightfall the army advanced to Chattanooga ad- 
 vanced is the word ; the term l retreated,' so persistently used 
 in regard to this movement has no place in the truthful his- 
 tory of this campaign. The Army of the Cumberland was on 
 its way to Chattanooga, the city it set out to capture. It had 
 halted at Chickamauga, on its line of advance, to fight for its 
 objective. On the night of the 21st it began its last march
 
 420 Life of Thomas. 
 
 for the city. Every foot of it was a march in advance, and 
 not retreat. At sunrise of the 22d Brannan's division, which 
 was the rear guard, reached the city, and the campaign for 
 Chattanooga was at an end. Until that morning broke the 
 great bulk of the Army of the Cumberland had never seen 
 the place. 
 
 " Thus, crowned with success, though won at terrible 
 cost, closed the last campaign of General Rosecraus. It was 
 matchless in its strategy, unequaled in the skill and energy 
 with which his outnumbered army was concentrated for bat- 
 tle. Its stubborn, desperate, and heroic fighting throughout 
 the two days' battle was not surpassed, and judged by its 
 returns of dead and wounded, not equaled in any one of the 
 great battles of the war. It secured the city which it 
 marched to capture. The loss was no greater than the 
 country would have expected at any time in attaining that 
 result. If Rosecrans had crossed the river in front of the 
 city, and captured it with even greater loss, the country 
 would have gone wild with enthusiasm. Had he been prop- 
 erly supported from Washington, he would have entered it 
 without a battle, since, if there had been even a show of 
 activity elsewhere, Bragg's army would not have been so 
 heavily reinforced, and thus enabled to march back on 
 Chattanooga after its retreat from the city. The reverse 
 on the field on Sunday was not the disaster which at the time 
 it was declared to be, and which it has ever since suited sev- 
 eral writers of military fiction to persistently represent. 
 The account herewith presented shows that after General 
 Thomas consolidated his lines at 1 o'clock on Sunday, not a 
 single position was carried and held by the enemy. The 
 withdrawal, which begun soon after 5 o'clock, was not in 
 any sense forced. There is not an oflicer or soldier who 
 fought on those lines but knows that they could have been 
 held throughout till dark. 
 
 " The accepted version of Sunday's break on Rosecrans' 
 right is that the two corps of Crittenden and McCook were 
 swept off the field ; but only five brigades of McCook's en- 
 tire corps left the field, and the fragments which went from 
 Crittenden would not exceed two brigades. Palmer's and
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 421 
 
 Johnson's divisions, which fought splendidly to the end 
 under Thomas on the left, were respectively from Critten- 
 den's and McCook's corps. Wood belonged to Crittenden. 
 Barnes' brigade, which fought on the extreme left, and part 
 of Dick's and Samuel Beatty's were all of Van Cleve's divi- 
 sion of Crittenden's corps. In other words, the large part 
 of Crittenden's force fought to the last. Four regiments of 
 Wilder's brigade of Reynolds' division were detached and 
 cut oft' with the right, and a considerable part of Negley's 
 division of Thomas went to the rear, chiefly through the bad 
 conduct of its commander. We have seen, however, how 
 persistently and effectively Stanley's and John Beatty's 
 brigades of that division fought, and Beatty and General 
 Charles Grosvenor and Sirwell and Stoughton, of these 
 brigades, were all found fighting like private soldiers on the 
 hill with Wood and Brannau to the last. The battle of 
 Sunday was, then, not the fight of any one corps, but of the 
 Army of the Cumberland. There was no disorderly retreat 
 of the army on Chattanooga, and nothing approaching it. 
 The greater portion of the right wing, which was cut off and 
 certainly thrown -into much confusion, was reorganized at 
 Rossville, and occupied its place in line at tbat point through- 
 out the next day, and until the army moved on in the night 
 to occupy Chattanooga. The battle was desperate from the 
 moment it opened till its close. For the most part the lines 
 fought at close range, and in the countless assaults, often 
 hand to hand. On the first day there were no field works of 
 any kind. On the second Thomas was protected by such 
 rude log works as could be hastily thrown together. Bran- 
 nan and Steedman were without a semblance of works. The 
 battle in the main, on both sides, was dogged, stand-up fight- 
 ing far within the limit of point blank range. For the sec- 
 ond day, on the Confederate side, the contest was one con- 
 tinued series of brave and magnificent assaults. 
 
 " General Rosecrans had crossed the Tennessee with an 
 effective force of all arms equipped for duty of a few hundred 
 more than 60,000. Of this number Wagner's brigade, with 
 2,061 effectives, held Chattanooga, leaving the Union force 
 in front of Bragg slightly less than 58,000. It was several
 
 422 Life of Thomas. 
 
 thousand less at the battle, Post's brigade of Davis' division, 
 and three regiments of infantry and one battery, being en- 
 gaged in guarding supply trains. 
 
 "In a letter from General Lee to President Davis, dated 
 September 14, 1863, the following figures of Bragg's actual 
 and prospective strength are thus stated : 
 
 "'If the report sent to me by General Cooper since my 
 return from Richmond is correct, General Bragg had, on the 
 20th of August last, 51,101 effective men ; General Buckuer, 
 16,118. He was to receive from General Johnson 9,000. His 
 total force will, therefore, be 76,219, as large a number as I 
 presume he can operate with. This is independent of the 
 local troops, which, you may recollect, he reported as exceed- 
 ing his expectations.' 
 
 " It will be well to remember, in connection with these 
 official figures, that Bragg, after the battle, reported Long- 
 street's force, which was not included by Lee, at 5,000. This, 
 according to the figures furnished General Lee, gave Bragg 
 81,219. According to General Johnson's correspondence, 
 after he had sent 9,000 to Bragg, he subsequently dispatched 
 him two small brigades, and these, later, reached him the 
 day before the battle. 
 
 "A reference to the losses on each side will show that 
 there has been no exaggeration in the description of the 
 fighting. Rosecrans' loss was 16,179. This included 4,774 
 missing, of which a large number were killed or wounded. 
 Bragg's losses, as compiled and estimated at the "War Records 
 Office, were 17,804. Thus, the entire loss for each army was 
 over twenty-five per cent of the entire force of each. Hill's 
 corps of the Confederate right wing lost 2,990 out of a total 
 8,884. Of the 22,885 in Longstreet's left wing, the loss was 
 7,856, with one brigade heavily engaged not reported. 
 Longstreet's loss on Sunday afternoon was thirty-six per cent 
 of those engaged. 
 
 " The casualties in Jackson's brigade of Cleburne's divis- 
 ion, which assaulted on Baird's front, was 35 per cent, while 
 the Fifth Georgia, of that brigade, lost 55 per cent, and the 
 First Confederate Regulars 43 per cent. Gregg's brigade, 
 of Buckner's corps, lost 652 out of 1,425. Helm's Ken-
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 423 
 
 tucky brigade, on the Union left, lost 75 per cent of its 
 strength. Bate's brigade lost 7 officers killed and 61 officers 
 wounded, and the total casualties were 607 out of 1,316. 
 All his field officers except three were killed or wounded. 
 The losses in Govan's brigade, of Walker's corps, exceeded 
 50 per cent. Deas, who fought in front of Steedman's as- 
 sault, lost 745 out of 1,942. Walthall, of Walker, lost 705 
 out of 1,727. On the Union side Steedman in four hours lost 
 1,787 out of 3,700, and all were killed and wounded but one. 
 Brannan's division had 5,998 engaged. Its casualties were 
 2,174, or 38 per cent. The loss in Van Derveer's brigade, 
 of this division, in four regiments and one battery, was 840 
 out of 1,788 engaged, or 49 per cent. Croxton's brigade, of 
 the same division, made up of five regiments, lost 938. Of 
 Van Derveer's regiments the Ninth Ohio lost 50 per cent ; 
 the Thirty-fifth Ohio, a small fraction less than 50 per cent ; 
 the Second Minnesota 192, or exactly 50 per cent, and the 
 Eighty-seventh Indiana about half its number. General 
 Wood lost 1,070 in two brigades. 
 
 " These figures become the more significant when com- 
 pared with the statement of losses in the world's noted bat- 
 tles. General Wheeler, the distinguished Confederate cav- 
 alry commander, thus vividly presented this question to the 
 gathering of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland 
 and Confederates, at Chattanooga, in 1881 : 
 
 " ' Waterloo was one of the most desperate and bloody 
 fields chronicled in European history and yet Wellington's 
 casualties were less than 12 per cent, his losses being 2,432 
 killed and 9,528 wounded out of 90,000 men, while at Shiloh, 
 the first great battle in which General Grant was engaged, 
 one side lost in killed and wounded 9,740 out of 34,000, while 
 their opponents reported their killed and wounded at 9,616, 
 making the casualties about 30 per cent. At the great battle 
 of Wagram, Napoleon lost but about 5 per cent. At Wurz- 
 burg the French lost but 3J per cent, and yet the army gave 
 up the field and retreated to the Rhine. At Recour, Marshal 
 Saxe lost but 2J per cent. At Zurich, Massena lost but 8 
 per cent. At Lagriz, Frederick lost but 6J per cent. At 
 Malplaquet, Marlborough lost but 10 per cent, and at Ra-
 
 424 Life of Thomas. 
 
 millies the same intrepid commander lost but 6 per cent. At 
 Contras, Henry of Navarre was reported as cut to pieces, yet 
 his loss was less than 10 per ceut. At Lodi, Napoleon lost 
 1J per cent. At Valmy, Frederick lost but 3 per cent, and 
 and at the great battles of Marengo and Austerlitz, sanguinary 
 as they were, Napoleon lost aii average of less than 14 per 
 cent. At Magenta and Solferino, in 1859, the average loss 
 of both armies was less than 9 per cent. At Konigrattz, in 
 1866, it was 6 per cent. At Werth, Specheran, Mars la Tour, 
 Gravelotte, and Sedan, in 1870, the average loss was 12 per 
 cent. At Linden, General Moreau lost but 4 per cent, and 
 the Archduke John lost but 7 per cent in killed and wounded. 
 Americans can scarcely call this a lively skirmish. 
 
 " ' At Perry ville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Atlanta, 
 Gettysburg, Mission Ridge, the Wilderness, and Spottsyl- 
 vania the loss frequently reached and sometimes exceeded 
 forty per cent, and the average of killed and wounded on 
 one side or the other was over thirty per cent.' 
 
 " Those who remained at Chickamauga and fought till 
 the night of Sunday came, when, for many regiments, every 
 other comrade was dead or wounded, were satisfied with the 
 result, and have always maintained that Chickamauga was 
 fought for Chattanooga, and have so regarded it as a great 
 and notable victory. General D. H. Hill in a recent Century 
 article thus sums up the result for the Confederate side : 'A 
 breathing space was allowed him ; the panic among his 
 troops subsided, and Chattanooga the objective point of the 
 campaign was held. There was no more splendid fighting 
 in 1861, when the flower of the Southern youth was in the 
 field, than was displayed in those bloody days of September, 
 1863. But it seems to me that the elan of the Southern 
 soldier was never seen after Chickamauga that brilliant 
 dash which had distinguished him on a hundred fields was 
 gone forever. He was too intelligent not to know that the 
 cutting in two of Georgia meant death to all his hopes. He 
 knew that Longstreet's absence was imperiling Lee's safety y 
 and that what had to be done must be done quickly. The 
 delay to strike was exasperating to him ; the failure to strike 
 after the success was crushing to all his longings for an in-
 
 The Chickamauga Campaign. 425 
 
 dependent South. He fought stoutly to the last, but after 
 Chickamauga, with the sullenness of despair and without 
 the enthusiasm of hope. That " barren victory " sealed the 
 fate of the Southern Confederacy.' 
 
 " The authorities at Washington, to cover their own 
 shortcomings and inexcusable neglect, chose to deepen the 
 erroneous impression that the Army of the Cumberland had 
 been routed and driven back to Chattanooga in confusion. 
 The removal of General Rosecrans was determined upon. 
 In fact, it had been only a question of opportunity since the 
 campaign opened. There was only needed the misrepre- 
 sentations about Chickamauga to furnish this. 
 
 " In the meantime, General Rosecrans thoroughly forti- 
 fied Chattanooga and was actually engaged in preparations 
 to open the river for supplies, exactly as it was afterward 
 done, when he was removed. In fact, his plan was partially 
 perfected before he crossed the river, as is shown by the 
 fact that he made written contracts with Northern firms to 
 have bridges completed by October 1st for the Tennessee at 
 Bridgeport, and the Running Water at Wauhatchie. He 
 had ordered the thorough reconnoitering of the river bank 
 opposite the north end of Missionary Ridge where Sher- 
 man afterward crossed with a view to a flank attack there. 
 It was, therefore, altogether fitting and proper that the or- 
 der for his relief should arrive while he was absent making 
 a personal examination of the vicinity of Brown's Ferry, 
 where he intended to throw a bridge to unite with Hooker 
 from Bridgeport and open the river exactly as was afterward 
 done. He had even notified Hooker of the plan three days 
 before, and ordered him to be ready to execute his part of it. 
 General Thomas, at first, insisted that he would resign rather 
 than appear to acquiesce in Rosecrans' removal by accepting 
 the command. It was at Rosecrans' earnest solicitation 
 that he reconsidered this determination. But he did not 
 hesitate to say that the order was cruelly unjust. When 
 General Garfield left for Washington soon after the battle, 
 he immediately charged him to do all he could to have Rose- 
 crans righted. These will be new statements to most, but 
 they are true.
 
 426 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " The survivors of the Army of the Cumberland should 
 awake to great pride in this notable field of Chickarnatiga. 
 "Why should it not, as well as Eastern fields, be marked by 
 monuments, and its lines accurately preserved for history ? 
 There was no more magnificent fighting during the war 
 than both armies did there. Both sides might well unite in 
 preserving the field where both, in a military sense, won such 
 renown." 
 
 Here ends the true story of the campaign that closed 
 with the capture of Chattanooga. No citizen of the Union 
 with a particle of patriotism and the smallest sense of justice 
 can read what follows without a blush of shame. The blood 
 tingles with indignation at the wanton indignity awarded a 
 brave man after he had accomplished not only the most 
 brilliant achievement of the war, but gained an objective 
 that went far toward ending the conflict in behalf of the 
 Union. We have seen the several orders issued from Wash- 
 ington, each double-barreled in its dictation of an impossi- 
 bility while carrying an insult. Ordered to march when 
 marching was impossible, ordered to pursue when no enemy 
 was fleeing ; and while the Confederacy was concentrating 
 troops upon Rosecrans' front, the authorities at Washington 
 ignored with insolent indifference his demands for troops,' 
 and begrudged him even the supplies upon which his army 
 was to live. While carrion crows darkened the horizon about 
 the Army of the Potomac, and the mocking birds around 
 Yicksburg took up and warbled the dead march in Saul that 
 was being played continuously over the unhonored graves of 
 brave men who died as in a pestilence of malarial fevers, dys- 
 entery, measles, and small-pox, the Army of the Cumber- 
 land was repairing railroads, opening highways, accumulat- 
 ing supplies, while working its way through mountain 
 passes, over rivers, scaling palisades, that it might carry in 
 triumph to the front the fortunes of the great republic. To 
 win Chattanooga made it possible to survive the brutal ig- 
 norance of the War Department, Grant's bloody blunders, 
 and Sherman's militia march to the sea. And yet for this 
 service, the brave soldier who alone conceived the campaign,
 
 Thomas' High Sense of Honor. 427 
 
 and if he did not fight the battle, had it fought by one whose 
 ability he was the first to discover for this gain that will yet 
 go to record as the crowning glory not only of American 
 arms, but of American generalship, was hurriedly dismissed 
 in disgrace from the service. It was infamous. 
 
 Rosecrans' quick, secretive temperament would, as we 
 have said, long before have driven him to a tender of his 
 resignation, but for the influence of the one man in whom 
 he confided, General George H. Thomas. General Thomas 
 not only had confidence in the men in control at Washing- 
 ton, but there was another fact that influenced him probably 
 without his being clearly aware of the weight it had upon 
 his conduct. It was that if General Rosecrans were relieved, 
 he would be called upon to assume command. He could not 
 consent to this. In his eyes it would not only be unjust, but 
 treacherous. He felt that he alone was responsible for the 
 condition that the War Department found offensive. Rose- 
 crans, in his proud, impetuous way, would have obeyed 
 the peremptory orders served upon him, but for that. As 
 we have said, the calmer judgment and superior force of 
 character that existed in Thomas had control. To take ad- 
 vantage then of his own acts appeared so dishonorable to 
 him that Rosecrans' relief meant his own retirement. The 
 slightest appeal to this grand soldier's sense of honor was 
 conclusive, and they who seek to appreciate the character 
 and career we are attempting to record, will do well to com- 
 pare the conduct of these two gentlemen with the low in- 
 trigues and mean ambitions that debased the service else- 
 where. And yet to this day, we find well meaning but ig- 
 norant people insisting that General Thomas had no right to 
 consider either himself or the man he displaced when called 
 to command by his government. We beg leave to differ. 
 The man who is not true to himself can not be of much 
 service to his government. The man of mean ambitions 
 whose record will not bear inspection holds his fame upon 
 the same terms. It is all a fraud. General Thomas loved 
 his country and her cause with all the patriotic devotion of 
 which his high nature was capable, but he loved his honor 
 more. He shrunk as instinctively from a compromise of
 
 428 Life of Thomas. 
 
 that honor as much as he would have shrunk from the com- 
 mission of any other crime. 
 
 In this connection we can not leave the field of Chicka- 
 mauga without calling attention to the conduct of one gen- 
 eral a political organization had seized upon as available 
 property and insists is one of the three immortals who alone 
 fought the successful fight and saved the Union. We refer 
 to General Phil Sheridan. In the midst of General Thomas's 
 desperate resistance against superior numbers, with his right 
 rolled back, so demoralized and confused and with such 
 slaughter that it was almost impossible to rally or reform it, 
 while the left was overlapped and menaced with defeat, Gen- 
 erals Negley, Sheridan, and Davis fell back with their forces in 
 the direction of McFarland's Gap. General Thomas, learning 
 that Sheridan, Davis, and Negley were yet within reach, sent 
 General G. P. Thruston with orders to have their troops 
 brought immediately to the front upon his right. The gal- 
 lant Thruston galloped back to where he had left Generals 
 Sheridan and Davis to find them gone, and after an hour's 
 search came up with them near McFarland's Gap, falling 
 rapidly back from the sound of the cannon that told of the 
 desperate battle then in progress. Davis promptly obeyed 
 the order to return, but Sheridan refused positively and 
 finally to obey. 
 
 General Thruston made a statement, in which that loyal 
 and gallant officer says: "Being Adjutant and chief of staff 
 of the Twentieth Corps, to which their (Davis's and Sheri- 
 dan's) divisions belonged, I reported to them General 
 Thomas's position and situation and requested them to re- 
 turn and take position as directed by him. Davis ordered 
 his men to ' right about ' at once and marched back under 
 my guidance, some of Negley's and other troops joining us. 
 General Sheridan said he preferred to go to Rossville and go 
 out on the Lafayette road. I told him that it was getting 
 late and he could scarcely get on the field by that route be- 
 fore night, but he insisted upon going that way, which was 
 several miles around." 
 
 Of this affair, General Sheridan reports as follows :
 
 Sheridan Deserts the Field. 429 
 
 "After crossing the road, my division was again formed 
 on the ridge which overlooked the ground where this san- 
 guinary contest had taken place, the enemy manifesting no 
 disposition to continue the engagement further. I have 
 learned positively what I had before partially seen, that the 
 division still further on the left had been driven and I was com- 
 pletely cut off. 
 
 " I then determined to connect myself with the troops 
 of General Thomas by moving on the arc of a circle until I 
 struck the Dry Creek Valley road, by which I hoped to form 
 the junction. 
 
 " In the meantime, I was joined by a portion of the division 
 of General Davis, under command of General Carlin, and a 
 number of stragglers from other divisions. 
 
 "On reaching the Dry Cree k Valley road, I found the 
 enemy had moved parallel to me and had also arrived at the 
 road, thus preventing me joining General Thomas by that 
 route. I then determined to move quickly on Rossville and 
 form a junction with him on his left flank via Lafayette 
 road. This was successfully accomplished about 5:30 o'clock 
 
 p. M.r 
 
 The italics in above extracts are our own, and they 
 serve to penetrate and expose the fiction the general indulges 
 in to cover his disobedience of orders. It will be observed 
 that he claims to have been cut off from the front then held 
 by General Thomas. That is, he ventures to say that the 
 enemy was in force between his division and General 
 Thomas. This would put the Confederates almost in the 
 rear of General Thomas. This is flatly contradicted by well 
 recognized facts and by the statement of General Thruston. 
 This gentleman had a difficulty in finding General Sheridan, 
 while he, Sheridan, was in full retreat on Rossville, but he 
 had no trouble in riding direct from General Thomas's cen- 
 ter to where he found General Sheridan, and returning 
 thence to General Thomas. General Sheridan was in com- 
 pany, says General Thruston, with General Davis, and the 
 last named, on receiving orders from the general command- 
 ing, immediately turned about face and, guided by Thruston, 
 marched to the front. " General Sheridan said he preferred
 
 430 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to go to Rossville and go out on the Lafayette road. I told 
 him it was getting late and he could scarcely get on the field 
 by that route before night, but he insisted on going that 
 way, which was several miles around." 
 
 This is Thruston's testimony, and it accords with Sheri- 
 dan's at one point only, and that is in not getting to the 
 front at all. It is well, however, to take the testimony of 
 another witness. General Davis in his report informs us. 
 He says: 
 
 "General Negley's division at this time passed to the 
 rear in the direction of Rossville, and, I understood, took 
 position at that place. General Carlin and Colonel Martin 
 had also by this time succeeded in re-forming their troops 
 as far as was possible, and Colonel Ward, commanding the 
 Tenth Ohio Infantry, reported to me with his regiment for 
 duty, and after allowing the men a few minutes for water, 
 ordered them again under arms and moved for the battle 
 field with a view of supporting General Thomas's corps, 
 which was still maintaining its position. It is proper here 
 to add that several detached battalions and commands re- 
 ported to me and accompanied my command to the battle 
 field, making in all a force of twenty-five hundred to three 
 thousand men. 
 
 " While in the act of forming my lines near General 
 Thomas's right, I received information from General Garfield 
 that General Thomas was falling back, and orders to repair 
 to Rossville." 
 
 It will be seen by this that General Davis found no diffi- 
 culty in marching direct to the support of Thomas, and the 
 intervention of Confederate troops to prevent such move is 
 an afterthought of General Sheridan's to cover and excuse 
 not only his failure to obey orders, but his lack of loyalty, as 
 shown by his moving, as we have said, his troops to the rear 
 at the sound of the enemy's cannon. General Thruston, in 
 making his statement, omitted from the writing precisely 
 what General Sheridan did say, and this language the gallant 
 young chief of staff omitted from a mistaken sense of pro- 
 priety. The fact is, the insubordinate subordinate, in a sen-
 
 Sheridan Deserts the Field. 431 
 
 tence glaring with profanity, swore he would obey no such 
 orders and take his men into a slaughter organized by fools. 
 He would move on to Rossville, and, if necessary, out the 
 Lafayette road. The day after the battle, it was General 
 Rosecrans' purpose to give General Negley his choice to re- 
 sign or be tried for cowardice. He finally asked for a court 
 of inquiry, and, though whitewashed, he never regained 
 either military standing or command. And yet his offense 
 was far less than that of Sheridan. Negley took counsel 
 of his fears. His nature proved too much for hitn. He 
 could plead this weakness. But Sheridan had no such 
 excuse. A braver man never trod the field of danger. His 
 mind was clear and his nerves calm, and he knew that in 
 that roar that rose behind him as he marched away brave 
 men were being done to death, while heroic officers were 
 looking eagerly to the right and left for aid in this hour of 
 death-tainted anxiety. We were outnumbered if not out- 
 fought, and the fate of the great republic hung trembling in 
 the balance, when the man whom the nation, for supposed 
 virtues he never possessed and the doing of deeds a drunken 
 poet had dressed in the rainbow tints of brandy-stimulated 
 imagination, has delighted to honor, deliberately marched 
 his men from the field of battle. 
 
 One is the more impressed with this dastardly conduct 
 when one remembers the cruel punishment awarded the gal- 
 lant Warren by this same officer, who, for failing to accom- 
 plish an impossible order, was disgraced in the presence of 
 his troops and sent broken-hearted to a dishonored grave. 
 The spirit of the gallant Warren animates the heart of every 
 honest man in dealing condemnation to this, the smallest 
 member of a trinity of false gods, whose only claim to 
 memory is in the bloody disasters that came near wrecking 
 an empire. 
 
 Night came to cover in the two armies, equally hurt but 
 unequally stunned, as the Confederates suffered in this re- 
 spect more than we. Thomas, under orders from Rosecrans, 
 fell quietly back to Rossville upon the line designated by the 
 general commanding. He retired unmolested. One regrets 
 that our great military leader withdrew from a field he had
 
 432 Life of Thomas. ' 
 
 so brilliantly held. "We now know that Bragg was in no 
 condition to renew the fight and did not follow Thomas, and 
 had our army assumed the offensive, a hurried retreat would 
 have followed on the part of the Confederates. Hastily 
 called together from Richmond, Mobile, Georgia, and Mis- 
 sissippi, they were badly supplied even with ammunition, to 
 say nothing of food and shelter. We are taught from Con- 
 federate records that their army was in a more perilous con- 
 dition than ours. It was a great relief, then, when Bragg 
 learned that Rosecrans, instead of pursuing, had fallen back 
 upon Rossville, where a new and stronger line of defense 
 was being occupied. Bragg changed his retrograde move- 
 ment and felt cautiously his ugly enemy. 
 
 In making these reflections on what seems an unfortu- 
 nate resolve on the part of General Thomas, who, being on 
 the ground, knew the situation as Rosecrans could not know 
 it, we are forced to remember that he could not know at the 
 time how badly the enemy had been damaged, and in this 
 ignorance it was wise to consider the situation from a pru- 
 dent point of view. That we had been outnumbered, Gen- 
 eral Thomas well knew, but he could not know to what ex- 
 tent, and he was in ignorance as to what reserves the enemy 
 might have upon the field or what reinforcements might be 
 upon the railroads hurrying to the rescue of a place of such 
 vital importance. It was well known at Richmond what 
 could not be known with the supposed military heads at 
 "Washington, that Chattanooga was the key to the whole sit- 
 uation, and that its capture by our army made Virginia un- 
 tenable. Almost frantic appeals had been made by General 
 Rosecrans for at least mounted infantry to protect his flanks, 
 and made in vain, although the inaction on the Potomac and 
 on the Mississippi of the Confederates enabled them to con- 
 centrate from their inner lines their best troops in the field. 
 As General Thomas sat by his camp-fire the night of that 
 awful day and studied the maps for roads upon which he 
 could move against the enemy, he realized the fact that Chat- 
 tanooga, which he had held in mind for three long years of 
 hard marching and bloody fights, was now within reach, and 
 slowly and reluctantly he moved from the hastily-constructed
 
 Bragg' s "Barren Victory:' 433 
 
 defense of the horse-shoe line of battle he and his men ren- 
 dered immortal, to sleep for the night on hills and valleys to 
 the right and left of Rossville. And here, after all, rather 
 than at Chickamauga, were the passes which controlled the 
 way to Chattanooga. 
 
 Had Rosecrans gone to the front from his shattered 
 right, instead of hurrying hack to repair the disaster after 
 ordering Garfield to Thomas, it is more than probable he 
 would, recognizing the condition, have brought forward his 
 reserves the frightened Negley had led from the field, and 
 with his impetuous nature assumed the offensive. At least 
 he would, with a view of assaulting the enemy that had 
 again and again been repulsed, remained upon the field so gal- 
 lantly won. What the effect of this would have been one 
 can surmise by reading Bragg's cautious dispatch made at 
 the time to the authorities at Richmond. It runs as follows: 
 
 "CHICKAMAUGA RIVER, Sept. 20, via RINGGOLD, Sept. 21. 
 Major- General Cooper, Adjutant- General: 
 
 After two days hard fighting, we have driven the enemy, 
 after a desperate resistance, from several positions, and now 
 hold the field, but he still confronts us. The losses are heavy 
 on both sides, especially of our officers. "We have taken 
 over twenty pieces of artillery and some 2,800 prisoners. 
 
 BRAGG." 
 
 The withdrawal of his part of the army in good order, 
 and without the loss of a man, told of the success of Thomas 
 in making veterans of his raw recruits. 
 
 The importance of Chattanooga was recognized at Rich- 
 mond, and, as soon as the authorities there could recover 
 from their amazement at Rosecrans' successful flanking 
 movements, reinforcements were hurried to Bragg, and 
 enough concentrated, it was believed, to destroy the Army 
 of the Cumberland and retake their Gibralter. The Confed- 
 eracy failed of its purpose. They claimed a victory at 
 Chickamauga, but it was barren of good result to them. It 
 had been better to have transported Lee and his entire army 
 28
 
 434 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to the Chickamauga than to permit our army to take and 
 hold Chattanooga. It was not only that the loss to the Con- 
 federates was terrible, amounting to thirty-six per cent upon 
 the last day, hut, admitting their claim to victory on the 
 field, they suffered defeat in our success in taking and hold- 
 ing the great objective of the entire war. The loss inflicted 
 on us was fearful. We had sixteen thousand three hundred 
 and thirty-six, including one hundred and thirty-two officers, 
 killed, five hundred and ninety-two wounded, and two hun- 
 dred and seventy missing ; fifteen hundred and fifty-five en- 
 listed men killed, eight thousand eight hundred and twenty 
 wounded, and four thousand nine hundred and eighty-five 
 missing. As many of the reported missing were among the 
 slain, the number of the killed exceeded two thousand. The 
 loss in material was immense ; thirty-six guns, fifteen thou- 
 sand small arms, wagons and ambulances in great numbers, 
 with ammunition and stores in large quantities. If, in addi- 
 tion to this destruction of men and material, the Army of 
 the Cumberland could have -been driven over the river and 
 Chattanooga recaptured, it would have paid the Confederate 
 government to have shifted the seat of war from the Poto- 
 mac to the Tennessee. 
 
 The army under the immediate command of General 
 Thomas fell back without being molested to Rossville. On 
 the morning of the 21st, the Confederates seemed to awake 
 from their stupor and made a demonstration upon Thomas's 
 front. It was a feeble affair, easily repulsed, but General 
 Thomas, fearing that the enemy might flank him on the 
 right and so get between us and Chattanooga, advised Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans to fall back upon that place. This was done 
 with ready precision and without loss. Indeed there was no 
 molestation upon which to base even a skirmish. The rea- 
 son given for this peaceful proceeding on the part of the Con- 
 federate commander was that his own army was less than 
 half as strong and greatly exhausted. According to this 
 the claimed victory of Chickamauga was so barren of fruit 
 that it might as well be considered a Confederate defeat. 
 General Bragg, after the accession of Longstreet's corps, 
 outnumbered the Army of the Cumberland by one-fourth at
 
 Thomas Reaches his Early Objective. 435 
 
 least. The two days' fighting, according to General Bragg, 
 had reduced this to one-half and that one-half so demoralized 
 that it could not be brought to attack a foe in retreat, for 
 this is what they designated our move on Chattanooga. 
 
 We were in possession of the mountain gate-way to 
 the South. We have seen how General Thomas, early in 
 the spring of 1861, traced upon the maps of Kentucky and 
 Tennessee the fine strategical campaign, that beginning on 
 the Ohio ended at Chattanooga, and asked for a column of 
 twenty thousand men that he might demonstrate its im- 
 portance. We have seen how the force asked for first given 
 was then taken from him and given to General Mitchel. 
 From General Mitchel it passed to Don Carlos Buell and 
 from Buell to General Rosecrans, and, near three years after, 
 the campaign ends in the capture of Chattanooga and vir- 
 tually the end of the war. Our hero, who alone saw the 
 way to a final overthrow of a brave and skillful enemy and 
 a preservation of the Union through force of arms, clung 
 with the tenacity of an indomitable will to the prosecution 
 of that campaign. No neglect, no slights, none of the in- 
 solence of office at Washington, where stolid ignorance fed 
 military conceit, could swerve him from his purpose, and on 
 the 22d of September, nearly three years after his pointing 
 out to the President the great objective, he saw his veterans 
 Mving into Chattoiiooga, after an engagement where the 
 fighting fell upon the men he had developed as soldiers un- 
 der his immediate command, where through the force of 
 circumstances he passed from a subordinate to the general com- 
 manding. He and General Rosecrans changed places when 
 the fate of our empire hung upon that one day's fighting, 
 and two days after he saw the column he had asked for in 
 1861 marching under his command into the great stronghold 
 of the enemy.
 
 436 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton, his Character and Temperament His Intense Dislike 
 for Rosecrans and its Causes A Manly Remonstrance that amounted 
 to Insult Bragg Changes his Intended Assault on Chattanooga into 
 a Seige Rosecrans Relieved and Thomas put in Command. 
 
 Students in the true history of our late civil war will find 
 one name more frequently mentioned than any other of the 
 statesmen and soldiers of that stormy period. While they 
 will find it difficult to say whether that name excites 
 more approval than indignation as they read, they will be 
 certain of one conviction in themselves and that is admira- 
 tion, for the honest, frank, faithful manner in which he exe- 
 cuted his great trust. Edwin M. Stanton had many faults, 
 but more virtues. Possessed of a strong, broad, thoughtful 
 mind, he had enriched that mind by vast stores of information. 
 As an advocate before the highest tribunals of the country he 
 had developed and trained the best powers of a combatant. 
 A state of nature had become to him a state of war. This 
 left little of the judicial character in him. He could see but 
 one side and had no patience with the advocates of the other. 
 Of all the members of the cabinet with the exception of 
 Seward he had the finest fiber in his temperament. Yet he 
 shows to the worst advantage. Chase for example was born 
 coarse and got his refinement of thought and manner by 
 early training and a life-long association with the cultured. 
 Stanton, a man naturally of refinement, had been rendered 
 coarse in manner by lack of training and ruffianly surround- 
 ings. The gladiator of the bar he came in time to be an 
 Ishmaelite among men and a cynical disturber of the peace 
 with all. To these unhappy combinations was added ill- 
 health. His opponent at the bar learned that every case was 
 a personal contest and that each attempt to get the better of 
 an argument was treated as an insult. When he was called 
 much to his astonishment to the War Department by a Presi-
 
 Characteristics of Secretary Stanton. 437 
 
 dent he had grossly insulted and always spoke of with con- 
 tempt, his disordered nerves made that Department a hell to 
 the subordinates and. an insult to all having business with 
 its chief. Strange to relate this condition while resented, of 
 course, was never resisted. The Secretary had such a clear 
 head for not only the wide field of thoughtful control, but 
 the multitudinous details in which he was intrusted that his 
 insults of impatience were overlooked in the gratification of 
 having one's business promptly dispatched. That absurd but 
 common excuse used to save one's self-esteem, found in "it is 
 only his way," came in to save Mr. Stanton from even reproach. 
 It is difficult to make those who knew Secretary Stan- 
 ton personally, see that under all his rough exterior there 
 existed as kind a heart as ever beat in human breast. Yet 
 he has left the memory of a brute. This, while the great 
 man, who, recognizing his eminent fitness for the place to be 
 filled, called him into his cabinet in face of personal differ- 
 ence and insult, will be regarded through all time as one who 
 marred his usefulness through an excess of kind feeling. The 
 belief that because Abraham Lincoln was amiable in his 
 ways he was kind in his nature is a common error. The 
 man who thus pads his person, covering with cotton, as it 
 were, his angular points and nervous sensibilities, does so to 
 protect himself. He will do little favors to ^conciliate and 
 encourage kind favors in return. But one sooner or later 
 learns that all this covering is not for the better preservation 
 of a heart but only for the protection of a stomach. The 
 man of a really kind nature comes to be, in time, ugly, im- 
 patient and combative in seeking to relieve others, in ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred he finds an oppressor on the 
 ground, and in fighting that, learns in time to be com- 
 bative. Secretary Stanton's personal enmity was, at times, 
 malignant. There was in it, so far as the military subordi- 
 nates were concerned, a self-deception that went far to ex- 
 tenuate his injustice. He professed to hate McClellan and 
 Rosecrans, for example, because of their to him intense 
 stupidity. His favorites were McDowell, Hooker, McCook, 
 Pope and Thomas, whom he claimed to love because of their 
 patriotism and ability. To tell the whole truth, Stanton
 
 438 Life of Thomas. 
 
 shared with Lincoln, and indeed the entire cabinet, a con- 
 tempt for the military leaders. Unable or at least unwilling 
 to take upon themselves the necessary information to enable 
 them to plan campaigns declining indeed to even interfere, 
 save to cover and protect the capital they saw the sort se- 
 lected by West Point to do that work achieving naught but 
 bloody disasters. Personal intercourse did not create even 
 ordinary respect not to say admiration. To this sweep of 
 condemnation, Thomas alone made an exception. He ex- 
 torted, in his mere presence, the highest respect. Stanton 
 once said to General Schenck; "I feel before him as if I 
 were in the presence of George Washington." The most 
 unfortunate, in this respect, was the kind/ hearted, impulsive 
 " Old Rosey," as his men called him. A man of high mili- 
 tary genius it might be said of him as it was sung of Gold- 
 smith: "He wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll." 
 Regarding the war as the property of West Point, he looked 
 upon Edwin M. Stanton as a mere clerk of the president, 
 rather in the way of the army than a help to it, and when 
 the obtrusive clerk issued a circular announcing that a vacant 
 brigadier-general's commission in the regular army awaited 
 the volunteer-general, who would achieve the first decisive 
 victory, General Rosecrans was the only officer who ventured 
 to remonstrate. This remonstrance was, in fact, an insult 
 and would have quickened the resentment of a less sensitive 
 man than Edwin M. Stanton. To say that Secretary Stan- 
 ton was blind in his rage but feebly expresses the paroxysm 
 of wrath that settled into hate known only to a nature ren- 
 dered morbid by disease. How intense this was we may 
 gather from the way it blinded the great Secretary's better 
 judgment. Possessed of a patriotism that permeated his en- 
 tire being, he yet actually begrudged the soldiers of the 
 Cumberland their supplies and refused their general the 
 necessary reinforcements upon the ground, that under such 
 a general as Rosecrans an increased army would only have 
 increased slaughter and a greater national disaster. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on this part of our nar- 
 rative from a desire to save ourselves from a supposed unjust 
 censure of the great War Secretary. So far as the war was
 
 Simon Cameron's Term. 439 
 
 concerned he stood head and shoulders above his associates of 
 the administration. He was the successor of Simon Cam- 
 eron who was given the portfolio of the War Department be- 
 cause he had been before the convention that nominated 
 Lincoln, a candidate himself, and by throwing the vote of 
 Pennsylvania in behalf of the successful applicant secured 
 his selection. He took possession of the War Department, 
 and all the rogues in the country came to the front. A con- 
 jugation of the verb to steal became the short text of the 
 department. It ran from " I steal, thou stealest, he, she or 
 it steals," into the potential mood of " Steal thou and let 
 him steal." Shoddy was born, fixed ammunition of colored 
 sawdust was contracted for, and our men were sent to the 
 field armed with condemned Belgian muskets, more fatal to 
 the men who tried to use them than to the enemy they sought 
 to kill. The Hon. Simon Cameron and his pals were jing- 
 ling the stolen, blood-stained coin in their pockets when 
 the approaching roar of Confederate artillery told of the 
 stunning defeat of Bull Run that Cameron and his compan- 
 ions rascally had served to bring about. The rot of political 
 patronage stole into the army, and promotions were given 
 for services at the polls in lieu of services in camp, and it is 
 amazing that the Confederates did not end the war in the 
 beginning by the seizure of our Capitol. The condition un- 
 der the Pennsylvania!! got to be such at last that both Senate 
 and House, through delegations, waited on the President with 
 the peremptory demand for the dismissal of his War Secre- 
 tary. The mission to Russia was given to Cameron and the 
 War Department to Edwin M. Stanton. 
 
 In justice to President Lincoln we must remember that 
 he made Simon Cameron Secretary of War at a time when, 
 clear-headed as Abraham Lincoln was, he could not be made 
 to believe that war was imminent. " No people," he was 
 wont to say in his clear, terse style, "will get up and go at 
 each other's throats on an abstract political proposition." He 
 was right enough in that, for the war did not originate in any 
 abstract political proposition. The war had been brewing 
 through two centuries in the hearts and minds of the two 
 peoples that eventually went to killing each other. No war
 
 440 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ever has a reasonable origin, and one is not especially called 
 upon to find any reason for one. If one is curious enough 
 to delve in a dim past for this senseless quarrel, such curious 
 student will find that one-half of the quarrel came over the 
 sea and lauded at Plymouth in the Mayflower; the other half 
 came over the seas to Virginia in vessels holding godless ad- 
 ventures. One-half were Puritans and the other half pirates. 
 The lack of moral sense in the one was counter-balanced by 
 a perverted moral sense in the other. The old habit of crowd- 
 ing dogmas down broke out at intervals, while a sense of be- 
 ing in the wrong made all the South sensitive and uneasy. 
 Whatsoever may have been the origin of the difference be- 
 twee,n the two sections, it had grown to such proportions 
 that the armed conflict was as bitter, bloody, and unforgiving 
 as if the contestants were different races. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton illustrated this. Born of a Quaker 
 family, he inherited a hatred of slavery from his parents, who 
 were abolitionists, but early training under Judge Ely Tap- 
 pan, of Steubenville, Ohio, made him a Democrat. Such was 
 his ardent temperament that his political faith took on all 
 the fanaticism of a religious belief. Opposed to slavery, he 
 yet detested abolition, and regarded the Abolitionists as 
 criminal disturbers of the peace because they had no regard 
 for the sacred ' democratic guarantees of the Constitution. 
 When the South, however, took up arms against the Union 
 he found himself not only an ally of his old enemies, but 
 was from start to finish more bitter than they. 
 
 His appearance in the War Department was the signal 
 for reforms in every direction. For a time he seemed to 
 shift the war from the South to a war on the rogues. The 
 panic-stricken scoundrels who had been robbing the govern- 
 ment within hearing of the enemy's guns found themselves 
 heading toward the penitentiary, and fled from sight. Order 
 and honesty came in together, and within thirty days the very 
 atmosphere of a polluted department became pure. The here- 
 tofore neglected soldiers found themselves furnished with the 
 best arms, comfortable clothing, and shelter. Having swiftly 
 and promptly arrested fraud, he turned to the army. For 
 months our young Napoleon by the grace of popular bap-
 
 Secretary Stanton Meets McClellan. 441 
 
 tism and press anthems had been gathering a huge array 
 about the Capital and holding grand reviews to the music of 
 Confederate artillery and in sight of the rebel flag on Mun- 
 son's Hill. Among the first orders issued was one informing 
 General McClellan and his military world that the general's 
 head-quarters until the army took the field would be at 
 the War Department Building. Two small rooms were de- 
 voted to an establishment that in itself could have filled and 
 occupied the building. At a reception given to the officers 
 of the army by Secretary Stanton, General McClellan, quite 
 indignant, stalked in, follewed by his staff of princes and 
 millionaires. Having stiffly bowed to the Secretary, the 
 young Napoleon was about to withdraw, when Secretary 
 Stanton, with his peculiar smile, that left one in doubt as to 
 whether it was an angry gleam of white teeth from under his 
 short upper lip or the expression of a pleasant emotion, said 
 softly, " Please wait a moment, General." Then lifting his 
 voice so as to fill the room, he continues : " I have called you 
 together, gentlemen, in a social way that we may become 
 better acquainted. In a few days such social intercourse will 
 not be possible, for we will, if you please, have some fight- 
 ing. We are at the end of our preparations and at the end 
 of public patience. It is my duty to furnish you men and 
 material, and see that the fighting goes on. It is for you to 
 say how. With that I have nothing to do. I think it better 
 before we separate that we should clearly understand each 
 other." 
 
 This mutual recognition of each other did not avail 
 much. McClellan had positive orders to move, but his long- 
 cherished and closely concealed plan of campaign was ex- 
 tremely unsatisfactory. It was putting in shape the popular 
 cry of "On to Richmond" by water ways. McClellan had to 
 admit that Richmond, looked at from a military point, was 
 not of any strategic importance. President Lincoln truly 
 told him that the place had no political significance. " If we 
 defeat the Confederate army of Richmond," said the Presi- 
 dent, "we get Richmond, let its importance be what it may. 
 If this is the object in view, why go to the trouble and ex- 
 pense of sailing an army around by water to Richmond when
 
 442 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the army of Richmond can be met here in sight of Wash- 
 ington ?" 
 
 We again refer to this bnsiness at Washington for the 
 purpose of finding in it cause for the treatment awarded the 
 general commanding the Army of the Cumberland. The 
 fact is the nearer an acquaintance with the military mind 
 developed at Washington went, the profouuder grew the 
 contempt for it held by Lincoln arid cabinet. Said Secretary 
 Chase to the writer of this : " I have been studying the art 
 of war. I can find nothing in it but a calculation of chances 
 and a quick eye for topography. Were I not so near-sighted 
 I would be tempted to resign my place as Secretary for a 
 command in the field." 
 
 And yet in spite of this derision for the regular army offi- 
 cers this same administration persisted in not only leaving the 
 conduct of the war to the few forced to the highest command, 
 but it held them responsible. This was much complicated 
 and rendered worse by unexpected and uncalled for inter- 
 ference. Mr. Seward wished to call the attention of the 
 war powers of Europe to the territory we were conquering. 
 Mr. Chase wanted \wo bayonets given every Union man at 
 the South. We have seen President Lincoln authorizing a 
 subordinate officer of Grant to fit out in Grant's department, 
 independent of that officer, an expedition down the Missis- 
 sippi to attack Vicksburg. Had these able men given a little 
 study to what we are pleased to call the art of war they 
 would have learned that in it, as in all other pursuits of life, 
 education may develop but that it never creates, and that the 
 man best fitted to command our armies was the man com- 
 missioned by his Maker, and not of necessity the graduate 
 of West Point. With such information guiding the search 
 it would not have been long ere George II. Thomas would 
 have been called to command our armies and, putting an end 
 to the brutal and senseless objective found in mere slaughter, 
 would have led our brave men to where victory meant an 
 end to the armed conflict. 
 
 With all his faults of impulse born of blind prejudice 
 and bitter personal antagonisms the presence of Edwin M. 
 Stanton in the War Department brought life and hope, honor
 
 Longstreet's Plan of Campaign. 443 
 
 and energy to our cause in the field where that cause was 
 being fought. The huge anaconda, as McClellan's army was 
 called, that lay coiled in stupor about Washington suddenly 
 uncoiled and moved into the enemy's country. The roar 
 of battles heard about our Capital receded in the distance, 
 and although we met nothing but disasters, and our armies 
 that we sent out fully equipped came drifting back in wild 
 disorder, blame rested on the generals commanding while 
 the confidence of the people remained in the man whose 
 strong personality was felt throughout the war-disturbed 
 communities. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland occupied Chattanooga 
 and no time was lost in strengthening the defenses nature 
 afforded us. General Rosecrans made no effort to hold 
 Lookout Mountain or the railroad and the river below the 
 town. He felt that with his army inferior to that of Bragg, 
 while Bragg could and would undoubtedly be reinforced, he 
 could have no reasonable hope of help from the War Depart- 
 ment, and must therefore husband his forces so as to present 
 strong lines to the enemy and at the same time to make safe 
 his bridges and secure the roads along which supplies were 
 to come. For forty-eight hours Bragg threatened an attack, 
 but perceiving Rosecrans' perilous condition as to supplies 
 changed his intended assault to a siege. General Longstreet, 
 the better soldier, was earnestly opposed to the siege. This 
 subordinate held that long before want was felt in the town 
 reinforcements would arrive and raising the siege reverse 
 positions. Longstreet's plan was to cross the river above 
 Chattanooga and make themselves felt in the rear of Rose- 
 crans to such extent as to force Rosecrans to evacuate Chat- 
 tanooga. To cut his line of supplies would as effectually 
 starve his army as if they occupied the intrenchments about 
 the town. Their army would then be in a position to meet 
 and defeat in detail forces sent to the relief of Rosecrans. 
 He maintained that Rosecrans would be forced to evacuate 
 and fall back to Nashville, and that they could follow the 
 railroad to Knoxville and overwhelm Burnside, ,and from 
 there threaten Rosecrans' communications in the rear of 
 Nashville. General Bragg had that sort of a mind that in-
 
 444 Life of Thomas. 
 
 etinctively rejects all suggestions from others. "With such, 
 difficulties are always impossibilities. Of this sort was the 
 lack of transportation given by Bragg. He would be forced 
 to abandon his base of supplies with inadequate means to 
 carry with him the necessary stores. It will be seen directly 
 that this did not prevent Longstreet attacking Burnside at 
 Knoxville, and in a great emergency, such as came in the 
 loss of Chattanooga, grave chances should have been taken. 
 Without sufficient force to besiege Chattanooga he had 
 enough of an army to destroy Rosecrans' slender line of 
 supply over a land where the people were in deadly hostility 
 to our government. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland, nevertheless, was in great 
 peril. Bragg's lines extended from Lookout Mountain across 
 Chattanooga Valley to Missionary Ridge, and along its base 
 and summit to the Tennessee River. This left to our Army 
 but one road, some sixty miles in length, over the mountains 
 for supplies. Had this been unmolested, it yet would have 
 proved inadequate. There was no part of our Army in any 
 field so badly supplied and so wretchedly managed as that of 
 transportation by mules and horses, and that of cavalry. In 
 all cases wherever we had an army in the field it was half 
 paralyzed for want of mules and horses. In a brief period 
 the sixty miles of mountain road to Bridgeport became a 
 high way of dead animals that had fallen exhausted and starved 
 at their work. But the route was menaced by Bragg's cav- 
 alry commanded by the intrepid "Wheeler. Bragg was well 
 aware of the condition, and knew that if he could hold the 
 river and the shorter roads to Bridgeport the surrender of 
 our army was only a question of time. He placed Long- 
 street in command of this part of his operations, and ferried 
 all of his cavalry across the river under Wheeler, subject to 
 Longstreet's immediate command. Wheeler crossed on the 
 1st of October, and moved in the direction of our line of sup- 
 ply. General Rosecrans Learning of this, ordered General 
 Crook to pursue. Heavy skirmishing extended back as far as 
 Murfreesboro. This continued from the 1st of October until 
 the 12th with varying successes to one side then another. 
 But Wheeler failed of his purpose, and recrossed the river
 
 Rosecrans Removed. 445 
 
 with a severe loss of men and materials, and the unhappy 
 consciousness that he had failed of his purpose. 
 
 It was not necessary for Wheeler to have succeeded. 
 The long route of sixty miles killed in two weeks all the 
 available horses and mtfles. Hunger was upon our men, and 
 starvation stared the commanders in the face. In this emer- 
 gency the suggestive mind of our brilliant commander con- 
 ceived of a plan that was extremely simple, and promised to 
 succeed because it was unexpected. All there is of war that 
 addresses itself to the intellectual faculties is to be found in 
 the study of the unexpected. To comprehend the plan pro- 
 jected by Rosecrans one will see that the Tennessee River, 
 sweeping from north to south past Chattanooga, forms a 
 sudden bend at Ross Tow Island, and then flows in a north- 
 erly direction back opposite Chattanooga, forming a penin- 
 sula with a narrow neck at what is called Brown's Ferry. 
 To secure this ferry so as to throw across the stream at that 
 point a pontoon bridge, and hold the same, would shorten 
 our line of supplies by giving us possession of the river from 
 Lookout Mountain to Bridgeport. At this last named place 
 an old steamboat was being repaired and a .new one built. 
 To carry this project into success the movements of three 
 different bodies were necessary. The first was to have Gen- 
 eral Hooker move forward from Bridgeport ; thence to Ran- 
 kins' Ferry, and after to Brown's Ferry ; secondly, General 
 Turchvn, with artillery and a sufficient force, was to march 
 across the peninsula, and thirdly, a pontoon bridge had to be 
 floated at midnight from Chattanooga nine miles to the place 
 for its use under command of the brave and brainy Hazen. 
 
 This scheme was promptly perfected, but on the 19th 
 occurred an event which gave into other hands its execution. 
 The fate awarded a great soldier by the War Department 
 under Stanton and Halleck was approaching their victim not 
 without noise, but without warning. On the morning of the 
 19th came the order relieving General Rosecrans, and giving 
 command of the Army of the Cumberland to General Thomas. 
 Both of these eminent men were amazed at what they re- 
 garded as a cruel injustice that is now held to be the crown- 
 ing infamy of the war. General Thomas at once indignantly
 
 446 Life of Thomas. 
 
 refused to accept a promotion that came of such brutal dis- 
 regard of right; but General Rosecrans urged General Thomas 
 to accept. To decline would be no relief to him (Rosecrans), 
 and it would subject their noble Army of the Cumberland to 
 the probable abuse of a commander who could have no just 
 conception of its worth. General Thomas, so earnestly 
 urged to accept, gave way, and his former chief, turning 
 over the command, rode out with his staff into the cold night 
 that was not so chilling and dark as the clouds that calumny, 
 treachery, ingratitude, and deep, malignant enmity had cast 
 about him. As he rode along that foggy, freezing night he 
 could say, with bitter truth, what the immortal poet sang 
 before him : 
 
 " Blow, blow, thou winter wind , 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 As man's ingratitude." 
 
 All the days of labor and nights of sleepless anxiety 
 all the heavy responsibility and grand success achieved by his 
 own masterly abilities all, all forgotten ; and more bitter 
 than aught else was the fact that he who had held high com- 
 mand from the first, ever in the front, and in all the battles 
 he had fought never shamed by defeat, had really to give 
 place to Grant, a man incapable of planning a successful 
 campaign, who never knew aught but defeat and disaster 
 the Christopher Sly of our military annals, who went to his 
 grave mightily puzzled as to whether the public who insisted 
 upon kissing his feet understood him better than he did him- 
 self. 
 
 Understanding the character of Edwin M. Stanton, one 
 has not far to go to find the offense by him committed that 
 brought upon his head the punishment so savagely awarded. 
 Some time in the latter part of May, 1863, Halleck issued, 
 as we have said, an order to the effect that a vacant major- 
 generalship in the regular army awaited the officer who 
 should first achieve a great victory over the rebels. This 
 went out to all the generals in the field. Only one replied. 
 This one, already in disfavor at the War Department, and 
 involved in an ugly controversy as to his delays, seized his
 
 The Point of Rosecrans' Offending. 447 
 
 pen more fatal to him than the enemy's sword and, in hot 
 indignation, penned the following: 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, 
 
 MURPREESBORO, TENN., March 6, 1863. 
 
 Major- General H. W. Halleck, Commander-in- Chief, Washing- 
 ton, D. C. 
 
 GENERAL Yours of the 1st instant, announcing the offer 
 of a vacant major-generalship to the general in the field who 
 first wins an important and decisive victory, is received. As 
 an officer and a citizen, I feel degraded to see such auction- 
 eering of honor. Have we a general who would fight for his 
 own personal benefit, when he would not for honor and the 
 country ? He would come by his commission basely in that 
 case, and deserve to be despised my men of honor. But are 
 all the brave and honorable generals on an equality as to 
 chances? If not, it is unjust to those who probably deserve 
 most. W. S. ROSECRANS, Major-General." 
 
 These are noble sentiments, and thrill the patriotic heart. 
 But, putting away the sentimental side, this rebuke from a 
 subordinate to his superior officer has in it a tinge, to use the 
 mildest term, of insubordination quite foreign to the rules 
 and regulations that go to make an army. The blind obe- 
 dience so necessary to the machine called an army is in 
 deadly hostility to such an act. General Rosecrans would 
 have punished with appropriate severity any subordinate of 
 his who would dare rebuke him through an insult such as he 
 had administered to General Halleck or, rather, Secretary 
 Stanton, who was in fact the author of the objectionable cir- 
 cular. 
 
 Again : it is not clear that Rosecrans' exceptions were 
 well taken. To work for and long to possess a major-gene- 
 ral's commission was a laudable ambition, and, wjhile one was 
 ready to die for one's country, to die under double-starred 
 epaulettes did not detract from the purity of the patriotism 
 or the dignity of the death. 
 
 Again : was not Stanton's judgment of the men in the 
 army, such as he and President Lincoln and his cabinet came
 
 448 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to know personally, of a clearer sort and more correct than 
 Rosecrans' ? We have seen the mean jealousies, the low^ 
 selfish intrigues animating the majority of their officers, and 
 Stanton took their measure when he held before them the 
 glittering bait of a major-generalship in the regular army. 
 
 However, let all this be as it might have been; when 
 Rosecrans wrote his name to that rebuke, he signed his death 
 warrant. In Stanton's estimation, he had added insult to 
 incapacity, and, when the time came for Rosecrans' displace- 
 ment, the punishment would be made the more humiliating 
 by insult in return. This was all very wrong in a really 
 great man. It was beneath him, but the sun has its spots, 
 and we can only regret these errors in one we love for the 
 nobility of his nature and admire for the splendid qualities 
 of his intellect. We must remember that neither Edwin M. 
 Stanton, nor President Lincoln, nor any officer outside of 
 Thomas, Rosecrans, and Buell, understood or appreciated 
 the importance of the Army of the Cumberland. Lincoln 
 and Stanton, having no time to study the so-called art of war, 
 gave over the entire military to West Point, save when poli- 
 tics intervened or a sentimental impulse prevailed to police a 
 territory where Union citizens were supposed to exist. Of 
 this sort, in all eyes, was the mission given the Army of the 
 Cumberland. McClellan had adopted the popular cry of 
 " On to Richmond " as if that incorporated idleness where 
 the long, dreary past seemed resolved into a decayed town 
 had, any more than a thousand others scattered through the 
 South, any political importance or military significance. 
 
 "Why do you go to Richmond to fight when the enemy 
 is here?" asked Lincoln of McClellan. He should have 
 asked : " Why go to Richmond at all ? " 
 
 It was well for us probably that the government at 
 Washington, including Halleck and West Point, was in such 
 profound ignorance of the situation. Had they wakened to 
 the fact that the Army of the Cumberland carried the for- 
 tunes of the great Republic at its front, and that every mile 
 marched brought it nearer to the unprotected belly of the 
 Confederacy where victory would be death to the dark cause, 
 both Thomas and Rosecraus would have been displaced to
 
 Rosecrans' Plan Opened the Tennessee. 44U 
 
 give way to some noted bullet-head, such as Halleck, and 
 frightful disasters would have followed shameful defeat. 
 
 Out into the cold foggy night rode the gifted general 
 whose genius gave us not only the one campaign the one 
 from Nashville to Chattanooga of which we can justly be 
 proud, but won for this war the only military achievement 
 that will go into history as worthy the world's admiration. 
 "All the great monuments of earth are built to the memory 
 of solemn asses ;" but the world moves and in the spreading 
 light of better intelligence the time is not distant when these 
 neglected monuments will furnish material for asylums to 
 the care of the feeble-minded while thoughtful men go in 
 search of the humble graves of our truly great. 
 
 As General Rosecrans the dear " Old Rosy " of the 
 Cumberland Army rode in the dark over the pontoon 
 bridge from his great triumph into the unmerited obscurity 
 awarded him by a mean and ungrateful government, he passes 
 from our pages of history. Thenceforth the story is alone 
 of one greater than he greater than any of the crowd who 
 thronged the camp claiming to be leaders. 
 
 We have seen that before he left he, had advised the 
 scheme by which the seige of Chattanooga could be raised. 
 Of the plan and its author General George H. Thomas 
 said : " Before he was relieved of the command of the De- 
 partment of the Cumberland, General Rosecrans and his 
 chief engineer, Brigadier-General "W. F. Smith, had con- 
 sulted together as to the means of relieving the army at 
 Chattanooga from the perilous condition it was in owing 
 to the great difficulty of obtaining supplies and had par- 
 tially planned the movement which was left to me to be com- 
 pleted when I assumed command, namely, to open a short 
 route of supplies from Bridgeport." 
 
 Of this same plan General U. S. Grant says, with a 
 sneer : " On the morning of the 21st we took the train 
 from the front reaching Stevenson, Alabama, after dark. 
 Rosecrans was then on his way North. He came into my 
 car and we held a brief interview in which he described very 
 clearly the condition of Chattanooga, and made some excel- 
 29
 
 450 Life of Thomas. 
 
 lent suggestions as to what should be done. My only wonder 
 was that he had not carried them out." * 
 
 Having thus introduced the subject he proceeds to elimi- 
 nate General Rosecrans and take to himself the credit of 
 devising the plan that Rosecrans was about to put in opera- 
 sion the very day on which he was relieved. It is true he 
 gives General "W. F. Smith faint praise for his successful co- 
 operation. 
 
 When monuments are robbed to build great Cathedrals 
 we can condone the crime, but when the material is stolen to 
 enrich a mean structure indignation has full sway. 
 
 The War Department seemed to have at last awakened 
 to the importance of reinforcements for the Army of the 
 Cumberland. To Secretary Stanton probably came the 
 sting of conscience with the thought that through his blind 
 passion and prejudice a great army was in peril. He hur- 
 ried West after telegraphing an order to Grant to meet him 
 at Louisville. Grant gives in his memoirs a confused ac- 
 count of this, his first meeting with the great War Secretary. 
 He says, on page 28, vol. 2 : 
 
 " On receipt pf Mr. Dana's dispatch Mr. Stanton sent 
 for me. Finding I was out he became nervous and ex- 
 cited, inquiring of every person he met, including guests at 
 the house, whether they knew where I was, and bidding 
 them find me and send me to him at once. About 11 o'clock 
 I returned to the hotel and on my way when near the house 
 every person met was a messenger from the Secretary, ap- 
 parently partaking of his impatience to see me. I hastened 
 to the room of the Secretary and found him pacing the floor 
 rapidly in his dressing-gown, saying that the retreat must be 
 prevented." 
 
 One searches in vain through the records to find the Dana 
 dispatch, or any dispatch, looking to a proposed retreat of the 
 Cumberland Army to which Grant refers. He labors not only 
 to show that Rosecrans contemplated a retreat, and goes so far 
 in his memoirs as to say that he was shown the map with the 
 red and blue lines drawn upon it indicating the route of re- 
 
 * Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
 
 Stanton and Grant at Louisville. 451 
 
 treat. This is a falsehood upon the part of General Grant 
 by implication. The truth is that both Rosecrans and 
 Thomas, finding their army in a perilous condition as to sup- 
 plies, considered it their duty to study the means of extricat- 
 ing themselves in case of necessity. Hence the council of 
 officers as to the better means. The panic was in a room of 
 the Gait House, Louisville. The brave men in command at 
 Chattanooga looked the dark future full in the face and 
 calmly took measures of relief. When Grant therefore tele- 
 graphed Thomas to hold Chattanooga at all hazards, Thomas 
 was surprised, for neither he nor his illustrious predecessor 
 contemplated such surrender. 
 
 He therefore responded: "We will hold the town until 
 we starve." 
 
 The meeting of Stanton and Grant at Louisville is a 
 private affair concerning the two men interested and no 
 third. On this account we would pass the event in silence, 
 but General Grant, who never lost an opportunity to sneer 
 at Secretary Stanton, drags this affair into history. He was 
 prompted by a double motive. He wished, in the first place, 
 to speak of Stanton's nerveless condition, and, in the second 
 place, to head off an account of the affair that came from 
 Stanton and others personally acquainted with the transac- 
 tion. It will be observed that Grant begins in the middle of 
 the story and ends it without working back to the beginning. 
 It begins, we remember, " On receipt of Mr. Dana's dispatch 
 Mr. Stanton sent for me." Now, one is left in the dark as 
 to what dispatch of Dana's he refers to, also where he was 
 when Stanton sent for him. The fact is, as told by Stanton 
 and others, that Stanton and Grant met in the morning after 
 their arrival at Louisville, and the morning was spent in dis- 
 cussing the condition at Chattanooga. This condition was 
 as well known to both men before the interview as it was 
 after. No dispatch was necessary to deepen the gloom upon 
 the mind of Stanton, or to rouse the dull apathy of the 
 ooarse soldier. Maps were consulted, reports studied, and 
 how to relieve the army cooped up in Chattanooga through 
 Stanton's crime was discussed. Both officials feared that 
 the next news would be of a disastrous retreat, and when-
 
 452 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ever the door was opened to admit any one Stanton would 
 start as if the evil were suddenly shot in on him. Late in 
 the afternoon the two separated for needed rest and food. 
 It was understood that they were to meet in Stanton's room 
 at 7 P. M. The Secretary was prompt, as usual, in filling his 
 engagement, but the General did not appear. Stanton was 
 at first impatient at the delay, then furious at the insult or 
 neglect. Then began the inquiries and the creation of mes- 
 sengers in the guests of the hotel. General Grant was not 
 in the hotel, nor was he at any place of amusement, nor at 
 any hotel. All were searched in vain. Hours wore away 
 until at midnight the General was found where and in what 
 condition we leave to the imagination of our readers. 
 
 That day, October 18, 1863, General Grant assumed 
 command of the Military Division of the Mississippi that in- 
 cluded Tennessee and, of course, Chattanooga. General 
 JRosecrans was removed and General George H, Thomas 
 given command of the Army of the Cumberland.
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 453 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Siege of Chattanooga Terrible Suffering from Lack of Supplies Thomas 
 Opens up a Route Affording Relief A Brave Order Meant only 
 for Effect at Washington Thomas Commissioned Brigadier-General, 
 U. S. A. Burnside's Movements at Knoxville Sherman and his 
 Forces Join Grant and Thomas The Plan of Battle Attack Postponed 
 from Day to Day Thomas's Troops Take and Hold the Enemy's Works 
 on Orchard Knob Hooker Captures Lookout Mountain Army of the 
 Cumberland Takes the Heights of Missionary Ridge The Gross In- 
 justice done Thomas in Lying Memoirs. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland was in a wretched plight 
 many days before General Rosecrans turned the command 
 over to General Thomas. The attempt to haul supplies over 
 a rough mountain road by animals already exhausted proved 
 a failure from the beginning. The poor horses and mules 
 were without strength to carry themselves, aside from drag- 
 ging heavy wagons heavily laden. There is one memory of 
 tln> \\ar that records an infamy upon the hearts of all true 
 men who were witnesses of the cruelty. We refer to the 
 treatment of the animals. Christians are cruel to animals at 
 best. As practiced theirs is the only religion of all the earth 
 that fails to teach consideration and kindness to the dumb 
 creatures so dependent upon us for their comfort. The rural 
 life so much praised by poets is a continual torture to ani- 
 mals, while our great cities are fed through an agonized 
 abuse that chills the blood of right feeling men. This is so 
 terrible that one clings to his belief in a hell hereafter that 
 one may have the consolation of knowing that man, who 
 boasts of having murdered his God and found his religion in 
 the assassination, may find punishment of the most exquisite 
 sort for the uncalled for and wanton cruelty to animals. 
 
 This is the condition in the hour of peace ; it is aug- 
 mented to something fiendish in the time of war. Of course 
 we could not expect men threatened with starvation to feed 
 horses and mules. But these poor creatures were reduced
 
 454 Life of Thomas. 
 
 to a condition but one remove from death before the siege 
 began. It is true that so far as the North was concerned 
 the war turned on a question of transportation. The inva- 
 sion of the South enforced upon us long lines of supplies 
 that had to be kept open, and vast droves of horses and 
 mules were exhausted in supplying the cavalry, artillery, and 
 the thousands and thousands of wagons. One could suppose 
 this would have enforced the best care, to say the least, of the 
 animals upon the service of which armies were so dependent. 
 But economy of even human life was not thought of, and our 
 Christian training gives to animals no share of the charity 
 and love we retain to ourselves for our necessary betterment 
 ere we assume harps and robes before our Father who is 
 in heaven, and not supposed to know of the cruelty to his 
 creatures for a time left to our control. 
 
 The road to Bridgeport was the road to death and, worse 
 yet, the road to torture. One saw the wretched animals, re- 
 gardless of blows, fall exhausted to die, biting at the very 
 stones in their agony of starvation. 
 
 The lack of transportation told immediately upon the 
 army. The men had been on half rations during the latter 
 end of the forced marches that had flanked Bragg's forces 
 out of Chattanooga, and, worn out, they were quick to real- 
 ize the lack of food. It seemed to General Bragg and his 
 subordinate officers that it was but a question of time, and 
 brief time at that, when all this gallant army that had out- 
 maneuvered, outmarched, and outfought them would igno- 
 miniously surrender to hunger. 
 
 The impression is sought to be conveyed in Badeau's 
 Life of Grant, and Grant's own memoirs, that Grant arrested 
 a fatal retreat by telegraph, and that on his arrival he imme- 
 ately succeeded in relieving the Army of the Cumberland. 
 Our readers will observe that no such retreat was proposed 
 at any time, and that the means of relief had been perfected 
 before he arrived at Chattanooga. He sneers at the plan that 
 he was forced to approve, and when through it the siege was 
 raised, he eulogized in his report General "W. F. Smith, the 
 engineer who executed what Rosecrans projected, without a
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 455 
 
 word for the author of the bold undertaking. The fact is, 
 Grant was in no hurry to assume command. The order re- 
 lieving Rosecrans and the order forming the new department 
 were issued on the 18th; on the 20th, two days thereafter, he 
 left Louisville for Nashville, where he remained all night. 
 On the 20th he went as far as Stevenson. The next day at 
 dark he reached Bridgeport ; from thence he made Chatta- 
 nooga, getting in on the 23d about dark. His excuse was an 
 injury got from a fall of his horse at New Orleans. "We are 
 willing in all charity to concede this much, although such 
 crippled condition does not figure in that midnight affair at 
 Louisville. The lame back was aided by the problem pre- 
 sented to the hero of Vicksburg of how to extricate the 
 Army of the Cumberland from its perilous position. We 
 can well imagine, therefore, his own relief when General 
 W. F. Smith laid before him Rosecrans' plan. He adopted 
 that plan with a mental reservation to give Smith all the 
 credit that he did not retain for himself. The sanctioned 
 plan was immediately put in execution. Hooker was ordered 
 to move up from Bridgeport, and on the morning of the 26th 
 began his march. Hazen, in command of the men manning 
 the pontoons, floated out from Chattanooga at 3 A. M. on the 
 27th. General Turchin, with his brigade and artillery, and 
 accompanied by General Smith, marched across to Brown's 
 Ferry. 
 
 The most delicate part of this bold maneuver was given 
 to General Hazen, who commanded eighteen hundred men. 
 It was their part to float the sixty pontoons down the swift 
 stream for nine miles, in sight of the watch-fires of the Con- 
 federate picket-line that were burning at the edge of the 
 water. Their only exertion was to steer close into the 
 shadow of the bank opposite that occupied by the enemy. 
 This daring undertaking was eminently successful. Hazen 
 and his men reached Brown's Ferry about 5 A. M., and the 
 brainy and gallant young officer led the attacking party that 
 surprised and captured a picket holding a knob immediately 
 above the ferry. Turchin's force was immediately ferried 
 over, and the two forces held the position until the arrival 
 of Hooker, who had come up, strange to say, unmolested.
 
 456 Life of Thomas. 
 
 The ugly problem was solved. The shorter line secured in 
 this way brought water transportation within easy distance, 
 and from that out Bragg's army became one of observation, 
 and the siege was raised. 
 
 The strangest feature of this exploit was the indifference 
 of General Bragg to what was being done. Of course, he 
 could not divine the plan so admirably made and successfully 
 executed, but he must have known that Hooker's force was 
 the vanguard of great armies to the relief of our besieged 
 force; and if he meant to secure the fruits of his success, 
 Hooker's division should have been fought every inch of the 
 way from Bridgeport to Chattanooga. 
 
 It will be observed in the official reports that Q-rant does 
 not venture to claim the merit of solving the problem of sup- 
 plies. He does this by implication in his memoirs, and makes 
 the falsehood the more shameful, for it betrays his conscious- 
 ness of the offense. It will be remembered that Grant tells 
 us in these same shambling memoirs that he met Rosecrans 
 at Stevenson, Alabama. He writes : " He came into my car, 
 and we held a brief interview, in which he described very 
 clearly the situation at Chattanooga, and made some excel- 
 lent suggestions as to what should be done. My only wonder 
 was that he had not carried them out" The italics are ours, 
 and in them one may read the kick given the sick lion. One 
 would never guess of one's self that in these excellent sug- 
 gestions was the one for raising the siege in the securing of 
 supplies which this man can not bring himself to admitting 
 that it originated with Rosecrans. 
 
 In his dispatches, made at the time, he gives the credit 
 to General Thomas. On October 26th, he telegraphed as 
 follows : 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, October 26, 1863. 
 Major- General Halleck, Washington : 
 
 . . . General Thomas had also set on foot before my 
 arrival a plan for getting possession of the river from a point 
 below Lookout Mountain to Bridgeport. If successful, and 
 I think it will be, the question of supplies will be fully set- 
 tled. ... U. S. GRANT, Major- General,
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 457 
 
 The motive of this paragraph is evident to any one given 
 to a study of the military mind under responsibility. If a 
 plan succeeded the general commanding could take the credit 
 of such achievement as he eventually did, in his rambling 
 and unreliable memoirs. If, on the contrary, it not only 
 failed, but in its failure brought on a disastrous engagement 
 to our arms he could wash his hands of the affair. The liter- 
 ature of military reports is full of such maneuvering. If 
 there is a striking success the general commanding gives his 
 subordinates scant praise for gallantry and obedience. If, on 
 the contrary, the result is disastrous the blame falls upon the 
 cowardly, slow, or stupid underlings. 
 
 Hold now, good sir, for I would even up 
 
 What in its desperation courts defeat ; 
 
 Full well we know success will crown but one, 
 
 While failure hangs her hundreds as of course ; 
 
 So it must be agreed that in the end 
 
 We share alike the gallows or the crown. 
 
 One of the more alarming features of the situation came 
 in on the fact that the army of occupation was short of am- 
 munition. Food took precedence of all else in the long haul 
 of sixty miles. There was also a lack of animals. Ten thou- 
 sand horses and mules had perished, and as Grant said : 
 "What was left could scarcely carry themselves." Had 
 Hooker been attacked in his march to Brown's Ferry, or in- 
 deed for a month after, by the overwhelming force Bragg 
 could have brought to bear the result might have been dis- 
 astrous. But Bragg and his entire army had been fought 
 into a respect for the Army of the Cumberland that in its 
 caution approached fear. In all the efforts of the Confeder- 
 ates that followed our occupation of Chattanooga, this lack 
 of morale is the only solution we can find to an otherwise 
 professed mystery. 
 
 Two days after Grant telegraphs the following : 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, October 28, 1863. 
 Major- General Halleck, Washington: 
 
 General Thomas's plan for securing the river and south- 
 side road hence to Bridgeport has proved eminently success-
 
 458 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ful. The question of supplies may now be regarded as set- 
 tled. If the rebels give us one week more time I think all 
 danger of losing territory now held by us will have passed away, 
 and preparations may soon commence for offensive opera- 
 tions. U. S. GRANT, Major- General. 
 
 On comparing these dispatches with the account of the 
 same affair in Badeau's History, approved by Grant and 
 Grant's subsequent memoirs, we may learn the indifferent and 
 careless way, to say the least, in which these wielders of the 
 sword trace facts. General Thomas puts in operation the 
 plan conceived and elaborated by Rosecrans, and Grant be- 
 gins by ignoring the author ; then gives credit to the execu- 
 tor, and ends by taking all that credit to himself. 
 
 "We call attention to the above telegram by italicizing 
 part of a sentence that throws a flood of light upon the con- 
 dition of a military mind that died without discovering the 
 fact that on the 28th of October he held the key to the whole 
 situation. He had his hand on that which gave us not only 
 the territory of Tennessee, but every foot of ground held by 
 the Confederacy. In Chattanooga he found, without know- 
 ing it, the title deeds to all the territory held by the authori- 
 ties at Washington^ Had General Thomas been in command, 
 and enjoyed the same confidence given General Grant, he 
 would have advised the administration at Washington to re- 
 lieve enough of the Army of the. Potomac to man the fortifi- 
 cations of the Capital, and send the bulk of that army through 
 Cumberland Gap and Knoxville to Chattanooga. In less 
 than thirty days Virginia would have been abandoned by 
 Lee and his gaunt veterans for Georgia to make a losing 
 fight for a lost cause. But while our government was dream- 
 ing of conquered territory, strangely ignorant of the conquest 
 made, the Hon. Jefferson Davis, almost equally infatuated, 
 directed Bragg to send Longstreet's corps to Knoxville for 
 the purpose of overwhelming Burnside's little army of twenty 
 thousand men. This move proved in the end the destruc- 
 tion of an army. Bragg had reported the loss of two-fifths 
 of his forces that fought at Chickamauga. He did not, how- 
 ever, report the loss of morale that followed the fierce fight-
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 459 
 
 ing of those two bloody days. Probably he did not recog- 
 dize this fact to its fullest extent. Be that as it may, the 
 natural advantages he held in Missionary Ridge and Lookout 
 Mountain were immense, but no ordinary army could man 
 them. The Union forces holding the Union lines could mass 
 with ease to attack any point that the general commanding 
 would find impossible to reinforce immediately. This is what 
 happened, and President Davis learned the same lesson taught 
 our people at Washington that it was folly to attempt the 
 command of armies at such a distance. 
 
 Life at Chattanooga, in November, 1863, was not cheer- 
 ful. . Life in camp is not of that sort at any time, but shut 
 in as we were by the enemy, who found amusement in 
 throwing round shot at unexpected intervals from their 
 heights among our tents, added to the stormy weather and 
 general prevalence of mud, made for us a dreary existence. 
 " The soldier's life is ever gay," in song or upon the mimic 
 stage, but in real life it is to the last extent dull and depress- 
 ing. The army had to be refitted and fed, and those were 
 matters to which our general gave personal attention. He 
 had no time to spend at head-quarters of the general com- 
 manding, had he been moved thereto by inclination, which 
 was not the fact. This knowledge of inclination came to 
 those of the staff more from what the general left unsaid than 
 from any expression. He was on familiar terms with them 
 through the thousand and one little things of manner rather 
 than expression. He was mild, patient, and familiar with all, 
 but there was one topic on which he had a silence that was 
 a command, and that was military affairs that involved com- 
 ment or criticism on the acts of others. Of course, his opin- 
 ion of and feeling for General Grant could only be inferred. 
 It was known, but known, could not be traced to any rea- 
 sonable source. The fact is known that our Creator has 
 given every creature an instinct through which it knows its 
 enemy. Thomas and Grant felt this. We should not won- 
 der at this. The one was a coarse, tough-fibered man, with 
 more boiler than machinery in his make up, that one saw at 
 a glance in his dull, weak intellectual outlook from his eyes, 
 sustained by a full, heavy neck and bull-dog jaw. If one
 
 460 Life of Thomas. 
 
 doubts this, let one look at the two heads illustrating the first 
 and second volumes of " Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant." 
 The first is that of the soldier when a young man ; the sec- 
 ond is from the easel of that most remarkable genius for 
 portraits, William S. Marshall. If in this young or old 
 man's face the Creator meant to write greatness of any sort, 
 the writing is illegible. 
 
 It is unnecessary for us to repeat again what we have 
 so often written of the commanding yet winning presence 
 of our hero. It was observed from the first, and the observa- 
 tion was common talk among the staff, that General Grant 
 was uneasy in the company of General Thomas. What 
 Stanton meant, when he said he felt before Thomas as if he 
 were in the presence of Washington, Grant also felt without 
 probably comprehending it. To a dull, commonplace, coarse 
 man, there is no deeper and more unforgivable insult than 
 the presence of a quiet, capable, and yet refined man. 
 
 Under this state of fact, the intercourse between head- 
 quarters was limited to official orders carried to and fro by 
 orderlies. There was an atmosphere about each that, while 
 not positively chilling to each other, was far from warm and 
 familiar. One can well understand the astonishment of Gen- 
 eral Thomas when the following order was given him : 
 
 "HEAD-QUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, TENN., November 7, 186& 
 
 Major- General Thomas, Commanding Department of the Cum- 
 berland. 
 
 GENERAL News just received from Major-General Burn- 
 side, taken in connection with information given by a deserter 
 just in, whose statement you have, is of such a nature that it 
 becomes an imperative duty for your forces to draw the atten- 
 tion of the enemy from Burnside to your own front. Al- 
 ready the enemy have attacked Burnside's most easterly gar- 
 rison of two regiments and a battery, capturing the battery 
 and about half of the forces. This corroborates the state- 
 ment of the Georgia lieutenant as to the designs and present 
 movements of the enemy. 
 
 I deem the best movement to attract the enemy to be an
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 461 
 
 attack on the northern end of Missionary Ridge with all the 
 force you can bring to bear against it, and, when that is car- 
 ried, to threaten and even attack, if possible, the enemy's 
 line of communications between Dalton and Cleveland. 
 
 Rations should be ready to issue a sufficiency to last four 
 days, the moment Missionary Ridge is in our possession, ra- 
 tions to be carried in haversacks. Where there are not 
 horses to move the artillery, mules must be taken from the 
 teams, or horses from ambulances, or, if necessary, officers 
 dismounted and their horses taken. 
 
 In view of so many troops having been taken from this 
 valley and from Lookout, Howard's corps, of Hooker's com- 
 mand, can be used in this movement. 
 
 Immediate preparations should be made to carry these 
 directions into execution. The movement should not be 
 made one moment later than to-morrow morning. 
 
 You having been over this country, and having a better 
 opportunity of studying it than myself, the details are left 
 to you. 
 
 I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Major- General'' 
 
 General Thomas read without comment this extraor- 
 dinary paper. Having read the order, he sat for a minute 
 or more in thought, and then quietly sent for General "W. F. 
 Smith, his engineer. The result of that conference is given 
 in a letter from General Smith to Thomas B. Van Home, 
 and is published in his life of Thomas, on page 161. It 
 reads : 
 
 " General Thomas said that, taking into account his 
 numbers and condition, and the numbers and situation of the 
 enemy, the carrying out of the order meant disaster to us, 
 and that I must endeavor to get the order countermanded, 
 and wait for Sherman's army to arrive. 
 
 "After a somewhat protracted conversation, I suggested 
 to him that he should go up on the right bank of the river 
 with me opposite to the northern end of Missionary Ridge, 
 and make an examination, to which he assented, and we 
 went up as far as the mouth of Chickamauga creek.
 
 462 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " From there we made a scrutiny of the ground and the 
 position of the right of the enemy on the ridge, as marked 
 by their works and smokes, and it was evident that General 
 Thomas, with his command, could not turn the right of 
 Bragg's army without uncovering Chattanooga. We then 
 returned, and I went to the head-quarters of General Grant, 
 and reported the result of the reconnoisance, and told him, 
 in my judgment, it was absolutely necessary to wait for the 
 arrival of Sherman's army before attempting any movement. 
 " The order was at once countermanded." 
 Of course the order was countermanded. We have 
 called attention to some acts of this one great general of the 
 war in popular estimation that indicate slightly a lack of 
 judgment and an absence of feeling in regard to human life 
 on the Union side, but we have nothing to reveal so utterly 
 senseless as this proposed attack. The fact is, it never was 
 intended to be executed. The brave order was meant for 
 home consumption at Washington. The President, Secretary 
 of War, and general-in-chief directing military movements 
 in Tennessee from the Capital found their forces in an ugly 
 condition and themselves in a panic. Burnside, with an 
 army of twenty thousand men of all arms, had been pushed 
 through Cumberland Gap to Knoxville not so much for the 
 purpose of co-operating with Rosecrans, so as to protect his 
 left flank, but to protect East Tennessee in behalf of the mili- 
 tary governor, Andrew Johnson. Burnside seemed to com- 
 prehend this purpose of his command, for he made no effort 
 to aid Rosecrans ; and so far as his left flank was concerned, 
 the little army under the Rhode Island epauletted incapable 
 might as well have been at Narraganset. And now that our 
 forces were held at Chattanooga, Burnside and the adminis- 
 tration were calling frantically for aid. To satisfy this de- 
 mand the order was elaborated, issued, and, before a man 
 could be called out or a gun fired, revoked. It had served a 
 purpose. The trinity of meddlers in the administration was 
 satisfied that it had at Chattanooga a man of great spirit and 
 enterprise. In Grant's official report he says : "Ascertaining 
 from scouts and deserters that Bragg was detaching Long- 
 street from the front and moving him in the direction of
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 463 
 
 Knoxville, Tenn., evidently to attack Burnside, and feeling 
 strongly the necessity of some move that would compel him 
 to retain his forces and recall those he had detached, direc- 
 tions were given for a movement against Missionary Ridge 
 with a view to carrying it and threatening the enemy's com- 
 munications with Longstreet, of which I informed Bumside 
 by telegraph on the 7th of November. 
 
 "After a thorough reconnoissance of the ground, how- 
 ever, it was deemed utterly impracticable to make the move 
 until Sherman should get up, because of the inadequacy of 
 our forces and the condition of the animals then at Chatta- 
 nooga, and I was forced to leave Burnside for the present to 
 contend against the superior forces of the enemy until the 
 arrival of Sherman with his men and means of transportation." 
 
 On November 21st, General Grant, in a dispatch to Gen- 
 eral Halleck, spoke of his order in the following terms : " I 
 ordered an attack here two weeks ago, but it was impossible 
 to move artillery. Now, Thomas's chief of staff says that he 
 has to borrow teams from Sherman to move a part of his ar- 
 tillery to where it is to be used. Sherman has used almost 
 superhuman efforts to get up even at this time, and his force 
 is really the only one that I can move. Thomas can take 
 about one gun to each battery, and go as far with his infan- 
 try as his men can carry rations to keep them and bring them 
 back. I have never felt such restlessness before as I have at 
 the fixed and immovable condition of the Army of the Cum- 
 berland. The quartermaster states that the loss of animals 
 here will exceed ten thousand." 
 
 Again, we gather from Professor Coppee, in his volume 
 of Grant and his campaigns, gotten doubtlessly from head- 
 quarters at the time, General Grant's intent. The professor 
 says, page 220 : 
 
 " His (Grant's) idea was to attack Missionary Ridge with- 
 out delay, and of this plan he informed Burnside, telling him 
 to hold Knoxville to the last extremity, but sober second 
 thought suggested by that calm prudence which is one of his 
 best characteristics, prompted him to await the arrival of 
 Sherman and his army, and thus by skill and carefulness to 
 leave little to chance."
 
 464 Life of Thomas. 
 
 This is the view taken of the affair at the time by the 
 chief actor and promoter of the wild project. But the order, 
 made to serve a dishonest purpose, is not permitted to rest as 
 stated in the report. Badeau, in that unpleasant picture 
 called the Military Ilistory of U. S. Grant, approved by its 
 hero, finds another use for the order, and that is in an attack 
 on General Thomas. On pages 463 and 464, vol. 1, he says: 
 
 " But Thomas announced that he had no horses to move 
 his artillery, and declared himself entirely and absolutely un- 
 able to move until Sherman should arrive to co-operate. 
 . . Nevertheless, Thomas's delay was a great disappoint- 
 .ment. A prompt movement on the part of that commander 
 would undoubtedly have had the effect to recall Longstreet ; 
 but now it was possible that the troops sent into East Ten- 
 nessee might succeed in overthrowing the occupation which 
 was so important." 
 
 Not content with this fasehood, the dishonest writer of 
 dull fiction called history returns to this view of the affair in 
 his so-called account of operations about Nashville. He then 
 says, in the same work, vol. 3, pp. 279, 280 : " Grant knew 
 all this well. The same traits which were exhibited in the 
 Nashville campaign he had seen evinced at Chattanooga a 
 year before. The same provoking, obstinate delay before the 
 battle, the same splendid, victorious, irresi^sible energy after- 
 ward. He believed, indeed, in Thomas, more than Thomas 
 did in himself. The subordinate always shrank from respon- 
 sibility." 
 
 Not content with this falsifying history and damning the 
 illustrious dead with faint praise he further quotes from a 
 letter written him by Sherman in which that gentleman thus 
 disposes of the man who saved the lofty military critic from 
 lasting disgrace as we will show hereafter. The quotation 
 states : " Thomas always shrunk from supreme command and 
 consequent responsibility." 
 
 The only comment we have to offer is that thus speaks 
 a general who never planned a campaign or wou a battle of 
 a general whose military genius made high strategy possible 
 and who never lost one in the great battles he fought, or 
 sacrificed a man unnecessarily. General Sherman lived to
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 465 
 
 be ashamed of this sentence. When disputing Lord Wolseley's 
 assertion that General Robert E. Lee was the one general of 
 the war, Sherman at first put forward Grant, but as if not 
 satisfied with his example of military ability on the Union 
 side, he soon dropped the ex-President and fell into a guarded 
 eulogy of Thomas. He was wont to say years before his 
 death that he owed all he possessed of military reputation 
 to George H. Thomas; that had it not been for Thomas's 
 success at Nashville in annihilating Hood's army the march 
 to the sea would have been one of the most atrocious dis- 
 asters ever suffered by a general. We may not quote the gen- 
 eral's exact words accurately, but we give the meaning with 
 pleasure, for it shows that this pet of the press and theaters 
 had sane intervals. 
 
 The reckless audacity of Adam Badeau's falsehood appears 
 in the comment, in which he says. "Nevertheless Thomas's 
 delay was a great disappointment. A prompt movement on 
 the part of that commander would undoubtedly have had the 
 effect of recalling Longstreet." This specimen of bad gram- 
 mar was penned in connection with the history of Sherman's 
 assault, November 25th, on the same part of the Ridge that 
 Grant designated to Thomas on November 7th, and although 
 the same state of affairs continued to exist the assault did not 
 force a recall of Longstreet or even an order to that effect. 
 
 Adam Badeau's " Military History of U. S. Grant " is 
 so utterly worthless, that it would be a waste of time to no- 
 tice it but for the fact, that as we have said before, it carries 
 the indorsement of Grant, and we are assured that every 
 page was carefully read in proof by the man whose military 
 career and character the narrative purports to give. Badeau 
 wrote and Grant revised. This order seems to have been 
 reversed in the "Personal Memoirs;" those rambling, in- 
 accurate and unsatisfactory memoirs of a dying man, in 
 which Grant is claimed to have written and Badeau revised. 
 The student who seeks to sift fact from fancy in the hur- 
 ried and confused course of events where even telegrams 
 
 O 
 
 from the front are almost as unreliable as if every telegraph 
 pole had a head and opinions of its own, must be guarded 
 30
 
 466 Life of Thomas. 
 
 against accepting the construction of such events put upon 
 them by the men personally interested in the record. Gen- 
 eral Adam Badeau was selected to be the historian of Grant's 
 military career. That he might pursue this great work un- 
 molested by the care of business incident to making a living, 
 he was appointed U. S. Consul at London. He had not only 
 free access to all the papers of the "War Department, but he 
 was actually permitted to carry with him to London the 
 more important documents of the public archives. "We are 
 of course left in doubt as to the number and importance of 
 those* returned. This painful condition of doubt is dispersed 
 by the character given the historian by his illustrious patron 
 when such opinion of character carries with it all the 
 solemnity of a dying utterance. 
 
 There is nothing to be gained by showing what might 
 have been the result of the movement proposed in an 
 order that never was intended to be executed. The only 
 argument one can use in favor of an intended move is that 
 it is about such as Grant was capable of making. The 
 force under Thomas was not only nearer the enemy on 
 Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, but equally dis- 
 tant from the point designated for the assault. Not a cor- 
 poral's guard could have been moved from Chattanooga to 
 the foot of the Ridge near the tunnel without the cognizance 
 of the Confederates, and to mass enough troops to make 
 the assault serious would have been to evacuate the strong- 
 hold we had gained at such expenditure of blood and treas- 
 ure, under the very eyes of the enemy. Bragg was slow, 
 vascillating and uncertain, but the very troops in line would 
 have charged down those slopes without command as our 
 men charged up the same declivity without orders, as they 
 did a few days later. It is customary to defend Grant's con- 
 duct at the expense of his head. He goes acquit, for ex- 
 ample, of complicity in Grant and Ward's supposed deal- 
 ing in navy and army contracts by the assertion that al- 
 though an old army officer and for eight years President of 
 the United States, he was ignorant of what army and navy 
 contracts were. This may have been possible we hope it 
 was but we draw the line on the order issued at Chatta-
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 467 
 
 nooga to General Thomas on the 7th of November, 1863. 
 No sane or sober man could have issued such with the in- 
 tent of its execution. 
 
 The expected reinforcements under General Sherman 
 approached slowly. This was no fault of the general com- 
 manding the coming army. The rains that followed our 
 forces rendered the roads almost impassable, and this, to 
 armies operating in Tennessee, was an obstacle that at times 
 became the impossible. In the mean time General Thomas 
 pushed forward with indomitable will the task of re-equip- 
 ping his grand Army of the Cumberland. He was among 
 the first to detect the " shoddy " and other frauds that dis- 
 honest contractors, in collusion with dishonorable officials, 
 were putting upon the government and imposing on the 
 men. We had thousands of overcoats and blankets that 
 fell apart after a little wear, hats that melted in a hard rain, 
 while shoes of split bottom went to pieces as if they were 
 pasted together instead of being pegged or sewed. Had it 
 not been for the presence of Edwin M. Stanton in the "War 
 Department our government would have fallen from the 
 frauds that honey-combed its very foundations. "We were 
 probably in no worse condition than any government en- 
 gaged in a great conflict of arms, save in the fact that we were 
 without experience in war, and also, being a republic, we 
 were without despotic power that puts aside the law's delays 
 in its dealings with the dishonest. We have on this account 
 more law and less order than any civilized people on earth 
 so that when war came upon us even our great and good 
 President had to shut his eyes with the painfulest expression 
 on his rugged face at gigantic frauds clearly exposed lest the 
 administration lose the vote of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Whilst engaged in preparations for offensive movements 
 General Thomas received the commission of Brigadier-Gen- 
 eral of the United States Army. This was. a cold recognition 
 of right to promotion under the rules and regulations of the 
 regular army, and not the reward of the War Department 
 for gallant and brilliant services in the field. Jhe Virginian 
 had to wait for that promotion that recognizes services. He
 
 468 Life of Thomas. 
 
 quietly accepted without comment his commission and con- 
 tinued his work. 
 
 General Burnside grew in importance as a perilous con- 
 dition and the panic felt at Washington reached the head- 
 quarters of the Army of the Mississippi, at Chattanooga. 
 The commander-in-chief became yet more " restless " as the 
 time slowly wore on, as 
 
 " He gave many a Northward look 
 To see his Sherman lead his forces up, 
 And looked in vain." 
 
 Never, in any war, did a more absurd military maneuver 
 control grave events. On the 28th of June, General Burn- 
 side marched out of Camp Nelson, near Richmond, Ken- 
 tucky, in command of twenty thousand men. He was ex- 
 pecting his old corps, as he was pleased to call it, from the 
 east, and moved without that addition. In light marching 
 order, his men mounted on horses denied Rosecrans, and 
 with all his supplies packed on mules, he made his way with- 
 out serious molestation to Knoxville. The conquest was so 
 rapid and easy, the Confederates so uniformly retreated from 
 strong positions in mountain gaps and on rivers that General 
 Burnside jumped to the conclusion that the Confederacy had 
 collapsed. He did not know, as he subsequently learned to 
 his sorrow, that all the -forces under Buckner were being 
 gathered in to strengthen Bragg in his death struggle at 
 Chattanooga. This erroneous idea of General Burnside 
 strengthened his belief in his original orders that he was at 
 Knoxville to police East Tennessee in behalf of Andrew 
 Johnson's military government at Nashville. To this end, 
 instead of connecting with the Army of the Cumberland, 
 and so protecting its left wing, he immediately proceeded 
 to spread his forces from Kingston to Cumberland Gap. The 
 great population of Union men in East Tennessee had cer- 
 tainly suffered fearfully for two years, and vengeance was 
 sweet to them. General Burnside, with his amiable temper- 
 ament and conservative ways, would not have suited them on 
 trial. The appearance of our troops brought a cry of joy 
 and a Union flag that had been long hidden from nearly
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 469 
 
 every house at Knoxville ; and the next move in order was 
 to destroy the property of their late oppressors and now fly- 
 ing secessionists. This last was shocking to the mild and 
 benevolent Burnside. He had no time to try conclusions in 
 this direction, however, for the unexpected appearance of 
 Longstreet's forces put our police under bayonets on the 
 defensive. To get them together for that purpose was the 
 first and most difficult duty of their general. 
 
 Burnside was never ordered to report to Rosecrans for 
 orders. That would have been to add twenty thousand men 
 to the Cumberland army, then under command of the man 
 Stanton pronounced incompetent. Halleck's latest order to 
 Burnside was one of those indefinite commands that throws 
 the whole responsibility upon the subordinate. This order 
 directed Burnside to concentrate his army on the Tennessee 
 River westward from Loudon so as to connect with Rose- 
 crans, who had just reached Chattanooga, and that "it was 
 hoped that there would be no further delay in effecting a 
 junction between the two armies as had previously been or- 
 dered." Halleck, after the mischief had been done, claimed 
 that as Rosecrans ranked Burnside the obedience of his 
 order would have been what the situation called for. Burn- 
 side evidently did not BO construe Halleck's directions, but 
 went on distributing his forces, unmindful of the fighting at 
 Chattanooga and the peril oY the Army of the Cumberland, 
 until the 20th of October, when the little out-lying post of 
 Philadelphia, held by Colonel F. T. "Wolford, was attacked. 
 "Wolford had two thousand men and he found himself sur- 
 rounded by Longstreet's entire corps. The gallant colonel 
 fought fiercely in hopes that the sound of his guns would 
 fetch him relief from Loudon. But rumor preceeded the 
 roar of artillery, and the fact of Longstreet's advance was 
 known at Loudon in time to put the forces there in full re- 
 treat. Colonel Wolford cut his way through, saving his 
 command but losing all his wagons and battery. General 
 Burnside hastened from Knoxville and took command in 
 person. Fortunately he was joined by his old 9th corps and 
 had then a force superior in numbers to that of Longstreet.
 
 470 Life of Thomas. 
 
 He fell back fighting until behind the intrenchments of 
 Knoxville. 
 
 General Burnside was not the man to try conclusions 
 with Lougstreet in the open field. The blind confidence 
 that had once marched brave men to where they might be 
 mowed down by the thousands in an utterly hopeless assault 
 had swung over to tha other extreme. With a force superior 
 in numbers to his foe, he hid behind his intrenchments, and 
 reported to Washington that he would hold his own until 
 Rosecrans could come to his relief. This relief came in a 
 way to astonish not only the over cautious Burnside, but the 
 whole country North and South. One is puzzled to find a 
 reason for this move of Longstreet against Burnside. It is 
 said to have originated with President Jefferson Davis. If 
 so, it was a strange blunder, for so able a man to make. He 
 must have known that the siege had been broken, and sup- 
 plies were pouring in to the hungry and naked Union troops. 
 The fact that Hooker was on hand with forces from the 
 Army of the Potomac, and that Sherman was hurrying for- 
 ward with the Army of the Mississippi, should have admon- 
 ished him that, whether the War Department at Washing- 
 ton appreciated the importance of Chattanooga, or not, gi- 
 gantic efforts were being made to hold it permanently as our 
 own. Had Bragg, immediately after the battle of Chicka- 
 mauga, followed Longstreet's advice, and marched his entire 
 army against Burnside, we can now see that such a campaign, 
 vigorously prosecuted, would have rendered Chattanooga 
 untenable to the Union army. But in dividing his army he 
 sent a force to Knoxville too weak for a quick, grand blow, 
 while an insufficient number was retained to man the fortifi- 
 cations about Chattanooga. 
 
 General Hooker, in command of the Eleventh and 
 Twelfth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, numbering in 
 all twenty thousand men, had been dispatched by rail to 
 Chattanooga, which he reached on October 29th. General 
 Sherman, with the Army of the Mississippi, reached Bridge- 
 port on November 15th. Sherman hastened forward to con- 
 sult Grant as to the next move against the enemy. Generals 
 Grant, Thomas, Sherman, and Smith made a reconnoissance
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 471 
 
 of the locality Grant had resolved on as the one to be attacked. 
 Bragg would have joined in the recommendation to assail this 
 especially strong fortification. It will he observed by this time 
 that this pet of the Illinois politicians had a peculiar turn for 
 finding the enemy's ugliest positions to attack. There was one 
 advantage, however, in the fact that the roads north of the river 
 leading to the crest Grant proposed assaulting were so con- 
 cealed by trees that the enemy might well be in doubt as to 
 whether the moving columns were destined for Knoxyille or 
 a demonstration against Missionary Ridge. Had the move- 
 ment been promptly made, it is more than probable that 
 Bragg would have been taken at a disadvantage. This, how- 
 ever, was not to be. 
 
 After his careful but cautious reconnoissance, Grant was 
 yet deplorably ignorant, for, while he got reliable informa- 
 tion as to the roads, he was deceived as to Bragg's posi- 
 tion. Instead of the Confederate right flank resting upon 
 the summit General Grant saw and thought weakly de- 
 fended, the line was on an eminence further to the south, 
 of great natural strength, as Sherman lived to demonstrate. 
 
 As there has been a wide conflict of narrative and a yet 
 wider conflict of opinion as to the battles that followed the 
 arrival of Sherman, we give the order addressed to Generals 
 Thomas and Sherman, which contains all there is of a plan 
 of action. It reads: 
 
 " HEAD-QUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, TENN., Nov. 18, 1863. 
 Major- General Geo. H. Thomas, Commanding Department and 
 
 Army of the Cumberland. 
 
 GENERAL All preparations should be made for attack- 
 ing the enemy's position on Missionary Ridge by Saturday 
 morning at daylight. Not being provided with a map giving 
 names of roads, spurs of the mountain, and other places, such 
 definite instructions can not be given as might be desirable. 
 However, the general plan, you understand, is for Sherman, 
 with his force brought with him strengthened by a division 
 from your command, to effect a crossing of the Tennessee 
 river just below the mouth of the Chickamauga; his cross-
 
 472 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ing 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 carry the heights from the northern extremity to 
 about the railroad tunnel, before the enemy can concentrate 
 a force against him. 
 
 You will co-operate with Sherman. The troops in Chat- 
 tanooga Valley should be well concentrated on your left 
 flank, leaving only the necessary force to defend fortifications 
 on the right and the center, and a movable column of one 
 division in readiness to move wherever ordered. This divis- 
 ion 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 near simultaneously with him as pos- 
 sible. The junction once formed and the ridge carried, com- 
 munications 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. 
 
 Lookout Valley, I think, will be easily held by Geary's 
 division and what troops you may still have there belonging 
 to the old Army of the Cumberland. Howard's corps can 
 then be held in readiness to act either with you at Chatta- 
 nooga or with Sherman. It should be marched on Friday 
 night to a position on the north side of the river, not lower 
 down than the first pontoon bridge, and there held in readi- 
 ness for such orders as may become necessary. 
 
 All the troops will be provided with two days' cooked 
 rations in their haversacks and one hundred rounds of am- 
 munition on the person of each infantry soldier. 
 
 Special care should be taken by all the officers to see 
 that ammunition is not wasted or unnecessarily fired away. 
 You will call on the engineering department for such prepa- 
 rations aa you may deem necessary for crossing your infantry 
 and artillery over Citico creek. 
 
 I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT." 
 
 The at one time proposed attack of Hooker upon the 
 enemy posted on Lookout Mountain, that if successful would
 
 Siege of Chattanoogo. 473 
 
 render the fortifications in the valley untenable, had, after a 
 careful reconnoissance been abandoned. Why this import- 
 ant change was made General Grant explains in his official 
 report, in which he says : " Upon further consideration, the 
 great object being to mass all forces possible against one 
 given point, namely, Missionary Ridge, converging toward 
 the northern end of it, it was deemed best to change the 
 original plan, so far as it contemplated Hooker's attack on 
 Lookout Mountain, which would give us Howard's corps of 
 his command to aid in this purpose; and on the 18th the fol- 
 lowing instructions were given to Thomas:" 
 
 Now we learn, from the order above quoted, and the ex- 
 planation found in Grant's official report, that the plan of 
 attack meant putting in Sherman's forces at the extremity 
 of Missionary Ridge, with those of Thomas so massed as to 
 second and support Sherman's initial assault. The general 
 had but one idea, and that centered about Sherman, who was 
 to dislodge the enemy and cut him off from his communica- 
 tions. "We are at some pains to make this clear on account 
 of misrepresentations made by Grant himself, that not only 
 disturb real history but have been used to detract from the 
 just merit belonging to others. It was the acts and influence 
 of Thomas that subsequently controlled the form of battle 
 and won the victory. 
 
 The strategy found in the secret movements of troops 
 came to naught through the delay incident to Sherman's 
 marches through stormy weather and over muddy roads. To 
 add to the trouble the high water carried away the pontoon 
 bridge at Brown's Ferry, leaving one division of Sherman's 
 army in Lookout Valley. The attack ordered on the 20th 
 was, therefore, postponed from day to day. In the mean- 
 time Bragg had learned of the impending assault arid quietly 
 massed his troops to meet the emergency. The delay struck 
 General Thomas as peculiarly unfortunate, and the man 
 criticised by Grant and Sherman as too cautious for a com- 
 mander, and too slow for a good subordinate, on this occa- 
 sion was in advance of both Grant and Sherman. He ap- 
 preciated the evil consequences of Bragg being permitted to 
 prepare for an assault at the point designated. General
 
 474 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Thomas had promptly moved up his forces in accordance 
 with orders. General Wood was put in command of the 
 movable column. General Jeff. C. D.avis had reported his 
 division to General Sherman. General Howard's force was 
 put in between the pontoon bridge at Brown's Ferry and the 
 one at Chattanooga. The artillery had been planted on the 
 heights north of the river, and all the cavalry, at least all 
 that could be mounted, under General Long, sought to protect 
 Sherman's left flank, and was so posted as to attack tlie 
 enemy's connections with .Knoxville should the emergency 
 arise. This was all in accord with Grant's plan, but when 
 the third postponement occurred, General Thomas sought 
 the General commanding to urge a change of movement. 
 Fearing that in this delay Bragg, enlightened by the marching 
 of troops in the direction of Knoxville, that did not continue 
 in that direction, would have time to collect a heavy force to 
 defend what General Thomas believed to be a strong posi- 
 tion, he urged upon General Grant that Howard's division 
 should report to General Sherman instead of his, Thomas's 
 two divisions in Lookout Valley, and that these divisions, 
 with Hooker's corps, should attack Bragg's left flank at the 
 same time that Sherman moved against the right on Mis- 
 sionary Ridge. 
 
 At the time when Thomas was urging this upon Grant 
 (22d November), Bragg's extreme right rested on Missionary 
 Ridge, opposite our extreme left. The Confederate general 
 had disposed his reduced forces to the best advantage con- 
 sidering the natural strength of defense along his front. Of 
 course he gave fewer men and a thinner line to positions 
 that promised the most from their natural advantages. But 
 the truth was, that after his loss at Chickamauga, and the 
 withdrawal of Longstreet's corps, he was without a sufficient 
 number to hold the long line of fortifications that nature had 
 been so liberal in constructing. His hope, therefore, rested 
 on his anticipating any attack from his enemy and massing 
 his forces for its defense. One division under Stevenson held 
 the summit of Lookout Mountain, while two divisions under 
 Cheatham and Walker guarded the front slope. While Gen- 
 eral Thomas's reticence stood in the way of his volunteering
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 475 
 
 any suggestions earnestly to the general commanding, he dis- 
 cussed freely with his staff the situation, and now that the 
 condition of both sides are known it is remarkable to note 
 how clear and accurate his knowledge of the Confederate 
 forces was. He did not share with Grant and Sherman that 
 strange infatuation as to the superiority in numbers of the 
 Confederate forces. He knew how heavily the sparse popu- 
 lation of the South had been drawn on, and no one was 
 better posted as to the condition South after two years of 
 such a destructive war. " You may rely upon it," he said, 
 "that Yicksburg would not have been abandoned and this 
 place, the most important of all, would not now be in our 
 hands if the government at Richmond could have furnished 
 men enough to save either or both places. Longstreet's move 
 is a raid upon our line of supplies. Burnside, at this mo- 
 ment, has three men to Longstreet's one. We greatly out- 
 number Bragg's army, and if in our attack we can bring the 
 crushing weight of our full force to bear, we are sure to win." 
 General Thomas made his suggestion in reference to 
 General Hooker and an attack on Bragg's left, resting on 
 Lookout Mountain on the 22d, and General Grant acted on 
 it only in part. That is, he allowed only enough force for a 
 demonstration, which he hoped would deter Bragg from send- 
 ing reinforcements from his extreme left to the threatened 
 right. We see from this condition that we had left to chance 
 what should have been a preconcerted plan to push the weight 
 of our superior numbers to bear upon the enemy. It was by 
 the merest casualty that the movements on the 23d assumed 
 the shape and significance Thomas sought to give them. It 
 seems that in shifting his forces to meet the emergency of an 
 assault on Missionary Ridge near the tunnel, Bragg had im- 
 pressed his own troops with the belief that he was about to 
 withdraw. This information was brought to our head-quar- 
 ters by deserters, and went far to confirming Generals Grant 
 and Sherman in the correctness of their reading of a brief 
 letter Bragg had sent in the day before, advising General 
 Grant to move the non-combatants from Chattanooga. To 
 learn positively whether Bragg was retreating, General 
 Thomas was ordered to make a reconnoissance of the center.
 
 476 Life of Thomas. 
 
 As to General Thomas was left all the details of this move- 
 ment, he organized a demonstration that called for five divis- 
 ions of his army, and so directed as to force, if possible, a 
 general engagement, should such become necessary to save 
 the advance from disaster. The field of operation was one 
 well fitted for a display, before both armies, of the disciplined 
 drill upon which General Thomas so prided himself. The 
 wide plain extending from the Tennessee to Lookout Mount- 
 ain and Missionary Ridge formed an ampitheater that offered 
 a fair view to not only the Confederates leaning on their guns 
 and looking down upon our camps and lines of fortifica- 
 tions, but to our own army occupying various elevations 
 from the plain. Directly in front of our fortified line that 
 extended in a circular sweep around Chattanooga was the 
 enemy's picket-line, covering a like circle of the Confederate 
 works, that was something more than half-way between our 
 line and Missionary Ridge. The more conspicuous feature 
 in this huge ampitheater was an abrupt elevation, called 
 Orchard Knob, in possession of the enemy, and about half- 
 way between Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge. Along the 
 rocky height of this mound ran the fortified line of the Con- 
 federate works that, covering a like elevation, called Indian 
 Hill, took advantage of the foot-hills at the base of Mission- 
 ary Ridge. Along this base was yet another line of rifle- 
 pits and log and stone defenses. 
 
 It is seldom an order to advance upon an enemy meets 
 such ready acquiescence as this sent along the line of the five 
 divisions making the main body of the Army of the Cum- 
 berland. The gross misrepresentations that had enabled the 
 Secretary of War to send Rosecrans in disgrace to the rear, 
 had extended its malign influence to the army he had com- 
 manded. Chickamauga was regarded as a bloody disaster, 
 and Generals Grant and Sherman made no secret of their 
 belief that the Army of the Cumberland had been so de- 
 moralized by defeats that it could not be relied on in an 
 emergency, and on this account it was not called on to take 
 the initiative in the attack on Bragg, and held the center, 
 where the general commanding believed little active service 
 would be required. Head-quarters opinions soon spread in
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 477 
 
 an American army, and the brave men under muskets who 
 had never yet met acknowledged defeat as the Army of the 
 Cumberland, chafed under his calumny, and of their resent- 
 ment was born a resolve to teach their maligners a lesson on 
 the first favorable opportunity. It came in this reconnois- 
 sance that meant so little, and yet accomplished so much. 
 
 When, therefore, Wood's division, with Sheridan's on 
 its right, moved out, it was with an elan that was quite com- 
 mon to the Confederates, but rare among our troops. This 
 force swept away the picket-line and assaulted the works on 
 Orchard Knob so suddenly and with such force that they 
 were taken almost before the Confederates could realize they 
 had been attacked. Thomas, seeing our flag on Orchard 
 Knob and the adjoining elevations, signaled Wood: "You 
 have gained too much to withdraw ; hold your position, and 
 I will support you." Immediately Howard was ordered for- 
 ward abreast of Wood's left, and Baird to advance his divis- 
 ion to Sheridan's right. At 3 p. M. General Grant telegraphed 
 to Halleck as follows : 
 
 " CHATTANOOGA, November 23, 1863. 
 "MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. HALLECK, Commander-in- Chief : 
 
 " General Thomas's troops attacked the enemy's left 
 (sic) at 2 P. M. to-day, and carried his first lines of rifle-pits, 
 running over the knoll one thousand two hundred yards in 
 front of Wood's fort and low ridge to the right of it, tak- 
 ing about two hundred prisoners besides killed and wounded. 
 Our loss small. The troops moved under fire with all the 
 precision of veterans on parade. Thomas's troops will en- 
 trench themselves and hold their position until daylight, 
 when Sherman will join the attack from the mouth of South 
 Chickamauga, and a decisive battle will be fought. 
 
 "U. S. GRANT, Major- General" 
 
 That Grant was astonished at the cool gallantry of these 
 lately despised troops is not all that can be read in the above 
 dispatch. We see as yet the old plan of battle. Thomas's 
 troops were to intrench and await the one movement that 
 carried in it all that Grant had projected. It is necessary to 
 have these facts in mind, for a new light seems to have fallen
 
 478 Life of Thomas. 
 
 on the general commanding, for when he comes subsequently 
 to make his official report we find the following extraordinary 
 statement : " Thomas having done on the 23d with his troops 
 in Chattanooga Valley what was intended for the 24th, bet- 
 tered and strengthened his advanced positions during the 
 day and pushed the Eleventh Corps forward along the south 
 bank of the Tennessese river across Citico creek, one brigade 
 of which, with Howard in person, reached Sherman just as 
 he completed the crossing of the river." 
 
 How it was possible for Thomas to do on the 23d what 
 was intended for the 24th puzzles the comprehension. We 
 have seen that he was at once to make a reconnoissance to 
 ascertain if Bragg was in retreat. The official report is not 
 in accord with this nor does it harmonize with Thomas's in- 
 structions directing him to mass his forces well toward the 
 northern extremity of Missionary Ridge so as to form a 
 junction with Sherman. We see the first divergence from 
 the truth that widened as it went until Thomas and the 
 Army of the Cumberland were made to appear as mere 
 puppets in the hands of this great general. The original 
 design, that contemplated a conjunction with Sherman, was 
 rendered impossible by Thomas's late move which Grant 
 says in his November 23d telegram to Halleck was accepted 
 and the men ordered "to intrench' and hold their position 
 until daylight when Sherman," etc. 
 
 Now a glance at the map reveals that it was impossible 
 for the Army of the Cumberland to intrench and hold their 
 position in the direction they were and form a junction 
 with Sherman. To lie like a bulletin is an old proverb that 
 had birth in the great Napoleon's imaginary flight after a 
 battle. But the little Corsican remembered that when a 
 man begins lying he has a choice of lies, and can so handle 
 them as to make the fiction harmonious. Our general and 
 we are assured that he is the greatest ever given humanity 
 leaves his feeble inventions where they are forced to fight 
 each other. 
 
 Events were shaping themselves in accord with General 
 Thomas's plan of battle. General Grant must have known 
 that he could not leave the center in its advanced position
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 479 
 
 f 
 
 and jet fetch Thomas into a support of Sherman. The result 
 was that while Sherman's assault was not yet resolved on, 
 the center was left where its gallantry had carried it. 
 
 In the meantime Bragg was not idle. Awakening to 
 the fact that our left overlapped his right and thereby en- 
 dangered his supplies at Chickamauga station he transferred 
 Walker's division from the northern slope of Lookout 
 Mountain to his extreme right on Missionary Ridge. He 
 thus paved the way for General Hooker's subsequent bril- 
 liant achievement. This gallant commander of the Eleventh 
 Corps had been, as we perceive, quite eliminated from the 
 plan of operations conceived on the 18th by General Grant. 
 This fact came home to him on reading General Grant's 
 instructions to Thomas. He immediately proffered a re- 
 quest that he be permitted to attack with the troops he 
 then had in hand. This included the Osterhaus division 
 that was designed to aid Sherman if it could be got to 
 Sherman's command. This proved not to be possible, so 
 that when the discretionary power was given General 
 Hooker to attack or to act upon the defensive he immedi- 
 ately proceeded to the assault of the enemy holding Look- 
 out Mountain. This move began the morning of the 24th. 
 A dense fog had settled upon the valley and through it the 
 roar of artillery and the incessant play of musketry fell upon 
 the ears of both armies. Had the conflict occurred upon a 
 plain one could have gathered from the sound, as it ap- 
 proached or receded, the fortunes of the day. But the 
 fight was on the sides of a mountain, and in all its fury 
 seemed fixed to one locality. This went on till the dark fog 
 deepened into night, and at a late hour the uproar died 
 down and the Union army in the valley slept in dcubt. It 
 was by the day's dawning light that the proud old flag of 
 the Union was seen waving from the uppermost height of 
 Lookout Mountain. Cheers from sixty thousand throats 
 went up in greeting from the camps of the valley while 
 along Missionary Ridge there was an ominous silence. 
 
 General Hooker's success came more from strategy than 
 hard fighting, but there was enough of both to justify the wild 
 eulogies that rung through the country, and again put the
 
 480 Life of Thomas. 
 
 unfortunate general of Chancellorsville in popular favor. 
 This continued until the time when sneers from a military 
 junto discouraged praise and made Hooker's " fight above 
 the clouds " a play for questioning sarcasm. Had the trinity 
 of military incompetents possessed General Joe Hooker's 
 ability there would not have been any necessity to build on 
 the achievement of others, nor would there be now such a 
 sensitive shrinking from historical investigation of fictitious 
 narratives. General Hooker had succeeded in crossing his 
 slender column over Lookout Creek, without the knowledge 
 of the enemy and by the dash with which he carried works 
 supposed to be impregnable, impressed the Confederates that 
 an overwhelming force was climbing the mountain on all 
 sides to pour over under bayonets through their scantily- 
 manned fortifications. 
 
 General Hooker's success rendered Bragg's position on 
 Missionary Ridge utterly untenable, and common sense to 
 say nothing of military intelligence directed an immediate 
 retreat to a stronger position. The loss of Lookout Moun- 
 tain and consequent shortening of his line to Missionary 
 Ridge opened the way to the flank and resulted in the defeat 
 of his entire force. However, Bragg was not more ignorant 
 of his danger than Grant was of his gain. The latter ordered 
 Hooker forward, but Hooker's force was too light for the 
 grave work that opened before them. The force given Sher- 
 man to do slaughter before a position well manned and nat- 
 urally strong should swiftly have been transferred to Hooker. 
 As it was, the general commanding looked eagerly to see 
 Sherman accomplish with great slaughter on Bragg's right 
 precisely what Hooker had done with little loss on the ene- 
 my's left. But Sherman was repulsed with heavy loss, and 
 Hooker was arrested by the lack of a bridge over Chatta- 
 nooga Creek. Sherman made preparation for another as- 
 sault, and Hooker proceeded to rebuild an old bridge. Had 
 Sherman tried again he would have been left in defeat to 
 count his dead and wounded ; and had Hooker succeeded in 
 crossing Chattanooga Creek he would have encountered a 
 heavier force than his own as well posted for defense as 
 Bragg's right.
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 481 
 
 This was the condition when the unexpected happened, 
 and the hard proposition presented the Union army was sud- 
 denly and easily solved. The forces in the center under 
 Thomas that had been marched over the enemy's fortifica- 
 tions upon Orchard Knob, and held there by their immediate 
 command, were suddenly called on by Grant to make an- 
 other demonstration, and so relieve Sherman of the forces 
 massed against him. Running along the base of Missionary 
 Ridge were rifle-pits connected by log and stone breast- 
 works, and against these the four divisions already noted for 
 their dash and staying power were ordered to advance. 
 
 With banners waving and drums beating the men moved 
 out and formed in lines as if on parade. The day was beauti- 
 fully clear and cool, while the field to be marched over for 
 the assault was bare and enough open to make a splendid 
 spectacle. Nearly a hundred thousand men were spectators 
 of this imposing military movement. Along the brow of 
 Missionary Ride men crowded to the front as officers leaped 
 upon guns, and all gazed in silence upon " the long line that 
 came gleaming on," while the rifle-pits and breastworks 
 waited in grim silence for the coming foe. For twenty min- 
 utes there was the stillness of a cemetery, broken suddenly 
 by the roar of artillery from Orchard Knob and other 
 heights throwing their missiles into the rifle-pits. Imme- 
 diately forty guns on Missionary Ridge responded, and the 
 usual roar incident to an artillery duel was augmented by 
 the echoes that sounded as if every mountain height had its 
 battery. Generals Grant and Thomas, each with his numer- 
 ous staff, on Orchard Knob, and indeed the entire Union 
 army, soon lost sight of the combatants because of the smoke 
 that rolled in and over where a deadly conflict was being 
 fought. To the experienced ears of veterans it was soon 
 evident that the conflict at the rifle-pits had come to an end, 
 but whether for or against our arms was unknown until, the 
 smoke lifting, there could be seen along the steep sides of 
 Missionary Ridge, from end to end, the enemy climbing un- 
 armed, and the entire line surging up in pursuit. 
 
 "Who gave that order?" demanded Grant, turning 
 fiercely to Thomas. 
 31
 
 482 Life of Thomas. 
 
 " I know of no one giving such orders," quietly responded 
 General Thomas, a flush of pride mounting his face at the 
 gallant action of his men. 
 
 " Well, it will he investigated," added the general com- 
 manding, and as he spoke, along the line of the ridge, at six 
 different points, our troops were seen pouring over the breast- 
 works of the enemy. Almost immediately it was learned 
 from the irregular report of artillery along this same ridge 
 BO lately in possession of the Confederates that their guns 
 were being used against their late owners. 
 
 There was a sudden breaking up of the generals assem- 
 bled on Orchard Knob. The battle had been won. The in- 
 solent enemy so long in possesion of what they thought an 
 impregnable position " one," as Bragg wrote in his official 
 report, "that ought to have been held by a skirmish-line" 
 had been driven out, and had General Thomas's suggestions 
 been acted upon in their full significance, the army under 
 Bragg would have been annihilated. General Hooker was 
 in the rear, but with an insufficient force to hold the enemy 
 in check. Had one-fourth the care been taken to strengthen 
 Hooker that there had been to make Sherman formidable, 
 the two wings of the Union army would have met to dictate 
 terms of surrender to a helpless army. As it was, the retreat 
 that on the center proved disorderly, on the enemy's right 
 under Cleburne, was conducted after nightfall slowly and in 
 order, the enemy falling back with guns, flags, and material. 
 
 The cause of this result is to be found, first in the fact 
 that Grant not only knew nothing of strategy, but openly 
 expressed his contempt for any thing savoring of such use of 
 the intellectual process. This art of war was summed up in 
 the sentence uttered by the general commanding the national 
 forces of the Grand Duchess, who said he must go out and 
 find the enemy and fight him. The second reason was the 
 haunting fears of both Grant and Sherman that magnified 
 the numbers of the enemy. Nothing could make either be- 
 lieve that Bragg's army after the departure of Longstreet 
 was one-fourth less than the forces gathered in under Grant. 
 
 Subsequent events developed another haunting fear that 
 disturbed the repose of our popular, epauletted pets, and this
 
 Siege, of Chattanooga. 483 
 
 was, that if the facts were once made known of the fighting 
 about Chattanooga, the smoke-wreathed halos about their 
 heroic heads would not only disappear, but gather about the 
 brow of the silent, solitary man who accomplished all and 
 claimed nothing. Worried with this thought from the last 
 echo of the last Confederate gun at Chattanooga, these two be- 
 gan the misrepresentations that were to rob the " Rock of 
 Chickamauga" of all credit due him for the victory he had 
 made it possible for his men to win. There is no question, now 
 that we have all the orders and reports from both sides, that 
 to General Thomas's order to General Hooker to attack the 
 enemy's left on Lookout Mountain, and that general's amaz- 
 ing success, we owe the victory won by the gallant center. 
 That center, having captured the rifle-pits, went up under 
 bayonets to the summit because, having gained their first ad- 
 vantage, they found themselves forced to decide for them- 
 selves either to fall back or charge to the front. They had 
 no time to deliberate. Sixty pieces of artillery were belch- 
 ing grape down upon them, while the rattle of musketry was 
 from the keys of death, sung of by Longfellow. Twenty 
 minutes of that exposure was sufficient to annihilate the en- 
 tire force. Grant said subsequently, with that charming in- 
 difference to fact so peculiar to him, that he expected the 
 men to re-form in the captured rifle-pits and await further 
 movement until ordered. A most appropriate place that to 
 re-form and await orders. "We know well that the forward 
 dash was safer than a retreat. The nearer the base, the less 
 they had of the artillery fire, for the guns could not be suf- 
 ficiently depressed to be effective, while in the inequalities 
 of surface, broken as the face of the acclivity was, in gullies, 
 huge rocks, and trees, there was some shelter from musketry. 
 Then, again, came the comforting fact that, in firing down, 
 the men, as usual in such cases, shot over the heads of the 
 attacking forces. The truth is, that the Confederate rifle- 
 pits were located so as to take the enemy as they emerged 
 from the declivity, and to fire upon them as they ascended it 
 was necessary to fight in front of these carefully constructed 
 works. The charge up that mountain side was a splendid
 
 484 Life of Thomas. 
 
 illustration of the drill and discipline General Thomas had 
 given the Army of the Cumberland. 
 
 The direct cause of victory and defeat was a shifting of 
 morale from the Confederate to the Union side. Encamped 
 on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, the men who 
 charged in overwhelming numbers upon the center at Chick- 
 amauga only to fall back in the face of the deadly fire, saw 
 beneath them on the Chickamauga plain a vast army of the 
 same sort of men, while across the several pontoon bridges 
 they watched the great columns marching to swell the num- 
 ber. Those men at the guns and in the rifle-pits, who were 
 expected to hold that ridge against all comers, saw above 
 Lookout Mountain the old flag of the Union floating brightly 
 in the sunlight, and but a few hour before the attack the 
 word went whispered down the line that the Yankees who 
 had taken Lookout Mountain were on their rear. 
 
 It would have been better for the reputations of both 
 Grant and Sherman to have left the record of events un- 
 touched by misrepresentations. As it pleased Divine Provi- 
 dence to permit these men to be on horseback and in command 
 when the Confederacy fell from sheer exhaustion, and as such 
 fact captivated, the common ignorant mind and made them 
 military heroes, they should have been content with their 
 honors. Grant felt uneasy and ashamed in the presence of 
 Thomas, and both Grant and Sherman were troubled with 
 the thought that truth and justice would award to their 
 subordinate in . office the higher position on the roll of 
 honor. They began instinctively then to mutilate the rec- 
 ord to the injury of one whose bare suggestions, badly 
 acted upon, gave them victory. This misrepresentation be- 
 gan at once in their official reports. We have seen that the 
 general commanding had but one purpose in his offensive 
 movement against the enemy, and that was Sherman's as- 
 sault on the northern end of Missionary Ridge near the tun- 
 nel. The action of Hooker that swept Lookout Mountain 
 and doubled the enemy in on Missionary Ridge, thereby open- 
 ing a road to his rear, came from Thomas. The successful 
 movement on the center was not in the plan, and grew out 
 of menace meant to relieve Sherman. Now, with these facts
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 485 
 
 in mind, let us read the official report of the general com- 
 manding, and we will learn that as early as the 25th began 
 this distortion of history and the wrong to Thomas. It 
 reads : 
 
 "Early in the morning of the 25th, the remainder of 
 Howard's corps reported to Sherman, and constituted a part 
 of his forces during that day's battle and the pursuit and 
 subsequent advance for the relief of Knoxville. 
 
 " Sherman's position not only threatened the right flank 
 of the enemy, but, from his occupying a line across the moun- 
 tain and to the railroad bridge across Chickamauga Creek, 
 his rear and stores at Chickamauga station. This caused 
 the enemy to move heavily against him. This movement of 
 his being plainly seen from the position I occupied on Or- 
 chard Knob, Baird's division of the Fourteenth Corps was 
 ordered to Sherman's ^support, but, receiving a note from 
 Sherman informing me that he had all the force necessary, 
 Baird was put in position on Thomas's left. 
 
 " The appearance of Hooker's^column was at this time 
 anxiously looked for and momentarily expected, moving 
 north on the ridge with his left in Chattanooga Valley and 
 his right east of the ridge. His approach was intended as 
 the signal for storming the ridge in the center with strong 
 columns, but the length of time necessarily consumed in the 
 construction of a bridge over Chattanooga Creek detained 
 him to a later hour than was expected. Being satisfied from 
 the latest information from him that he must by this time be 
 on his way from Rossville, though not yet in sight, and dis- 
 covering that the enemy, in his desperation to defeat or re- 
 sist 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 division (Four- 
 teenth Corps), Wood's and Sheridan's division (Fourth 
 Corps), and Johnson's division (Fourteenth Corps), with a 
 double line of skirmishers thrown out, followed in easy sup- 
 porting distance by the whole force, and carry the rifle-pits 
 at the foot of Missionary Ridge, and, when carried, to re- 
 form his lines with a view of carrying the top of the ridge. 
 
 " These troops were moved forward, drove the enemy
 
 486 Life of Thomas. 
 
 from the rifle-pits at the base of the ridge like bees from a 
 hive ; stopped but a moment until the whole were in line, 
 and commenced the ascent of the mountain from right to left 
 almost simultaneously, following closely the retreating enemy 
 without further orders. They encountered a fearful volley 
 of grape and canister from nearly thirty pieces of artillery 
 and musketry from still well filled rifle-pits on the summit 
 of the ridge. Not a waver, however, was seen in all that 
 long line of brave men ; their progress was steadily onward 
 until the summit was in their possession." 
 
 That neither Grant nor Sherman had these "brave 
 men " in view when planning the attack on natural fortifica- 
 tions before them, is proven by the words of Sherman, who 
 says of them in his Memoirs, vol. 1, pages 361-2, as follows : 
 "General Grant pointed out to me a house on Missionary 
 Ridge, where General Bragg's head-quarters were known to 
 be. He also explained the situation of affairs generally : that 
 the mules and horses of Thomas's army were so starved that 
 they could not haul his^uns; that forage, corn, and provis- 
 ions were so scarce that the men, in hunger, stole the few 
 grains of corn that were given to favorite horses; 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 ; that Bragg 
 had detached Lougstreet with a considerable force up in 
 East Tennessee to defeat and capture Burnside; that Burn- 
 side was in danger, etc.; and that he (Grant) was extremely 
 anxious to attack Bragg in position, to defeat him, or, at 
 least, to force him to recall Longstreet. The Army of the 
 Cumberland had been so long in the trenches that he wanted 
 my troops to hurry up and take the offensive first, after 
 which he had no doubt the Cumberland army would fight 
 well." 
 
 The knowledge of these "brave men" came from their 
 disobedience of orders and forcing themselves into a battle 
 from the plan of which they had been eliminated because of 
 their believed lack of morale. And yet in the official report 
 we are cooly informed that this assault upon the center by 
 the supposed demoralized men made part of the original 
 plan of attack.
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 487 
 
 ""Well, it will be investigated," said Grant, on Orchard 
 Knob, when the charge of the men of the Cumberland was 
 being made. It is being investigated much to the general's 
 discredit. 
 
 But, if the official report moves enough from the truth 
 to convey error through implication, when the general comes 
 to pen his memoirs, or probably adopt what some one penned 
 for him, he boldly swings from any recognition of fact. He 
 begins his fiction by saying: 
 
 "At twelve o'clock at night (24th), when all was quiet, 
 I began to give orders for the next day, and sent a dispatch 
 to Wilcox to encourage Burnside. Sherman was directed to 
 attack at daylight. Hooker was ordered to move at the 
 same hour, and endeavor to intercept the enemy's retreat, if 
 he still remained ; if he had gone, then to move directly to 
 Rossville and operate against the left and rear of the force 
 on Missionary Ridge. Thomas was not to move until Hooker 
 had reached Missionary Ridge. As I was with him on Or- 
 chard Knob, he would not move without further orders 
 from me." 
 
 Now, one has only to test this narrative by the orders 
 actually given and the events that occurred on the 24th and 
 25th. The plan of battle, as we have seen, referred only to 
 Sherman's assault on the northern extremity of Missionary 
 Ridge. Men were taken from Hooker for the purpose of 
 strengthening Sherman, and the men under Thomas were 
 held for the same purpose. Believing from rumors that 
 Bragg might be in full retreat, Hooker was ordered to inter- 
 cept the enemy at Rossville. But what occurred on the 25th 
 was as far from the thought of the general commanding as 
 any local event in China. After giving in some detail the 
 unsuccessful attempts of Sherman to carry the ridge before 
 him, he continues his fanciful narrative. He says, page 78, 
 volume 2d : 
 
 " The enemy had evacuated Lookout Mountain during 
 the night, as I expected he would." 
 
 At what hour he had such expectations is not given. It 
 was evidently not in time to take advantage of Hooker's 
 success. As the Confederates had left an opening on his left 
 through which he could be flanked without a fight, it is
 
 488 Life of Thomas, 
 
 most extraordinary that our general commanding should 
 neglect such an opportunity while crowding troops in on 
 Bragg's right to be slaughtered in vain. The truth is and 
 it is the only explanation that saves General Grant from a 
 charge of utter imbecility he did not expect Hooker, with 
 his weakened force, to make any attack, and so the with- 
 drawal of Bragg's forces from Lookout Valley and Hooker's 
 advance were as much a surprise to Grant as it was to all of 
 us. And had Hooker been left in command of the troops 
 that were of no use to Sherman, Bragg's entire army would 
 have been so hemmed in as to be forced to surrender. The 
 author of "Personal Memoirs" continues: 
 
 "In crossing the valley he (the enemy) burned the 
 bridge over Chattanooga Creek, and did all he could to ob- 
 struct the roads behind him. Hooker was off bright and 
 early with no obstructions in his front but distance and the 
 destruction above named. He was detained four hours 
 crossing Chattanooga Creek, and thus lost the immediate 
 advantage I expected from his forces. His reaching Bragg's 
 flank and extending across it was to be the signal for Thomas's 
 assault on the ridge. But Sherman's position was getting so 
 critical that the assault for his relief could not be delayed 
 any longer." 
 
 Of course the impression meant here to be conveyed is, 
 that the unexpected assault on the ridge, directly in front, 
 was, in fact, a preconceived movement. The trouble about 
 so considering it is that the only order given Thomas was to 
 so mass his troops as to move in support of Sherman, and 
 under Sherman's command. He would as soon have given 
 orders for the infantry and artillery to take wings and fly 
 over the ridge as to command a force so weakened to h'elp 
 Sherman to make the assault that followed. He continues: 
 
 " Sheridan's and Wood's divisions had been lying under 
 arms from early morning, ready to move the moment the 
 signal was given. I now directed Thomas to order the 
 charge at once." 
 
 Now, had this Julius Caesar of pen and sword, said that 
 " I now directed Thomas to make demonstration at once," 
 he would have come in striking distance of the truth. The 
 previous plan looked to nothing but a support of Sherman.
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 489 
 
 It was intended that Thomas's left should touch ou Sherman's 
 right, and the attack made at the ridge near the tunnel 
 should extend south so as to envelope all of the center. 
 But when this demonstration was made Sherman was idle. 
 He had demonstrated that the works before him could not 
 be taken by assault. The fact is that he and Grant were 
 laboring under the strange delusion that Bragg would as- 
 sume the offensive and overwhelm Sherman. Hence the 
 order for a demonstration to keep Bragg busy until Sherman 
 could be further reinforced. To make his version of 'the 
 affair consistent, he adds a foot note to page 78, Second Vol., 
 which reads: 
 
 " In this order authority was given for the troops to re- 
 form after taking the first line of rifle-pits, preparatory to 
 carrying the ridge." 
 
 A most remarkable place this to be selected for troops to 
 re-form. The place was open at the rear and sixty pieces of 
 artillery along the heights above were pouring down grape 
 as rapidly as their pieces could be served, while twenty 
 thousand veterans under musket were sending their more 
 deadly hail into the exposed ranks. As well might the offi- 
 cer who blundered in giving the order to the doomed six 
 hundred immortalized by Tennyson, have modified the charge 
 by directing that when the cavalry had drawn fire from the 
 front, right and left, they halt and re-form before making the 
 final assault. But here follows the most amusing statement : 
 
 " Sheridan's and Wood's divisions had been lying under 
 arms from early morning, ready to move the instant the 
 signal was given (what signal ?) I now directed Thomas to 
 order the charge at once. I watched to see the effect and 
 became impatient at last, that there was no indication of any 
 charge being made. The center of the line which was to 
 make the charge was near where Thomas and I stood, but 
 concealed from view by an intervening point. Turning to 
 Thomas to inquire what caused the delay, I was surprised to 
 see Thomas J. Wood, one of the division commanders, who 
 was to make the charge standing talking to him. I spoke 
 to General Wood, asking why he did not charge as ordered 
 an hour before. He replied very promptly that this was the
 
 490 Life of Thomas. 
 
 first he had heard of it, but that he had been ready all day 
 at a moment's notice ; I told him to make the charge at once." 
 
 This imaginary order was a verbal one, and, of course, 
 no research among the records can help us. It is a little 
 strange that one who formed a part of that group on the day 
 in question, at the summit of Orchard Knob, heard no such 
 order. This includes General Thomas and Wood, the last 
 named there for orders. 
 
 He writes of a signal, and we are put in pursuit of that, 
 for it was not an order, verbal or otherwise, that should ini- 
 tiate the movement, so we want to get that signal. On 
 page 78, of same volume, we are informed " His (Hooker's) 
 reaching Bragg's flank and extending across it, was to be 
 the signal for Thomas's assault on the ridge." We were then 
 on Orchard Knob waiting for this signal and as the signal 
 never came, no order was given to charge. 
 
 There is, however a written order of record that Grant 
 gives us himself on page 80 of same volume, and it effectu- 
 ally and finally puts an end to an order that reflects greatly 
 upon General Thomas, whose promptness in executing orders 
 was proverbial in the army. Here is his vindication : 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, Nov. 24, 1863. 
 Major- General Thomas, Chattanooga: 
 
 General Sherman carried Missionary Ridge as far as the 
 tunnel with only slight skirmishing. His right now rests at 
 the tunnel and on top of the hill ; his left at Chickamauga 
 Creek. I 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 position on the mountain can not 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 most practical road. 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Major- General.
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 491 
 
 One is amazed to learn that with this order of record 
 that the general commanding would pen such a narrative as 
 that which appears to the damage of Thomas in his memoirs. 
 This order convicts him of the grossest ignorance of the situ- 
 ation. Sherman had not carried the ridge to the tunnel. 
 His right was not at the tunnel and on the top of the hill. 
 How Thomas was to co-operate then with the condition sup- 
 posed by Grant but not established is a mystery. A deeper 
 mystery rests upon the evident lack of information. Sher- 
 man's head-quarters were within easy reach at night and in 
 sight from Orchard Knob. Why, then, when this order was 
 given, the general commanding was not better informed 
 puzzles the student of history. It is also clear that on the 
 night of the 24th General Grant had no thought of using 
 General Hooker's forces against Missionary Ridge, as claimed 
 in his memoirs. He could not, for he was as much in ignor- 
 ance of what Hooker had accomplished as the American peo- 
 ple are of the true history of the war. 
 
 Now, Avill Grant's official report sustain the assertion 
 that he premeditated an assault by the center upon Mission- 
 ary Ridge? In this report he says: "Thus matters stood 
 about 3 p. m. The day was bright and clear, and the am- 
 phitheater of Chattanooga lay in beauty at our feet. I had 
 watched for the attack of General Thomas early in the day." 
 
 As General Thomas was at Grant's elbow all that morn- 
 ing (25th) (see Grant's Memoirs) it was his duty to give the 
 order for the charge ; he claims that he did so, but that 
 Thomas neglected to obey for an hour after its issue. This 
 is far from being " early in the day " till afternoon. 
 
 The fact is that the three sentences above quoted refer 
 to Thomas's co-operation with Sherman, who was to carry 
 the ridge and turn the enemy's flank before Thomas came in 
 to his support. He was not waiting then for Thomas to at- 
 tack but for Sherman to do that which the general never 
 accomplished, that is, win a victory. When it was found that 
 Sherman, as usual, was being disastrously defeated, a demon- 
 stration was ordered for the center, not with the remotest 
 hope of carrying the ridge, but to divert the enemy from the 
 imperiled Sherman to a slaughter of our men on the center.
 
 492 Life of Thomas. 
 
 General Grant does not stand altogether alone in dis- 
 torting the truth and seeking to steal the honors justly due 
 General Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland. It is 
 time that these claimed historians make no reference to im- 
 aginary orders. They feel safe in the fact that the general 
 readers give no time to investigation, and when the historical 
 student searches the war records their plausible fiction will 
 be regarded as settled history. In this the historian, Adam 
 Badeau, readily takes the lead, and in his Military History, 
 approved by General Grant, we find on page 525 of Volume 
 I, the following: 
 
 " Hooker was to draw attention to the right, to seize and 
 hold Lookout Mountain, while Sherman, attacking Mission- 
 ary Ridge on the extreme left, was still further to distract 
 the enemy; and then, when reinforcements and attention 
 should be drawn to both rebel flanks, the center was to be 
 assaulted by the main body of Grant's force, under Thomas." 
 
 Again, on page 528 of same volume, we find this : " The 
 rebel center, as Grant had foreseen, was weakened to save 
 the right; and then the whole mass of the Army of the 
 Cumberland was precipitated on the weakened point; the 
 center was pierced, the heights carried, and the battle of 
 Chattanooga won." 
 
 Now, Grant foresaw nothing. He was as much aston- 
 ished at the events developed before him and the result as we 
 all were. Nor is it true that Bragg weakened his center ; 
 he strengthened his right by troops taken from the shortened 
 line of his left. 
 
 General Sherman falls into line and informs us on page 
 364 of Volume I of his memoirs: "The object of General 
 Hooker's and my attacks on the extreme flanks of Bragg's 
 position was to disturb him to such an extent that he would 
 naturally detach from his center as against us so that 
 Thomas's army could break through his center. The whole 
 plan succeeded admirably, but it was not until after dark 
 that I learned the complete success of the center, and re- 
 ceived General Grant's orders to pursue on the north side of 
 Chickamauga Creek."
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 493 
 
 Anxious to illustrate his eminent strategy he tells Adam 
 Badeau (Military History U. S. Grant, Vol. I, page 505): 
 
 " That he did not consider the hill for which he fought 
 on November 25th as very important in itself, and therefore 
 used only three regiments in the original attack; but he 
 made as much noise and show as he could to alarm Bragg 
 for the safety of that flank, and of the railroad bridge just 
 in the rear. His effort was to induce Bragg to detach as 
 much as possible from the center and so to weaken that 
 which Sherman knew from Grant would be the critical point 
 of the battle." 
 
 When one remembers that this assault was to be a sur- 
 prise, and the anxiety at head-quarters was so extreme that 
 reinforcements were hastened to Sherman until he had over 
 twenty-five thousand men, the divine tactics of gong-beating 
 to which he resorted, according to this story, is ludicrous. 
 It grows more so in light of the fact that General Hooker, 
 who was to make a prodigious noise at the other end of Mis- 
 sionary Ridge, had been deprived of troops to support our 
 military mandarin until but ten thousand were left. 
 
 The great Napoleon said history is the lies agreed upon. 
 It is much to be regretted that these eminent historians did 
 not agree in their fabrications so that they might at least 
 harmonize and so appear more plausible to the reader. One 
 statement alone presents the unanimous support from all, 
 and that eliminates General Thomas and the Army of the 
 Cumberland from the merit of a victory that the one fought 
 to a triumphant close, and the other foresaw and, as far as 
 he was permitted, provided for. Had General Thomas's 
 suggestion in reference to Hooker and his attack on Lookout 
 Mountain been accepted in full Hooker would have been in 
 the rear with a force sufficiently strong to have destroyed 
 Bragg's army. There is, however, no good in repeating 
 events that to the reader must appear plain and unquestion- 
 able. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland was in full pursuit when 
 night intervened and Bragg was enabled to retreat un- 
 molested. His loss of men and material was heavy; the 
 first, from his own showing, numbered over six thousand,
 
 494 Life of Thomas. 
 
 while the last was so grievous that the Confederate army 
 was rendered incapable of active operations until the follow- 
 iug spring, when a new commander infused a new spirit into 
 the defeated and demoralized force. Grant, however, enter- 
 taining, as most of the generals did, an exaggerated estimate 
 of the enemy's numbers, while our advance was making an 
 assault on the rear guard, under General Cleburne, near 
 Ringgold, had Howard's corps so placed as to break the rail- 
 road from Cleveland to Dalton, and in that way prevent 
 Bragg from sending reinforcements to Longstreet. Bragg 
 was in no condition to aid Longstreet. His own army was 
 in peril, and time was needed in which to reorganize, while 
 urgent demands were made on the government at Richmond 
 for reinforcements. 
 
 Further military operations for the winter ended with 
 the skirmish near Riuggold, and from that the Army of the 
 Cumberland was put on police duty in separate detachments 
 in Middle and East Tennessee. These also were busy re- 
 building railroads, bridges, fortifications, and storehouses, 
 and, in view of a movement into Georgia in the spring, vast 
 stores were accumulated at Chattanooga. 
 
 It is singular to observe that with Chattanooga in our 
 possession but one man on our side seemed to appreciate its 
 immense advantage. Instead of an advance from Chatta- 
 nooga such as we had at last forced upon us, Grant counte- 
 nanced Sherman in a campaign in the State of Mississippi 
 against General Polk with Mobile as an objective point. 
 When this was inaugurated the old fear of a concentration 
 took possession of the general commanding and he gave or- 
 ders to Thomas to threaten the enemy at Dalton. Bragg 
 had been relieved and General Joseph E. Johnston given 
 command. General Thomas- had stoutly resisted uncovering 
 Chattanooga for the purpose of protecting East and MidiJle 
 Tennessee, and had therefore enough of his army in hand to 
 hold the place and keep intact his lines of supply. When, 
 therefore, he was called on to detach one-half his force from 
 Chattanooga to reinfore the troops at Knoxville, he earnestly 
 protested. When this, project was abandoned and General 
 Thomas was ordered subsequently to demonstrate against the
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 495 
 
 enemy at Dalton he hastened to obey. Our advance found 
 the enemy strongly posted at Buzzard's Roost. Here General 
 Thomas, satisfied that the Confederates held an impregna- 
 ble position with superior numbers, advised General Grant 
 and proposed falling back from his exposed position. This 
 the General commanding did not approve. General Thomas 
 and his little army with Chattanooga itself could be im- 
 periled, but General Sherman was to be protected. Neither 
 Grant nor Thomas knew at the time that Sherman's cam- 
 paign had proved a failure and that he with his army had re- 
 turned to Memphis. As this move illustrates by the light 
 of subsequent events General Thomas's military sagacity we 
 give the dispatches that passed at the time between Grant 
 and Thomas. 
 
 Thomas to Grant, February 19, 1864 : 
 
 "Assistant Surgeon Jacob Miller, Sixth Missouri Volun- 
 teer Infantry, arrived here yesterday from Dalton. He was 
 captured at Lebanon, Alabama, when General Logan sent out 
 an expedition toward Rome. He reports Cleburne's division 
 at Tunnel Hill ; Stewart's division between Tunnel Hill and 
 Dalton; Walker two miles out from Dalton toward Spring 
 Place ; Cheatham at Dalton, and Stevenson's and Bates' di- 
 visions to the west of Dalton two miles. He saw all of the 
 camps and estimates their forces between thirty and forty 
 thousand. He moreover states that no troops have been 
 sent away except one brigade of infantry which went to 
 Rome about the first of this month." 
 
 Thomas to Grant, from Tunnel Hill, Georgia, February 
 26, 1864, 7:30 A. M.: 
 
 " I arrived here last night. Davis and Johnston occupy 
 the pass at Buzzard's Roost. They have a force equal to 
 theirs in their front who outnumber them in artillery. 
 It is not possible to carry this place by assault. General 
 Palmer made the attempt to turn yesterday with Baird's and 
 Cruft's divisions, but were met with an equal force exclusive 
 of their cavalry and in an equally strong position as at Buz- 
 zard's Roost. After expending nearly all his ammunition 
 he returned during the night to Catoosa Platform. Our 
 transportation is poor and limited ; we are not able to carry
 
 496 Life of Thomas. 
 
 more than sixty pounds per man; artillery horses so poor 
 that Palmer could bring but sixteen pieces. The country is 
 stripped entirely of subsistence and forage. The enemy's 
 cavalry is much superior to ours. Prisoners taken yesterday 
 report that a portion of Cleburne's division have returned. 
 I will await the developments of this day and advise you 
 further." 
 
 Grant to Thomas, February 27, 1864 : 
 
 " It is of the utmost importance that the enemy should 
 be held in full belief that an advance into the heart of the 
 South is intended until the fate of Sherman is fully known. 
 The difficulties of supplies can be overcome by keeping 
 your trains running between Chattanooga and your position. 
 Take the depot trains at Chattanooga, yours and Genera.1 
 Howard's wagons. These can be replaced temporarily by 
 yours returning. Veterans are returning daily. This will 
 enable you to draw reinforcements constantly to your point. 
 Can General Schofield not also take a division from How- 
 ard's corps ? It is intended to send Granger to you the mo- 
 ment that Schofield is thought to be safe without him." 
 
 General Grant to General "Whipple (Thomas's chief of 
 staff), February 27th, 6 p. M. 
 
 " Information has reached Washington that orders have 
 been given Johnston's army to fall back. General Thomas 
 should watch any such movement and follow it up closely. 
 Can't you draw teams from Bridgeport and Stevenson to send 
 supplies to the front ? They have teams in great numbers at 
 those places. Every energy should be exerted to get supplies 
 and reinforcements forward. Troops will leave here at the 
 rate of two or three thousand a day for the front. Many of 
 them go to Chattanooga." 
 
 Thomas to Grant, February 27, 1864, 10 p. M.: 
 
 "Your two dispatches of this date received. I have 
 just returned from the front. My troops after ceaseless labor 
 under the greatest embarrassments for want of transporta- 
 tion reached within three miles of Dalton where they were 
 received by the enemy strongly posted and in force fully 
 equal to my own in infantry. His artillery and cavalry were 
 not only in better condition (as regards horses), but at least
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 497 
 
 two to one in pieces and men. We found the country en- 
 tirely stripped of every thing like forage, our mules being 
 in such poor condition that double the number of teams we 
 now have could not supply the troops, I thought it best to 
 come back to Ringgold, and, if workmen could be found by 
 Colonel McCallum, to go to work deliberately to prepare the 
 railroad and advance as it progresses. The present condition 
 of the road is not good and one day's rain would render the 
 part across Chickamauga Bottom impassable for loaded 
 wagons. So it would be absolutely necessary to repair the 
 railroad to supply the troops at Ringgold. The fact of 
 working on the road will hold Johnston at Dalton unless he 
 intended to leave under any circumstances. Howard's teams 
 and the depot teams at this place and Bridgeport are in no 
 better condition than those belonging to the divisions, all 
 being composed of such mules as we have been able to keep 
 after a fashion during the winter. Johnston has no idea of 
 leaving Dalton until compelled, and having a force greater 
 than I now have under my immediate command, I can not 
 drive him from that place. 
 
 " If Longstreet has retired, why can I not get Granger's 
 two divisions and my First Cavalry Division back ? The lit- 
 tle cavalry I had on the expedition is completely run down, 
 from constant work and from want of forage ?" 
 
 Thomas to Grant, Feb. 28, 1864 : 
 
 " General Butterfield, by my direction, has recently ex- 
 amined the line between here and Nashville, and reports that 
 he thinks six thousand men will be sufficient to guard that 
 line, two regiments of which force should be cavalry. From 
 what I know of the road between Nashville and Decatur two 
 thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry will be sufficient 
 to protect that line. One thousand infantry will be sufficient 
 to protect the line from Athens to Stevenson. Probably both 
 lines of communication can be guarded by six thousand infan- 
 try and two thousand cavalry, a great portion .of which should 
 be made up from the local militia of Tennessee, or troops 
 organized especially for the preservation of order in the state. 
 
 " I believe if I commence the campaign with the Four- 
 teenth and Fourth corps in front, with Howard's corps in 
 32
 
 498 Life of Thomas. 
 
 reserve, that I can move along the line of the railroad and 
 overcome all opposition as far at least as Atlanta. I should 
 want a strong division of cavalry in advance. As soon as 
 Captain Merrill returns from his reconnoissance along the 
 railroad line, I can give you a definite estimate of the num- 
 ber of troops required to guard the bridges along the road." 
 
 "We also copy from General Thomas's report to the com- 
 mittee on the conduct of the war, wherein he referred to the 
 plan of campaign that he had submitted to General Grant. 
 It reads (page 198 of the committee's record) : 
 
 " The above proposition was submitted to General Grant 
 for his approval, and if obtained it was my intention (having ac- 
 quired, by the reconnoissance of February 23-25th, a thorough 
 knowledge of the approaches direct upon Dalton from Ring- 
 gold and Cleveland) to have made a strong demonstration 
 against Buzzard's Roost, attracting Johnston's whole atten- 
 tion to that point, and to have thrown the main body of my 
 infantry and cavalry through Snake Creek Gap upon his 
 communications, which I had ascertained from scouts he had 
 up to that time neglected to observe or guard. With this 
 view I had previously asked for the return to me of Granger's 
 troops and my cavalry from East Tennessee, and had already 
 initiated preparations for the execution of the above move- 
 ment as soon as the spring opened sufficiently to admit of it. 
 See the following telegrams and illustration." 
 
 It is not necessary to give the dispatches to which the 
 general referred. They contain the details of a proposed 
 campaign in which it appears that all the troops that could 
 be spared from the lines of supplies were to be forwarded 
 to Chattanooga so as to bring his command near that of the 
 enemy. Johnston we now learn had then less than forty thou- 
 sand men, and relied upon the natural strength of the position 
 he had selected as Bragg once relied on Chattanooga. Thomas 
 proposed attempting with forty thousand men what Sherman 
 subsequently accomplished with a hundred thousand. The 
 telegrams bet ween Thomas and Grant and Thomas's statement 
 to the committee on the conduct of the war are of deep in- 
 terest as showing the superior generalship of the Virginian, 
 who waited. He suggested to Grant, as he subsequently did
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 499 
 
 to Sherman, that road to the rear of Johnston through Snake 
 Creek Gap. We shall see how the one accepted it in part, 
 while the other rejected it altogether. The attempt on Dai- 
 ton was dimissed. 
 
 General Thomas was extremely just, indeed kind, in his 
 treatment of the unarmed citizens of the South. He had the 
 Army of the Cumberland so well disciplined that the rules 
 against depredation were well observed. He found this, 
 however, more difficult than to mold these men into an 
 army that could change front under fire and carry a deadly 
 ridge fringed with sixty pieces of artillery, and that without 
 command to do so. The country demoralized by a war in 
 which both sides were obliged to forage for a subsistence was 
 infested by guerillas armed to plunder and holding allegiance 
 to no Government. It was observed that when the Union 
 army was in possession the citizens sympathized with the 
 banditti, giving them information and many times food and 
 shelter. Now, while the men were sullen, they were silent. 
 The women, on the contrary, were outspoken, and to the 
 rank and file extremely exasperating. There was quite a 
 vocabulary of epithets that they shot at our soldiers wher- 
 ever they appeared. Under the circumstances it was diffi- 
 cult to keep the peace. However, General Thomas, in his 
 impartial justice, did much to relieve the country within our 
 lines of the guerillas, and had no hesitation in holding com- 
 munities responsible for the violence done in their neighbor- 
 hood. General Order Number Six that we copy at length 
 illustrates his mode of punishment: 
 
 "HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OP THE CUMBERLAND, 
 
 CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, Jan. 26, 1864. 
 General Orders No. 6. It having been reported to these 
 head-quarters that between seven and eight o'clock, on the 
 evening of the 23d ult., within one and a half miles of the 
 village of Mulberry, Lincoln county, Tenn., a wagon which 
 had become detached from a foraging train belonging to the 
 United States was attacked by guerillas, and the officer in 
 command of the foraging party, First Lieutenant Porter, 
 Co. A, Twenty-seventh Indiana Volunteers, the teamster,
 
 500 Life of Thomas. 
 
 wagonmaster, and four other soldiers who had been sent to 
 load the train (the latter four unarmed), were captured. 
 They were immediately mounted and hurried off, the gueril- 
 las avoiding the road, until their party halted, about one 
 o'clock in the morning, on the bank of the Elk river, where 
 the rebels stated they were going into camp for the night. 
 The hands of the prisoners were then tied behind them, and 
 they were robbed of every thing of value about their per- 
 sons. They were next drawn up in line about five paces in 
 front of their captors, and one of the latter, who acted as 
 leader, commanded ready, and the whole party immediately 
 fired upon them. One of the prisoners was shot through the 
 head, and killed instantly, and three were wounded. Lieu- 
 tenant Porter was not hit. He immediately ran, was fol- 
 lowed and fired upon three times by one of the party, and, 
 finding that he was about to be overtaken, threw himself 
 over a precipice into the river, and, succeeding in getting his 
 hands loose, swam to the opposite side, and, although pur- 
 sued to that side and several times fired upon, he, after 
 twenty-four hours of extraordinary exertion and great ex- 
 posure, reached a house, whence he was taken to Tullahoma, 
 where he now lies in a critical situation. The others, after 
 being shot, were immediately thrown into the river. Thus, 
 the murder of three men Newell E. Orcutt, Ninth Inde- 
 pendent Battery Ohio Volunteer Artillery ; John "W. Drought, 
 Co. H, Twenty-second "Wisconsin Volunteers; and George 
 W. Jacobs, Co. D, Twenty-second Wisconsin Volunteers 
 was accomplished by shooting and drowning. The fourth, 
 James W. Folley, Ninth Independent Battery Ohio Volun- 
 teer Artillery, is now lying in the hospital, having escaped 
 by getting his hands free while in the water. 
 
 For these atrocious, cold-blooded murders, equaling in 
 savage ferocity and every thing ever committed by the most 
 barbarous tribes on the continent, committed by rebel citi- 
 zens of Tennessee, it is ordered that the property of all rebel 
 citizens living within a circuit of ten miles of the place 
 where these men were captured be assessed each in his due 
 proportion, according to his wealth, to make up the sum of 
 thirty thousand dollars, to be divided among the families
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 501 
 
 who were dependent upon the murdered men for their 
 support. 
 
 Ten thousand dollars to be paid to the widow of John 
 "W. Drought, of North Cape, Racine county, Wisconsin, for 
 the support of herself and two children. 
 
 Ten thousand dollars to be paid to the widow of George 
 W. Jacobs, of Delevan, Walworth county, Wisconsin, for the 
 support of herself and one child. 
 
 Ten thousand dollars to be divided between the aged 
 mother and sister of Newell E. Orcutt, of Burton, Geauga 
 county, Ohio. 
 
 Should the persons assessed fail, within one week after 
 notice has been served upon them, to pay in the amount of 
 their tax in money, sufficient of their personal property shall 
 be siezed and sold at public sale to make up the amount. 
 
 Major-General II. W. Slocum, U. S. Volunteers, com- 
 manding Twelfth Army Corps, is charged with the execution 
 of this order. 
 
 The men who committed these murders, if caught, will 
 be summarily executed, and any persons executing them 
 will be held guiltless, and will receive the protection of this- 
 army, and all persons who are suspected of having aided 
 abetted, or harbored these guerillas will be immediately ar- 
 rested and tried by military commission. 
 
 By command of Major-General Thomas, 
 
 WILLIAM D. WHIPPLB, Assistant Adjutant- General" 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland left a kindly feeling in 
 its wake among tbe people of the South that had experienced 
 its rule and recognized its justice. We say kind, in compar- 
 ison with other armies of less discipline and commanded by 
 officers such as Sherman and Sheridan, who openly avowed 
 their belief in the barbarous wars of an uncivilized past. It 
 is well in measuring the moral greatness of our hero to com- 
 pare his practices with the armed precepts of his brother 
 officers. General Sherman, whose pen was wont to run away 
 with his judgment, has left us a small volume of views on 
 this subject that we could well dismiss as the impulsive ut- 
 terances of an uncertain man, were it not that he has be- 
 queathed to the world a burning illustration of his practical
 
 502 Life of Thomas. 
 
 use of his axioms. The march of his army was the march 
 of devastation and death, the devastation falling on unarmed 
 citizens and the death liberally shared with his own unfor- 
 tunate soldiers. 
 
 We have not only the views of General Thomas, but we 
 have his practice as well The matter is deeply impressed 
 upon the memory because of the fact that General Thomas's 
 high sense of justice and considerate regard for the unarmed 
 and helpless were used against him by blind bigots of the 
 North, who saw in his acts the influence of his birth and 
 early association. They heartily approved of President Lin- 
 coln's decision : " Let the Virginian wait." General Thomas 
 made no secret of his views on this subject. He said one day, 
 when an order was given to guard a man's house whose loy- 
 alty was suspected, but who stood high among his neighbors 
 as a man of good moral character : 
 
 ""We must remember," he said, " that this is a civil war, 
 fought to preserve the Union that is based on brotherly love 
 and patriotic belief in the one nation. It is bad enough for 
 us to demand that love of a restored Union at the point of the 
 bayonet, but we can justify ourselves by claiming that what 
 we do is from a sense of duty. The thing becomes horribly 
 grotesque, however, when from ugly feeling we visit on help- 
 less old men, women, and children the horrors of a barbarous 
 war. We must be as considerate and kind as possible, or we 
 will find that in destroying the rebels we have destroyed the 
 Union." 
 
 One must not suppose from this and other wise opinions 
 left us by General Thomas that he was a politician. He was 
 a pure soldier, and saw all things through the opening of his 
 tent, and considered them as relating to the war on hand. 
 A democrat by birth and breeding, he had an old fashioned 
 belief, that a soldier, like a clergyman or a judge, was pre- 
 cluded from taking an active part in the partisan contentious 
 of the country. He therefore gave great economic subjects 
 but little study, so little indeed that he felt himself disquali- 
 fied for any office other than the one in his beloved army. 
 In this respect Generals Thomas and Buell stood almost alone, 
 nearly all the other epauletted gentlemen of the war dealt
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 508 
 
 largely in politics, and reflected in the field much of the pas- 
 sion and prejudice brought out by partisans at home. No man 
 was more conspicuous for this than General Sherman. We 
 copy from Mr. John C. Ropes' article on Sherman that ap- 
 peared in the Atlantic Magazine of August, 1891 : 
 
 " It would not be right to close a review of General Sher- 
 man's character and services without referring to his often 
 announced policy of devastation. It can hardly be doubted 
 that the desire to inflict punishment on the people of the 
 South for their course in breaking up the Union was a strong 
 element in favor of his project of marching across the coun- 
 try. Thus, on October 9, 1864, he telegraphs to General 
 Grant : 
 
 " ' Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless for us 
 to occupy it ; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, 
 and people will cripple their military resources. ... I 
 can make this march, and can make Georgia howl.' 
 
 " October 17, to General Schofield : < I will . . . 
 make the interior of Georgia feel the weight of war.' 
 
 " October 19, to General Beckwith : ' I propose to aban- 
 don Atlanta and the railroad back of Chattanooga to sally 
 forth to ruin Georgia and bring up on the seashore.' 
 
 " So when he arrived before Savannah, he wrote to the 
 Confederate General Hardee as follows : ' Should I be forced 
 to assault or the slower and surer process of starvation I shall 
 then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and 
 shall make little effort to restrain my army burning to avenge 
 the national wrong which they attach to Savannah and other 
 large cities which have been so prominent in dragging our 
 country into civil war.' 
 
 " To General Grant, December 18 : ' With Savannah in 
 our possession at some future time, if not now, we can pun- 
 ish South Carolina as she deserves, and as thousands of the 
 people in Georgia hoped we would do. I do sincerely believe 
 that the whole United States, north and south, would rejoice 
 to have this army turned loose on South Carolina to devas- 
 tate that state in the manner we have done in Georgia, and 
 it would have a direct and immediate bearing on the cam- 
 paign in Virginia.'
 
 504 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 " To General Halleck, December 24 : ' I attach more im- 
 portance to these deep incisions into the enemy's country, 
 because this war differs from European wars in this particu- 
 lar : we are not only fighting hostile armies but a hostile peo- 
 ple, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the 
 hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know 
 that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had 
 a wonderful effect in this respect. . . . The truth is, the 
 whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak 
 vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her, 
 but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her. 
 . . . I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, 
 and I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there as we 
 did at Milledgeville.' " 
 
 These might be taken as the hasty utterances of an im- 
 pulsive man, were it not that in his appeals to the public, after 
 the war, in the press and in his memoirs, he sought to defend 
 himself against the charge of cruel treatment of an unarmed 
 people that actually occurred. The troops under his subor- 
 dinates carried into execution, as far as they could, what he 
 had threatened. It will be observed that he justifies the in- 
 famous abuse altogether, on political grounds, and not the 
 necessities or necessary consequences of war, and the reasons 
 given are as weak as the intent was wicked such, for exam- 
 ple, as the astounding assertion that because ours was a frat- 
 ricidal strife, and therefore embittered beyond an ordinary 
 war of alien enemies, we should countenance the condition 
 and carry into it all the barbarous usages of uncivilized 
 races. It is well to contrast this officer's conduct in this re- 
 spect with the noble traits and high intellect of the man 
 whose story we are striving to tell, and the comparison comes 
 in here with peculiar force, because of the fact we are called 
 upon to chronicle. 
 
 Through act of Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, sanc- 
 tioned by President Lincoln, on the 17th of March, 1864, TL 
 S. Grant assumed command of the armies of the United 
 States, as Lieutenant-General, and immediately the man who 
 was thus thrust into a position once held by General Wash- 
 ington, hastened to inform General Thomas that General
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 505 
 
 Sherman was assigned to the command of the Military Di- 
 vision of the Mississippi. Now, by date of commission, 
 General Thomas ranked General Sherman, and the rank was 
 made positive by a uniform success in the great battles of the 
 war, and a success that really brought the war to a triumph- 
 ant close in favor of the Union. General Thomas received 
 this startling injustice under the shadows of Lookout Moun- 
 tain and Missionary Ridge, and the gigantic fortification 
 of mountains that made the one objective of the war on our 
 side. He was gravely informed that he must serve under 
 a man whose career had been marked by awful disasters as 
 uniform as had been Thomas's success. His incompetency 
 was written in the blood of our brave men at Shiloh, Chick- 
 asaw Blufl', and the assaults on Vicksburg, and every epitaph 
 of the soldiers there killed and the soldiers who subsequently 
 died of their wounds in these heartless and heedless butch- 
 eries, make a condemnation of a man who owed his promo- 
 tion to the nakedest favoritism that ever disgraced a service. 
 
 The grim, silent, solitary man received this rebuke with- 
 out a word of remonstrance. He had registered a vow that 
 let any injustice be done him thereafter, he would submit 
 without a word. He was too great a man not to be aware, 
 by this time, of the cause of this injustice. He had seen 
 Buell insolently displaced of his command and returned to 
 private life, he had seen Rosecrans, in the very hour of his 
 triumph, stricken down and sent from camp in disgrace, and 
 he knew the motives and power at Washington that accom- 
 plished these wrongs, and he was painfully alive to the fact 
 that he had no friends among the politicians at the National 
 Capital. 
 
 We have written these pages in the continued praise of 
 a man who seemed to have no fault in his character, no 
 blemish in his career. We must confess, however, to a defect. 
 General Thomas was a man of violent temper, that through 
 long restraint lie had brought under complete control. The 
 dull military minds about him, in this mistook the man. 
 His silent acquiescence in this wrong was taken as the 
 shrinking from the responsibility of an independent com- 
 mand. He should have given some of these conceited supe-
 
 506 Life of Thomas. 
 
 riors some of the wrath that lay smoldering in him. It 
 would have gone far toward forcing a change of condition, 
 and would certainly have saved the confiding public from the 
 mistaken twaddle of loose memoirs. However, the events 
 that followed justified General Thomas so far as the govern- 
 ment and our cause is concerned in the course he pursued. 
 This we will see further on. 
 
 In preparing for the move against Dalton, the Army of 
 the Cumberland, sixty thousand strong, well drilled and 
 disciplined veterans, had regained their lost renown that for 
 a brief period was under a cloud, and confident in them- 
 selves and proud of their general, they were ready to march 
 and again conquer where their beloved commander led. 
 
 It was at this time that General Thomas inaugurated at 
 Chattanooga the system of military cemeteries that grew to 
 be so popular. The general who loved his men so heartily 
 when alive had a religious and patriotic respect for their re- 
 mains when called to their burial. They had given their 
 courage, endurance and lives to their country, and it was 
 fitting and seemly that their last resting places should be 
 monuments to their sacrifice. We have seen how this love 
 of his men dominated the mind of Thomas. He had no 
 life to live from them and no higher duty than to care for 
 their comfort. In this connection we give the testimony of 
 General Gates P. Thruston, a gallant and most accomplished 
 officer whose acquaintance our readers made in the second 
 day upon the battle field of Chickamauga when he carried Gen- 
 eral Thomas's orders over the space General Sheridan re- 
 ported to be occupied by the enemy. We acknowledge our 
 indebtedness to Van Home's Life of Thomas for the state- 
 ment given by General Thruston: 
 
 " When I became a member of his staff as judge advocate 
 it was a matter of surprise *to me to find how remarkably 
 familiar and accomplished he was in all matters of military 
 law and precedent, and other officers of his staff in the 
 various departments often remarked to me that he seemed 
 to know the usage, details and system of each department 
 of service as thoroughly as though he had passed his entire 
 military service in it. During two years in the judge ad-
 
 Siege of Chattanooga. 507 
 
 vocate's department I devoted almost my entire time in fit- 
 ting myself to the duties of the position. I sent to Europe 
 for books, and read every thing pertaining to military law 
 and that branch of the service; yet in the preparation of 
 court-martial orders, or in the consideration of questions of 
 law or precedent relating to that department, the general was 
 always ready with useful suggestions and counsel, and seemed 
 to have given more consideration to these subjects than any 
 other officer in the army. He also always gave a willing 
 and patient consideration to every case or question brought 
 before him. 
 
 " During his earlier days he made a careful study of 
 military and court-martial law, and had prepared notes of 
 decisions from various works on the subject, showing how 
 painstaking and systematic he was in making himself mas- 
 ter of all departments of his profession. . . . 
 
 " I mention the foregoing merely to add my testimony 
 to the completeness of his character. What was true of 
 my department was true as to all the other branches of the 
 service, as far as I could judge. He was master of them all." 
 
 Our general was not only fortunate in his men under 
 muskets, but also lucky in his subordinate officers. The corps 
 commanders were: Major-General Oliver O. Howard, Fourth 
 Corps ; Major-General John M. Palmer, Fourteenth Corps, 
 and Major-General Joseph Hooker, Twentieth Corps. The 
 division commanders of the Fourth Corps were: Major- 
 Generals David S. Stanley and John Newton and Brigadier- 
 General Thomas J. Wood; of the Fourteenth Corps, Briga- 
 dier-Generals Richard W. Johnson, Jefferson C. Davis and 
 Absolom Baird ; of the Twentieth Corps, Brigadier-Generals 
 Alpheus S. Williams, John W. Geary and Major-General 
 Daniel Butterfield. Brigadier-General Washington L. Elliott 
 was chief of cavalry, and Major-Generals Kenner Garrard, 
 Judson Kilpatrick and Edwin M. McCook, division com- 
 manders. 
 
 The deadly conflict was drawing rapidly to a close. The 
 South began to show signs of weakness. There was no 
 sturdy population to draw upon to fill again the thinned 
 ranks of victorious veterans. Desertions, up to that time
 
 508 Life of Thomas. 
 
 unknown, became frequent, while the earnest call for volun- 
 teers had a silent echo in the desolated homes. The fierce 
 fanaticism which pervaded the South when the war began, 
 that made " the rebel yell " the signal of a charge in which 
 the assailants had to be killed to insure victory, had gradually 
 died down, while giving place to a sullen despair almost as 
 potent as the fanaticism. The Confederacy fell, but it fell 
 fighting, and strange as it may seem we were in more danger 
 of defeat toward the end than in the beginning. We will 
 treat of this hereafter, as in the events that follow the luster 
 of our hero brightens as the hour grows darker ; and the 
 deadly peril that encompassed the great Republic but for 
 him would have prevailed and the war ended in a nation so 
 torn asunder as to leave in history nothing but the story of a 
 gigantic ruin.
 
 The Ignorance at Washington Enlightened by Grant. 509 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Ignorance at Washington Enlightened by General Grant The War of 
 Attrition Both Sides in the Conflict Running to Exhaustion, Neck 
 and Neck Failure of the Draft Thomas's Plan of Prosecuting the 
 War to a Speedy and Successful Close. 
 
 Said Jeflerson Davis after the war, " Chattanooga was 
 the key to the situation, and its loss was terrible to the Con- 
 federacy. Our only comfort was, that the people, at Wash- 
 ington did not know what to do with it." 
 
 Nor did General Grant. Made lieutenant-general, and 
 as such put in command of all our armies in the field, he put 
 Sherman in command of the Mississippi Department, and 
 hastened to Washington. What his views were, and subse- 
 quent plan of campaign, we have his words at the time for 
 the better information of President Lincoln. It reads as 
 follows : 
 
 " From an early period in the Rebellion, I had been im- 
 pressed with the idea that active and continuous operations 
 of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regard- 
 less of season and weather, were necessary to a speedy ter- 
 mination of the war. The resources of the enemy, and his 
 numerical strength, were far inferior to ours; but, as an oft- 
 set to this, we had a vast territory, with a population hos- 
 tile to the government, to garrison, and long lines of river 
 and railroad communications to protect, to enable us to sup- 
 ply the operating armies. 
 
 " The armies in the East and West acted independently 
 and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling 
 together, enabling the enemy to use to great advantage his 
 interior lines of communication for transporting troops from 
 East to West, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, 
 and to furlough large numbers during seasons of inactivity on 
 our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing 
 for the support of their armies. It was a question whether
 
 510 Life of Thomas. 
 
 our numerical strength and resources were not more than 
 balanced by these disadvantages and the enemy's superior 
 position. 
 
 "From the first I was firm in the conviction that no 
 peace could be had that would be stable and conducive to the 
 happiness of the people, North and South, until the military 
 power of the rebellion was entirely broken. 
 
 " I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest num- 
 ber of troops practicable against the armed force of the 
 enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different 
 seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and 
 the possibility of repose at all for refitting and producing 
 necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Second, to 
 hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy 
 and his resources, until, by mere attrition, if in no other way, 
 there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission 
 with the loyal section of our common country to the Consti- 
 tution and laws of the land. 
 
 " These views have been kept constantly in mind, and 
 orders given and campaigns made to carry them out. 
 Whether they might have been better in conception and 
 execution is for the people, who mourn the loss of friends 
 fallen, and who have to pay the pecuniary cost, to say. All 
 I can say is, that what I have done has been done conscien- 
 tiously, to the best of my ability, and in what I conceived to 
 be for the best intersts of the whole country." 
 
 A plan of warfare based on mutual slaughter, to be con- 
 tinued until one side or the other is killed for that is what 
 attrition means is somewhat new in war. We have seen 
 that, with the exception of the Army of the Cumberland, no 
 other system was thought of or practiced. President Lincoln, 
 in discussing a campaign with General McClellan, said very 
 truly that the enemy could be fought under more favorable 
 circumstances before Washington than at Richmond. But 
 McClellan had accepted the popular cry of " on to Rich- 
 mond" as the outline and objective point of a campaign, and 
 seeking to use the water ways for transportation, carried his 
 anaconda to a point in sight of Richmond before the mutual 
 slaughter began. From that time until General Grant was
 
 The War of Attrition. 511 
 
 given command of all our forces this brutal slaughter had 
 continued, except, as we have said, in the army that was 
 moving in Tennessee to. the only true objective point given 
 us in the war. 
 
 The brutal wording of the proposition shocks one. " To 
 hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and 
 his resources until, by mere attrition, if in no other way, there 
 should be nothing left of him," etc., is what General U. S. Grant 
 deliberately puts in writing and submits to the President. 
 We are grieved to confess that the proposition was not origi- 
 nal with the lieutenant-general. It came from a really great 
 man, but one strangely ignorant of how to conduct an armed 
 conflict, although Secretary of "War. Mr. Edwin M. Stanton 
 had said, " "We have no generals, but we have men, and I will 
 crowd them on until this rebellion is stamped out. We can 
 lose three men to the rebels' one and win." 
 
 This system of warfare, if we may term it such, called 
 for no campaign beyond one that found the enemy and 
 fought him. All strategem was dispensed with and defeats 
 were as effective as victories. We had only to calculate the 
 number of dead we could exchange for the killed on the 
 other side and continue the killing. The newly-made lieu- 
 tenant-general took up the " On to Richmond " project that 
 McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade had all failed to ac- 
 complish, which common sense taught us that if accomplished 
 would yet leave us in a worse condition than we were in at 
 the beginning. There are few who recognize the fact that 
 we were about as near exhaustion as the Confederacy. 
 Financially our credit was such that a dollar in the shape of 
 a government note had but the purchasing power of forty 
 cents. The volunteer element had been exhausted and the 
 administration dared not enforce the draft. To avoid this, 
 and yet reinforce our armies, resort was had to the abomina- 
 ble system of substitutes. By the law itself the payment 
 of $300 allowed a citizen to escape service in the army, a 
 monstrous proposition for a Republic where all men were 
 supposed to be on an equality, especially in defending a gov- 
 ernment that gave a like protection to all. In the summer 
 previous, draft riots developed in Boston, Jersey City, Troy
 
 S12 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and Jamaica, but assuming alarming proportions at the city 
 of New York, where the mob had virtually possession of the 
 place, when Governor Seymour gave his adhesion to the 
 rioters and by a promise to appeal to the President to sus- 
 pend the draft for a time stayed the hand of violence. 
 
 There was nothing saved us from a collapse in the sum- 
 mer and fall of 1863 but the earnest patriotism of a great 
 people. This was shown in the elections of that year and 
 in the re-enlistment of veterans whose term of service had 
 expired. The patriotic student of history looks back to that 
 dark hour of. peril with a glow of pride no words can ex- 
 press. Not only did overwhelming majorities at the polls 
 express the firm purpose of sustaining our able administra- 
 tion, but the veterans re-enlisted and from the house of mourn- 
 ing over all the land the young and old, before exempted, 
 shouldered their muskets to fill the places made vacant by 
 death. Nevertheless there was a limit to heroic endeavor. 
 The fighting element that gave us volunteers was nearly 
 exhausted. That which took its place under the infamous 
 system of substitute by purchase had no qualities in it of 
 the soldier. When this system passed from individual pur- 
 chase to townships and counties the evil grew to monstrous 
 proportions. The business of " bounty -j umping " became 
 universal. That is, a man selling himself in one state would 
 desert at the first opportunity and again sell himself in another. 
 If the man was watched and guarded until he could be 
 got to the field he made an insubordinate grumbler on the 
 march and a cowardly straggler at the rear in the hour of 
 battle. This evil increased until it became necessary to im- 
 prison these substitutes until a sufficient number to make a 
 regiment were collected and then march them to the field as 
 so many convicts. 
 
 The east suffered more from this evil than the West; 
 while the Army of the Potomac was receiving the worst pos- 
 sible element spawned upon our shores from Europe, the 
 Army of the Cumberland remained mainly native American 
 and in the large showing of volunteers from naturalized citi- 
 zens we had the better class of sturdy emigrants who had 
 struggled through to the lands of the West. But the evil
 
 Conflict Running to Exhaustion, Neck and Neck. 513 
 
 grew apace. The South could draw upon its entire popnla- 
 lation of men and even boys. This, in comparison with the 
 North, was limited, and the Confederacy had reached the 
 limit. It, too, had its draft, but no riots. The few who re- 
 sponded reluctantly to the call were hurried forward and in 
 this the South differed from the North. The long pursuits 
 of a peaceful sort had developed a peaceful nation in the 
 many classes of the free states that remained loyal to the 
 Union. There was no such absorbing pursuit of gain in the 
 slave states, where merchandise was considered less precious 
 than a personal sense of honor. Every man was his own 
 policeman and the whole were better prepared for war. 
 Added to this was the fact that slavery was ever a menace 
 to social order and every slave-holder was trained from neces- 
 sity in the ways of the soldier. 
 
 Let the causes have been what they may, when the 
 lieutenant-general was complacently talking of" hammering* 
 continuously against the armed forces of the enemy and his 
 resources," etc., the North and South were running to ex- 
 haustion neck and neck. While our material resources were 
 greater than those of the South our expenditures were 
 much heavier, and while we had a greater population to 
 draw upon for men our slaughter of Union soldiers nearly 
 again equalized the difference. Both Mr. Stanton and Gen- 
 eral Grant were in error as to this although they were unan- 
 imous in their confession that we had to rely, however 
 humiliating the fact, on the number of our men and not on 
 the superior ability of our generals. It will be seen as we 
 develop the true story of this war how near utter ruin we 
 were while trying Messrs. Stanton's and Grant's war of 
 attrition. 
 
 Had General Thomas been intrusted with the command 
 given Grant he would have placed Rosecrans or Buell in com- 
 mand of a force large enough to cover Washington, and 
 transported the Army of the Potomac to Tennessee. This 
 would have forced Lee to evacuate Virginia and concentrate 
 his forces in the cotton states. We would then have had 
 the immense advantage of but one army of invasion and that 
 33
 
 514 Life of Thomas. 
 
 with its base in the very heart of tne Confederacy where our 
 fleet could have co-operated in not only keeping open the 
 Mississippi, but menacing the coast of both the Atlantic 
 and the Gulf. This would have been the intelligent warfare 
 on our part that General Thomas saw in the beginning and 
 kept in view until the end. The authors of " attrition " 
 who sought success over the dead of our own armies died 
 without knowing that brain could have saved us blood, and 
 that intellect is rather more necessary to the proper conduct 
 of a war than it is in the purchase of hides and sale of leather 
 at Galena. 
 
 NOTE. Soon after completing his Life of Thomas to this point, Colonel 
 Piatt's labors were suspended by an attack of sickness, which resulted in 
 his death. The concluding chapters were furnished by General H. V. 
 Boynton.
 
 BOYXTON'S PREFACE. 
 
 At the time of Colonel Piatt's death he had brought his 
 Life of Thomas down to the Atlanta campaign. This por- 
 tion of the volume remains as he left it. 
 
 At the request of Mrs. Piatt, and with the understand- 
 ing that I did not adopt all the views of Colonel Piatt, or 
 concur in every case with his forms of criticism, I agreed to 
 add a few chapters to carry the narrative through General 
 Thomas's subsequent career and complete the volume. 
 
 While these concluding chapters are by no means ex- 
 haustive, they present the salient points of General Thomas's 
 notable services during the Atlanta and Nashville campaigns, 
 and up to the time of his death in San Francisco. 
 
 The chapters relating to the wonderful cavalry campaign 
 following the destruction of Hood's army, which was pro- 
 jected by General Thomas and General James H. Wilson, 
 and executed by the latter, have been given space out of pro- 
 portion to the other concluding chapters for the reason that 
 this most remarkable cavalry campaign in modern war has 
 not, as yet, received the attention it so richly deserves. 
 
 The prompt and full assistance rendered by General Wil- 
 son in connection with this portion of the work has placed 
 the writer under the deepest obligations. 
 
 H. V. BOYNTON. 
 Washington, D. C., 1893. 
 
 (515)
 
 516 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 
 
 General Thomas Preparing for a Spring Campaign Notified by Grant that 
 he Contemplated Marching through to the Sea Reconnoiters John- 
 son's Position at Dalton Finds it Impregnable, but Discovers Snake 
 Creek Gap to the Right of it Undefended Proposes an Atlanta Cam- 
 paign with the Army of the Cumberland Sherman, his Junior, As- 
 signed to Command Thomas's Proposition to Turn Dalton by Way of 
 Snake Creek Gap Rejected A Direct Attack on Dalton Decided on 
 After some Days of Assaulting Precipices, Plan Abandoned, and 
 Thomas's Adopted Too Late, as Johnson, fully Warned, was able to 
 Withdraw to his Works at Resaca, and After Battle to Safely Cross the 
 Oostenaula. 
 
 At the opening of the winter following the battles about 
 Chattanooga, General Thomas and his Army of the Cumber- 
 land were at the height of their fame. The country grew 
 more and more enthusiastic over Snodgrass Hill and the 
 " Rock of Chickamauga," over the storming of Lookout 
 Mountain, and the miracle of Missionary Ridge, as it came 
 to know them better. "While Grant and Sherman loomed up 
 in the official reports in overshadowing proportions, the 
 country discerned both the merit and the military stature of 
 Thomas. 
 
 The entire winter under this new commander was a sea- 
 son of intense activity. The lengthening lines of supplies 
 were worn and inadequate. Longstreet was in East Tennes- 
 see, and there was necessity to be always ready to march to 
 the assistance of the forces confronting him. The army was 
 to be refitted throughout. Chattanooga was to be stocked 
 with supplies, and their accumulation was a task of no small 
 proportions. A new plan was devised of defending the rail- 
 roads which would reduce their guards to a minimum, and 
 enable fresh troops to protect and hold them. The central 
 feature of this was a system of block-houses and supporting 
 earthworks. During the winter the whole line from Chatta-
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 517 
 
 nooga to Nashville, and from that city to Decatur, was re- 
 paired and thus protected. Enormous quantities of supplies 
 were collected at Nashville, and Chattanooga was stocked 
 -with a like amount of stores. The morale of the army was 
 all that could be desired. Its spirits steadily rose. Its pride 
 in General Thomas, and its love for him, were never exceeded 
 by the satisfaction of any army with its leader. A very lib- 
 eral system of furloughing was adopted, and the men, as they 
 returned from their homes, where they had been received 
 with every honor, came with new purpose and still greater 
 devotion to Thomas. 
 
 On the 19th of January, General Grant, then in com- 
 mand of the military division of the Mississippi, with head- 
 quarters at Nashville, wrote General Thomas, notifying him 
 that a campaign through to the gulf at Mobile was contem- 
 plated, with Atlanta and Montgomery as intermediate points. 
 The start was to be at the earliest possible moment in the 
 spring. This campaign had been fully explained by General 
 Grant to General Halleck a few days before. General Thomas 
 at once began preparations for the movement. 
 
 While these were in active progress he was ordered by 
 General Grant to make a reconnoissance in force toward 
 General Johnston's position at Dalton, and if possible to 
 capture the place. The real object of this move was to pre- 
 vent Bragg from detaching against Sherman, then out of 
 sight in the depths of the Meridian raid. 
 
 After the defeat of General Bragg, at Chattanooga, the 
 Confederate army took position at Dalton, forty miles south- 
 east of Chattanooga, on the railroad leading to Atlanta. 
 Soon after, General Bragg was relieved by General Joseph E. 
 Johnston. 
 
 The position at Dalton was one of great strength. Rocky 
 Face Ridge, a bold range, with steep slopes, covered with 
 tangled timber and loose stone, terminated toward the crest 
 in palisades of rock, which could not be scaled. The only 
 practicable approach to Dalton from the front was through 
 Buzzard Roost Gap, a narrow valley, dominated throughout 
 by precipitous heights, and further commanded by detached 
 ridgei of great natural strength. These advantages were
 
 518 Life of Thomas. 
 
 multiplied by intricate fortifications, and by providing for 
 flooding the whole gorge in case of an attempted movement 
 through it. The Confederate force holding this position at 
 the time General Thomas was ordered to examine it by a 
 movement in force was over thirty thousand. 
 
 He moved with four divisions of infantry Cruft's, 
 Baird's, Johnson's and Davis', with cavalry on each flank. 
 He carried Tunnel Hill, a strong range next west of Rocky 
 Face E-idge, and penetrating through several deep valleys, 
 forced his heads of columns into Buzzard Roost, and, after 
 most thorough examination, with his lines close to the enemy's 
 works, pronounced the place impregnable, reported to Gen- 
 eral Grant that it was not possible to carry it by assault, and 
 withdrew to Ringgold. 
 
 During his movement, General Thomas not only recon- 
 noitered the roads and passes to Dalton from the front, but 
 gathered full knowledge of the gaps on the flanks of the 
 enemy's position, and studied them with a view to turning 
 movements when the real campaign should open. Among 
 these he discovered that Snake Creek Gap, which penetrated 
 the ranges to the south of Dalton, and opened opposite Re- 
 saca, not only afforded a practical and completely hidden 
 way to the enemy's rear, but that it was entirely unguarded. 
 This was a discovery of vast importance, and had proper ad- 
 vantage been taken of it when General Sherman began the 
 movement of his army two months later, it would have been 
 easy to have ended the Atlanta campaign between Resaca 
 and Dalton. 
 
 While the main object with General Grant in ordering 
 the move on Dalton was to prevent General Johnston from 
 detaching against General Sherman, who was then on his 
 raid from Vicksburg toward Selma, it gave General Thomas 
 the information he needed to guide him in the plans he was, 
 perfecting for a campaign which should enable him to oc- 
 cupy the railroad at least as far as Atlanta. 
 
 The demonstration against Dalton detained all of John- 
 ston's force. But, General Sherman having penetrated to 
 Meridian, turned back without attempting to move on Selma v
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 519 
 
 as had been contemplated, or toward Mobile, as it had been 
 hoped he could. 
 
 General Thomas, having Completed his studies of the 
 situation, including the proper guarding of both lines of rail- 
 road between Nashville and Stevenson, and the natural diffi- 
 culties between Ringgold and Atlanta, on the 28th of Feb- 
 ruary telegraphed his proposition to General Grant to enter 
 upon a campaign for Atlanta with the Army of the Cum- 
 berland, as set forth by Colonel Piatt in the preceding 
 chapter. 
 
 Four days after receiving General Thomas's plan, which 
 had been thoroughly worked out by that careful officer, Gen- 
 eral Grant, who had been confirmed as lieutenant-general 
 under the law reviving that grade, started for Washington, 
 whither he was ordered, to the command of all the armies. 
 In ten days he returned to Nashville, summoned Sherman 
 from Memphis, and informed him that it had been arranged 
 to assign him to the command of the Military Division of 
 the Mississippi, with head-quarters at Nashville. On the 17th 
 of March General Sherman took command, and General 
 Grant informed General Thomas of the change. 
 
 As has been seen, for the second time, General Thomas 
 found himself assigned to duty under a junior. He ranked 
 General Sherman as a major-general, as he had ranked Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans. In speaking to one of his brother officers 
 of this treatment, he simply said: "I have made my last 
 protest against serving under juniors. I have made up my 
 mind to go on with this work without a word, and do my 
 best to help get through with this business as soon as pos- 
 sible." 
 
 But in spite of the patriotic, dignified, and self-sacrificing 
 manner in which General Thomas acquiesced, it was, never- 
 theless, a great outrage upon him. He had not, at any time, 
 lost a movement or a battle from Mill Springs to Chatta- 
 nooga. The laurels of Snodgrass Hill, and Lookout Moun- 
 tain, and Missionary Ridge, were fresh on his brow. The 
 country spoke his name with universal acclaim. He was at 
 the head of a great army which idolized him. He had per- 
 sonally reconnoitered the enemy's stronghold at Dalton; had
 
 520 Life of Tliomas. 
 
 made careful examination of all questions involved in a cam- 
 paign, and had perfected a plan for moving forward to 
 Atlanta, and its preliminaries were in course of vigorous exe- 
 cution. He was fairly and honorably entitled to the com- 
 mand. Instead, a junior was placed over him, by virtue of 
 the fact that this officer was, at the same time, named as the 
 commander of a military division. 
 
 The slight thus put upon General Thomas would have 
 been less if the junior placed over him had been equally, or 
 even approximately, successful. But General Sherman had 
 been surprised at Shiloh ; had signally failed at Chickasaw 
 Bayou; had protested against Grant's plan by which Vicks- 
 burg had been captured ; had failed in his assaults on 
 Vicksburg; of the three armies operating at Chattanooga 
 had stood alone in failure to execute his part of the plan, and 
 he was just fresh from the Meridian campaign, which had 
 fallen short. At all these points and every- where his troops 
 and subordinate officers had fought with splendid pluck, and 
 they were not in any case responsible for the want of suc- 
 cess which attended the plans and orders which they had un- 
 flinchingly risked life to execute. 
 
 It was the idea of " getting through with this business 
 as soon as possible " that held Thomas steady after each dis- 
 regard of his merits. There was no failure on his part, but, 
 on the contrary, unvarying and brilliant success from Mill 
 Springs to Nashville. At the same time there was as con- 
 stant and uniform failure to reward him by promotion. 
 
 When General Rosecrans was assigned to the command 
 of the Army of the Cumberland', after Perryville, his com- 
 mission was dated back in order that he might rank General 
 Thomas. The latter did not learn this fact until long after 
 the change was made. At the time General Rosecrans came 
 Thomas made the point to Halleck that he had been 
 placed under a junior, and he was not conscious of having 
 done any thing to merit or excuse it. Halleck replied that 
 Rosecrans' commission was the oldest. To this Thomas an- 
 swered that, knowing this, he had no objections to serv- 
 ing under General Rosecrans. Had he known that 
 Rosecrans had been reappointed, and the date of his com-
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 521 
 
 mission carried back to meet this case, the reply would have 
 been of a very different character. The three letters on this 
 subject heretofore given in this volume throw strong light 
 on General Thomas's character. He had promptly, and 
 twice, protested against relieving General Buell on the 
 eve of Perryville, because he thought the order was unjust 
 to that general. After the battle this magnanimity on his 
 his part was taken advantage of and made an excuse for 
 ignoring him. 
 
 On 24th of October it was decided to send Rosecrans to re- 
 lieve General Buell. General Thomas's commission as major- 
 general of volunteers dated from April 25, 1862. On the 25th 
 of October, a new letter of appointment for General Rosecrans 
 was made out, which gave him rank from March 21, 1862, 
 and made him senior to General Thomas by a month. 
 Measured by his success, there was ground for defending 
 Rosecrans' assignment, if rank was to be ignored. West 
 Virginia, luka and Corinth had all testified to his ability 
 and worth. But when it came to assigning Sherman over 
 Thomas on the threshold of the Atlanta campaign it was 
 establishing uniform and unbroken failure over uniform and 
 unbroken success. As Sherman was assigned to the com- 
 mand of the Division of the Mississippi, by the rulings he 
 commanded every thing in it, and so commanded Thomas 
 his superior in rank. But no such assignment could change 
 the relative military ability of these two officers, or dis- 
 turb their previous records, the one of success, the other of 
 failure, or even modify the injustice done to Thomas. 
 
 At the time of General Sherman's assignment, not only 
 had General Thomas's plan of campaign as far as Atlanta, 
 to be executed with the Army of the Cumberland alone, 
 been perfected and submitted to General Grant, but even 
 its details, such as the number of guards needed at each 
 bridge and minor post had been determined. His army 
 was well supplied, and it would have been ready to advance 
 upon the receipt of orders. It was, in round numbers, 60,000 
 strong, well equipped, in splendid spirit, and devoted to its 
 leader. The Confederate force at that time was, in round 
 numbers, 40,000 of all arms.
 
 522 Life of Thomas. 
 
 General Sherman, after reaching Nashville, accompanied 
 General Grant as far as Cincinnati on the way to Wash- 
 ington, and received full knowledge of the plans of the com- 
 manding general for the spring campaign, which was to 
 open about the first of May with a simultaneous movement 
 of all the armies. The purpose of General Grant to push 
 Sherman's army after Johnston and by way of Atlanta 
 through to the Gulf, or toward Savannah, was also made 
 known to Sherman for his guidance. 
 
 The force for the campaign was to consist of the Army 
 of the Cumberland, General Thomas ; the Army of the Ten- 
 nessee, General McPherson ; and the Army of the Ohio, 
 General Schofield. 
 
 The Army of the Cumberland was composed of the 
 Fourth, Fourteenth, and Twentieth Corps of Infantry and a 
 corps of cavalry. Each corps consisted of three divisions, and 
 each division was made up of three brigades. There were 
 also three brigades of artillery. Its total, therefore, was 4 
 corps, 12 divisions, 36 brigades, and three artillery brigades 
 of 42 batteries. 
 
 The Army of the Tennessee was made up of the Fif- 
 teenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Corps. Tfte first con- 
 tained four divisions and the others two divisions each. Its 
 composition was 3 corps, 8 divisions, 24 brigades, and 23 
 batteries. 
 
 The Army of the Ohio consisted of the Twenty-third 
 corps of 3 infantry divisions and 1 division of cavalry. It 
 had 4 divisions, 10 brigades, and 8 batteries. 
 
 General Sherman's combined forces, therefore, were made 
 up of 8 corps, 24 divisions, 70 brigades, and 73 batteries. 
 
 The opposing Confederate army consisted of Hood's and 
 Hardee's corps of infantry, and "Wheeler's corps of cavalry. 
 Hardee had 4 divisions, and Hood and "Wheeler each 3. Gen- 1 
 eral Johnston's army, therefore, was composed of 3 corps, 10 
 divisions, 34 brigades, and 10 batteries a force considerably 
 less than half that under General Sherman. Early in the 
 campaign the latter brought forward General F. P. Blair 
 with two divisions and one brigade of cavalry. General 
 Johnston was also re-enforced by Folk's corps of three divis-
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 523 
 
 ions of infantry, one of them of only two brigades, and three 
 brigades of cavalry. The relative strength of the opposing 
 forces, however, remained throughout the campaign as 
 quite two to one in favor of General Sherman. 
 
 When the campaign actually opened General Sherman 
 reported the following force as present for battle : 
 
 Infantry. Cavalry. Artillery. Gun*. 
 
 Army of the Cumberland 54,568 3,828 2,377 130 
 
 Army of the Tennessee i'i',4:;7 624 1,404 96 
 
 Army of the Ohio 11,183 1,697 679 28 
 
 Total 88,188 5,149 4,460 254 
 
 Aggregate for battle, 98,797, and 254 guns. 
 
 At the same date General Johnston reported his effective 
 force as infantry, 34,500; cavalry, 2,085; artillery, 2,811 
 total, 39,396. The returns of the Army of the Tennessee 
 showed the number of " effectives " at this date, 43,887. 
 Some thousands, however, especially of the cavalry, were re- 
 fitting, and not then available. 
 
 No general in command at any time during the war had 
 as effective an army put into his hands for offensive use as 
 General Sherman. The men were veterans and devoted to 
 their officers. There was no more competent commander than 
 General Thomas on either side during the war. General Mc- 
 Pherson was rapidly rising in al 1 that pertained to a soldier and 
 general of first rank. General Schofield was much like Thomas 
 in his methods and bearing, and both McPherson and Scho- 
 field were, like Thomas, held in the highest esteem by their 
 soldiers. The corps and division commanders of these three 
 armies were men of military note and skill, and full of en- 
 thusiasm, and the brigade commanders, were as a body, un- 
 surpassed at any time during the war. 
 
 Seven weeks after General Sherman assumed command 
 of his hardy veterans his army was reported ready to move. 
 The lines of communication behind him had been opened and 
 effectively guarded by Thomas. They were not interrupted 
 while preparations for moving went forward, and yet, when 
 the advance began, there was much lacking in the way of 
 supplies among those soldiers which General Sherman brought
 
 524 Life of Thomas. 
 
 up for the campaign. But the authorities at Washington 
 did not cry out over these lacks, or this use of time, as when 
 the Army of the Cumberland was being prepared by Rose- 
 crans for the forward movement on Chattanooga. That army 
 rebuilt the railroads to its rear, and in six weeks supplied 
 itself with every thing needed for a month's campaign away 
 from its base, and separated from it by three mountain 
 ranges and a wide river. Its commander barely escaped re- 
 moval because he was six weeks in preparation. General 
 Sherman took seven weeks, with lines of supply fully estab- 
 lished and undisturbed, and the former critics of the Army 
 of the Cumberland were as silent as if they had been dumb. 
 This is not a comparison to show that Sherman had been 
 tardy, for he had acted with vigor, but it serves to illustrate 
 Rosecrans' experiences. When Sherman's army did move 
 under orders from General Grant, fixing the day of general 
 advance for all the armies, it was not better supplied either 
 with clothing or food than was General Rosecrans' for his 
 much criticised campaign. As a whole, however, and speak- 
 ing of the campaign as a whole, the army was well supplied 
 and equipped and in prime spirits. 
 
 When General Sherman moved, it was his intention to 
 attack General Johnston's intrenched position at Dalton. 
 This purpose he announced to -General Grant on April 24th, 
 after he had visited General Thomas, at Chattanooga, and 
 heard and rejected his plan of turning the enemy's position 
 by a flank movement through Snake Creek Gap. General 
 Thomas, in his testimony before the Committee on the Con- 
 duct of the War, made this statement of the rejection of his 
 plan by General Sherman, and its subsequent adoption, after 
 the failure of the attack in front, and when it was too late : 
 
 " Shortly after his assignment to the military division of 
 the Mississippi, General Sherman came to see me at Chatta- 
 nooga to consult as to the position of affairs and adopt a plan 
 for a spring campaign. At that interview I proposed to 
 General Sherman that if he would use McPherson's and 
 Schofield's armies to demonstrate on the enemy's position at 
 Dalton by the direct roads through Buzzard Roost Gap, and 
 from, the direction of Cleveland, I would throw my whole
 
 Tke. Atlanta Campaign. 525 
 
 force through Snake Creek Gap, which I knew to be un- 
 guarded, fall upon the enemy's communications between 
 Dalton and Resaca, thereby turning his position completely, 
 and force him either to retreat toward the east, through a 
 difficult country, poorly supplied with provisions and forage, 
 with a strong probability of total disorganization of his force, 
 or attack me, in which latter event I felt confident that my 
 army was sufficiently strong to beat him, especially as I hoped 
 to gain a position on his communications before he could be 
 made aware of my movement. General Sherman objected 
 to this plan for the reason that he desired my army to form 
 the reserve of the united armies, and to serve as a rallying 
 point for the two wings, the Army of the Ohio and that of 
 the Tennessee, to operate from. Later, when the campaign 
 in Georgia was commenced, the Army of the Tennessee was 
 sent through Snake Creek Gap to accomplish what I had 
 proposed doing with my army, but not reaching Snake Creek 
 Gap before the enemy had informed himself of the move- 
 ment, McPherson was unable to get upon his communications 
 before Johnston had withdrawn part of his forces from Dal- 
 ton, and had made dispositions to defend Resaca." 
 
 The opening of the Atlanta campaign, from this failure 
 of General Sherman to promptly accept General Thomas's 
 views and plans, proved one of the most decided and mo- 
 mentous failures of the war. The three armies and their 
 commanders, and the subordinate officers and men, did their 
 full duty. Every order of General Sherman was executed 
 whenever it was possible for iron veterans, who hesitated at 
 no exposure in battle, to carry it out.' There was no failure 
 anywhere, except with the commanding general. 
 
 The position was a very simple one. General Thomas, 
 during a prolonged and careful reconnoissance, as already 
 related, had clearly ascertained all of its elements. General 
 Sherman, with 100,000 men, had pushed up to the front of 
 Rocky Face Ridge and into the passes which led through 
 and over it to Dalton, where General Johnston was strongly 
 intrenched. The passes had been rendered impregnable. 
 They had been so reported by General Thomas to General 
 Grant, before the assignment of General Sherman. The situ-
 
 526 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ation in front had been fully explained to Sherman. He had 
 also been informed that Snake Creek Gap, ten miles to the 
 south, which opened east of Rocky Face, fifteen miles in the 
 rear of Dalton, was practical for artillery and trains, was 
 hidden from the view of the enemy, and, most important of 
 all,' that it had been left wholly undefended, evidently upon 
 the belief that it was impracticable for an army. From the 
 advanced position of the Union troops there was no forward 
 movement possible, except to attempt the assault of preci- 
 pices and inaccessible slopes. It is perfectly clear to the 
 most casual student of the situation now, as it was clear to 
 all who knew the elements of the position at the time, that, 
 had General Thomas's plan been adopted, General Johnston 
 would, have been cut off from retreat along the line of the 
 railroad, and obliged either to give battle against twice his 
 numbers, which must have settled the Atlanta campaign 
 then and there, or to retreat eastward through a broken and 
 barren country, where his army would have been at once 
 short of all supplies, and wholly cut off from any practical 
 line for obtaining them. 
 
 The attack began on the 7th of May, being made by 
 the Armies of the Cumberland and the Ohio. It was a move 
 against precipices and into impassable gorges. On the 9th 
 it was still in progress and lasted through that day. At 
 night General Sherman telegraphed to Nashville and the East 
 that he had "been fighting all day against rocks and defiles." 
 That day, while Schofield, on the north, and Thomas in 
 front of Buzzard Roost, with a combined force of 74,000 
 men were pushing vigorously but vainly and hopelessly 
 against barriers which could not be passed. McPherson with 
 23,000 men was sent through Snake Creek Gap with orders 
 to push out to the railroad near Resaca, break it, and return 
 in his discretion to the Gap. 
 
 This movement McPherson accomplished with the great- 
 est promptness. He did not even wait for provisions. He 
 gained the road, but the delay in the movement for one 
 thing, which had warned Johnston ; the finding of several 
 good roads in front of the Gap leading to Dalton, and by 
 which Johnston could gain his rear; and, above all, the fact
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 527 
 
 that the corps of General Dodge was entirely out of pro- 
 visions for men or horses, and had been for more than a 
 day, caused General McPherson to take advantages of the 
 discretionary orders given him and withdraw at night to the 
 eastern entrance to Snake Creek Gap. 
 
 Although the fact was known to General Sherman that 
 General Dodge had sent a force through Snake Creek Gap 
 on the 8th, and that it had moved out that night to the 
 vicinity of the railroad and found the country in front of 
 Resaca clear of the enemy, the orders for the movement of 
 the armies through the Gap was not given until the llth 
 and Thomas and Schofield who had been kept at the work 
 of fighting precipices did not pass through until the 12th and 
 13th. Johnston, then fully informed of the movement, 
 abandoned Dalton, retired on Resaca, put down his bridges 
 over the Oostenaula to give a safe line of retreat, and 
 awaited Sherman at Resaca. There, in a position of his 
 own choosing, he received Sherman, accepted battle,' and 
 after it safely withdrew his army to the south of the river. 
 It is a mortifying story of failure for which General Sherman 
 alone was responsible. Generals McPherson and Dodge had 
 moved promptly though their men and animals were hungry 
 and the trains to supply them had not arrived. They did 
 everything that willing and seasoned veterans could do. The 
 movement failed solely because it was ordered too late. Had 
 it been in season, it is by no means certain that the lack of 
 supplies for men and horses would not have seriously crip- 
 pled it. 
 
 This was a failure of such vast importance and moment- 
 ous consequences that every means was taken then in offi- 
 cial dispatches, and every effort was put forth after the war 
 in Sherman's Memoirs to conceal the real facts. In the 
 official dispatches of the time it was insisted that the move- 
 ment in front of Rocky Face and adjacent ridges was only a 
 feint, and that the move through Snake Creek Gap, which had 
 been persistently resisted by Sherman until it was too late to 
 succeed, was the real move for battle. Next, its failure was 
 cruelly and most unjustly attributed to McPherson's timidity. 
 General McPherson "timid"! Never was a grosser blow
 
 528 Life of Thomas. 
 
 aimed at a faithful officer. It was even carried to the extent 
 of suppressing his own full explanation of the movements 
 on Resaca when the Memoirs came to be written, in cold 
 blood ten years later. Then, General Sherman, while giving 
 his own letters to McPherson, said of those from the latter 
 that they " were mere notes in pencil not retained." They 
 were, however, all in the files, then accessible in the War De- 
 partment at General Sherman's hand. They were letters of 
 length and of great moment to General McPherson. Here 
 is the one which shows why he failed, and further brings out 
 the astonishing fact that while it was only the second day 
 of the campaign General Sherman's own army of the Ten- 
 nessee, both infantry and cavalry, could not obtain supplies , 
 for either men or animals, and had actually moved without 
 food or forage, and yet in this condition had made a most 
 vigorous attempt to execute orders which came too late to ad- 
 mit of success : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT AND ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, 
 
 CAMP AT SUGAR VALLEY, May 9, 1864, 10:30 P. M. 
 
 General : General Dodge's command moved up and skirmished with 
 the enemy at Resaca this afternoon. While that was going on one com- 
 pany of mounted infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips' regiment, succeeded 
 in reaching the railroad near Tilton's Station, but was forced to leave with- 
 out damaging the track. They tore down a small portion of the telegraph 
 wire. The enemy have a strong position at Resaca naturally, and, as far 
 as we could see, have it pretty well fortified. They displayed considerable 
 force, and opened on us with artillery. After skirmishing till nearly dark, 
 and finding that I could not*succeed in cutting the railroad before dark, 
 or getting to it, I decided to withdraw the command and take up a po- 
 sition for the night between Sugar Valley and the entrance to^the Gap for 
 the following reasons : First. Between this point and Resaca there are a 
 half dozen good roads leading north toward Dal ton down which a column 
 of the enemy could march, making our advanced position a very exposed 
 one. Second. General Dodge's men are all out of provisions, and some 
 regiments have had nothing to-day. His wagon train is between here and 
 Villanow, and possibly some of them are coming through the Gap now, 
 but they could not have reached him near Resaca ; besides, I did not wish 
 to block up the road with a train. It is very narrow, and the country 
 on either side is heavily wooded. I had no cavalry except Phillips' mounted 
 men to feel out on the flanks. If I could have had a division of good cav- 
 alry I could have broken the railroad at some point. I shall be compelled 
 to rest my men to-morrow forenoon, at least, to enable them to draw pro- 
 visions. We have lost some 6 men killed and 30 odd wounded, but have 
 inflicted a greater amount of damage to the enemy, and captured abcut
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 529 
 
 25 prisoners. General Kilpatriok is very anxious to make the attempt to 
 cut the railroad. General Garrard is in Lafayette to-night; says his horses 
 are very much fatigued and short of forage ; desires to remain there un- 
 til his forage train comes down from Chattanooga. When I move for- 
 ward again I would like a division of Hooker's command to hold the en- 
 trance to the Gap and the roads at Sugar Valley, thereby enabling me to 
 move forward with my entire command, except train guards. The news 
 from Grant is glorious. 
 
 sincerely yours, 
 
 JAMES B. MCPHBRSON, Major-General Commanding. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL, W. T. SHERMAN, 
 
 Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi. 
 
 How energetically Generals McPherson and Dodge and 
 their hardened and splendid soldiers strove to execute their 
 orders is further shown hy this extract from General Dodge's 
 report : 
 
 During the entire day the command acted under the personal di- 
 rection of Major-General McPherson, and promptly obeyed and executed 
 all his orders. My transportation had not yet reached me. I had with the 
 entire corps, since leaving Chattanooga, only seventeen wagons, and I had 
 marched out in the morning without rations, most of the command having 
 been without food since the day before at noon ; thus a march of sixteen 
 miles was made by the command, the men and animals whereof had had 
 nothing to eat for a day and a half. 
 
 After assaulting precipices for three days in direct op- 
 position to General Thomas's advice, and in the face of the 
 abundant information he had gathered as to the impossibility 
 of carrying the position from the front, and the ease with 
 which the enemy's rear could be reached through unguarded 
 Snake Creek Gap, General Sherman addressed General 
 Thomas the following annoying communication, from which 
 the uninformed reader might readily suppose that Thomas had 
 been persisting in the front attack, and that Sherman had 
 suddenly conceived a flank movement by Snake Creek Gap : 
 
 I think you are satisfied that your troops can not take Rocky Face 
 Ridge, and also the attempt to put our columns into the jaws of Buzzard , 
 Roost would be fatal to us. Two plans of action suggest themselves : First. 
 By night, to replace Schofield's present command by Stoneman's cavalry, 
 which should be near at hand, and to rapidly move your entire army, the 
 men along the base of John's Mountain, by the Mill Creek road to Snake 
 Creek Gap, and join McPherson whilst the wagons are moved to Villanow. 
 When we are joined to McPherson to move from Sugar Valley on Resaca, 
 interposing ourselves between that place and Dalton. Could your anny 
 34
 
 530 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and McPherson's surely whip Joe Johnston ? Second. To cut loose from 
 the railroad altogether and move the whole army on the same objective 
 point, leaving Johnston to choose his course. 
 
 And on the night of the 10th, Sherman thus telegraphed 
 General Halleck : 
 
 General McPherson reached Resaca, but found the place strongly for- 
 tified and guarded, and did not break the road. According to his instruc- 
 tions, he drew back to the debouches of the gorge, where he has a strong 
 defensive position, and guards the only pass into the valley of the Ooste- 
 naula available to us. Buzzard Roost Gap, through which the railroad 
 passes, is naturally and artificially too strong to be attempted. I must 
 feign on Buzzard Roost, but pass through Snake Creek Gap, and place my- 
 self between Johnston and Resaca, when we will have to fight it out. I 
 am making the preliminary move. Certain that Johnston can make no 
 detachments, I will be in no hurry. My cavalry is just approaching from 
 Kentucky and Tennessee (detained by the difficulty of getting horses), 
 and even now it is less than my minimum. 
 
 And yet the dispatches show that General Thomas, after 
 reconnoitering the position in force in February, with four 
 divisions, had reported to General Grant as early as the 26th 
 of that month, and explained to General Sherman upon his 
 taking command later, that it was "not possible to carry 
 the place (Buzzard Roost Gap) by assault." Still three days 
 had been consumed in preparing to carry it, and then when 
 it became necessary to adopt General Thomas's plan, dispatch 
 after dispatch was written to create the impression that Sher- 
 man originated it, and had been working upon it from the 
 first. 
 
 As a result of all this bungling business, now so easily 
 seen to be so, Johnston was enabled to plant himself upon 
 the railroad between Sherman and Atlanta, and the long and 
 costly campaign which followed became a necessity. Had 
 Thomas's plans and advice been followed, the decisive battle 
 of the campaign could have been fought about Resaca, or 
 Johnston's army have been driven to retreat eastward, which, 
 because of the broken and barren character of the country 
 must have been well nigh as disastrous as a battle. Thus, an 
 army 100,000 strong for battle, made up of three armies, each 
 under a commander of unquestioned ability, and composed 
 of enthusiastic veterans, failed against a force of less than 
 half its strength, through the grave mistake of the general
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 581 
 
 in command. It is plain to see that had General Thomas 
 been in command, or even if his advice had been followed, 
 the campaign would have opened successfully and not in 
 grave failure. 
 
 When General Sherman did decide to adopt the Thomas 
 plan, he found the enemy in the fortifications of Resaca, to 
 which point General Johnston had withdrawn from Dalton, 
 upon the discovery of the belated flank movement through 
 Snake Creek Gap.. General Sherman contended, in his 
 official report, that " nothing saved Johnston's army at 
 Resaca but the impracticable nature of the country, which 
 made the passage of the troops across the valley almost im- 
 possible." And yet, a few days later, the Army othe Cum- 
 berland and the Army of the Ohio, moved through this very 
 country in line of battle, without trouble and with brilliant 
 success.
 
 532 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 From Resaca to the Etowah Thomas's Boldness Causes Johnston to Retire 
 to Allatoona The Enemy Flanked out of Allatoona Union Advance 
 to Kenesaw Sherman's Secret Attack upon his Commanders Its 
 Gross Injustice shown by his own Dispatches. 
 
 The campaign from Resaca to Etowah River was rapid. 
 Resaca was occupied on the morning of May 16th, and Gen- 
 eral Sherman ordered instant pursuit. The failure of the 
 prompt movement through Snake Creek Gap, suggested and 
 urged by General Thomas, had, however, enabled the enemy 
 to put down his bridges and retire in order. General John- 
 ston fell back to Cassville, north of the Etowah, where he pre- 
 pared for battle, and expected to deliver it before the Union 
 army could be concentrated. He was ready to fall upon the 
 Army of the Cumberland, when the vigorous assembling 
 and bold display of his forces by General Thomas the mo- 
 ment the latter found the enemy concentrated, determined 
 General Johnston to retire to Allatoona, south of the river, 
 without a fight. 
 
 After a three days' rest for the general repair of equip- 
 ment and the accumulation of supplies, General Sherman 
 decided to leave the railroad and make a wide detour to the 
 west for the purpose of turning the strong position of the 
 Allatoona Pass and mountains. On the 23d of May the col- 
 umns started with twenty days' rations in the trains, moving 
 on Dallas. From this point the army was to turn again 
 toward the railroad, when Johnston, by the turning move- 
 ment, should be drawn out of Allatoona. 
 
 General Johnston was quick to move, and arrived in 
 force at New Hope Church, and had his advance at Dallas as 
 soon as Sherman appeared before the latter place. From the 
 25th of May until the 4th of June there was almost continu- 
 ous fighting along a Confederate line of works from six to
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 533 
 
 ten miles in extent, reaching from about Dallas north-east- 
 ward to a point some three miles in front of Lost Mountain. 
 This fighting was generally by strong skirmish lines ap- 
 proaching lines of battle in strength, and each protected by 
 hastily constructed but most effective field-works. There 
 were innumerable charges and assaults along the lines in 
 which all the armies participated with the greatest vigor and 
 enthusiasm. As a result, General Sherman, constantly press- 
 ing toward the railroad on his left, finally secured it from 
 Allatoona to Ackworth. Thereupon General Johnston, on 
 the night of June 4th, withdrew toward the strong line of 
 the Kenesaw and Lost Mountain ranges, north and west 
 of Marietta. The losses of the Union army for the month of 
 May were 9,299 ; of these 6,856 were in the three corps of the 
 Army of the Cumberland, 1,271 in the two corps of the Army 
 of the Tennessee, and 1,172 in the one corps and the cavalry 
 of the Army of the Ohio. General Sherman's own estimate 
 of the relative strength of the contending armies was two to 
 one in favor of his own forces. 
 
 The next epoch of the Atlanta campaign involved the ad- 
 vance upon the formidable Kenesaw Mountain line. About 
 a week was occupied in opening the railroad to Ackworth 
 and establishing a secondary base of supplies upon the road, 
 and within the natural fortifications of Allatoona Pass. On 
 the 8th of June, General Frank Blair arrived with two divis- 
 ions of the Seventeenth corps, adding an effective strength of 
 9,000 men to the Army of the Tennessee. This reinforce- 
 ment about covered the loss of the campaign, so that for the 
 move upon the Kenesaw line General Sherman reported the 
 strength of his three armies as still aggregating about 100,000 
 effective men. On the 10th of June the whole army moved 
 forward to Big Shanty, six miles south of Ackworth, from 
 which point the enemy's lines upon Kenesaw, Pine, and Lost 
 Mountains could be seen. Heavy rains set in on June 1st, 
 and continued with slight cessations until the 22d. The 
 country was rendered almost impassable in any direction, 
 and General Sherman declared the roads to be " infamous." 
 
 While, under these conditions, General Sherman's three 
 army commanders, Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, were
 
 534 Life of Thomas. 
 
 steadily advancing their lines through a country crowded 
 with natural and artificial obstacles, and bravely defended, 
 performing all duties with signal ability, and failing in 
 nothing, General Sherman was rewarding them by such 
 secret attacks in private communications as were contained 
 in the following amazing letter to General Grant : 
 
 IN THE FIELD, June 18, 1864. 
 GENERAL U. S. GRANT : 
 
 DEAR GENERAL: I have no doubt you want me to write you occa- 
 sionally letters not purely official, but which will admit of a little more 
 latitude than such documents possess. I have daily sent to Halleck tele- 
 graphs which I asked him to report to you, and which he says he has done. 
 You, therefore, know where we are and what we have done. If our move- 
 ment has been slower than you calculated I can explain the reason, though 
 I know you believe me too earnest and impatient to be behind time. My 
 first movement against Johnston was really fine, and now I believe I would 
 have disposed of him at one blow if McPherson had crushed Resaca, as he 
 might have done, for then it was garrisoned only by a small brigade, but 
 Me. was a little over cautious lest Johnston, still at Dalton, might move 
 against him alone ; but the truth was I got all of McPherson's army, 23,000, 
 eighteen miles to Johnston's rear before he knew they had left Huutsville. 
 With that single exception McPherson has done very well. Schofield also 
 does as well as I could ask with his small force. Our cavalry is dwindling 
 away. We can not get full forage and have to graze, so that the cavalry is 
 always unable to attempt any thing. Garrard is over-cautious, and I think 
 Stoneman is lazy. The former has 4,500 and the latter about 2,500. Each 
 has had fine chances of cutting in, but were easily checked by the appear- 
 ance of the enemy. My chief source of trouble is with the Army of the 
 Cumberland, which is dreadfully slow. A fresh furrow in a plowed field 
 will stop the whole column, and all begin to intrench. I have again and 
 again tried to impress on Thomas that we must assail and not defend ; we 
 are the offensive, and yet it seems the whole Army of the Cumberland is 
 so habituated to be on the defensive that, from its commander down to the 
 lowest private, I can not get it out of their heads. I came out without 
 tents and ordered all to do likewise, yet Thomas has a head-quarters camp 
 on the style of Halleck at Corinth ; every aide and orderly with a wall- 
 tent, and a baggage-train big enough for a division. He promised to send 
 it all back, but the truth is, every body there is allowed to do as he pleases, 
 and they still think and act as though the railroad and all its facilities were 
 theirs. This slowness has cost me the loss of two splendid opportunities 
 which never recur in war. At Dallas there was a delay of four hours to get 
 ready to advance, when we first met Johnston's head of column, and that 
 four hours enabled him to throw up works to cover the head of his column, 
 and he extended the works about as fast as we deployed. Also here I 
 broke one of his lines, and had we followed it up as I ordered at daylight, 
 there was nothing between us and the railroad back of Marietta. I ordered 
 Thomas to move at daylight, and when I got to the point at 9.30, I found
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 535 
 
 Stanley and Wood quarreling which should not lead. I'm afraid I swore, 
 and said what I should not, but I got them started ; but, instead of reach- 
 ing the Atlanta road back of Marietta, which is Johnston's center, we only 
 got to a creek to the south of it by night, and now a heavy rain stops us 
 and gives time to fortify a new line. Still I have all the high and com- 
 manding ground, but the one peak near Marietta, which I can turn. We 
 have had an immense quantity of rain, from June 2d to 14th, and now it is 
 raining as though it had no intention ever to stop. The enemy's cavalry 
 sweeps all around us, and is now to my rear somewhere. The wires are 
 broken very often, but I have strong guards along the road which make 
 prompt repairs. Thus far our supplies of food have been good, and forage 
 moderate, and we have found growing wheat, rye, oats, etc. You may go 
 on with the full assurance that I will continue to press Johnston as fast as 
 I can overcome the natural obstacles and inspire motion into a large, pon- 
 derous, and slow (by habit) army. Of course it can not keep up with my 
 thoughts and wishes, but no impulse can be given it that I will not guide. 
 As ever, your friend, W. T. SHERMAN. 
 
 The coloring of this letter grows darker still when the 
 surroundings, as shown by the official dispatches, are ex- 
 amined. On the night of the 13th of June, only five days 
 before it was written, Sherman had telegraphed Halleck from 
 Big Shanty : 
 
 We have had hard and cold rains for about ten days. A gleam of sun- 
 shine this evening gives hopes of a change. The roads are insufficient 
 here, and the fields and new ground are simply impassable to wheels. As 
 soon as possible I will study Johnston's position on the Kenesaw and Lost 
 Mountains, and adopt some plan to dislodge him or draw him out of his 
 position. We can not risk the heavy losses of an assault at this distance 
 from our base. 
 
 Thus at this time, as a result of the storm, the condition 
 of the country was such as to make it impossible for General 
 Sherman himself to even study the enemy's position. 
 
 The same night, Captain Van Duzer, in charge of mil- 
 itary telegraphs at General Thomas's head-quarters, tele- 
 graphed General Eckert, at Washington, that rain had fallen 
 steadily all night, and until 4 p. M. ; that all movements were 
 out of the question, and concluding: "It will require three 
 clear days to make it possible to move artillery and wagons." 
 
 On the night of the 14th, Van Duzer telegraphs : 
 
 Weather cleared up, cool winds drying roads fast. Some advance to- 
 day, and Thomas has gained ground, and has one rebel brigade nearly 
 surrounded. 
 
 On the night of the 15th General Sherman reported to
 
 536 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Ilalleck that he had been able after the long storm to examine 
 the enemy's position. Thomas had been "perfectly success- 
 ful," and had captured a line of strong fortifications. Schotield 
 and McPherson had carried the works in their front. Thomas 
 when he (Sherman) left him had " pushed the enemy back a 
 mile and a half and is still moving." 
 
 On the 21st of June, Sherrqan sent a dispatch to Halleck 
 covering this very period and its conditions, saying : 
 
 This is the nineteenth day of rain, and the prospect of clear weather 
 as far off as ever. The roads are impassable, and fields and woods become 
 quagmires after a few wagons have crossed, yet we are at work all the 
 time. The left flank is across Noonday and the right across Noyes' Creek. 
 The enemy holds Kenesaw, a conical Mountain, with Marietta behind it, 
 and has retired his flank to cover that town and his railroad. I am all 
 ready to attack the moment weather and roads will permit troops and 
 artillery to move with any thing like life. 
 
 The night of the 17th Sherman telegraphed Hallecl^.: 
 
 By last night we had worked so close to Johnston's center that he saw 
 that the assault must follow. He declined it, and abandoned Lost Mount- 
 ain, and some six miles of as good field-works as I ever saw. My right and 
 center are, in consequence, swung forward so that my right now threatens 
 his railroad to Atlanta. I worked hard to-day to get over to that road, but 
 the troops seemed timid in these dense forests of stumbling on a hidden 
 breast- work. 
 
 This attack on the courage of his veterans must have 
 been somewhat confusing to those at the War Department 
 in the light of the following dispatch from Captain Van 
 Duzer which had been received half an hour before, show- 
 ing extended advance by Thomas and Schofield, and heavy 
 
 fighting by McPherson : 
 
 CAMP NEAR NOYES' CREEK, June 17, 1864. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS T. ECKERT: (Rec'd 10:35 P. M.) 
 
 To-day the Army of the Cumberland advanced its right about three 
 miles, swinging upon its left as pivot, and Schofield's command on extreme 
 right has moved not less than four miles during the night from two strong 
 lines of earth-works and across the stream named in the date, on the left 
 bank of which is enemy's near line. McPherson made heavy demonstra- 
 tion on enemy's right to assist the advance. Johnston has lost hold of 
 Lost Mountain and the broken ground between it and Kenesaw, and Sher- 
 man's lines now envelop that mountain from north-east to south. A very 
 few days must give us possession of all this side of Chattahoocb.ee. Can 
 make no estimate of loss, but it is slight. Artillery doing nearly all the 
 work, and doing it splendidly. 
 
 This immediate record of energetic and successful work
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 537 
 
 performed in the face of storm, and every species of natural 
 obstacles strengthened by fortified lines, preceded by equally 
 creditable work throughout the entire campaign from each 
 of his armies stamp this letter written the day after the 
 events and the brilliant work recorded in the above dis- 
 patches as one of the most unjust to be found in the records 
 of the war. 
 
 The casualty list for the month in which this secret 
 attack on Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland was 
 made, affords a grim answer, such as powder-stained veterans 
 might make, to a commander who was thus stigmatizing 
 them. 
 
 From the opening of the campaign to the llth of June, 
 a few days before the date of this letter, and up to the open- 
 ing of the storm which stopped operations until its date, the 
 Army of the Cumberland had lost in wounded taken to the 
 hospitals 5,069. In the same time the wounded in the Army 
 of the Tennessee numbered 562, and those of the Army of 
 the Ohio 330. These are the figures as reported to General 
 Sherman by his medical inspector, Dr. Kittoe. 
 
 In May this was the casualty record of killed, wounded, 
 and missing: 
 
 Army of the Cumberland 5,747 
 
 Army of the Tennessee 1,271 
 
 Army of the Ohio, exclusive of cavalry 983 
 
 One division of the Army of the Cumberland, 
 
 1st of the 20th Corps lost 1,262 
 
 For June the record stood : 
 
 Army of the Cumberland 5,531 
 
 Army of the Tennessee 1,334 
 
 Army of the Ohio 467 
 
 Of these Hooker's corps (20th), Army of the Cumber- 
 land, lost 1,568, or nearly as much as both the other armies. 
 The Army of the Cumberland was the predominating 
 army in numbers, the ratio of effective strength at the 
 opening of the campaign being 60,000 to 24,000 for the 
 Army of the Tennessee, and 13,000 for the Army of the 
 Ohio. These figures are not introduced to show that the 
 other commands did not do their full duty, for in pluck, en-
 
 538 Life of Thomas. 
 
 durance, and splendid fighting each did all that iron soldiers, 
 under officers worthy of such men, could dare or do. But 
 the figures do show that while General Sherman was secretly 
 stabbing General Thomas and his army, it was bearing its 
 full share of the blows of the campaign, and doing its full 
 proportion of the work. 
 
 While these facts demonstrate the unworthy and unsol- 
 dierly character of this secret letter, it deserves still further 
 attention. The repetition of the charge of timidity against 
 McPherson, who, as all his soldiers knew, was the embodiment 
 of dash and courage, is indefensible. It was uttered to bol- 
 ster up the unsubstantial claim in General Sherman's tele- 
 grams to "Washington that the "first movement against 
 Johnston was really fine," and that it failed because McPher- 
 son was timid. This part of the letter had its origin in the 
 fact that Sherman was smarting under the knowledge that 
 his assaults in front of Dalton, and neglect of the open and 
 undefended Snake Creelj: Gap until it was too late to take 
 advantage of it, was a blunder which called for energetic 
 attempts at concealment. All that he could say of the mag- 
 nificent McPherson was, that, with the exception of failing 
 at Resaca, he had " done very well." Of the able, energetic, 
 and effective Schofield he had only this faint praise : " He does 
 as well as I could ask with his small force." Of the cavalry 
 one was " overcautious," and one " lazy," and both " easily 
 checked by the appearance of an enemy." The cavalry was 
 *' dwindling away " because "we can not get full forage." 
 Well, whose fault was it, if not that of the commander of 
 the army, if there were not sufficient supplies ? And then 
 comes the climax of slander in the statement that a fresh 
 furrow in a plowed field would stop the whole Army of the 
 Cumberland and set it, to intrenching the army that stood 
 at Suodgrass Hill and the Kelley Field till nearly every other 
 man was killed or wounded ; that scaled Lookout Mountain, 
 and formed that immortal storming army at Missionary 
 Ridge, and whose commander had offered before Sherman 
 came to make the Atlanta campaign albne without help from 
 any quarter ! Every body among his subordinates was wrong, 
 or slow, or at fault somehow, and in this long letter there
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 539 
 
 was not a friendly word for any one, or praise for any one 
 but himself. He felt that Grant knew he was earnest ancl 
 impatient to do, and in proportion as he could inspire the 
 slow commanders and armies under him he would press on, 
 and try to come up to Grant's expectation. The body of the 
 letter is directed at General Thomas, and it is only a fair 
 illustration of the methods used often in various official quar- 
 ters to undermine him and keep him from reaping the honors 
 and rewards which were his due. 
 
 A sufficient commentary on that part of the letter criti- 
 cising General Thomas for having tents at his head-quarters 
 is found in Van Home's Life of Thomas: "One evening he 
 observed that General Sherman, who had stopped forthe night, 
 was seemingly in destitution of the usual comforts of a com- 
 manding general, and almost without attendants. He there- 
 upon sent a company of sharpshooters from % his own head- 
 quarters, to pitch tents, and devote themselves in other ways 
 to the comfort of the commander-in-chief. This company 
 and their services were accepted by General Sherman forthe 
 remainder of the campaign, and the shelter tents and other 
 self-imposed privations were thrown aside."
 
 540 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Advance on Kenesaw Mountain A Needless Assault and Inexcusable 
 Butchery General Logan's Story of the Reasons for It The Way 
 Open for a Movement on Either Flank A Final Flanking Movement 
 Dislodges the Enemy without a Battle. 
 
 , 
 
 From the llth of June to the 24th, through rain con- 
 tinuing until the 22d, and a constantly -almost impassable 
 country, as heretofore described, Sherman's three armies, 
 each by magnificent fighting and almost superhuman work 
 of marching and intrenching, had pushed their lines close to 
 Kenesaw. McPherson was on the left, enveloping the north 
 end of the mountain and threatening Marietta behind it. 
 Thomas faced its central front, while Schofield, on the right, 
 by the most vigorous work, had pushed to the enemy's ex- 
 treme left and rear, and was ready to strike there. It was 
 while this work, involving the most serious difficulties which 
 continued fighting in the face of formidable field-works 
 through a country of almost impracticable difficulties could 
 present was being crowned day after day with hard-earned 
 and brilliant success, that the letter of the 18th of June, 
 heretofore quoted, was dispatched to General Grant reeking 
 with its poison. 
 
 When the Union lines were thus established in front of 
 Kenesaw, the situation presented no new difficulties, and the 
 same method of treatment which had brought the army suc- 
 cessfully from Tunnel Hill would have produced the same re- 
 sults. Having two men to Johnston's one, it was always 
 practical to push a force against his lines, confront them 
 throughout their length, and then throw the surplus Union 
 strength around one or the other flank and force Johnston 
 to retreat. The solution, therefore, of the situation before 
 Kenesaw was plain to all his army commanders, as it will be 
 perfectly plain even to the unprofessional reader who studies 
 it. If Schofield had been strengthened on the right, or Me-
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 541 
 
 Pherson on the left, Johnston would have been obliged to 
 abandon the mountain. After the butchery of a needless as- 
 sault by the Army of the Cumberland, this was proved true 
 by sending McPherson toward Schofield, when, at scarcely 
 no cost of life to the Union army, Johnston immediately 
 withdrew. 
 
 The needless assault, made, as is now known, against 
 general and earnest protest from the leading officers of two 
 of his armies, had cost over two thousand men. These pru- 
 dent, yet able and vigorous commanders, were both sickened 
 and enraged at this useless sacrifice of brave men. But, 
 strong as such feelings were at the time with those who un- 
 derstood the situation, they must be intensified with all who 
 learn the real reasons which led to the orders for this assault 
 on impregnable Kenesaw. These were given to the writer 
 by General Logan, something more than two years before 
 his death, under the obligation not to make them public at 
 that time. A year later, he went over the details again with 
 care, in order that they might be accurately stated, and later 
 still agreed, after a third statement of the facts as he knew 
 them, that they might be used as from a corps commander, 
 but without his name, lest General Sherman should suppose 
 that he had told the story by way of revenge for the failure 
 to make him the commander of the Army of the Tennessee 
 after the death of McPherson. 
 
 As the story turns upon the results of General Grant's 
 campaign at the East, it becomes necessary to pass that rap- 
 idly in review. 
 
 The Army of the Potomac, under General Meade, in 
 accordance with the plan for a simultaneous movement of 
 all the armies, had crossed the Rapidan, May 4th, and moved 
 into the Wilderness toward Lee's flank. On the 5th, he was 
 attacked by Lee, and the bloody battles of the Wilderness 
 and Spottsylvania inaugurated the campaign of attrition. 
 These battles, with their tremendous losses, had forced Grant 
 to move by his left and seek in that direction a junction with 
 the Army of the James. This was accomplished after the 
 terrible and needless slaughter of Cold Harbor, whose story 
 of killed and wounded, and of wounded in great numbers
 
 542 Life of Thomas. 
 
 lying unsuccored for three days between the lines until, as 
 General Grant himself writes, all but two had died, forms 
 one of the most sickening chapters of the war's butcheries. 
 It had been a repetition of the Vicksburg assault, with its 
 failure, and the subsequent horrible sufferings of the wounded 
 left helpless between the lines. But through these horrors, 
 at the cost of forty thousand men, General Grant had reached 
 the James, crossed it, and pressed on into the rear of Peters- 
 burg, and the country was ringing with applause at the sight 
 of the combined eastern armies working vigorously toward 
 the Confederate capital. 
 
 " It was the glowing accounts which the newspapers 
 brought of- these operations south of the James," said Gen- 
 eral Logan, " which determined Sherman to order an assault 
 upon Kenesaw Mountain." " For this reason," continued 
 the General, " it was worse than a blunder or a butchery. 
 Let me tell you the story as I know it." General Logan 
 then went on to say, that, being with General McPherson 
 in General Sherman's tent, the night before the orders for 
 the assault on the mountain were given, General Sherman 
 became absorbed in an examination of the newspapers which 
 had arrived filled with the details of the great movements 
 south of the James, and in the rear of and beyond Peters- 
 burg. Suddenly, General Sherman said that his army had 
 got to do % some fighting, that the whole attention of the 
 country was fixed on the Army of the Potomac, and his 
 army seemed to be entirely forgotten. Now it should fight. 
 He would to-morrow give orders for an assault on the moun- 
 tain. At this General McPherson said quietly that there was 
 no necessity for such a step, and he could not really be enter- 
 taining the plan, since Johnston could be easily flanked out 
 of the position, while to assault it would cost dearly in men. 
 General Sherman replied to this by repeating his first declara- , 
 tion in more emphatic form, saying that he could not fail 
 to take notice of the fact that the Army of the Potomac was 
 overshadowing him, and that all the applause of the coun- 
 try was lavished on the Eastern armies. General Logan, 
 seeing that General Sherman was in earnest, then said in 
 most decided terms that to assault would be to sacrifice
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 543 
 
 brave men without need, and he had no right to order it. 
 General McPherson joined in with the most vigorous pro- 
 test supporting General Logan in, the position that the 
 order would involve needless slaughter, and be in its essence 
 the butchery and murder of his soldiers. Neither could 
 move him, though both continued to protest, and to restate 
 their reasons. General Sherman, however, persisted, saying 
 that it was necessary to show the country that his troops 
 could fight as well as Grant's, and he would order the as- 
 sault, and he did. 
 
 On the 24th of June, the order was issued directing the 
 attack on the mountain to be made on the 27th. General 
 Thomas opposed it. General Schofield was against it, and 
 the position of General McPherson is related above. / 
 
 To make this murderous order worse, three days before 
 it was issued, Hood's corps, which had confronted the Army 
 of the Tennessee and blocked its way to Marietta on the 
 the Confederate right, was withdrawn to the extreme left to 
 oppose Schofield's vigorous flank movement in that quarter, 
 leaving cavalry only in McPherson's front. It was a move 
 of great hazard for Johnston, but he was often compelled to 
 such risks because- he was continually operating in the face 
 of double his numbers. Had McPherson at this juncture, 
 or at any time for the week preceding the bloody attack on 
 the mountain, been allowed to move directly on Marietta, a 
 battle under most unfavorable conditions for Johnston, or a 
 hasty and disordered retreat would have followed. This Mc- 
 Pherson clearly saw, and General Thomas favored such a 
 retreat. 
 
 But, the third day after Johnston had left the line of 
 easy advance on Marietta open, came the order for preparing 
 to assault Kenesaw three days later. Nor was this situation 
 a matter of ignorance on the part of General Sherman. The 
 day after Hardee had been withdrawn from in front of Mc- 
 Pherson, General Thomas urged a movement on Marietta by 
 the Army of the Tennessee, supported by a sufficient force 
 from the Army of the Cumberland. But nothing could 
 move the commanding general, and. instead of a movement 
 presenting only very ordinary difficulties, with an assured 
 success which would have easily thrown Johnston back of
 
 544 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Marietta, the order for an attack upon a mountain, strong 
 by nature, and rendered impregnable by a veteran army 
 skilled in field fortification, was persisted in. There were no 
 military reasons for it. On the contrary, every sound con- 
 sideration was against it, and all his leading officers were op- 
 posed to it. Only such reasons as General Logan discovers 
 could explain it. 
 
 From the 24th to the morning of the 27th of June, the 
 army was busy preparing for the assault. The brunt of it 
 was to fall on the Army of the Cumberland supported by a 
 demonstration to its left by troops from the Army of the 
 Tennessee. The mountain range was rocky, precipitous, 
 and thickly timbered. The enemy's line of works was 
 screened by the forests, and when reached, was found, as 
 was to be certainly expected, protected by slashings of timber 
 and many forms of rude entanglements. Both the assault- 
 ing columns of the Army of the Cumberland and the Army 
 of the Tennessee ihoved to their work as testified by General 
 Thomas, and as illustrated by General McPherson's move- 
 ments, "with the greatest coolness and gallantry." A few 
 official dispatches will sufficiently tell the story. Thomas to 
 Sherman, June 27th, 10:45 A. M.: 
 
 Yours received. General Harker's brigade advanced to within twenty 
 paces of the enemy's breastworks, and was repulsed with canister at that 
 range, General Harker losing an arm. General Wagner's brigade, of New- 
 ton's division, supporting General Harker, was so severely handled that it 
 is compelled to reorganize. Colonel Mitchell's brigade, of Davis' division, 
 captured one line of rebel breastworks, which they still hold. McCook's 
 brigade was also very severely handled, nearly every colonel being killed 
 or wounded. Colonel McCook wounded. It is compelled to fall back and 
 reorganize. The troops are all too much exhausted to advance, but we 
 hold all we have gained. 
 
 Sherman to Thomas, 11:45 A. M.: 
 
 McPhereon's column reached near the top of the hill through very 
 tangled brush, but was repulsed. It is found almost impossible to deploy, 
 but they still hold the ground. I wish you to study well the position, 
 and if it be possible to break the line, do it ; it is easier now than it will be 
 hereafter. Hold fast all you make, I hear Leggett's guns well behind the 
 mountain. 
 
 This was a conditional order for a second assault. 
 Then at 1:30 came another dispatch showing a decision to
 
 T7ie Atlanta Campaign. 545 
 
 order McPherson to make an assault if Thomas gave any 
 encouragement : 
 
 McPherson and Schofield are at a dead-lock. Do you think you can 
 carry any part of the enemy's line to-day ? McPherson's men are up to 
 the abatis and can 't move without the direct assault. I will order the as- 
 sault if you think you can succeed at any point. Schofield has one division 
 close up on the Powder Springs road, and the other across Olley's Creek, 
 about two miles to his right and rear. 
 
 Thomas to Sherman, 1:40 P. M.: 
 
 Davis' two brigades are now within sixty yards of the enemy's intrench- 
 ments. Davis reports that he does not think he can carry the works by 
 assault on account of the steepness of the hill, but he can hold his position, 
 put in one or two batteries, to-night, and probably drive them out to-mor- 
 row morning. General Howard reports the same. Their works are from 
 six to seven feet high and nine feet thick. In front of Howard they have 
 a very strong abatis. Davis' loss in officers has been very heavy. Nearly 
 all the field officers in McCook's brigade, with McCook, have been killed 
 or wounded. From what the officers tell me, I do not think we can carry 
 the works by assault at this point to-day, but they can be approached by 
 saps and the enemy driven out. 
 
 Sherman to Thomas, 2:25 p. M.: 
 
 Secure what advantageous ground you have gained. But is there any 
 thing in the enemy's present position that if we should approach by regu- 
 lar saps he could not make a dozen new parapets before one sap is com- 
 pleted ? Does the nature of the ground warrant the time necessary for 
 regular approaches ? 
 
 still suggesting another assault. 
 
 After two attempts to carry the line with moat fatal re- 
 sults, a third attack for 5 o'clock was under consideration by 
 General Sherman. Upon receiving notice of this, General 
 Thomas dictated a note to General Sherman which is thus 
 repeated by the staff officer who took it : 
 
 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 opinion, result in demoralizing this army, and will, if made, be 
 against my best judgment, and most earnest protest. 
 
 It was not persisted in. 
 
 At 6 P. M. General Thomas reported to Sherman : 
 
 General: The assault of the enemy's works in my front was well ar- 
 ranged, and the officers and men went to their work with the greatest cool- 
 ness and gallantry. The failure to carry them is due only to the strength 
 of the works, and to the fact that they were well manned, thereby enabling 
 35
 
 546 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the enemy to hold them securely against the assault. We have lost nearly 
 2,000 officers and men, among them two brigade commanders, General 
 Barker, commanding a brigade in Newton's division, and Colonel Dan Mc- 
 Cook, commanding a brigade in Jeff. Davis' division, both reported to be 
 mortally wounded, besides some 6 or 8 field officers killed. Both General 
 Harker and Colonel McCook were wounded on the enemy's breastworks, 
 and all say had they not been wounded, we would have driven the enemy 
 from his works. Both Generals Howard and Palmer think that they can 
 find. favorable positions on their lines for placing batteries for enfilading 
 the enemy's works. We took between 90 and 100 prisoners. 
 
 Sherman to Thomas in reply : 
 
 General Thermos : Let your troops fortify as close up to the enemy as 
 possible. Get good positions for artillery, and group your command as 
 conveniently as you can by corps and divisions, keeping reserves. Scho- 
 field has the Sandtown road within eleven miles of the Chattahoochee, and 
 we could move by that flank. The question of supplies will be the only 
 one. I regret beyond measure the loss of two such young and dashing 
 officers as Harker and Dan McCook. McPherson lost two or three of his 
 young and dashing officers, which is apt to be the case in unsuccessful as- 
 saults. Had we broken the line to-day, it would have been most decisive, 
 but as it is our loss is small compared with some of those East. It should 
 not in the least discourage us. At times assaults are necessary and inevit- 
 able. At Arkansas Post we succeeded ; at Vicksburg we failed. I do not 
 think our loss to-day greater than Johnston's when he attacked Hooker 
 and Schofield the first day we occupied our present ground. 
 
 Even before the wounded were gathered from the field, 
 as the dispatch shows, General Sherman discovered what all 
 the other commanders had insisted on, that the way for 
 flanking Johnston out of position was fully open. 
 
 At 9 P. M. Sherman asked Thomas : 
 
 Are you willing to risk the move on Fulton, cutting loose from our 
 railroad ? It would bring matters to a crisis, and Schofield has secured 
 the way. 
 
 General Thomas's condition of mind ever the murder of 
 his troops may be seen from his reply : 
 
 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. 
 
 That General Schofield was perfectly aware that the 
 proper line of movement was to turn the enemy's position 
 by his flank is clear from this dispatch to Stoneman, sent at 
 5 o'clock : 
 
 General: Thomas and McPherson have failed in their attack, and have 
 suffered heavy losses. Our little success on the right is all that has been
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 547 
 
 gained anywhere. This may be very important to UB as the first step to- 
 ward the next important movement. We must make what we have gained 
 as secure as possible. 
 
 The character of the mountain and the lines before the 
 Army of the Tennessee clearly appears from a paragraph in 
 a dispatch from that cool and able officer and excellent en- 
 gineer, General Grenville M. Dodge : 
 
 At 8 A. M. I advanced my skirmish line, consisting of three regiments, 
 and extending along the front of two brigades, up the mountain. They 
 met with very little opposition for half the distance, and until the fire of 
 the enemy on iny left and right checked the advance of the connecting 
 lines. My loss was very small. During the afternoon, the skirmishers met 
 with more determined opposition, and up to this time (8.20 P. M.) there are 
 in hospital 27 wounded and several yet on the field. The farther we ad- 
 vanced, the mountain became more difficult of ascent. It is evident that 
 no line could readily ascend it, and I judge from the action of the enemy 
 filling their rifle pits, that they have no fear of our taking it. There is 
 no doubt but that they have a line of battle extending along our en- 
 tire' front. 
 
 The Kenesaw affair caused universal dissatisfaction 
 among all who understood it. General Sherman became 
 very restive under this, but in a few days he had worked out 
 a most characteristic excuse, and the more so because it at- 
 tempted to load the responsibility for failure on General 
 Thomas. He had not moved with vigor enough. 
 
 Sherman to Halleck, July 9th : 
 
 The assault I made was no mistake ; I had to do it. The enemy and 
 our own army and officers had settled down into the conviction that the 
 assault of lines formed no part of my game, and the moment the enemy 
 was found behind any thing like a parapet, why every body would deploy, 
 throw up counter-works, and take it easy, leaving it to the " old man " to 
 turn the position. Had the assault been made with one-fourth more vigor, 
 mathematically, I would have put the head of George Thomas's whole 
 army right through Johnston's deployed lines on the best ground for go- 
 ahead, while my entire forces were well in hand on roads converging to 
 my then object, Marietta. Had Harker and McCook not been struck down 
 so early, the assault would have succeeded, and then the battle would have 
 all been in our favor on account of our superiority of numbers, position, 
 and initiative. 
 
 But, even then, the line " for go ahead " would have 
 been over a rugged and impracticable mountain. 
 Sherman to Grant, July 12th : 
 
 I regarded an assault on the 27th of June necessary for two good rea- 
 sons : first, because the enemy as well as my own army had settled down
 
 548 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 into the belief that flanking alone was my game ; and, second, that on that 
 day and ground, had the assault succeeded, I could have broken Johnston's 
 center and pushed his army back in confusion, and with great loss to his 
 bridges over the Chattahoochee. We lost nothing in morale by the assault, 
 for I followed it up on the extreme right, and compelled him to quit the 
 very strong lines of Kenesaw, Smyrna Camp, and the Chattahoochee, in 
 quick successsion. 
 
 And this of the veterans of McPherson and Thomas ! 
 This of the men who, without flinching, had, under Sher- 
 man's orders, attacked the impossible position of Chickasaw 
 Bayou, and the frowning works of Vicksburg; who had 
 stormed Lookout Mountain and carried Missionary Ridge ; 
 who had assaulted precipices at Rocky Face, assaulted at 
 Resaca, and day after day moved on- the enemy's parapets, 
 wherever found, over the long and bloody path from Tunnel 
 Hill to the front of Kenesaw ! Considering the history of 
 these veterans and their deeds of valor which illuminated all 
 the years of conflict, it is not too much to say that such un- 
 just criticism of a noble soldiery can not be elsewhere found 
 from any commander in the history of war. It is only nec- 
 essary to give full force to the condemnation which these 
 facts supply to say that, when, following the failure of the 
 assault on Kenesaw, McPherson was sent to the right to op- 
 erate with Schofield on Johnston's left, the latter, without 
 waiting, withdrew rapidly, and without further general re- 
 sistance, to the fortifications about Atlanta. He first de- 
 ployed his lines at Smyrna Station to check the Union pur- 
 suit, but the center of the position was brilliantly stormed 
 and carried by Dodge's corps of 'the Army of the Tennessee. 
 Johnston then retreated to the strong works which he had 
 constructed some months before to cover the crossing of the 
 Chattahoochee in case it became necessary to fall back be- 
 yond it. Thence Johnston retired to the south bank of 
 Peach Tree Creek, along which stretched the outer fortifica- 
 tions of Atlanta. It will be remembered of Thomas that he 
 prevented a third assault on Kenesaw.
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 549 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Hood Relieves Johnston Put in to Fight instead of to Continue John- 
 ston's More Prudent Course Two Bloody Battles Follow at Once 
 Peach Tree Creek and the Battle of Atlanta of July 22d General 
 Thomas's Troops Carry the Works at Jonesboro Consequent Surren- 
 der of Atlanta General Thomas Proposes with His Army to March 
 through to Savannah, Releasing the Union Prisoners at A ndersonville 
 and Other Prisons on the Way. 
 
 At this critical time for the Confederacy, General John- 
 ston was relieved by General Hood, to the great satisfaction 
 of the Union commanders. These always rated General 
 Johnston as a soldier of the first rank, able, prudent, and 
 brave. He had incurred the prejudice of President Davis, 
 and advantage was taken of the popular outcry which was 
 roused by Sherman's steady advance to relieve him. But he 
 understood and fully appreciated the rapidly decreasing re- 
 sources of the Confederacy in men, and was careful of 
 sending them into battle where they must fight uncov- 
 ered against double their numbers. His policy of fighting 
 behind works reduced the Union army much faster than his 
 own, and it was the only wise course. Hood, however, was 
 put in to fight, and he immediately began to carry the new- 
 policy into effect. 
 
 As a result, two battles followed in four days after his 
 assignment to command both bloody, and both disastrous 
 to the Confederate army. One was the battle of Peach Tree 
 Creek, fought by the Army of the Cumberland under General 
 Thomas's personal direction, and the other was the battle of 
 July 22d, known as the battle of Atlanta, fought by the 
 Army of the Tennessee under the direct command of General 
 Logan, General McPherson having been killed at the very 
 opening of the attack. 
 
 General Hood took command on the 18th of July, on 
 the 19th he posted his columns in front of the Union right, 
 and on the morning of the 20th attacked General Thomas.
 
 550 Life of Thomas. 
 
 The latter then had only seven of his nine divisions in hand, 
 wo having been dispatched to the left to connect with the 
 other armies operating from the direction of Decatur. Hood 
 had massed his columns, withdrawn his outposts, and with 
 lines well concealed awaited the approach of the Union 
 forces. The Confederate divisions in mass suddenly burst 
 upon the heads of the Union columns, and the battle at once 
 became desperate. General Thomas commanded in person 
 within close range of the enemy, and exposed himself on 
 every portion of the field. At one of the most critical points 
 he rode himself to bring up a battery to repulse a flank and 
 rear attack, assisted in urging the horses forward, and sat on 
 his horse among the guns the moment they were in position, 
 and helped direct their fire. It was the turning point of the 
 contest, and the resulting repulse of the Confederate line was 
 followed by an abandonment of the field. At the height of 
 the fighting, General Thomas received a dispatch from General 
 Sherman, then some distance from the field, saying, "All 
 your troops should push hard for Atlanta, sweeping every 
 thing before them." 
 
 This was a battle of the Army of the Cumberland, less 
 two of its divisions, under the direct eye and sole manage- 
 ment of General Thomas, and Hood's army was defeated 
 after most desperate and courageous fighting. The result 
 naturally recalls the offer which General Thomas made be- 
 fore the opening of the spring campaign, to undertake a 
 movement to Atlanta with his own army alone. 
 
 On the 22d of July, Hood, having failed in his attack 
 on the Union right, fell unexpectedly upon the Army of the 
 Tennessee, which held the left. That army, in turn, under 
 the eye and sole direction of General Logan, again defeated 
 Hood. 
 
 The latter had withdrawn from the outer works along 
 his left and center, and thoroughly deceived General Sherman 
 into the belief that Atlanta was evacuated. Orders announc- 
 ing the evacuation of the city and directing immediate and 
 vigorous pursuit were sent by General Sherman to each of 
 his armies. 
 
 It was while this moving by the flank under General
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 551 
 
 Sherman's orders to pass to the east of Atlanta in rapid pur- 
 suit of Hood was in progress that General McPherson, riding 
 toward the head of his columns, was killed by Hood's troops 
 advancing directly from the rear. The Confederate general 
 had marched east from Atlanta, made a wide detour during 
 the night around the Union left, and without the least warn- 
 ing had fallen on its flank and rear. General Dodge, march- 
 ing by the flank, halted and faced where his Jines stood and 
 checked Hood's further advance in the rear. General Logan 
 received a message from General Sherman notifying him of 
 McFherson's death and directing him to take command. 
 General Sherman did not appear on the field during the day, 
 and those three brilliant corps commanders, Logan, Dodge, 
 and Blair, whom General Sherman, writing fifteen years 
 after in his Memoirs, sneered at as political generals, were 
 left alone to fight Hood unaided throughout that long sum- 
 mer day. And, when framing an, excuse for this neglect, 
 General Sherman declared that he sent no help because, " if 
 any assistance were rendered by either of the other armies, 
 the Army of the Tennessee would be jealous." 
 
 This battle of the 22d of July was the most desperate 
 and bloody of the campaign. General Logan and the offi- 
 cers and men under him were put to supreme test, and won 
 crowning laurels for the Army of the Tennessee, a fitting 
 climax for its long years of fighting and a fighting which 
 at all times, and in spite of the mistakes of commanding 
 generals, had reflected the greatest credit upon subordinate 
 officers and the men. Here, after a battle extending into the 
 night, Hood was sorely defeated. General Logan, riding 
 back three miles at the close of the fight, to General Sher- 
 man's head-quarters, found it impossible to convince him that 
 the engagement had risen to the dignity of a battle. The 
 reward to General Logan for his able and brilliant general- 
 ship in this fight, by which he furnished the supreme proof 
 of his fitness to command an army in the field, and to the 
 officers of rank who with him largely contributed to the 
 victory, was the assignment of General Howard, from an- 
 other army, to command the Army of the Tennessee as it 
 emerged victorious from the smoke of this great battle. No
 
 552 Life of Thomas. 
 
 wonder that the officers and soldiers of that army resented 
 this action as both unjust and cruel. 
 
 After his defeat by the Army of the Tennessee, Hood 
 withdrew to the inner works of Atlanta, and the siege of 
 the place began. 
 
 At the end of a month of vigorous operations in front 
 of the city, and much hard fighting, General Sherman de- 
 decided upon a turning movement, and after securing his 
 line of supplies, and establishing and protecting new depots, 
 he began to extend his army to the right toward Jonesboro. 
 Hood moved parallel with him, and his parapets sprung up 
 rapidly and even in advance of the Union movement. But, 
 finally, at Jonesboro, on the first of September, the Four- 
 teenth Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, again under 
 General Thomas's personal directions and orders, assaulted 
 Hood's works at Jonesboro, and carried them in brilliant 
 style. It was the most complete and successful assault upon 
 formidable works of the whole campaign, and led to the 
 surrender of Atlanta the following day. 
 
 Hood's army, in withdrawing from the city and from 
 Jonesboro was widely separated, and General Thomas, dis- 
 covering this, explained it to General Sherman and asked 
 for such disposition of the forces as would enable him to 
 overthrow these divided columns in detail. General Sher- 
 man, for reasons never understood, did not see fit to allow 
 General Thomas to undertake the movement. General 
 Schofield, also discovering the situation from his position, 
 had made a similar request with a like result. This mistake, 
 which closed the campaign, was as glaring and needless as 
 that attending the escape of Johnston at Resaca. 
 
 Atlanta was occupied by General Slocum's Corps the 
 20th on the 2d of September, and that portion of the 
 army about Jonesboro, after pursuing Hood to the lines about 
 Lovejoy's station, was withdrawn to Atlanta. During the 
 ensuing three weeks the railroad was repaired to the city 
 and abundant supplies of all kinds were accumulated. An 
 inner and short line of works was constructed so that a small 
 force might hold the place, the citizens men, women and 
 children, old and young, sick and well many thousands in
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 553 
 
 number were expelled from the city by General Sherman, 
 and the place was turned into a military camp. 
 
 General Thomas's great heart was always warming 
 toward his soldiers. lie had a father's love for them, and al- 
 ways exercised a father's care. This, more than any other ele- 
 ment, controlled what unfriendly critics continually harped 
 upon as his slowness. He keenly felt the responsibility of 
 having the lives of men in his hands. He, therefore, always 
 perfected his plans with extreme care, so that when he struck, 
 there might be no mistake which his foresight could avoid. 
 This ever present and deep sympathy with his men was well 
 illustrated while he was watching from Fort Wood, in Chat- 
 tanooga, the advance of his troops on Orchard Knob. Turn- 
 ing to Colonel Kellogg, one of his aides, and pointing to a 
 knoll over which the lines were advancing, and where men 
 could be seen falling, he said, " Kellogg, what a beautiful 
 spot that knoll will make for the burial of our dead." And 
 after the battle he ordered it set aside for that purpose. Un- 
 der his subsequent orders it became the present National Cem- 
 etery, one of the most beautiful in the land. 
 
 So, when the army reached Atlanta,' he was deeply 
 moved over the stories which escaped prisoners brought 
 from Andersonville and other prisons in Georgia, and as 
 soon as the troops were rested, he submitted a proposition to 
 General Sherman which involved the release of the Union 
 prisoners at Andersonville, Americus and Millen. He urged 
 General Sherman to let him take his own army, strength- 
 ened with one division of cavalry, and march for these places 
 ill succession, securing all the prisoners and taking them 
 through either to Savannah or Mobile. He had demon- 
 strated, by the battle of July 20th, that seven of his nine divi- 
 sions were able to defeat Hood in battle, and so the move- 
 ment was an entirely safe one, and at the same time one 
 demanded by every consideration of humanity, and by every 
 claim which our prisoners and their friends had upon the 
 country and the army. General Thomas, however, could 
 not move General Sherman, and, instead, he was soon sent 
 to the rear, without his own army, to look after Forrest's 
 cavalrv raid.
 
 554 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Hood Moves on Sherman's Communications Sherman proposes Leaving 
 Thomas with Two Divisions in Tennessee and Marching Himself to the 
 Sea Sherman's Anxiety to get away from Hood The Underlying 
 Motive of the March to the Sea The Part of the Plan which Sherman 
 Originated Grant Misled as to the Force left with Thomas. 
 
 The third week after the occupation of Atlanta by the 
 Ujiion army, Hood, moving north-westwardly, transferred 
 his forces from Lovejoy's to Palmetto Station. There Jeffer- 
 son Davis visited the army, and, in a speech, promised the 
 Tennessee and Kentucky soldiers that they would soon, 
 through the destruction of Sherman's line of supplies, which 
 would compel him to retreat, tread the soil of their native 
 states. A report of these points reached the Union lines 
 and gave a full key to Hood's movements, and to those of 
 the co-operating column of Forrest which had then appeared 
 in the Valley of the Tennessee. 
 
 On the 26th of September, General Grant telegraphed 
 General Sherman that as a first step, it would be better to 
 drive Forrest out of Tennessee. General Thomas was sent 
 back by General Sherman to execute this order, and given 
 two divisions Newton's, of the Fourth Corps, and J. D. 
 Morgan's, of the Fourteenth. 
 
 A week later, General Sherman found that Hood had 
 crossed the Chattahoochee, sixteen miles south-west of At- 
 lanta, and that his cavalry was moving toward the railroad. 
 General Sherman at once telegraphed General Grant sug- 
 gesting that, in case Hood moved toward Tennessee, Thomas 
 should be left with the forces which he had to take cafe of 
 Hood, while he, Sherman, with the rest of the army, should 
 march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston "breaking 
 roads and doing irreparable damage." 
 
 At that time only two divisions had been sent to Gen- 
 eral Thomas, and this fact sufficiently illuminates a proposi-
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 555 
 
 tiou which involved leaving Thomas, with this small force, 
 to be increased from garrisons and every species of odds 
 and ends of organizations, to meet the army, which, for four 
 months, had fully occupied the attention of Sherman's en- 
 tire army. 
 
 Hood moved rapidly on Sherman's railroad communica- 
 tions, Sherman following from Atlanta. 
 
 On the 5th of October, Allatoona was unsuccessfully at- 
 tacked by French's division of Hood's army, being relieved 
 in time by General John M. Corse with his division from 
 Rome, and the enemy driven off after one of the most 
 brilliant and gallant defenses of the campaign. Hood then 
 moved rapidly to Resaca, thence to Dalton and Tunnel Hill 
 destroying the railroad, and then withdrawing to Gadsden. 
 Sherman followed to Gaylesville. 
 
 On the 20th of October, Hood moved from Gadsden for 
 Guntersville on the Tennessee. As soon as General Sher- 
 man ascertained that Hood had started north from the former 
 point, he prepared to move his own army in the opposite di- 
 rection, although constantly urged by General Grant to first 
 destroy Hood before undertaking a move toward the coast. 
 It was one of the strangest and most incomprehensible sit- 
 uations of the war, this movement away from each other of 
 two veteran armies marching from the same vicinity, in ex- 
 actly opposite directions Hood's army, which had been 
 able to hold its own for months against the combined armies 
 of Sherman, starting toward a collection of fragments largely 
 unorganized which had been hastily assigned to Thomas 
 with the general order to take care of Hood and Tennessee 
 and Sherman, with nearly the wjiole force of his combined 
 armies intact marching away from the forces which had 
 stubbornly opposed him from May till October into a coun-. 
 try where no considerable veteran forces were either estab- 
 lished or likely to come. 
 
 The strong anxiety of General Sherman to leave Hood 
 to Thomas shines through all his correspondence with Grant 
 from the day Hood crossed the Chattahoochee and threat- 
 ened the communications with Atlanta. At every step of 
 Hood's northward advance along the railroad, Sherman in-
 
 556 Life of Thomas. 
 
 sisted upon turning him over to Thomas and marching for 
 Savannah. Grant as steadily insisted that Hood should first 
 be destroyed. The official dispatches give no sufficient 
 reason for this anxiety, nor do they indicate the underlying 
 motive. But the Memoirs of General Sherman give strong 
 color to the idea that his controlling motive was a desire to 
 reach General Grant and have equal share with him and the 
 Army of the Potomac in ending the war. Upon hearing that 
 Hood had marched toward Decatur, in Alabama, General 
 Sherman writes: 
 
 I then finally resolved on my future course, which was to leave Hood 
 to he encountered hy General Thomas, while I should carry into full effect 
 the long contemplated project of marching to the sea coast and thence to 
 operate toward Richmond. 
 
 Again, as the column started toward the sea : 
 
 and I was strongly inspired with the feeling that the movement on our 
 part was a direct attack on the rebel army and the rebel capitol at Rich- 
 mond, though a full thousand miles of hostile country intervened, and 
 that, for better or worse, it would end the war. 
 
 As Atlanta was left behind, he wrote again : 
 
 Even the common soldiers caught the inspiration, and many a group 
 called out to me as I worked my way past them, " Uncle Billy, I guess 
 Grant is waiting for us at Richmond." Indeed the general sentiment was 
 that we were marching for Richmond, and that there we should end the 
 war. ... I had no purpose to march direct forJRichmond by way of 
 Augusta and Charlotte, but always designed to reach the sea-coast first at 
 Savannah or Port Royal, South Carolina, and even kept in mind the al- 
 ternative of Pensacola. 
 
 There is no longer any room for historical dispute over 
 the origin of this march to the sea. General Grant's let- 
 ters and orders make the whole subject plain. In March, 
 before the opening of the Atlanta campaign, General Grant 
 sent General Sherman a map showing the territory it was ex- 
 pected he would occupy, and his line of advance. This 
 was marked in blue pencil on the map. These blue lines 
 extended from Chattanooga to Atlanta, from Atlanta via 
 Milledgeville to Savannah, and from Atlanta to Mobile. 
 Before Atlanta was reached the control of Mobile harbor 
 had been secured, and General Grant considered the move 
 toward Savannah the proper one. But he insisted at first, 
 and continued to insist, that Hood's army should be taken
 
 The Atlanta Campaign. 557 
 
 care of first and destroyed. Finally "he yielded to Sherman's 
 importunities to be allowed to leave Thomas to take care 
 of Hood and Tennessee, while he himself marched through 
 Georgia with no organized force in his front or near him, 
 making the state " howl " and " smashing things " to the 
 sea. This yielding was secured by the representations of 
 General Sherman that he had left ample forces with Thomas, 
 to wit, 82,000, either present with him or available, when in 
 fact the force left by Sherman was nearly 30,000 less than 
 that, and the great mass of it was either unorganized or 
 widely scattered. Grant, being thus misled as to the force left 
 with Thomas, and saying to Sherman that it seemed sufficient 
 to enable Thomas to " take care of Hood and destroy him," 
 gave permission for the march to the sea. There was one 
 feature of this march, and but one, which General Sherman 
 originated and that was leaving Thomas with the fragments 
 of an army to take care of Hood, and marching away from 
 the theater of war himself before Hood was first destroyed. 
 From the moment that Sherman turned his back on Hood's 
 army, the defense of Tennessee and the blocking of Hood's 
 way to the Ohio was committed to General Thomas.
 
 558 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 i 
 
 The Armies of Sherman and Thomas compared Thomas left with Fragments 
 and Invalids Sherman Marches to the Sea with no Enemy in his 
 Front Schofield's Good Work The Disastrous Defeat, of Hood at 
 Franklin Grant Misled as to the Number of Troops left with Thomas. 
 
 The conditions which marked the opening of the At- 
 lanta campaign were exactly reversed for the Union army 
 on the threshold of the Nashville campaign. General Sher- 
 man, when he moved on General Johnston in the spring had 
 an effective force more than double that of the enemy; 
 from the first, and until after the battle of Franklin, Gen- 
 eral Thomas was outnumbered two to one. General Sher- 
 man had had abundant opportunity to refit, supply his army, 
 and deliberately prepare his plans, and his immense force 
 was thoroughly equipped ; General Thomas had two small 
 veteran corps which were not acting together, and many 
 fragments scattered over a territory greater than France, and 
 he was obliged to form his plans, organize, supply, and concen- 
 trate his forces in the face of the confident and vigorous advance 
 of a veteran enemy. Every condition which seemed necessary 
 to certain military success was present when General Sherman 
 began the Atlanta campaign, namely, overwhelming numbers, 
 veteran soldiers, complete equipment, unlimited supplies, 
 perfect organization, a concentrated army. Above all, and 
 stranger than all, when Hood was confronting Thomas with 
 superior numbers Sherman had no enemy in his front. 
 Thomas was largely outnumbered, the terms of his veterans 
 were rapidly expiring, and their places were to be chiefly 
 supplied by raw troops and civilian employees. It was well 
 for the country that Thomas was in command. His own 
 army, which had grown up under his eye, which he had 
 finally come to command, which was enthusiastically devoted
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 559 
 
 to him, and which he had asked for, had been denied him. 
 by General Sherman, and he had been sent to the rear to 
 command two small corps and fragments and with them con- 
 front an enemy which had sorely tried the metal of General 
 Sherman's three armies for half a year. The prospect was 
 dark enough ; hut in six weeks from the time Hood crossed 
 the Tennessee moving toward Nashville, Thomas had organ- 
 ized a new Army of the Cumberland, which, striking a blow 
 with the old ring, from the hand of the one general who never 
 lost a movement or a battle, so crushed Hood that his army, 
 in organized form, never anywhere reappeared in battle. 
 
 Sherman had abandoned his objective, which Grant had 
 notified him was Johnston's army and the breaking it up, 
 and had marched off to the sea, leaving his enemy seventy 
 miles nearer Nashville than when the campaign opened in 
 front of Dalton. Thomas took up the uncompleted task and 
 finished it by destroying Sherman's objective, and causing it 
 to disappear from the theater of war. 
 
 Besides abandoning this objective, when Hood appeared 
 on the Tennessee before Thomas, and Sherman was retiring 
 toward Rome as preliminary to starting for the sea, he twice 
 telegraphed Thomas most urgently: " If necessary, break up 
 all minor posts and get about Columbia as big an army as 
 you can, and go at him/' This, with subsequent instructions 
 of the same character, taken in connection with the march 
 to the sea, was equivalent to abandoning the country from 
 Atlanta to Nashville, which it had required two years' cam- 
 paigning and great battles to secure as far as Chattanooga, 
 and a spring and summer to gain as far as Atlanta. 
 
 At first, General Sherman intended to leave Thomas 
 only the Fourth Corps, General Stanley, having an effective 
 strength of 13,907. But, upon representations from General 
 Thomas that a stronger force was needed, he sent back the 
 Twenty-third corps, General Schofield, with 10,358 effectives. 
 A comparison between the preparations General Sherman 
 was making to perfect and strengthen the force with which 
 he was to move away from Hood, and the provision he was 
 making to enable General Thomas to meet the army which 
 had held their combined forces back from Atlanta for four
 
 560 Life of Thomas. 
 
 months, is both.strikiug and startling. For himself, Sherman 
 was having his army carefully inspected. "Weak and foot- 
 sore men, those partially equipped, those whom the surgeons 
 did not regard as in every sense sound and vigorous, were 
 sent to Thomas. Old equipments were replaced with new. 
 All the " trash," as Sherman characterized it, was sent to the 
 rear that is, to Thomas. Sherman himself thus presents 
 this matter in his Memoirs : 
 
 The most extraordinary efforts had been made to purge this army of non- 
 combatants and of sick men, for we knew well that there was to be no place 
 of safety save with the army itself. Our wagons were loaded with ammu- 
 nition, provisions, and forage, and we could ill afford to haul even sick men 
 in the ambulances, so that all on this exhibit may be assumed to have been 
 able-bodied, experienced soldiers, well armed, well equipped, and provided, 
 as far as human foresight could, with all the essentials of life, strength, and 
 vigorous action. 
 
 As a result, Sherman started to the sea with 62,000 iron 
 veterans, with complete field equipment and supplies of every 
 needed sort. 
 
 The force he was providing Thomas, and the odds and 
 ends from which an army to meet Hood's veterans and block 
 the way to the Ohio River was to be created, is sufficiently 
 shown by the following dispatches to Thomas : 
 
 Stanley should reach Wauhatchie to-day. Schofield will be here to- 
 night, and I will push him right away for Resaca, to go to Chattanooga, if 
 events call for it. Order all recruits and drafted men accordingly, viz., 
 those for the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps, to 
 come to the front. Appoint some good man to organize and arm the con- 
 valescents I send back. I repeat ; should the enemy cross the Tennessee 
 River in force, abandon all minor points and concentrate your forces at 
 some point where you can cover the road from Murfreesboro to Stevenson. 
 Engraft on Stanley and Schofield all the new troops. Give Schofield a di- 
 vision of new troops. Give General Tower all the men you can to finish 
 the forts at Nashville, and urge on the navy to pile up gun-boats in the 
 Tennessee River. 
 
 Again : 
 
 I have sent Stanley oack. Give him as many conscripts as possible 
 and use him as the nucleus. I will also send Schofield back, who will re- 
 lieve you of all that Knoxville branch, but, if necessary, break up all 
 minor posts and get about Columbia as big an army as you can, and go at 
 him. You may hold all the cavalry and new troops, except the men 
 actually assigned to the corps with me. I would like Dalton held, but 
 leave that to you ; Chattanooga, of course, and Decatur, in connection with
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 561 
 
 the boats. If, to make up a force adequate, it be necessary, abandon Hunts- 
 ville and that line, and the Huntsville and Decatur road, except as far as 
 it facilitates an army operating toward Florence. Already the papers in 
 Georgia begin to howl at being abandoned, and will howl still more before 
 they are done. Get, if you can, A. J. Smith's and Mower's divisions, be- 
 longing to my army, from Missouri, and let them come to you via Clifton. 
 Get the gun-boats to fill the Tennessee River, and that will bother him 
 much. 
 
 Sherman to Steedman, at Chattanooga, same date : 
 
 You must organize and systematize the hospitals and men sent back to 
 Chattanooga. You could use some of them for your forts. 
 
 At the same time Sherman was calling for the recruits 
 and drafted men belonging to the regiments with him to be 
 sent up, and Thomas telegraphed that he had directed them, 
 all to be pushed forward. 
 
 November 2d, General Thomas thus stated his situation 
 at that date, and prospective situation for November 12, the 
 day Sherman had fixed for " cutting loose." 
 
 T have just heard from General Croxton, who dispatched to me at 7 p. 
 M. yesterday, who says he has been within two miles of Florence on 
 the 1 1 untsville side, and three miles on the Lawrence burg side. The en- 
 emy is there with a large force, intrenching. They have laid pontoons at 
 Florence, and are reported still crossing. He finds no cavalry, but Forrest 
 is reported crossing below Florence. T think he must be mistaken about 
 Forrest crossing below Florence ; it may be Wheeler's force. General 
 Hatch should be with Croxton before this time, and although the rain may 
 have made the roads bad, I am in hopes that the balance- of Stanley's 
 troops will reach Pulaski to-day. It will not be possible for me to raise 
 within the next ten days more than Stanley's and Schofield's corps, and 
 Croxton's and Hatch's cavalry, unless I should withdraw railroad guards 
 immediately, which should not be done as long as we must operate the 
 road. The convalescents will only be fit to garrison Chattanooga, White- 
 side's, and Bridgeport. It will need all the troops Granger has to hold De- 
 catur ; and Steedman's troops, belonging to my army, are almost dwindled 
 away by expiration of service. Eventually, General Wilson can organize 
 12,000 cavalry from the dismounted men now in Tennessee and coming 
 from the front, but he can not do this in ten days. We will all do the 
 best we can, and Beauregard halts to fortify. I hope we shall be ready 
 for him. 
 
 At this time Thomas had a force of 24,000 infantry, and 
 5,500 equipped cavalry. Sherman's force, headed away from 
 the enemy, was 62,000. Replying to Thomas the same day, 
 Sherman telegraphed among other things : 
 36
 
 Life of Thomas. 
 
 To make things sure, you can call on the Governors of Kentucky and 
 Indiana for some militia, cautioning them against a stampede. 
 
 General Thomas at this date was exerting himself to the 
 utmost to form garrisons for posts and bridges which, in the 
 preliminary movements, and until Hood's designs became ap- 
 parent, it was necessary to hold. How he fared at this bus- 
 iness, and what he had to work with, clearly appears from 
 the following dispatches : 
 
 Thomas to Steedman, November 2d : 
 
 If you are still required to make up the garrison of Eesaca you might 
 send a force from the organization of convalescents now being made up by 
 General Cruft, at Chattanooga. 
 
 Steedman to Thomas, same date : 
 
 As regards forming garrisons from detachments of the Fourteenth, Fif- 
 teenth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth Corps, I have the honor to report that 
 sc far all such detachments reported from the front (Sherman's) are with 
 furloughs, and are waiting transportation home. 
 
 All that seemed lacking to complete the assortment of 
 feeble odds and ends with which Sherman was equipping 
 Thomas was an order to stuff a few thousand uniforms with 
 straw, and use them vigorously and judicially along Hood's 
 front. 
 
 Sherman to Halleck, November 3d : 
 
 I therefore feel no uneasiness as to Tennessee, ana nave ordered 
 Thomas to assume the offensive in the direction of Selma, Alabama." 
 
 Grant to Sherman, November 2d : 
 
 With the force, however, you have left with Thomas, he must be able 
 to take care of Hood and destroy him. 
 
 Sherman to Halleck, November llth, from Kingston, 
 Georgia : 
 
 My arrangements are now all complete, and the railroad cars are being 
 sent to the rear. Last night we burned all foundries, mills, and shops of 
 every kind in Rome, and to-morrow I leave Kingston with the rear guard 
 for Atlanta, which I propose to dispose of in a similar manner, and to start 
 on the 16th on the projected grand raid. All appearances still indicate 
 that Beauregard has got back to his old hole at Corinth, and I hope he will en- 
 joy it. My army prefers to enjoy the fresh sweet-potato fields of the Ocmul- 
 gee. I have balanced all the figures well, and am satisfied that General 
 Thomas has in Tennessee a force sufficient for all probabilities, and I have 
 urged him the moment Beauregard turns south to cross the Tennessee at 
 Decatur, and push straight for Selma. To-morrow our wires will be broken, 
 and this is probably my last dispatch. I would like to have General
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 563 
 
 Foster to break the Savannah and Charleston road about Pocotaligo about 
 December 1. All other preparations are to my entire satisfaction. 
 
 The situation in which General Thomas found himself, 
 differed materially from the representations made to Grant 
 tind the authorities at Washington, which, as has been seen, 
 gave him 82,000 men, and was thus set forth by General 
 Thomas himself in an official report : 
 
 At this time I found myself confronted by the army which, under 
 General J. E. Johnston, had so skillfully resisted the advance of the whole 
 active army of the Military Division of the Mississippi from Dalton to the 
 Chattahoochee, reinforced by a well-equipped and enthusiastic cavalry 
 command of over 12,000, led by one of the boldest and most successful 
 -commanders in the rebel army. My information from all sources confirmed 
 the reported strength of Hood's army to be from 40,000 to 45,000 in- 
 fantry, and from 12,000 to 15,000 cavalry. My effective force at this time 
 consisted of the Fourth Corps, about 12,000 under Major-General D. S. 
 Stanley; the Twenty -third Corps, about 10,000, under Major-General J. M. 
 Schofield; Hatch's division of cavalry, about 4,000; Croxton's brigade, 
 L'. IDS), and Capron's brigade of about 1,200. The balance of my force was 
 distributed along the railroad, and posted at Murfreesborough, Stevenson, 
 Bridgeport, Huntsville, Decatur, and Chattanooga, to keep open our com- 
 munications, and hold the posts above named if attacked, until they could 
 IK- reinforced, as up to this time it was impossible to determine which 
 course Hood would take advance on Nashville or turn toward Huntsville. 
 Under these circumstances it was manifestly best to act on the defensive 
 until sufficiently reinforced to justify taking the offensive. My plans and 
 wishes were fully explained to General Schofield, and, as subsequent 
 -events will show, properly appreciated and executed by him. .... 
 
 On the 12th of November communication with General Sherman was 
 severed, the last dispatch from him leaving Cartersville, Ga., at 2:25 P. M. 
 on that date. He had started on his great expedition from Atlanta to the 
 sea-board, leaving me to guard Tennessee or to pursue the enemy if he fol- 
 lowed the commanding general's column. It was, therefore, with consid- 
 erable anxiety that we watched the forces at Florence, to discover what 
 course they would pursue with regard to General Sherman's movements, 
 determining thereby whether the troops under my command, numbering 
 less than half those under Hood, were to act on the defensive in Tennes- 
 see, or take the offensive in Alabama. 
 
 Hood completed his crossing of the Tennessee, Novem- 
 ber 19th, and moved vigorously against the Union forces. 
 The invasion of Tennessee was under full headway, and be- 
 yond it lay a campaign to the Ohio formally suggested by 
 President Davis. In six days after Hood's movement de- 
 veloped General Thomas had lost from the time he reached 
 Nashville 15,000 veteran troops by expiration of terms of
 
 564 Life of Thomas. 
 
 service or absence on leave to vote. He had received during- 
 the same time 12,000 newly enlisted and perfectly fresh 
 
 men. 
 
 At the same time, the cavalry furnished General Thomas 
 to confront the 12,000 under Forrest suffered in the same 
 way as his infantry. To begin with, the whole of it had 
 been dismounted to furnish horses for Kilpatrick's divis- 
 ion, which went with Sherman. It was left largely with- 
 out transportation, and to a great extent its most serviceable 
 arms had been taken, and those ordered from the East to 
 replace them were delayed more than a month on the way. 
 By characteristic and almost superhuman activity and well 
 directed effort, the cavalry commander, General James H. 
 "Wilson, had been able to equip something over 5,000 effect- 
 ive mounted men in time to take part in resisting Hood's 
 advance. 
 
 General Thomas remained in Nashville superintending 
 the organization and concentration there, and preparing for 
 a final struggle to check Hood in his northward march at 
 the Cumberland. He put General Schofield in command at 
 the front with general orders for the retrograde movement 
 and for delaying Hood as long as possible, leaving the de- 
 tails of the campaign to this able officer. 
 
 General Sc'hofield's force, for various reasons which pre- 
 viously described conditions make clear, was considerably 
 less than his paper force, as shown by the returns, and, as a 
 result, he found himself about Pulaski with 18,000 effective 
 infantry and four brigades of cavalry, confronted by the 
 vigorous advance of Hood with more than double this force. 
 Colonel D. S. Stanley commanded the Fourth Corps, and 
 General J. D. Cox the Twenty-third, and General James H. 
 Wilson the cavalry 
 
 In pursuance of the policy agreed upon, Schofield held 
 hard against Hood, and at the last moment, by a forced night 
 march, he gained the line of Duck River at Columbia before 
 the enemy secured it. Here, by a bold and courageous front, 
 he checked Hood, and delayed his crossing as long as it was 
 possible considering the great disparity of numbers. "Wil- 
 son's cavalry on the flanks operated with vigor and effect,
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 
 
 discovering every move of Forrest and keeping General 
 Schofield informed. The latter, fully comprehending the 
 vital necessity of delaying Hood while Nashville was being 
 ]iiit in condition to meet him by General Thomas, held firmly 
 and tenaciously to Columbia till Hood had crossed on his 
 Hank, when by a rapid night March he passed his army along 
 Hood's front, his rear divisions and trains moving within 
 rifle shot of the enemy so close was the contact, and before 
 morning Schofield was fairly between Hood and Nashville 
 at Spring Hill. Hood had failed where success seemed 
 surely in his grasp, and Schofield had succeeded where he has 
 been criticised for risking far too much. But the answer is 
 that he felt the essential element of his campaign to be the 
 delay of Hood, and to accomplish that his plain duty to be 
 to take risks and act boldly. It was one of the closest and 
 most desperate situations of the war, but it is success which 
 vindicates, and he came out of this strait with his army 
 and its whole equipment intact, and the next afternoon he 
 was found in line of battle before Franklin, not only able to 
 meet Hood, but to sorely defeat him. General Scohfi eld reached 
 Franklin before day-break November 30th. Orderinghis forces 
 to take position in front of the town as they arrived, he be- 
 gan preparations to cross his army to the north bank of the 
 Ilarpeth. General A. J. Smith, with the Sixteenth Corps, so 
 long expected from Missouri, and which at the first Sherman 
 repeatedly assured Grant could reach Thomas within ten 
 days, had not arrived at Nashville until the day Schofield 
 was being pressed by the enemy at Franklin. 
 
 While preparations were being hastened for crossing the 
 the river at the latter place General Hood suddenly appeared 
 before the town and threw his massed lines upon the Union 
 position. In its completeness it was an unexpected blow and 
 one of the most vigorous and desperate delivered by any 
 Confederate army during the war. For the Confederate sol- 
 diers of Tennessee and Kentucky the return to their homes 
 hung upon the result, and thus prompted they fought, and 
 with them their comrades fought as they had seldom, if ever, 
 fought before. That they were worthily led, the death of 
 five general officers and the wounding of six on the Union
 
 566 Life of Thomas. 
 
 breastworks attest. The Union army also excelled itself r 
 and the furious onset of Hood which broke its lines was first 
 checked by brilliant charges, and then, after prolonged and 
 bitter fighting, repulsed. From the moment the Union lines 
 were restored the Confederates assaulted persistently and 
 continuously from-4 o'clock till dark. They fought at short 
 range long after night-fall, but failed to again break the lines. 
 The firing was terrific, and was still severe at midnight. Soon 
 after, Hood withdrew. His loss was .considerably in excess 
 of 6,000, while Schofield's, his troops being much of the time 
 protected by their field-works, fell below 2,500. Afterward,, 
 in North Calonina, at the surrender of Johnston's army, the 
 talk turning at a gathering of Union and Confederate gen- 
 eral officers upon the various battles of the war, there was 
 general agreement among those who had served at the West 
 with Hood that Franklin was by far the most disheartening 
 of all their battles. 
 
 During the night Schofield safely withdrew his army and 
 trains and pressed on to the Brentwood Hills, and at noon the 
 next day he reached the fortifications of Nashville. Hood 
 followed closely and established his lines in front of the city. 
 General Thomas's high appreciation of General Schofield'a 
 management was strongly expressed in his final report.
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 567 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 General Thomas's Energy at Nashville The Completeness of his Prepara- 
 tions An Effective Army Organized from two small Veteran Corps, 
 Invalids, Raw Recruits, and Citizens Crushing Defeat of Hood De- 
 stoyed by a Vigorous Pursuit Impatience of General Grant He 
 twice orders Thomas's Removal Persistent Ill-Treatment of Thomas 
 Completeness of Thomas's Victory Sherman and Grant Saved from 
 Themselves Hood's Army as an Army Disappears from the Theater 
 of War. 
 
 The energy with which General Thomas had pushed 
 the work of organization and preparation at Nashville was 
 not exceeded by the work of any commander during the war, 
 if, indeed, it was equaled by any. No other general had been 
 left with such disorganized and widely scattered fragments 
 to face a veteran army. When it is remembered that this 
 was done with full knowledge, and with deliberation, the 
 case becomes amazing. Of course the Fourth, Twenty-third 
 and Sixteenth Corps were well equipped and well organized 
 veterans, and their officers were able and noted soldiers. 
 But General Schofield had fought the battle of Franklin with 
 a force less than half that of Hood, and General A. J. Smith's 
 corps, which was promised, for the early part of November 
 had not become available at Nashville till Schofield, by 
 desperate fighting, had won his victory at Franklin. Aside 
 from these excellent troops, General Thomas had been busy 
 organizing an army from clerks, citizens, convalescents, un- 
 equipped detachments without officers, and perfectly raw 
 troops numbering some 12,000, who had taken the place, 
 though very far from filling it, of 15,000 veterans whose 
 terms of service had expired, or who had been furloughed 
 for various reasons. This latter cause had greatly depleted 
 both the Fourth and the Twenty-third Corps. 
 
 During the 2d and 3d of December, Smith's and Schofield's 
 troops and 5,000 men who had arrived with Steedman from 
 Chattanooga, were firmly established along the lines around
 
 568 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Nashville. Wilson was working with an energy which had 
 no rest to remount the force which had been deprived of 
 horses to equip Sherman's expedition. The enemy's cavalry 
 numbered nearly 12,000. Wilson had thus far operated 
 against him with less than half that number. But, while 
 such disproportion would enable a rear guard to be effective 
 in compelling delay, he was now not only to assume the 
 offensive, but, in General Thomas's plan, was to open the 
 fight by turning the enemy's left. As the result of un- 
 ceasing activity in all parts of the army, General Thomas, 
 on the 5th of December, felt justified in notifying General 
 Halleck that if he could perfect his arrangements, then 
 nearly completed, but depending on the progress of Wilson's 
 remount, he would attack Hood on the 7th. 
 
 Meantime, before Schofield and Smith were fairly in 
 position, and before Steedmuu had arrived from Chattanooga, 
 General Grant, December 2d, telegraphed Thomas to attack, 
 and added that he thought, instead of falling back from 
 Franklin, the offensive should have there been taken against 
 the enemy. But, in fact, Smith's corps, which seemed to 
 have been counted as present by Grant which, perhaps, 
 is not strange, since Sherman had so emphatically assured its 
 early presence before he marched off from Hood had not 
 arrived, and Thomas had no forces sufficient to justify Scho- 
 field in attempting to stand at Franklin. Indeed, his suc- 
 cessful withdrawal was a notable triumph. To assume the 
 offensive was an impossibility. 
 
 But it was not strange that Grant should have been 
 filled with anxiety and apprehension. The real meaning of 
 the march to the sea for the country, and its momentous 
 possibilities, were just beginning to be understood at City 
 Point. For the first and only time in the war, Grant's mind 
 bordered closely on panic. So conditioned, he grew restive 
 to the last degree under Thomas's cool and deliberate, but 
 still, as all on the ground knew, most effective preparations. 
 Grant pictured Hood crossing the Cumberland and pushing 
 toward the Ohio. But Thomas was in active co-operation 
 with Admiral Lee, and the river was so effectively patrolled 
 by gunboats that crossing was impossible. Early on the 7th,
 
 The Nashville Campaign. o69 
 
 Thomas, in obedience to a peremptory order from Grant to 
 attack received late the night before, issued instructions for 
 battle, and preparations were at once made in all parts of the 
 command. These were completed, and the lines were in 
 position and supplied and the hour for attack was fixed for 
 daylight of December 10th. With almost superhuman en- 
 ergy on the part of General Thomas and his able subordi- 
 nates, it had been impossible to prepare an attack which 
 should insure success an hour earlier. To have moved when 
 any thing remained to be done to render success certain, 
 would have been criminal. For failure involved a campaign 
 by Hood to the Ohio River, and possibly beyond it. Thomas 
 was not only preparing to prevent such a result, but, upon 
 his success or failure, hung the question whether or not 
 those who planned and those who permitted the march to 
 the sea should incur the dire condemnation of the people. 
 By his careful preparations, he was saving Sherman and 
 Grant from themselves. On the 9th, there came on a severe 
 storm of freezing sleet. The country was covered with a 
 sheet of ice. Its character may be judged by the fact that 
 General Elliott, the chief of cavalry, was obliged to send 
 word that he could not reach head-quarters because his 
 horses could not travel on the ice. The following note was 
 dispatched by General Thomas to all commanders : 
 
 Dec. 9th. Owing to the severity of the storm raging to-day, it is found 
 necessary to postpone the operations designed for to-morrow morning until 
 the breaking up of the storm. I desire, however, that every thing be put 
 in condition to carry out the plan contemplated as soon as the weather will 
 permit it to be done so that we can advance immediately the moment the 
 storm clears away. Acknowledge receipt. 
 
 On the morning of December 10th, General Thomas sent 
 this note to General T. J. Wood, commanding the Fourth, 
 the strongest corps: 
 
 What is the condition of the ground between the enemy's lines and 
 your own ? Is it practicable for men to move about on it with facility. I 
 would like your opinions about it. 
 
 To this, General Wood replied : 
 
 The ground between the enemy's lines and my own is covered with a 
 heavy sleet which would make the handling of troops very difficult, if not 
 impracticable. I am confident that troops can not move with facility.
 
 570 Life of Thomas. 
 
 From the condition of the ground, an offensive movement would necessa- 
 rilv be feeble and feebleness of movement would almost certainly result 
 in failure. 
 
 As late as December 12th, the sleet storm still continu- 
 ing, General Schofield wrote Thomas: 
 
 It seems hardly possible that we can attempt any movement at this 
 time. 
 
 It should be remembered that to attack Hood the Union 
 line was obliged to ascend .the hills on which he was in- 
 trenched. 
 
 After General Thomas had notified General Grant, on 
 the morning of the 7th, that, in accordance with his direc- 
 tions of the previous night, orders for attack had been given, 
 and, after the imperative reasons for delay had been ex- 
 plained to him, Grant telegraphed Halleck, the 8th, that, 
 " if Thomas has not struck yet, he ought to be ordered to 
 hand over his command to Schotield." 
 
 Halleck instantly replied that, if he wanted Thomas re- 
 lieved, he must give the order, and the responsibility would 
 be his, as no one in Washington wished General Thomas 
 removed. The next day Grant gave the order. 
 
 In compliance with it, the following was prepared for 
 issue at the War Department : 
 
 The following dispatch having been received from Lieutenant-General 
 Grant, viz.: "Please telegraph orders relieving him (General Thomas) at 
 once, and placing (General) Schofield in command, the President orders : 
 
 1. That Major-General J. M. Schofield relieve, at once, Major-General 
 G. H. Thomas, in command of the Department and Army of the Cumber- 
 land. 
 
 2. General Thomas will turn over to General Schofield all orders and 
 instructions received by him since the battle of Franklin. 
 
 E. D. TOWXSEXD, A. A. G. 
 
 Meantime, General Thomas had received the following 
 from General Grant: 
 
 Your dispatch of yesterday received. It looks to me evident the en- 
 emy are trying to cross the Cumberland, and are scattered. Why not at- 
 tack at once? By all means avoid the contingency of a foot-race to see 
 which, you or Hood, can beat to the Ohio. If you think necessary, call on 
 the governors of states to send a force into Louisville to meet the enemy, 
 if he should cross the river. You surely never should cross except in rear 
 of the enemy. Now is one of the fairest opportunities ever presented of 
 destroying one of the three armies of the enemy. If destroyed, he can
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 571 
 
 never replace it. Use the means at your command, and you can do this 
 and cause a rejoicing from one end of the land to the other. 
 
 To which General Thomas replied : 
 
 Your dispatch of 8:30 P. M. of the 8th is just received. I had nearly 
 completed my preparations to attack the enemy to-morrow morning, but a 
 terrible storm of freezing rain has come on to-day, which will make it im- 
 possible for our men to fight to any advantage. I am, therefore, compelled 
 to wait for the storm to break and make the attack immediately after. 
 Admiral Lee is patrolling the river above and below the city, and I believe 
 will be able to prevent the enemy from crossing. There is no doubt but 
 Hood's forces are considerably scattered along the river, with the view of 
 attempting a crossing, but it has been impossible for me to organize and 
 equip the troops for an attack at an earlier tune. Major-General Halleck 
 informs me that you are very much dissatisfied with my delay in attacking. 
 I can only say 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. 
 
 General Halleck, however, had held the order of relief 
 throughout the day without issuing it, and thus delayed it 
 further by calling attention to the above dispatch of General 
 Thomas, in which the impossibility of attack was made 
 clear. 
 
 Orders relieving General Thomas had been made out when his tele- 
 gram of this P. M. was received. If you still wish these orders telegraphed 
 to Nashville, they will be forwarded. H. W. HALLECK, Chief of Staff. 
 
 This led to the suspension of the order, and the follow- 
 ing telegrams passed regarding the matter : 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., December 9, 1864, 5:30 P. M. 
 Major-General Halleck, Washington. 
 
 General Thomas has been urged in every possible way to attack the 
 enemy; even to giving the positive order. He did say he thought he 
 should be able to attack on the 7th, but he did not do so, nor has he given 
 a reason for not doing it. I am very unwilling to do injustice to an officer 
 who has done so much good service as General Thomas has, however, and 
 will therefore suspend the order relieving him until it is seen whether he 
 will do any thing. U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., December 9, 1864, 7:30 P. M. 
 Major-General Thomas, NashviUe. 
 
 Your dispatch of 1 P. M. to-day is received. I have as much confidence 
 in your conducting the battle rightly as I have in any other officer, but it 
 has seemed to me you have been slow, and I have had no explanation of 
 affairs to convince me otherwise. Receiving your dispatch to Major- 
 General Halleck of 2 p. M. before I did the first to me, I telegraphed to sus- 
 pend the order relieving you until we should hear further. I hope most
 
 572 Life of Thomas. 
 
 sincerely that there will be no necessity of repeating the order, and that 
 the facts will show that you have been right all the time. 
 
 U. S. GRANT, lAeutenant-General. 
 
 But while the sleet storm was still at its height, and when 
 every one of General Thomas's officers was agreed that it 
 would be madness to attack, General Grant, though fully in- 
 formed of the situation, thus again directed an attack : 
 
 If you delay attacking longer, the mortifying spectacle will b<- witnessed 
 of a rebel army moving for the Ohio, and you will be forced to act. accept- 
 ing such weather as you find. Let there be no further delay. Hood can not 
 stand even a drawn battle so far from his supplies of ordnance stores. If 
 he retreats and you follow, he must lose his material and most of his army. 
 I am in hopes of receiving a dispatch from you to-day announcing that you 
 have moved. Delay no longer for weather or reinforcements. 
 
 To which General Thomas again replied : 
 
 Your dispatch of 4 p. M. this day is just received. I will obey the order 
 as promptly as possible, however much I may regret it, as the attack will 
 have to be made uuder every disadvantage. The whole country is covered 
 with a perfect sheet of ice and sleet, and it is with difficulty the troops 
 are able to move about on level ground. It was my intention to attack 
 Hood as soon as the ice melted, and would have done so yesterday had it 
 not been for the storm. 
 
 On the 12th, General Thomas still further reported to 
 Halleck, and it must be remembered that all dispatches went 
 to Grant : 
 
 I have the troops ready to make the. attack on the enemy as soon as the 
 sleet, which now covers the ground, has melted sufficiently to enable the 
 men to march. The whole country is now covered with a sheet of ice so 
 hard and slippery it is utterly impossible for troops to ascend the slopes, 
 or even move over level ground in any thing like order. It has taken the 
 entire day to place my cavalry in position, and it has only been finally 
 effected with imminent risk and many serious accidents, resulting from the 
 numbers of horses falling with their riders on the road. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, I believe that an attack at this time would only result in a use- 
 less sacrifice of life. 
 
 On the 13th, the sleet storm still raging at Nashville, 
 General Logan, then at City Point, was ordered to Nashville 
 to relieve General Thomas, and on the next day General 
 Grant followed him to assume general command himself. 
 This was the order to Logan : 
 
 I. Major-General John A. Logan, United States volunteers, will proceed 
 immediately to Nashville, Tennessee, reporting by telegraph to the lieu- 
 tenant-general his arrival at Louisville, Kentucky, and also his arrival at 
 Nashville, Tennessee. . . .
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 573 
 
 The same day came this from Thomas to Ilallack: 
 
 Your telegram of 12:30 M. to-day is received. The ice having melted 
 away to-day, the enemy will be attacked to-morrow morning. Much as I 
 regret the apparent delay in attacking the enemy, it could not have been 
 done before with any reasonable prospect of success. 
 
 And the next day this: 
 
 Attacked enemy's left this morning, drove it from the river, below city, 
 very nearly to Franklin pike, distance about eight miles. . . . 
 
 These were followed fast by details of the magnificent 
 victory which grew into completeness with every hour. Grant 
 abandoned his trip to Nashville, Logan stopped at Louisville 
 where he had met news of the victory and returned to City 
 Point. 
 
 At eight o'clock, December 15th, General Thomas's bat- 
 tle began. There was preparation and understanding at 
 every point of the lines. A feint on the Confederate right 
 was entirely successful in attracting Hood's attention from 
 the left where the real blow was to fall. Wilson's cavalry, 
 making a wide detour beyond the enemy's left, dismounted 
 and advanced upon his flank and full in his rear, capturing 
 both works and guns. At this, according to plan, the Union 
 lines assaulted. There was success at all points from the first. 
 The left was doubled back and driven eight miles before 
 night fell. The center was forced from both outer and inner 
 works and pushed to new ground far in the rear where an 
 attempt was made by Hood during the night to establish new 
 lines. At daylight Thomas moved to attack the enemy's 
 new position. At noon it was fully developed upon Overton's 
 Hill and adjacent elevations. At 3 o'clock it was assaulted 
 in front, Wilson's cavalry having already successfully gained 
 the rear. In an hour Hood was routed and his army was 
 every-where in confused retreat. The next day Hood con- 
 tinued his flight, and was vigorously pursued by the whole 
 army. The country was soaked with slush and rain, and it 
 was almost impossible for troops, artillery, or trains to move. 
 However, the pursuit was continued by the cavalry, closely 
 followed by the infantry, with all the vigor that untiring and 
 able officers and enthusiastic troops could exhibit. 
 
 But, in spite of the great victory, over which a nation
 
 574 Life of Thomas. 
 
 was wildly rejoicing, and of a pursuit unparalled for its diffi- 
 culties and unequaled in its results, since it completed the 
 destruction of an army, the pnly thing of the kind in the 
 war 'previous to the final surrenders General Thomas's 
 opening victory at Mill Springs excepted in spite of all 
 these things, the nagging and unjust prodding of General 
 Thomas from City Point and "Washington were unceasing. 
 The character of his victory, and the knowledge that he was 
 energetically pursuing, did not save him. 
 
 In response to Thomas's dispatch to Grant announcing 
 the victory of the first day Grant replied : 
 
 I was just on my way to Nashville, but receiving a dispatch from. Van 
 Duzen, detailing your splendid success of to-day, I shall go no further. Push 
 the enemy now, and give him no rest until he is entirely destroyed. Your 
 army will cheerfully suffer many privations to break up Hood's army, and 
 make it useless for future operations. Do not stop for trains or supplies, but 
 take them from the country, as the enemy has done. Much is now ex- 
 pected. 
 
 The Union army had just foraged once, and Hood's army 
 twice, over the country upon which Grant thus ordered 
 Thomas to depend for supplies. Besides, Hood had been 
 subsisting from it for six weeks. Later, a dispatch of simi- 
 lar tone reached Thomas from Grant. Meanwhile the pur- 
 suit was being prosecuted with the utmost vigor. But in 
 spite of this fact, which was well known at "Washington, 
 Hallack, on the 21st, thus repeated the burden of the dis- 
 patches from City Point : 
 
 Permit me, general, to urge the vast importance of a hot pursuit of Hood's 
 army. Every possible sacrifice should be made, and your men for a few days 
 will submit to any hardships and privations to accomplish the great result. 
 if you can capture or destroy Hood's army General Sherman can entirely 
 crush out the rebel military force in all the Southern States. He begins a 
 new campaign about the first of January, which will have the most important 
 results if Hood's army can now be used up. A most vigorous pursuit on 
 your part is, therefore, of vital importance to General Sherman's plans. No 
 sacrifice must be spared to obtain so important a result. 
 
 To this General Thomas, now indignant beyond further 
 endurance, replied: 
 
 Your dispatch of 12 M., this day, is received. General Hood's army is 
 being pursued as rapidly and as vigorously as it is possible for one army to 
 pursue another. We can not control the elements, and you must remember 
 that, to resist Hood's advance into Tennessee, I had to reorganize and almost
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 575 
 
 thoroughly equip the force now under my command. I fonght the battle of 
 the 15th and 16th instants with the troops but partially equipped ; and, 
 notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather and the partial equipment, 
 have been enabled to drive the enemy beyond Duck River, crossing two 
 streams with my troops, and driving the enemy from position to position, 
 without the aid of pontoons, and with but little transportation to bring up 
 supplies of provisions and ammunition. I am doing all in my power to 
 crush Hood's army, and, if it be possible, will destroy it. But pursuing an 
 enemy through an exhausted country, over mud roads completely sogged 
 with heavy rains, is no child's play, and can not be accomplished as quickly 
 as thought of. I hope, in urging me to push the enemy, the department 
 remembers that General Sherman took with him the complete organization 
 of the Military Division of the Mississippi, well equipped in every respect, as 
 regards ammunition, supplies, and transportation, leaving me only two corps, 
 partially stripped of their transportation to accommodate the force taken 
 with him, to oppose the advance into Tennessee of that army which had 
 resisted the advance of the army of the Military Division of the Mississippi 
 on Atlanta, from the commencement of the campaign till its close, and which 
 is now, in addition, aided by Forrest's cavalry. Although my progress may 
 appear slow, I feel assured that Hood's army can be driven from Tennessee, 
 and eventually driven to the wall by the force under my command. But too 
 much must not be expected of troops which have to be reorganized, especially 
 when they have the task of destroying a force, in a winter's campaign, which 
 was able to make an obstinate resistance to twice its numbers in spring and 
 summer. In conclusion, I can safely state that this army is willing to submit 
 to any sacrifice to oust Hood's army, or to strike any other blow which may 
 contribute to the destruction of the rebellion. 
 
 Upon seeing these dispatches Secretary Stanton tele- 
 graphed the first whole-souled message which General Thomas 
 had received : 
 
 I have seen to-day General Halleck's dispatch of yesterday, and your re- 
 ply. It is proper for me to assure you that this department has the most un- 
 bounded confidence in your skill, vigor, and determination to employ to 
 the best advantage all the means in your power to pursue and destroy the 
 enemy. No department could be inspired with more profound admiration 
 and thankfulness for the great deeds which you have already performed, or 
 more confiding faith that human effort could do no more, and no more than 
 will be done by you and the accomplished and gallant officers and soldiers 
 of your command. 
 
 The day before Stautou had suggested to Grant that 
 Thomas should be nominated to the vacant major-generalship 
 in the regular army, and Grant had immediately and coldly 
 replied : 
 
 I think Thomas has won the major-generalship, but I would wait a few 
 days before giving it to see the extent of damage done.
 
 576 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Defeating Hood in battle on two successive days, putting 
 him to flight, pursuing him fifty miles, recovering the vast 
 country for which previous great battles had been fought, 
 preventing Hood from making a campaign to the Ohio, sav- 
 ing Sherman from everlasting ridicule, and Grant from never- 
 ending criticism for letting him leave Hood in. his rear all 
 these were seemingly too small things to merit promotion. 
 There must be a pause to see whether in the end there would 
 be any thing whatever left of Hood. 
 
 Here it is in place to turn aside a moment to contrast 
 these affairs with the situation at Savannah, which point 
 Sherman, unopposed, with his magnificent aitny of 60,000 
 had reached while the sleet storm was at its height at Nash- 
 ville. To a letter announcing the arrival at Savannah, Grant 
 thus wrote Sherman : 
 
 I congratulate you and the brave officers and men under your com- 
 mand on the successful termination of your most brilliant campaign. I 
 never had a doubt of the result. When apprehensions for your safety were 
 expressed by the President, I assured him with the army you had, and you 
 in command of it, there was no danger but you would strike bottom on 
 salt-water some place ; that I would not feel the same security, in fact 
 would not have intrusted the expedition to any other living commander. 
 It has been very hard work to get Thomas to attack Hood. I gave him the 
 most peremptory order, and had started to go there myself before he got 
 off. He has done magnificently, however, since he started. Up to last 
 night, five thousand prisoners and forty-nine pieces of captured artillery, 
 besides many wagons and innumberable small-arms, had been received in 
 Nashville. This is exclusive of the enemy's loss at Franklin , which amounted 
 to thirteen general officers killed, wounded, and captured. The enemy 
 probably lost five thousand men at Franklin, and ten thousand in the last 
 three days' operations. . . . Congratulating you and the army again 
 upon the splendid results of your campaign, the like of which is not read 
 in past history, I subscribe myself, more than ever, if possible, your friend. 
 
 It certainly differed from any thing in past history in 
 the absence of an enemy from its front after it turned its 
 back on Hood. 
 
 Within a week Hardee with his garrison, claimed to be 
 15,000 men, but really, as official reports now show, falling 
 slightly below 10,000, had escaped from Sherman's 60,000, a 
 result for which no possible military excuse can be given, and 
 which caused Secretary Stanton to telegraph Grant: 
 
 It was a sore disappointment that Hardee was able to get off his 15,000
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 577 
 
 from Sherman's 00,000. It looks like protracting the war while their armies 
 continue to escape. 
 
 But while Grant had persistently persecuted Thomas with 
 groundless complaints, the records do not disclose a murmur 
 from him over the inexcusable escape of Hardee from Sherman. 
 
 Nothing more was needed, in fact nothing more would 
 have been possible, unless Sherman had surrendered to Hardee, 
 to make the contrast between Nashville and Savannah strik- 
 ing beyond any comparisons which the story of the war had 
 furnished. Finally, on the 24th, while Thomas was still in 
 the field vigorously pursuing Hood, this pleasant and satis- 
 factory dispatch reached him at Pulaski : 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS, Nashville: 
 
 With great pleasure I inform you that for your skill, courage, and con- 
 duct in the recent brilliant military operations under your command, the 
 President has directed your nomination to be sent to the Senate as a major- 
 general in the United States Army, to fill the only vacancy existing in that 
 grade. No official duty has been performed by me with more satisfaction, 
 and no commander has more justly earned promotion by devoted, disin- 
 terested, and valuable services to his country. 
 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 
 HON. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War: 
 
 I am profoundly sensible of the kind expressions of your telegram of 
 December 24th, informing me that the President had directed my name to 
 be sent to the Senate for confirmation as major-general United States Army, 
 and beg to assure the President and yourself, that your approval of my 
 services is of more value to me than the commission itself. 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, Major-General Commanding. 
 
 Simultaneously with the ending of the pursuit of Hood, 
 Stoneman closed his brilliant, most destructive, and success- 
 ful campaign against Breckinridge and his supports, which 
 at the same time that Hood appeared on the Tennessee had 
 invaded East Tennessee from Virginia and advanced in co- 
 operation toward Knoxville. Under full instructions from 
 General Thomas, General Stoneman, whom he had sent to 
 command, advanced December 9th, the day when general 
 attack was ordered in front of Nashville. In a continuing 
 campaign he pushed the enemy back into Virginia, captured 
 Wytheville with its stores, destroyed the main salt-works of 
 the enemy at Saltville, the lead-works in the same region, 
 scores of railroad bridges, and many miles of track, extensive 
 37
 
 578 Life of Thomas. 
 
 iron-works, and a great variety and quantity o'f stores. The 
 destruction of locomotives and rolling-stock was at that 
 period a sore loss to the Confederacy. Breckinridge was 
 driven into North Carolina just as the pursuit of Hood ended, 
 and East Tennessee was as clear of the enemy as the country 
 invaded by Hood. 
 
 The brilliancy and completeness of General Thomas's 
 victory over Hood did not save him from the continued 
 criticisms of Grant and Sherman. The latter who had just 
 allowed Hardee with 10,000 men to escape from Savannah 
 while he was resting quietly around it with 60,000, was ex- 
 pressing his astonishment to Grant that Thomas had even 
 withdrawn from the line of the Tennessee River, and his 
 amazement that he had not turned on him at Franklin, and 
 explaining it all by the stock expression between them that 
 Thomas was slow. Grant was replying that it had " been 
 very hard work to get Thomas to attack Hood," that 
 Thomas was " too ponderous in his preparations and equip- 
 ments to move through a country rapidly enough to live off 
 it," and that he did not believe Thomas would ever get to 
 Selma or Montgomery. Finally, after his forces, had been 
 reduced by sending Schofield east, and A. J. Smith's infantry 
 and 5,000 cavalry to New Orleans for a movement against 
 Mobile, General Thomas was left in comparative peace, so 
 far as carping interference was concerned, to prepare for a 
 cavalry movement against Selma, Montgomery, and Central 
 Georgia, which, in conference with General James H. Wilson, 
 he had determined upon, in case he could obtain permission 
 to make it, weeks before it had been suggested by Grant. 
 At the same time, under directions from the latter, he pre- 
 pared to v send Stoneman again into Virginia and upon the 
 left flank of Sherman's northward advance from Savannah. 
 
 This movement into Alabama and Georgia was the 
 greatest cavalry movement of the war on the Union side, 
 and it well deserves detailed attention. As yet, it has never 
 received the consideration in the histories of the war which 
 it so richly merits. For brilliancy of conception and execu- 
 tion, for solid fighting both in the field and against fortified 
 places, and for momentous results, no other cavalry opera-
 
 The Nashville Campaign. 579 
 
 tions approached these. Stoneman'e expedition, which Gen- 
 eral Thomas started from East Tennessee at the same time 
 that Wilson marched South, was both brilliant and exceed- 
 ingly effective. It swept through South-west Virginia 
 blocking Lee's communication with that region and dimin- 
 ishing his already scant supplies, and, turning into North 
 Carolina, it captured the prison-pen of Salisbury, and inter- 
 rupted Lee's railroads through that fertile region. It was 
 a large factor in the pinching situation which was fast forc- 
 ing the abandonment of Richmond. But Wilson's move- 
 ment was rather like that of an army than a cavalry raid. 
 It was in fact the campaign of a mounted army. It was, too, 
 although executed by General Wilson at his discretion as to 
 details, and, after the capture of Selma, as to movements 
 also, the closing campaign of General Thomas. It is there- 
 fore fitting that its history should be presented at length as 
 part of his towering and enduring monument.
 
 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The Cavalry Corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi in the Nash- 
 ville Campaign. 
 
 So far, the military operations in the West had been car- 
 ried on without the efficient assistance of cavalry. In October, 
 1864, the returns for the three departments constituting the 
 Military Division of the Mississippi showed a nominal strength 
 of nearly 80,000, cavalry and mounted infantry, only about 
 14,000 of whom were provided with horses and were with 
 the colors for duty. To make matters worse this large force 
 was scattered widely over the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia, in detachments of various 
 strength, without unity of organization, equipment, or com- 
 mand. Each army had its separate cavalry organization. The 
 Army of the Cumberland had three divisions which nomi- 
 nally constituted a corps, General "Washington L. Elliott, 
 chief^of cavalry, commanding. The Army of the Tennessee 
 had two divisions, General Benjamin H. Grierson, chief of 
 cavalry, commanding, and the Army of the Ohio one divis- 
 ion and several detached regiments, General George Stone- 
 man, chief of cavalry, commanding. Besides this every 
 army and corps commander had a cavalry escort, and a large 
 number of mounted orderlies, while the dismounted men 
 were on detached service or in the hospitals, widely scat- 
 tered throughout the Western and North-western States. As 
 a consequence this branch of the service had failed to make 
 itself properly felt, and while a spirit of independence and 
 self-reliance had been developed in both men and officers, it 
 had become quite evident to Thomas, Sherman, and Grant, 
 that the time had come for a radical change in organization 
 and administration. They believed that with a proper or- 
 ganization and a competent leader the Western cavalry would 
 attain a standard of excellence quite equal to that of the
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 581 
 
 Army of the Potomac, and that this would make it a most 
 potent factor in their final efforts to crush the power of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Of course the first thing to be done toward securing an 
 effective reorganization was to find an officer competent not 
 only to direct the work, but to lead the troops in the field, 
 and in response to a request from Sherman, General Grant 
 selected and ordered west for that purpose General James H. 
 Wilson, formerly of his staff, but then commandiugthe Third 
 Cavalry Division under Sheridan in the Valley of Virginia. 
 The next step was to give him full authority and the assistance 
 of a few brigade and division commanders from the Army of 
 the Potomac. 
 
 Although General Sherman expressed no great faith in 
 the views and plans which General Wilson submitted to him, 
 he cordially consented to their adoption and frankly declared 
 that he would not undertake to divide the honors which the 
 reorganized cavalry might gain for its new commander. Ac- 
 cordingly, on the 9th day of November, 1864, at Gaylesville, 
 Alabama, he issued the order constituting the entire cavalry 
 and mounted infantry of his three departments as the Cav- 
 alry Corps Military Division of the Mississippi, under the 
 command of Brevet Major-General Wilson. As this Order 
 put the entire cavalry force under the command of General 
 "Wilson, and took its administration from the control of the 
 army commanders, the chiefs of cavalry were at once re- 
 lieved, and all the details of cavalry administration were 
 centered at the head-quarters of the new corps. As far as 
 practicable, the old division and brigade organizations were 
 retained, but several of the older commanders were replaced 
 by younger men, among the latter was General Upton, a 
 distinguished graduate of "West Point, who had already be- 
 come famous as a commander of artillery and infantry in tfie 
 Army of the Potomac. The new corps consisted of seven 
 divisions, commanded respectively by Generals E. M. McCook, 
 Eli Long, Judson Kilpatrick, Emory Upton, Edward Hatch, 
 Richard W. Johnson, and Joseph F. Knipe. Croxton, 
 La Grange, Minty, Miller, Atkins, Murray, Alexander, 
 "Winslow, Coon, Stewart, Hammond, Harrison, and Palmer,
 
 582 Life of Thomas. 
 
 all old well tried soldiers, but young in years, commanded brig- 
 ades, while many distinguished colonels commanded regiments. 
 The horse artillery was limited to six guns to each division,- 
 and consisted of Beebe's 18th Indiana, Robinson's Chicago 
 Board of Trade, the 10th Wisconsin, Smith's, afterward Rod- 
 ney's, Battery I of the 4th U. S. Artillery, 1st Illinois Artil- ' 
 ery, and 14th Ohio Battery. 
 
 Kilpatrick's Third Division, having been selected to ac- 
 company General Sherman in his march to the sea, was fully 
 mounted by taking horses from other divisions, and strength- 
 ened by bringing forward the detached and extra duty men. 
 The second division, now wholly dismounted, was sent to 
 Louisville for remounts and the remainder of the widely 
 scattered corps was concentrated in Tennessee as rapidly as 
 possible, for the purpose of watching and resisting the ad- 
 vance of Hood. Hatch, Croxton, and Capron kept watch 
 and ward in the country south of Pulaski, while Winslow 
 was hurried from South-western Missouri to join Upton's 
 new division at Louisville. Every effort that a large and 
 efficient staff could make was made to collect and remount 
 the cavalry forces, and to bring them into the field in front 
 of Hood's advancing columns. But withal, when General 
 Wilson took command, in November, near Pulaski, Tennes- 
 see, he found only about six thousand well mounted and effi- 
 cient cavalry, with which to make head against a much 
 larger body under Forrest. Concentrating the available 
 parts of his force for the first time at Columbia, it was 
 handled henceforth as a unit, and notwithstanding it was 
 then falling back in front of Hood's advance, it grew 
 steadily in strength and efficiency till the time came for it 
 to assume the offensive with Thomas's hastily organized 
 army at the battle of Nashville. It participated actively in 
 all the battles and marches which took place during Hood's 
 invasion of Tennessee, giving timely and accurate informa- 
 tion of the enemy's movements, and especially of his cross- 
 ing Duck River and his march on Spring Hill and Frank- 
 lin. At the latter place, simultaneously with the terrible 
 assault made by the Confederate infantry on the fortified 
 position held by the infantry under Schofield, the cavalry en- 
 gaged and defeated Forrest's cavalry under Chalmers after
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 583 
 
 it had crossed Duck River above the town and was threaten- 
 ing to throw itself upon the line of Federal retreat. This 
 \vas the first fruit of the new organization and the policy of 
 concentration, and was worth all they had cost. It was also 
 the first time the cavalry had played an important part in 
 co-operation with the infantry in any important battle of the 
 West. A casual examination of the circumstances of that 
 battle, with a good map of the theater of operations, will 
 show that had the rebel cavalry succeeded in forcing its way 
 to Schofield's rear, as it could easily have done, but for the 
 interposition of Wilson's cavalry, it would have been difficult 
 to withdraw the infantry from its position in the works of 
 Franklin, and impossible to save its trains and artillery. This 
 was the view taken of it by Schofield on that important day, 
 and it is fully justified by all the subsequent developments. 
 
 As soon as Thomas had assembled all his forces at 
 Nashville, which was rendered necessary by the failure of the 
 16th Corps, under A. J. Smith, to arrive from Missouri in 
 time to permit the concentration to take place at any point 
 further south, every effort was made to render victory cer- 
 tain. The cavalry corps was permitted to cross to the north 
 side of the Cumberland River, and go into camp at Edgetield. 
 Detachments were of course sent at once to watch all the 
 possible crossings of the Cumberland River, both above and 
 below that place, but the main body was held massed, well 
 in hand, ready to strike in any direction. Thomas, himself 
 a selected cavalry officer of great distinction, and one of the 
 few generals in the army understanding the value of that 
 arm, gave his active support and assistance to General Wil- 
 son in all his efforts to collect and remount his dismounted 
 men, and to prepare them for the field. In the absence of a 
 proper supply of cavalry horses in the government corrals, 
 and in answer to his urgent request, the Secretary of War 
 authorized General Wilson to impress all the suitable horses 
 he could find in Kentucky and Tennessee. This was an un- 
 usual measure, but was employed with great vigor and effi- 
 ciency. Street railroads, stage lines, livery stables, farmers, 
 private owners, and even circuses, were despoiled of all their 
 horses suitable for cavalry service, and by the 10th of De-
 
 584 . Life of Thomas. 
 
 cember over 12,000 cavalry, 2,000 of which were absent in 
 pursuit of Lyon, were in the saddle, and less than 2,000 of 
 those who had reached Nashville were yet unprovided with 
 remounts. Secretary Stanton had railed against the delay, 
 and General Grant had ordered Thomas to march out and 
 light, whether his cavalry was mounted or not, but that 
 sturdy chieftain, confident that he was right in his deter- 
 mination, would not permit himself to be driven into action 
 so long as his preparations were incomplete and Hood was 
 willing to maintain his defensive attitude. 
 
 As the decisive part which the cavalry played in this 
 battle is seldom given due prominence its general features are 
 here presented, notwithstanding the necessity of repeating 
 some of the incidents of the engagement. 
 
 When positive orders, as heretofore related, came from 
 Grant, on the 10th of December, to march out and give bat- 
 tle, Thomas called his corps commanders together, not to 
 ask their advice, but to tell them about the orders, and of 
 the reply he had already made to them. That terrible winter 
 sleet storm had set in, and all the country was covered with a 
 glare of ice upon which it was impossible for either infantry 
 or cavalry to march or maneuver. To fight was, therefore,, 
 impossible, and when the commanders were assembled this 
 was the sentiment of all. Wilson, the junior, was the first 
 to speak. He declared that efficient operations were, under 
 the circumstances, out of the question, unless his horses were 
 rough-shod, and this was an operation which for 10,000 
 horses would require several days to carry out. He said 
 that victory could not be made complete, even under the 
 most favorable conditions, unless there should be perfect co- 
 operation between cavalry and infantry, and while he spoke 
 only for the mounted troops and understood perfectly that 
 the horses on the field where the battle must be fought would 
 be used merely for transporting the men rapidly to the front 
 assigned them for delivering their attack, he strenuously 
 urged that no movement should be begun till a favorable 
 change of the weather had set in. So confident was he of 
 the futility of an attack at that time, that he declared, if he 
 occupied Hood's works, with his cavalry dismounted and
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 585 
 
 each armed with a basket of brickbats, he would undertake 
 to repulse the whole of Thomas's infantry, if it should ad- 
 vance against his position over the ice-covered hillsides in 
 front of it. This remark caused a smile to pass over the 
 faces of Thomas and his companions, and seemed so reason- 
 able that it received general assent. General Thomas J. 
 Wood, commanding the Fourth Corps, also an old cavalry 
 officer, spoke next, and gave his unqualified approval to 
 the opinion expressed by "Wilson. General Steedman con- 
 curred. Indeed, there was no dissent expressed or even im- 
 plied from any one. The opinion of all, so far as it was ex- 
 pressed, was against fighting then or doing any thing else 
 to jeopard the victory which all seemed certain of gaining 
 when the weather became favorable. Thomas himself sat 
 impassive and silent during the discussion, which lasted b'ut 
 a few minutes, and when it was over, after expressing his 
 gratification, remarked that he had not called his generals 
 together for the purpose of getting their advice, but merely 
 to tell them of the orders he had received, and of his reply, 
 which had been already sent, and which he now knew that 
 they would approve. That reply, now known to all the 
 world, was, in substance, as has been seen, that the conditions 
 were not favorable, on account of the sleet, to rn advance, and 
 that he would not fight against his judgment, but that his 
 commission and command were at the disposal of the author- 
 ities above him. "When the meeting broke up General 
 Thomas asked General Wilson to remain after the others 
 had gone. Knowing that the latter was intimate with Grant 
 and the atmosphere of his head-quarters, where he had served 
 two years as a staff-officer, and had come recently from the 
 Army of the Potomac, Thomas said to him, in a tone of in- 
 tense earnestness : " Wilson, they treat me at Washington 
 and at Grant's head-quarters as though I were a boy ! They 
 do not seem to think that I have sense enough to plan a 
 campaign or fight a battle, but if they will only let me alone 
 a few days, I will show them that they are mistaken. I am 
 sure we shall whip Hood and destroy his army, if we go at 
 them under favorable instead of unfavorable conditions." A 
 pleasant and reassuring conversation followed, when the
 
 586 Life of Thomas. 
 
 two separated for the night, each to continue his preprations 
 for victory. On the 14th the weather h.ad moderated, and 
 on the evening of that day the various parts of the army 
 marched quietly to the position that had been assigned to it. 
 The action was begun three hours later on the 15th than was 
 expected, because of a dense fog, which hung over the city 
 and its surroundings, and rendered it impossible for the 
 generals to see the points upon which they were to direct 
 their preliminary movements. The delay was imperative, 
 and most probably prevented the defeat of the Confederates 
 on the first day of the battle. The plan of Thomas contem- 
 plated an advance on the Charlotte and Harding Turnpikes, 
 and after breaking through the enemy's line, a turning 
 movement of both infantry and cavalry against his left cen- 
 ter. Of course the cavalry had the extreme right, and was 
 compelled to swing on a much longer radius than the in- 
 fantry. The thaw, which had been followed by lowering 
 weather, had made the roads and fields extremely muddy, 
 and hence the swinging movement began later and was made 
 less rapidly than it was hoped it would be. Fortunately, 
 however, it was exceedingly successful, and gave to the vic- 
 torious cavalry, notwithstanding the shortness of the winter's 
 day, several redoubts on the left center of Hood's position, 
 and also a large number of guns and many prisoners by night- 
 fall of the first day. But what was better and of even greater 
 importance, was the fact that it placed the Federal cavalry 
 on the flank and rear of Hood's main line in a position from 
 which it was easy the next day to advance still further 
 and to make victory certain. The fortunate absence of For- 
 rest with a large part of his cavalry relieved the operations 
 of the Federal cavalry from the great peril it would have 
 otherwise incurred; but this favoring circumstances was 
 neither known nor heeded at that time by "Wilson or his sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 Beginning as soon as it was light they pushed their dis- 
 mounted troopers to, and across, the Granny White turn pike, 
 and over the heavily wooded slopes of the Brentwood hills, 
 steadily driving back the rebel skirmishers and pressing 
 closer and closer upon the rebel rear in spite of their stub-
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 587 
 
 born resistance. The great swinging movement was con- 
 tinued, slowly it is true, but irresistibly. Hatch, Croxton 
 and Hammond handled their dismounted men with skill and 
 persistency, while Alexander, Wilson's chief of staff, with 
 Johnson's division, was hurrying toward the Harpeth river 
 by the Harding pike, for the purpose of crossing it and 
 swinging into Franklin on the road by which the enemy 
 must retreat. By two o'clock it was apparent that the dis- 
 mounted'cavalry skirmishers had reached a position entirely 
 in the rear of Hood's left center, close to his works and 
 facing JSTashville. A courier with a dispatch from Hood to 
 Chalmers, directing the latter "for God's sake to drive the 
 yaukee cavalry from our left and rear or all is lost," had been 
 sent to Thomas along with the suggestion that the time had 
 come for the infantry to advance. Staff officer after staff 
 officer followed with similar messages, but as the infantry did 
 not move, Wilson, impatient at the delay, galloped himself 
 from behind the rebel lines and around their left flank, to the 
 position occupied by Thomas, with Schofielcl, near the right 
 of our infantry line. Just as he arrived and was explaining 
 the necessity for an immediate advance of the whole line, he 
 perceived and pointed out the dismounted cavalrymen 
 swarming into the rebel intrenchments from the rear, and 
 one of his batteries still farther to the rear, firing rapidly 
 into the rebel lines. At this inspiring sight, Thomas, like 
 Wellington at Waterloo, closed his glass, and turning to his 
 subordinate said, " let the whole line advance." It was then 
 about half past three o'clock, and the whole line from right 
 to left did advance, sweeping every thing before it. The 
 enemy, already harassed beyond endurance by Wilson's 
 dismounted cavalry, now entering their works from the rear, 
 fired wildly and then broke and fled in disorder, as rapidly 
 as possible across the broken country between the Granny 
 White and the Franklin turnpikes. The Union infantry en- 
 gaged in the final charge met with but little resistance and 
 sufiered no loss worth mentioning. Several charges had 
 been made by it at various times and places earlier in the day, 
 but they had all been bloodily repulsed ; now the whole line 
 was victorious, and the loss was insignificant. The reason
 
 588 Life of Thomas. 
 
 for this is not far to seek. The turning movement of Wil- 
 son's cavalry, enveloping and taking in reverse the rebel line 
 for a mile and a half as it did, rendered it impossible for 
 Hood to hold his position longer or to make an effective re- 
 sistance to the assault which Thomas ordered, and which put 
 an end to the battle. Had it not been for this turning move- 
 ment and the persistency with which it was pushed home, 
 Jlood could and doubtless would have held his intrenchments 
 stubbornly against the direct assaults of the infantry. The 
 simple truth is the great victory was gained by the proper 
 and efficient cooperation of cavalry, infantry and artillery, 
 all working in harmony to carry out the plans of Thomas. 
 It was the first and only occasion where the three arms of 
 service were properly employed, each according to its own 
 rules and requirements in a great battle, in the west, and the 
 only instance in the country except that of Sheridan's victory 
 over Early, at Winchester. The result amply vindicated 
 Thomas in deciding to wait for the remount of his cavalry, 
 as advised by its commander. The victory was as complete 
 as it could be made, in a short December day. The pursuit 
 was begun at once, but it must not be forgotten that the en- 
 tire cavalry force on the field had been dismounted and en- 
 gaged in the attack against the rear of Hood's intrench- 
 ments. There was absolutely no reserve, and the horses of 
 the entire force were from a half to three-quarters of a mile 
 in rear, and with all the officers could do, aided by the cheer- 
 ful alacrity of the men, over a half an hour was consumed in 
 getting to the horses, and mounting for the pursuit. There 
 was no warning of the rebel intention to break, except that 
 contained in Hood's despairing cry to Chalmers; they fought 
 on doggedly and steadily, every man in his place, till the in- 
 fantry advance began, and then seeing that further resistance 
 would be in vain, they broke all at once and hastened to the 
 rear as rapidly as possible. They had evidently held on till 
 the last minute, hoping for night, in which to escape from 
 capture or destruction. The break occurred at about four 
 o'clock. The dismounted cavalry picked up all the prison- 
 ers they could intercept, and after turning them over to the 
 infantry, hastened to find their horses and mount. The pur-
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 589 
 
 suit began by the first mounted troops at, or a few minutes 
 after half past four. The clouds hung low and were dense 
 and black. It had already begun to rain and this hastened 
 the oncoming of night. By five o'clock or a few minutes 
 later it was dark, and by six a cavalryman could scarcely see 
 his horse's ears, but there was no hesitation or delay. Using 
 the Granny White turnpike as a directrix, the gallant horse- 
 men of Hatch's division, pushed onward into the darkness, 
 picking up prisoners and ruthlessly charging every semblance 
 of a rear guard. Hammond and Croxton followed close 
 upon their heels, and no one in the entire cavalry force 
 thought of halting or going into camp, although the day 
 had been a hard and toilsome one with but little cessation 
 from marching and fighting. The pursuit had not been car- 
 ried more than two or three miles before the advanced 
 squadrons found a part of Chalmers' division of Forrest's 
 cavalry formed across the road behind a fence-rail "lay out." 
 It was too dark to discern any thing except the flash of the 
 rebel fire-arms, but Colonel George Spalding, commanding 
 the leading regiment, ordered it to follow him in a headlong 
 charge, which scattered the fence-rail barricade, and its de- 
 fenders, like chaff before the wind. A running fight took 
 place, charge and counter-charge following in quick succes- 
 sion, and in which the shout of the combatants, the clang 
 of sabers, and the rattle of pistols and rifles, made the 
 night one never to be forgotten. 
 
 During this demoniac scene, Colonel Spalding encoun- 
 tered the Confederate general, Rucker, and a conflict, as 
 between two knights of old, took place. They were men 
 of great personal strength and skill, and yet it was so 
 dark that both were at a disadvantage. Grappling at 
 each other blindly, as it were, each wrested the saber from 
 his antagonist's hand, and each renewed the fight with 
 the other's weapon. They were both well mounted and 
 both good horsemen, but the issue was a doubtful one 
 till a stray shot broke Rucker's sword arm, when he 
 was compelled to surrender. Of course, Rucker's sword 
 was Spalding's trophy, gallantly won. It remained in 
 his possession, at Monroe, Michigan, for a quarter of a cen-
 
 590 Life of Thomas. 
 
 tury, when it was returned to its original owner, now a suc- 
 cessful business man at Birmingham, Alabama. 
 
 General Wilson's staff captured three rebel guns shortly 
 afterward. The rebels continued their flight toward Frank- 
 lin in disorder, but the Union cavalry had also become so scat- 
 tered, and it was so dark that the pursuit was discontinued 
 at eleven o'clock. 
 
 It was renewed at dawn the next day, Hammond's bri- 
 gade in advance, and a sharp conflict took place at Hollow 
 Tree Gap, in which the semblance of rebel rear guard was 
 again scattered. All day long, and again into the night, the 
 pursuit was continued. The hospitals and many prisoners 
 were captured at Franklin, but the flying Confederates could 
 not be brought to bay long enough to permit a vital blow to 
 be struck. Many brilliant combats took place between the 
 rebel rear guard under Forrest and the pursuing cavalry. 
 Many prisoners and trophies of war fell into the hands of 
 the latter, but Hood finally succeeded in withdrawing the 
 broken and disheartened fragments of his army to the south 
 of the Tennessee River by a bridge at Muscle Shoals. It was 
 hoped that the gun-boats under Admiral Lee would reach 
 and destroy this; and, although they got within sight and 
 range of it, they did not succeed in breaking it. 
 
 A detachment of Union cavalry under General Palmer 
 succeeded in crossing the river at Decatur, and continued 
 the pursuit till it had captured the last of Hood's trains. 
 
 The question has been asked, why Thomas did not over- 
 take Hood, or cut off his retreat and compel him to sur- 
 render, as Grant did Lee, at Appomattox, a few months later. 
 The reply is simple. Thomas's operations were in mid- 
 winter, when the days were shortest, and the weather exe- 
 crable. It will be remembered, that before the battle at 
 Nashville, it had sleeted and frozen ; then it thawed ; on 
 the second day of the battle it began to rain, and that it 
 rained, snowed, froze, and thawed, alternately, from that day 
 on till Christmas. The roads, with the exception of the sin- 
 gle turnpike ending at Pulaski, on which Hood retreated, 
 were of mud, and became almost impassable quagmires. The 
 creeks and rivers were full and overflowing; the bridges were
 
 The Cavalry Corps in the Nashville Campaign. 591 
 
 swept away and destroyed ; the forests, fields, and swamps 
 were impassable, or so nearly so that cavalry could traverse 
 them with the greatest difficulty, and with only such speed 
 as easily enabled the rebels moving on the turnpike to out- 
 strip it. Besides, the country had been swept clean of corn, 
 forage, and provisions, and both the pursuing cavalry and in- 
 fantry were forced to draw their supplies largely from the 
 rear. The destroyed bridges had to be rebuilt and the roads 
 had to be corduroyed in many places before the trains could 
 go forward. So toilsome was the struggle of the pursuers to 
 get on, that over 6,000 cavalry horses were disabled, and 
 many of them had to be abandoned or destroyed, because 
 their legs were so frozen and diseased that their hoofs 
 dropped off. Notwithstanding all this, Hood's army, which 
 invaded Tennessee over 55,000 strong, was practically de- 
 stroyed. It lost nearly all its guns and field transportation, 
 besides about 15,000 killed and wounded, and 15,000 prison- 
 ers. From the best information that can be gathered, not to 
 exceed 10,000 men, counting both cavalry and infantry, re- 
 mained with the colors when they crossed the Tennessee 
 River, though a few thousand more gathered later at Tupelo. 
 It is difficult to see how the work of destruction could have 
 been more efficiently performed ; and when it is remembered 
 that the rebel army of Tennessee, as an army, never again ap- 
 peared in the field, it must be conceded that there is absolutely 
 no ground left upon which to found a censure or base a criti- 
 cism of Thomas or his subordinate commanders. They had 
 annihilated the army of veterans which had fought and 
 eluded Sherman for six months, and they had done it while 
 that erratic leader was engaged in a holiday march which led 
 him from Atlanta to the sea-coast, but which had also taken 
 him from the field of useful military operations almost as 
 completely as if he had marched toward the coast of Lake 
 Michigan. 
 
 It is also to be remembered, in contrasting Thomas's de- 
 feat and pursuit of Hood with Grant's defeat and pursuit of 
 Lee, that the latter took place in April, over muddy roads at 
 times, it is true, but in spring weather, and through a coun- 
 try not hitherto devastated by war. It should also be re-
 
 592 Life of Thomas. 
 
 membered that, generally speaking, Lee moved first north, 
 and then over an arc of a circle, trying to pass around Grant's 
 left, while the latter inarched on the chord. In military 
 phrase, Lee moved on an eccentric line, while Grant moved 
 on an interior line. In the other case, Hood had a run 
 straight away, first on a turnpike, two-thirds of the distance 
 to the Tennessee River, with all the circumstances in his 
 favor. In the first case, the chances were all in favor of 
 Grant; in the second, they -were all against Thomas.
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 593 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The Operations of the Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 
 
 After the campaign in Tennessee was closed, the cavalry 
 corps was assembled first at Huntsville, in Northern Alabama, 
 but owing to the impoverished condition of the surrounding 
 country and the difficulty of completing the supply of so 
 large a force by railroad, it was shortly removed to the north 
 bank of the Tennessee River, and placed in cantonments 
 extending about twelve miles from Gravelly Springs to Wat- 
 erloo Landing, to which place the Tennessee was navigable 
 all the year round for light draught steamboats. Supplies 
 were drawn in abundance by that means from the states 
 traversed by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The country 
 being covered with timber, broken here and there by fields, 
 and having a high, rolling surface and a gravelly soil, with 
 an abundance of beautiful springs and wholesome water, was 
 admirably adapted to a cavalry encampment at any time, 
 and especially so in winter. 
 
 Every effort was made to collect the entire cavalry corps 
 and to put it into efficient condition for a campaign at the 
 earliest possible day. During January and February six 
 divisions were assembled there, only one, that of Kilpatrick, 
 which had accompanied Sherman in his march to the sea 
 being absent, while a few detached regiments were serving 
 in East Tennessee, and along the river between Decatur and 
 Chattanooga, and could not be drawn in. 
 
 The campaign ending with the defeat of Hood had been 
 an exceedingly severe one on both men and horses. The 
 movements had been so constant and so rapid that the com- 
 mand not only ran down in strength and efficiency, but a 
 large percentage of it had been, as before stated, dismounted 
 and somewhat scattered. In addition, Long's division had 
 38
 
 594 Life of Thomas. 
 
 been sent to Louisville for a remount, Upton's, one brigade 
 in Missouri and one in West Tennessee, had not been as- 
 sembled, and La Grange's brigade of McCook's division had 
 been detached to drive Lyon and Crossland from Kentucky, 
 so that none of these organizations was at the battle of Nash- 
 ville or engaged in the pursuit of Hood. The pause in the 
 campaign, however, gave time to draw them all into the 
 cantonments on the Tennessee, and to weld them, with those 
 already there, into a homogeneous, coherent, and irresistible 
 body of horse. The men were hardy veterans, inured to 
 all the trials and vicissitudes of war. They needed but little 
 primary instruction. They understood perfectly how to 
 march and fight, and wanted merely the larger knowledge 
 and confidence which comes only with the formal organiza- 
 tion and discipline of the army corps. It can not be denied 
 that the endurance of the command had been pushed to its 
 ultimate limit, and though the spirits of ofiicers and men had 
 been raised by success in battle and pursuit, the orderly per- 
 formance of routine duty was for the most part out of the 
 question. Roll calls were frequently omitted, and many es- 
 sential military details and formalities had been suspended. 
 Notwithstanding all this, which was inevitable in the rush 
 and excitement of such a campaign as the one which had 
 just ended, General Grant and the authorities in "Washing- 
 ton seem to have entertained the idea that military opera- 
 tions were to be continued in the west without intermission, 
 or winter quarters, for rest and repair, for any one. Although 
 this rule was not applied to the thoroughly organized and 
 disciplined armies, and army corps of both infantry and 
 cavalry which were operating in Virginia, and especially 
 about Petersburg, and which had first choice and an abun- 
 dant supply of whatever the country could afford, it was 
 plainly intimated to General Thomas that there was to be no 
 rest for him or any part of the heterogeneous, widely scat- 
 tered, and badly supplied force which had just gained such a 
 signal victory over the public enemy. 
 
 Hitherto, the custom in the west had been to scatter 
 the cavalry, and to treat it as though neither man nor horses 
 ever required rest. Remounts were inadequately if not
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 595 
 
 grudgingly furnished, and the force was scattered in detach- 
 ments without purpose or power to inflict serious injury upon 
 the enemy, and this, doubtless, would have been the policy 
 now, but for the fact that Thomas and Wilson insisted upon 
 concentration, remounts, and repairs as essentials to success. 
 Fortunately for them and for the cavalry corps, a rainy 
 winter, together with unusual floods in the rivers and creeks, 
 made it impossible to continue operations, or to traverse the 
 impoverished region that separated them from the enemy's 
 inner strongholds and depots. Fortunately for the country 
 they improved the time which they were thus enabled to se- 
 cure in correcting the shortcomings and repairing the defi- 
 ciencies of the command. Wilson called to his assistance a 
 large and efficient staff, with a sufficient number of West 
 Point officers in it to give personal supervision to all the 
 details of organization. Carling, the chief quartermaster, 
 Beaumont, the adjutant-general, Andrews and Noyes, aids- 
 de-camps and inspectors, were officers of great merit and ex- 
 perience, and set a willing example to their associates in the 
 multifarious duties imposed upon them. The organization 
 and especially the size of this staff had arrested the attention 
 of Europe'an soldiers and writers. Colonel Chesney, the En- 
 glish military critic, realizing that cavalry requires more 
 looking after than any other arm of service, specially com- 
 mends it as the best cavalry staff ever organized, and as in 
 every way worthy of imitation. Through its agency and 
 the intelligent and cheerful co-operation of the division, 
 brigade, and regimental commanders, order soon reigned 
 supreme throughout the cantonments. The strictest dis- 
 cipline was every-where enforced. The regulations were 
 strictly obeyed, and all the wants of men and horses were 
 liberally supplied. Comfortable cabins and shelters were 
 constructed, and at every opportune moment the command 
 was exercised in drills, parades, and reviews. All deficiency 
 in clothing and equipments was supplied, and what is of 
 more importance, about 15,000 of the men were armed with 
 the Spencer magazine rifle, at that time altogether the best 
 military fire-arm in the world. 
 
 The assembly of so large a command of cavalry in one
 
 596 Life of Thomas. 
 
 place, soon demonstrated that whatever might be the merit 
 of the single rank formation for cavalry when dismounted,, 
 it would not do for regimental, brigade, and division forma- 
 tions while mounted, in a heavily wooded country. Inas- 
 much as a single trooper requires about one yard, it is easy 
 to see that a regiment of 500 men in line would without 
 intervals require 500 yards, while a division of 5,000 would 
 require over 5.000 yards. In view of the fact that the coun- 
 try was generally heavily timbered, with but few fields over 
 1,000 yards across, the single rank tactics were abolished 
 for all mounted movements, while it was retained for all dis- 
 mounted operations. As most of the fighting afterward 
 was done on foot, the change in tactics led to no confusion,. 
 but was productive of much good. 
 
 By the first week of March, 27,000 cavalrymen were- 
 assembled in the camps between Gravelly Springs and. 
 Waterloo. The absolute control which had been given to 
 the corps commander had enabled him to gather in this 
 enormous force from every quarter, and the knowledge that 
 the cavalry had at last secured an organization and a com- 
 mander to look after it, encouraged both men and ofiicers to 
 make extra exertions to return to their colors. With another 
 month of this work at least 10,000 more troopers could have 
 been brought forward and added to the effective force of the 
 corps. Men were abundant, but the great difficulty was to 
 find remounts for them. Of course every effort was made 
 to gather in and build up the horses which had been ex- 
 hausted and left behind. The Cavalry Bureau was urged to 
 put forth its utmost efforts to buy and send forward new 
 horses, and there is reason to believe that it did its best, but 
 withal, when the winter was so far broken, and the spring 
 rains so far at an end as to permit operations to begin, there 
 were horses enough for only 17,000 men, leaving 10,000 still 
 dismounted. Hatch's entire division, composed of veterans 
 of the highest quality from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri^ 
 and Tennessee, voluntarily gave up their horses and arms in 
 order that they might be used to eke out the supply of other 
 divisions. Arrangements were made to remount and re- 
 arm this splendid division, but there was no chance of get-
 
 The ^Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 597 
 
 ting this done in time to enable it to participate in the earlier 
 stages of the final campaign, but orders were left for it to 
 take the field and join the corps at the earliest possible day 
 wherever it might be. Meanwhile it was to continue in 
 <;arap at Chickasaw and keep watch and ward as best it 
 might over Northern Mississippi and West Tennessee. 
 
 While these arrangements for the complete organization 
 and equipment of an overwhelming cavalry force were in 
 progress, the anxiety of General Grant and the military au- 
 thorities at Washington for an advance movement, broke out 
 in the usual style of impatient orders to Thomas. It should 
 be remembered that the entire time consumed in these 
 preparations did not exceed nine weeks of midwinter, from 
 the first of January to the first of March, and that none of 
 the other national armies was engaged in active operations. 
 It is not to be denied that the Lieutenant-general, with all 
 his good sense, and the long years of costly experience he had 
 had, followed by the brilliant results of uniting the eastern 
 cavalry under Sheridan, had only partially learned the im- 
 portant lesson that cavalry, in order to produce great re- 
 sults, must not only be thoroughly organized and equipped, 
 but must operate in masses. The disposition to break up 
 and scatter this arm into detachments operating in widely 
 separated regions, was still irresistible, and accordingly, about 
 the middle of February, he ordered Thomas to send one 
 division from Wilson's corps to Canby, operating against 
 Mobile. Knipe's Seventh Division, fully 5,000 strong, and 
 completely horsed, was detached and sent by steamboat to 
 the Lo wer Mississippi. Of course its future operations pro- 
 duced but little effect in the closing operations of the war. 
 Shortly afterward Thomas was ordered to send Wilson, with 
 a force of " say 5,000 men to make a demonstration on 
 Tuscaloosa and Selma," but fortunately before putting this 
 order into effect, he took steamer and went to Waterloo for 
 a conference with the cavalry commander. Immediately 
 after his arrival a meeting took place on board the steamer, 
 in which Wilson represented that a " demonstration " would 
 be of no particular or lasting advantage, and that it would be 
 only a piece of military folly to make a demonstration with
 
 598 Life of Thomas. 
 
 a part of his force when he might go with the whole of it 
 and not only capture both Tuscaloosa and Selma, but march 
 whithersoever the exigencies of the campaign might demand, 
 sweeping every thing before him. Besides, it was known that 
 the hitherto invincible Forrest had been put in command of 
 all the Confederate cavalry in Alabama, Mississippi, and East- 
 ern Louisiana, and after the retreat of Middle Tennessee had 
 taken post at Corinth, where, in imitation of the lesson set 
 him by the Federal commander, he had devoted himself to 
 the concentration, discipline, and reorganization of his com- 
 mand. 
 
 The remnants of Hood's infantry, having been concen- 
 trated at Tupelo, in Northern Mississippi, Forrest left one 
 brigade of cavalry under Roddy in the vicinity of Tuscum- 
 bia, to watch the crossings of the Tennessee. He furloughed 
 Bell's and Rucker's brigades, of Tennessee, to go home for 
 horses and clothing, and gathered the rest of his command 
 at Okolona, in the midst of a country rich in forage. For- 
 rest was an active and resourceful commander, who did not 
 fail to patrol all the country of Northern Alabama, Missis- 
 sippi, and Tennessee, beyond the lines of Federal occupa- 
 tion. He not only gathered in all absentees that he could 
 find, but mercilessly conscripted all the able-bodied men that 
 were fit for service, while his picked and trusty scouts, 
 familiar with the country, were sent into the Federal lines 
 to gather all the information they could in reference to the 
 strength and future movements of the Federal forces. 
 
 General Wilson had not been idle, but had been quite as 
 actively engaged as his wily opponent in gathering informa- 
 tion. His spies and scouts had accurately located the Con- 
 federate forces, but not content with that, he had sent a 
 clever staff' officer with a flag of truce to Forrest, not only 
 to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, but incidentally to 
 gather what he could as to the frame of mind and plans of 
 that commander. Forrest was found at West Point, Missis- 
 sippi, and was quite outspoken as to his hopes. He was 
 curious to learn what he could of General Wilson, who had 
 so recently appeared in the West, and seemed with unusual 
 temerity about to bring on a conflict with him. On learning
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 599 
 
 that he was a West Point man, with some knowledge of tac- 
 tics and strategy, and had recently been commanding a divis- 
 ion of Sheridan's cavalry, Forrest reflectively declared that 
 he had not had the advantages of a military education, and 
 knew but little as to the art of war, but he always made it 
 his rule "to get there first with the most men." He added, 
 somewhat contemptuously, that in a cavalry fight he would 
 "give more for fifteen minutes of the bulge on his enemy 
 than for three days of tactics." During the conversation 
 with the Federal staff oflicer the Confederate chieftain said : 
 " Captain, tell your general that I have picked out a first-rate 
 place for a cavalry battle, and if he '11 come down here with 
 any force he pleases to select, I '11 meet him with the same 
 number, and agree to win the fight." 
 
 Of course the conclusion was, that Forrest, with the 
 three divisions composing the nucleus of his corps, com- 
 manded respectively by Chalmers, Buford, and Jackson, and 
 mustering about 10,000 men for duty, was ready for action 
 and on the alert, and that it would be fatal to send so small 
 a force as 5,000 men against any important point in the in- 
 terior of the confederacy within the reach of that enterprising 
 and able commander. All this was explained to Thomas, 
 with the result, that he adopted Wilson's idea, that the 
 whole available cavalry force should go, not merely to make 
 a demonstration, but with the purpose of capturing both Tus- 
 caloosa and Selma, destroying the furnaces, foundries, fac- 
 tories, and depots, and breaking up the Confederacy's inte- 
 rior lines of supply and communication. Heartily approving 
 the policy of concentration, and operating in mass, instead 
 of by widely scattered detachments, he fully recommended 
 Wilson's plan, and promised that he should start as soon as 
 the weather would permit. 
 
 Fortunately Grant also concurred, and gave the neces- 
 sary instructions, accompanied by the injunction that Wilson 
 should have all the latitude of an independent commander. 
 The result of this was to relieve him in a measure from di- 
 rect responsibility to both Sherman and Thomas, the former 
 of whom, as commander of the military division, had in- 
 structed Wilson, when Hood should be defeated and disposed
 
 600 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of, to gather all of the cavalry he could get his hands on and 
 mount; to sweep down through central Alabama and Geor- 
 gia, and join him, wherever he might be, in the Carolinas or 
 on the march for Virginia, to take part in the final struggle 
 between Grant and Lee. Thomas, it will be remembered, 
 had fallen heir to the geographical military division, and see- 
 ing that there was no great force to withstand him in any 
 part of the Mississippi Valley, gave ready consent to this 
 comprehensive suggestion, and in turning Wilson loose, per- 
 ceived that he might pass entirely beyond his control. He 
 knew, however, that the cavalry would be strong enough to 
 go where it pleased, and always able to take care of itself. 
 
 In anticipation of Wilson's movement, Forrest, on the 
 17th of March, directed Armstrong's and Stark's brigades, 
 of Chalmers' division, to take post at Pickensville, Alabama. 
 Wirt Adams's brigade, of the same division, was at the same 
 time moved from Jackson to Columbus, Mississippi, to cover 
 the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Two brigades of 
 Jackson's divisions were at West Point, Mississippi, while 
 Buford's division was in the vicinity of Montevallo, Alabama, 
 with Roddy's brigade well to the front, watching the roads 
 upon which the Federal cavalry might advance. Ross's 
 Texans had been left at Corinth to garrison that place, while 
 Armistead and Clanton's brigades were in the vicinity of Mo- 
 bile, watching the roads from the Lower Mississippi. 
 
 It will be seen that the Confederate leader, notwith- 
 standing his great experience and ability, had committed the 
 serious mistake of scattering his forces over a wide extent 
 of country, while the Federal commander had his entire 
 command, except the division with Sherman and the one 
 he had been compelled to send to Canby, well in hand. He 
 had three excellent divisions, all mounted, except 1,500 men, 
 and all armed with magazine rifles or carbines, ready to move 
 in any direction. 
 
 It is now quite evident that great uncertainty existed in 
 the mind of Lieutenant-General Taylor, the supreme com- 
 mander of the Confederate forces in that theater of opera- 
 tions, as well as in that of his cavalry leader, as to the plan 
 and importance of General Wilson's impending movement.
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 601 
 
 As late as March 27th, or five days after it had commenced, 
 Taylor notified Lee in Virginia that it was only a raid, and 
 that it was his intention to meet and defeat it before it could 
 advance far into the country. A movement from Pensacola 
 toward Pollard and Montgomery, begun by General Steele on 
 the 20th of March, was regarded as of greater importance. 
 In order to meet this danger, Taylor directed Buford, on the 
 23d of March, to move at once from Montevallo through 
 Selma to Greenville, and Forrest to send both Chalmers and 
 Jackson to the former place, with a view to a concentration 
 at the latter. It is worthy of note, however, that the execu- 
 tion of these orders had hardly begun when they were counter- 
 manded. On the 24th, in obedience to instructions received 
 by telegraph, Forrest ordered his forces from Mississippi, 
 with the evident design of concentrating them at Selma, and 
 this resolution was taken before it was definitely known that 
 that place was Wilson's objective. As will be seen, however, 
 it was taken too late to avert the disaster which was soon to 
 overtake the Confederate cause in that region. 
 
 General Wilson, having ferried his command across the 
 Tennessee, began his march from Chickasaw and Waterloo 
 through Northern Alabama on the 22d. His force consisted 
 of the First, Second, and Fourth Cavalry Divisions, aggre- 
 gating 12,500 men mounted and 1,500 dismounted, to act as 
 train escorts till they could be mounted from captured horses. 
 They were all veterans in excellent discipline and condition, 
 and full of enterprise and zeal. The division and brigade 
 commanders were mostly young men, but they had been in 
 the war from the beginning, had had plenty of experience, 
 and knew both how to inspire and command the confidence 
 necessary to success. It may be doubted if a better cavalry 
 command had ever been organized in any country in so 
 short a time, and yet it must always remain a matter of re- 
 gret that Hatch's splendid division could not have been sup- 
 plied with horses and arms in time to permit it to take part 
 in the campaign, and that Johnson's was compelled to remain 
 in Middle Tennessee. As it turned out, the marching force 
 was strong enough to perform the task assigned it with ex- 
 traordinary celerity and completeness, but that could not be
 
 602 Life of Thomas. 
 
 known beforehand, and besides, it is a good rule in war, to 
 go always with your entire force, for nothing is more certain 
 than that if you can not beat the enemy with all your troops 
 you can not fairly hope to do so with a part of them. Each 
 trooper was directed to carry five days' light rations, one pair 
 of extra horseshoes, and one hundred rounds of ammunition. 
 Five days' rations of hard bread and ten of sugar and salt 
 were taken on pack-animals. A light wagon-train carried 
 forty-five days' rations of coffee, twenty of sugar, fifteen 
 of salt, and eighty rounds of ammunition. This allowance 
 was calculated for a sixty days' campaign, including five 
 days' supply for the men and horses while traversing the 
 sterile region of Itforth Alabama. The expectation was that 
 the rich country beyond that region would be reached with- 
 out material delay, and would furnish the invading force 
 with everything else necessary for its subsistence. The sup- 
 ply train consisted of 250 wagons, which were sent back to 
 the Tennessee as fast as they were unloaded. There was be- 
 sides a small canvas pontoon train of 30 boats, hauled by 50 
 six-mule teams, escorted by a battalion of the 12th Missouri 
 Cavalry, Major Hubbard commanding. Clear and explicit 
 instructions had been given to the division commanders, 
 looking to the successive steps of the campaign as far as the 
 capture of Selma, 180 miles distant in a straight line, but 
 requiring an average march of nearly 250 miles for the 
 various divisions to reach it. In all matters of detail as to 
 marching and maneuvering the division commanders were 
 allowed the fullest latitude. The roads by which the columns 
 marched were divergent at the start, and at that time they 
 were every-where exceedingly muddy, owing to recent and 
 long-continued rains, which in time swelled the numerous 
 streams forming the head-waters of the Black Warrior and 
 Cahawba Rivers. The face of the country is hilly and bar- 
 ren covered with dense forests broken only here and there 
 by small farms and clearings. The creek valleys are narrow 
 and deep, and were often made almost impassable by the ab- 
 sence of bridges and the presence of quicksands and quagmires. 
 It is hard to imagine a more uninviting and difficult country
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 603 
 
 than this for military operations, or one affording less sub- 
 sistence and shelter for men and horses. 
 
 The initial movements were on divergent routes. Upton's 
 division on the left, marched through Russellville, Mt. Hope, 
 and Jasper, to Sander's Ferry on the west or Mulberry Fork 
 of the Black "Warrior River ; Long's in the center, by Chero- 
 kee Station ancl Frankfort to Russellville, and thence south 
 by the Tuscaloosa road to Upper Bear Creek, where it turned 
 to the east by Thorn Hill, crossing the forks of the Butta- 
 hatchie through Jasper to the Ford on the Mulberry Fork of 
 the Black W arrior River. McCook's division followed Long's 
 to Bear Creek, thence toward Tuscaloosa as far as Eldridge, 
 where it also turned eastward, by the road passing through 
 Jasper. Upton, with the advance division, crossed the Mul- 
 berry Fork at a dangerous and difficult ford on the 27th. 
 A rain-storm setting in on that day threatened to swell the 
 broad and rapid stream, so that it could not be forded by the 
 other two divisions, but with great skill and trouble the 
 hardy cavalrymen forced their way through the rising waters, 
 and united the whole corps on the farther bank. Had the 
 enemy been forehanded and ready he would have had, at that 
 place, an admirable opportunity, with a single division, to 
 frustrate the plans of his adversary. At Jasper, on the 
 same day, Wilson had the good fortune to learn from scouts, 
 who had been captured by his own patrols, that Armstrong's 
 brigade of Chalmers' division was marching on Tuscaloosa 
 by Bridgeville. Fearing that this indicated an intention on 
 the part of Forrest to throw himself across the route of the 
 Union advance, Wilson stripped his divisions to the lightest 
 possible inarching condition, leaving his wagons and their 
 escort between the forks of the Black Warrior, and taking 
 his pack train and artillery, he pushed on with the greatest 
 possible speed to the crossing of the Locust Fork of the 
 Black Warrior, thence through Elyton, at that time an in- 
 digent hamlet, but now the site of the flourishing city of 
 Birmingham, across the Cahawba River to^Montevallo, situ- 
 ated in the comparatively fertile country, on the direct road 
 to Selma. As it was raining hard Upton's division marched 
 all night to reach the Locust Fork before it should become
 
 604 Life of Thomas. 
 
 impassable, and after crossing the leading brigade, under Alex- 
 ander, continued its hurrying march to the Cahawba which it 
 also found rising rapidly and difficult to cross without a bridge. 
 The following bdgade,under "Winslow, marched down the river 
 a few miles to Hillsborough, where it came to a wooden lattice 
 railroad bridge, with a long trestle-work at each end, which 
 the enemy had failed to destroy. Winslow lost no time in 
 flooring this over with railroad ties and crossing to the other 
 side. The other divisions followed by the same means. The 
 passage of these three rising rivers, without the use of the 
 pontoon bridge, and without delay or opposition, was a nota- 
 ble performance, and brought the cavalry corps into the coal 
 and iron region of Alabama, abounding in corn and bacon, 
 and traversed from north to south by a straight road leading 
 to Selina. 
 
 Wilson's divisions were somewhat widely scattered in 
 the earlier days of the campaign, but it will be observed that 
 they were concentrated at Jasper, and thenceforward marched 
 in close supporting distance of each other. Could Forrest 
 have foreseen his opponent's line of operations and concen- 
 trated his force at any of the river crossings or even at Ely- 
 ton, he might have made an effective resistance, but it has 
 been shown that his command had been so widely distributed 
 that concentration in time was out of the question. The 
 Union commander, in order to cover his trains and attract the 
 attention and develop the movements of the Confederate cav- 
 alry, had detached Croxton's brigade of McCook's division 
 at Jasper, with orders to move directly on Tuscaloosa, and 
 after capturing that place to burn all the public stores, fac- 
 tories, and bridges, and then rejoin the column east of the 
 Cahawba, which it was hoped he could cross at Centerville 
 on the road to Selma. The first part of these orders was 
 successfully executed, but resulted in an encounter near 
 Trion with Jackson's division and Wirt Adams's brigade, 
 both marching rapidly toward the east for the purpose of 
 covering or throwing themselves into Selma. They inter- 
 posed, without intending or knowing it, between Croxton 
 and Centerville, and prevented his reaching there, although 
 McCook, with La Grange's brigade, leaving the main column
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 605 
 
 two days later at Randolph, had reached Centerville ahead 
 of the enemy, and after seizing the bridge, had pushed out and 
 attacked him sharply. The latter was, of course, greatly con- 
 fused by finding himself assailed, both front and rear, at or 
 about the same time, and might have been broken up and 
 scattered had McCook and La Grange succeeded in com- 
 municating with Croxton and managed to act in concert 
 with him against the enemy. It is to be observed, however, 
 that these two brigades had been detached on different days 
 and had marched on widely divergent and circuitous routes, 
 separated by the Cahawba River, and even if Croxton had 
 not been ignorant of La Grange's position it would have 
 been almost impossible to send couriers from one column to 
 the other, except by way of Centerville. That McCook and 
 La Grange, after capturing the bridge at that place, did not 
 succeed in communicating with Croxton was a sore disap- 
 pointment to Wilson. It led to Croxton's permanent de- 
 tachment, and compelled him to make a wide detour to the 
 west and south of Tuscaloosa, and then northward and east- 
 ward across Alabama into Georgia before rejoining the corps. 
 
 From Ely ton other detachments were sent off to destroy 
 the collieries and iron works of Central Alabama, while the 
 main body of the corps hurried forward to Montevallo where 
 it was believed that Chalmers and Buford would form a junc- 
 tion and make a stand for the purpose of checking the ad- 
 vance. 
 
 During this march an officer of the Fourth Iowa Cav- 
 alry, of Upton's division, arrested an Englishman named 
 Millington, a civil engineer, who had . been employed in 
 planning and constructing the fortifications of Selma, and 
 who made an accurate topographical sketch and description 
 of the works and their armament, and also of the country 
 surrounding the city, all of which were forwarded at once to 
 Wilson. The information thus obtained was of great value, 
 as it enabled the latter to arrange a definite plan of attack 
 before his command had invested the place. The advance, 
 having reached Montevallo with but slight resistance from 
 Buford's skirmishers, halted here over night and long enough 
 the next day to permit the following divisions to close up.
 
 606 / Life of Thomas. 
 
 Large quantities of corn and provisions were found in the 
 town, and after the wants of the command were supplied 
 the remainder was destroyed. It was a virgin country, rich 
 in every thing required by cavalry. Foraging was easily 
 conducted, and this relieved the commander of the corps 
 from all anxiety, except that which was inseparable from 
 the hazard of battle with his redoubtable antagonist. 
 
 About noon on the 31st of March, while the first and 
 second divisions were arriving in Montevallo, the enemy at- 
 tacked Upton's pickets, posted on the Selma road about a 
 mile south of the town, and this was a challenge which was 
 promptly accepted. Gen. Wilson,whohad arrived at the town, 
 and was conferring with Upton, ordered the latter to move out 
 at once. This was done with alacrity. Alexander's brigade, 
 Colonel Benteen, with the Tenth Missouri, leading, found 
 the enemy well posted on the crest of a hill beyond a creek 
 running athwart the road. With a rapid dash Benteen swept 
 over the bridge, and swinging into a thicket bordering the 
 creek, dismounted his men. Without any greater delay than 
 was necessary to deploy in single rank he advanced with a 
 yell against the enemy's position, which Rodney's guns were 
 already searching with a close and rapid fire. Noble, with 
 the Third Iowa, followed in a gallant charge with the saber, 
 and in an incredibly short time the enemy's line was over- 
 whelmed and in full retreat, with the loss of about 100 men, 
 and many arms and equipments. 
 
 While Alexander was mounting and re-arranging his 
 squadrons,Upton, who was, as was his habit, close up to the 
 front, directed Winslow's brigade to take the lead, and give 
 the enemy no time to rally or reform. A running fight of 
 six miles took place, in which Forrest, in person, exerted all 
 his powers to stay the retreat. He seized every advantage 
 .of ground and position, and tried countercharge and ambus- 
 cade, but in vain. Nothing could withstand the impetuosity 
 of the National horse, now thoroughly aroused by success. 
 The pursuit was continued as far as Randolph, and even 
 then was arrested only by darkness. It had been an event- 
 ful and encouraging day to the cavalry corps, only one divi- 
 sion of which had been engaged. It was evident, too, that
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 607 
 
 the Confederate leader had not yet succeeded in concentrat- 
 ing his forces, while the invading column was absolutely 
 closed up and ready for any emergency that might arise. 
 Selma was only forty-five miles away, supplies were abun- 
 dant, and a feeling of great confidence inspired both officers 
 and men. 
 
 Early the next morning, April 1st, the corps resumed its 
 operations, Upton taking the left hand or Maplesville road, 
 while Long, followed by La Grange, marched upon the main 
 road to Selma. As the two roads are nearly parallel, and 
 nowhere more than three miles apart, the columns were in close 
 supporting distance of each other. Early in the day Upton 
 captured a rebel courier with dispatches from Forrest, show- 
 ing that his forces were still scattered, and that Jackson was 
 coming from Tuscaloosa via Centerville. On this informa- 
 tion, which gave still greater confidence to "Wilson, he de- 
 tached McCook with La Grange's brigade to move rapidly 
 to Centerville, only about forty miles away, to seize and hold 
 the bridge over the Cahawba, and to throw himself boldly 
 upon Jackson. It was hoped that this movement would re- 
 sult in reuniting the two brigades of McCook's division, and 
 that together they would destroy Jackson's forces, or at least 
 keep them out of the fight for Selma. As already shown, 
 this hope was only partially realized although McCook ad- 
 vanced beyond the bridge and engaged the enemy at Scotts- 
 boro, from which place, after learning that Croxton had 
 withdrawn toward Ely ton, he fell back to Centerville, and 
 after crossing to the left bank of the river, burnt the bridge. 
 This compelled Jackson to continue his march down the 
 right bank of the Cahawba, and delayed him so much that 
 he reached the vicinity of Selma too late to make any effect- 
 ive diversion in its favor. McCook rejoined the corps on the 
 6th of April. The game was an exciting one and skillfully 
 played. Indeed, there is nothing finer in the history of war- 
 fare than the rapid advance and admirable disposition 
 of the national cavalry as it approached the objective at 
 which it was aiming. Both columns were confronted by 
 rebel detachments, which kept up a running fight all the way 
 back to Ebenezer Church, situated at the junction of the
 
 608 Life of Thomas. 
 
 two roads on which the Union columns were moving. At 
 this place Forrest had taken up an advantageous position, 
 and had disposed of all the force he could collect, including 
 cavalry, artillery, and a detachment of infantry from Selma. 
 It was evidently his intention to hold on here as long as 
 possible, and to make the best fight he could, so as to gain 
 time for the concentration of the rest of his force. He was, 
 besides, a resolute and resourceful commander of whom it 
 was well for even the most confident antagonist to beware. 
 
 Long's division was the first to approach the enemy's 
 position. Fortunately his leading regiment, the 17th Indiana 
 Mounted Infantry, was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Frank "White, a most gallant and capable officer, who, 
 without a moment's hesitation, rode straight at the rebel line, 
 followed by a battalion of two hundred sabers. The shock 
 was terrific, and resulted in breaking through the rebel lines, 
 crushing down the carriage of one gun, and scattering Rod- 
 dey's brigade. It was followed by a hand-to-hand conflict, 
 in which the greatest spirit was displayed by both sides. 
 "White and his men were completely surrounded, but nothing 
 daunted, they lay about them so fiercely as to convince the 
 Confederates that the whole Yankee force had fallen upon 
 them. White, in person, led his followers into the battery 
 at the junction of the roads, but its defenders were too many 
 for him. Rallying gallantly they gathered about him in 
 such numbers as to leave him no choice but to turn and 
 cut his way out, which he did with heavy loss. Captain 
 Taylor, a gallant boy of not over twenty years, commanding 
 one of White's companies, threw himself fiercely upon For- 
 rest, and assailed that chieftain with such a shower of saber 
 strokes, about his head and shoulders, as to force him in. a 
 running fight to turn in his seat and shoot his gallant 
 pursuer from his saddle. In speaking of it afterward, with 
 his arm in a sling, Forrest said : " If that boy had known 
 enough when he was pressing me so hard to give me the 
 point of the saber, instead of striking me with its edge, it 
 would have been all up with me." Before Long could de- 
 ploy the rest of his division to support "White, Alexander, 
 hearing the firing, pushed forward rapidly on the Maples-
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 609 
 
 ville road, till he struck the right of Forrest's line, which 
 he found extending from the mouth of Mulberry creek, 
 iK-tir the south hank of Bogler's creek, to the Selraa road. 
 The line occupied a wooded ridge for about a mile, its left 
 crossing the road and resting on a bend of the creek. 
 It was strengthened by a fence-rail barricade, and a slashing 
 of trees, with a battery of six guns at the forks of the road, 
 four sweeping the road on which Long's division was ad- 
 vancing, and two bearing upon that occupied by Upton. 
 The men were dismounted, with horses well to the rear, 
 and every thiug indicated that a desperate stand was to be 
 made. It was afterward ascertained that Forrest's force con- 
 sisted of three brigades of cavalry, commanded respectively 
 by Roddey, Crossland, and Dan Adams, besides the detach- 
 ment of infantry already mentioned. The Confederate his- 
 torians claim that Forrest's entire force did not exceed 1,500 
 men all told, but as the cavalry brigades could hardly have 
 mustered less than a thousand men each, it is probable that 
 his entire force on the field was between three and four 
 thousand men. But be this as it may, Alexander, finding 
 the enemy in strength, did not delay to ascertain his num- 
 bers, but dismounted two of his regiments, holding the third 
 in reserve, and advanced at once to the assault, on the left 
 of Long's dismounted line. The fight was a sharp and 
 desperate one, and Forrest held his men, as only he could, 
 tenaciously to their work. Upton, as soon as Winslow's 
 brigade made its appearance, threw two mounted regiments 
 forward on Alexander's left, which caught the rebel line in 
 the flank just as it was breaking to the rear. Nothing could 
 withstand the impetuosity of the Union cavalry. Mounted 
 and dismounted men, vieing with each other, swept irre- 
 sistibly onward, driving the enemy from the field in confusion. 
 Three guns and four hundred prisoners were the trophies of 
 victory. 
 
 The pursuit was continued, with another running fight, 
 
 till night put an end to it, less than twenty miles from 
 
 Selma. The corps had advanced twenty-five miles that day, 
 
 and fought one battle. It had got "the bulge" on Forrest, 
 
 39
 
 610 Life of Thomas. 
 
 and, without neglecting tactics, had kept him moving rapidly 
 from dawn till dark, except for the brief space during which 
 he held his position at Ebenezer Church. Withal, the day 
 was a tiresome one, and both men and officers were glad to 
 find rest and food at the bivouac fires, which were blazing by 
 nightfall in almost countless numbers about the little village 
 of Plantersville. 
 
 On Sunday, April 2d, the reveille was sounded before day- 
 break ; horses, arms, and equipments were looked to care- 
 fully, and all arrangements were made for a rapid movement 
 and a desperate fight: Long's division, in the advance, was on 
 the road before sunrise. It was followed by Upton at nine 
 o'clock. All servants and impediments were left behind. 
 Mile after mile was covered without a sign of the enemy, but 
 this was not surprising, for Forrest, having been beaten in 
 every encounter for two days, had wisely made up his mind 
 not to fight again till he could shelter himself and his com- 
 mand behind the fortifications of Selma, which it was now 
 their duty to defend at every cost. It was an important place 
 often thousand inhabitants, situated almost at the very heart 
 of the Confederacy. It contained a gun-foundry, an armory, 
 and several factories, engaged in turning out military muni- 
 tions for the Southern government, and had been covered by 
 a well constructed line of earthworks, sweeping in a semi- 
 circle from the Alabama River, above the town, to the river 
 below it. The Confederate authorities and the engineer, who 
 had assisted in laying them out, believed them to be impreg- 
 nable to any force of cavalry which could be brought against 
 them. 
 
 All day long the Union commander rode with the leading 
 division, conversing with Long and his brigade commanders 
 as to the plan of attack and the necessity for success in the 
 coming assault. The Englishman's sketch showed all the 
 necessary details as to the cross-section of the works and 
 their ditches, the palisades covering them, the open ground, 
 tfye small creeks, the woods, and the marsh outside. This 
 was shown to Minty and Miller, commanding brigades. 
 Nothing was concealed from those gallant soldiers. All the 
 difficulties, so far as known or foreseen, were pointed out and
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 611 
 
 considered. Even the results of failure and disaster were 
 discussed, till there was nothing further to be said, except 
 that the works had to be carried, no matter what the cost. 
 And they promised to carry them if it was possible for 
 soldiers to do it. 
 
 As the Federal column approached the city, Long's di- 
 vision was turned to the right and crossed over to Summer- 
 field road, while Upton continued his advance on the road 
 from Plantersville. Shortly after three o'clock the advanced 
 guards caught sight of the city from the plateau overlooking 
 it; and then the lines were developed, the assaulting regi- 
 .ments and their supports dismounted and told off, and the 
 led horses sent to the rear. Meanwhile, General Wilson and 
 his staff made a sufficient reconnoissance to verify the plan 
 they had of the town and its surroundings. Upton and 
 Long each did likewise in his own front. The sketch was 
 found to be surprisingly accurate; and in a short time all 
 tin- dispositions were completed for the attack. Long, hav- 
 ing posted one regiment, at the creek in his rear, to look out 
 for Jackson and protect the led horses and the pack-train, 
 formed the rest of his division dismounted across the Sum- 
 merfield road, with his right extended toward Mill Creek, 
 and his whole line about a half a mile outside of the rebel 
 works, and parallel with them. It was entirely concealed 
 from the enemy by a low intervening ridge. There were 
 only 1,550 men and officers in the fighting line; but they 
 were all veterans of the finest quality, and admirably armed 
 with Spencer carbines or rifles. The rest of his available 
 men were in close supporting distance. 
 
 Upton's division was halted about a mile from the works, 
 Winslow's brigade dismounted and deployed, Alexander's 
 mounted and ready to move in any direction at a minute's 
 notice. Robinson's battery was on the Summerfield road, 
 Rodney's on the main line, both within effective range. 
 
 It had been decided that the main assault should be 
 made by Long, while Upton, with 300 picked men, under 
 cover of growing trees and underbrush, should push out by 
 his left and penetrate the marsh of Bench Creek so as to 
 strike the enemy's works where they were weakest, and most
 
 612 Life of Thomas. 
 
 likely to be badly defended. The attack was not to be made 
 till every body had reached the ground assigned to him. The 
 signal for the advance was to be a single gun from Rodney's 
 battery, but this arrangement was interfered with and could 
 not be carried out. About five o'clock Chalmers' advance at- 
 tacked Long's regiment at the creek; another regiment was 
 promptly sent back to support it, but foreseeing that further 
 delay in the main attack might result in confusion, and possibly 
 in defeat, Long, without even taking time to refer the matter to 
 Wilson, ordered his line to advance. Led by the general, on 
 foot, assisted by two brigade and four regimental com- 
 manders, the gallant cavalrymen in a single line, and elbow 
 to elbow, rushed straight at the works in the face of a galling 
 fire of musketry and a storm of shot and shell from twenty 
 guns sweeping the ground over which they were advancing. 
 In less time than it takes to tell it, over three hundred of 
 Long's men were killed or wounded. Long himself was 
 stricken down, together with three out of the two brigade 
 commanders and four colonels, but nothing could daunt or 
 stop the rush of that gallant line. Pausing not to count the 
 cost, the gallant soldiers of the Union scaled the palisades, 
 scrambled through the ditch and over the parapet into the 
 works, where a desperate hand-to-hand fight soon gave it 
 the victory. 
 
 Wilson, hearing the roar of the enemy's guns, and the 
 rattle of musketry on Long's front, divined that an important 
 emergency had arisen, and rode at once toward that part of 
 the field. The truth was soon discovered, whereupon, orders 
 were sent to Upton to advance also to the charge, without wait- 
 ing for further orders or the agreed signal. Every body was at 
 his post, and like a hound straining at the leash, eager to dash 
 forward at the word. The whole plain was instantaneously 
 covered with a whirlwind of battle. Wilson himself, seeing 
 his orders had been obeyed, and his whole command either 
 advancing or supporting the advancing lines, dismounted 
 from the horse he had ridden all day, sprang into the saddle 
 of a splendid gray gelding, and turning to the officer com- 
 manding his escort the invincible Fourth Regular Cavalry 
 bade them follow at the charge! Straight down the 
 Plantersville highway, directly for the works, the general
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Georgia and Alabama. 613 
 
 and his gallant escort rode, every man, from highest to lowest, 
 with nerves strained to the utmost, and every man acting as 
 though his example was essential to the certainty of victory. 
 Long had swept over the works in his front like a tornado, 
 but Forrest and Armstrong rallied with their men behind 
 an inner but only partly constructed line, and continued 
 to fight like stags at bay. Upton, moving a few minutes 
 later, but with no less determination, carried the works in 
 his front, and this made it possible for the commanding 
 general, whose gallant gray had been knocked down, close 
 up to the works, by a rifle shot full in the chest, to rally the 
 shaken and disappointed squadrons of the Fourth regulars, 
 and lead them through the break left in the outer line of in- 
 trenchments for the accommodation of the highway travel. 
 The gallant commanders of the horse artiller} 7 , seeing the 
 tide of battle setting strongly toward the doomed city, lim- 
 bered up and galloped to the front, going into battery again 
 under the very muzzles of the enemy's guns, and pouring a 
 storm of canister and grape into them that added to the rout 
 and confusion. Forrest and his lieutenants did their best to 
 stem the tide of the victorious northeners, but further resist- 
 ance was futile. Darkness had already set in, but the vic- 
 tory was complete all along the line. The closing scene of 
 that action was one never to be forgotten by those who par- 
 ticipated in it. The clatter of sabers, the thunder of the 
 horses' feet, the booming of the guns, the flash and rattle of 
 pistols and carbines,, the blare of the trumpets sounding the 
 charge, and the " noise of the captains and the shouting," 
 were as music to the victors, though they sent a thrill of 
 horror through the hearts of the vanquished, and made a 
 pandemonium for the innocent women and children of that 
 devoted city. Seeing that all was over, Forrest, followed by 
 Armstrong and a few hundred devoted horsemen, under cover 
 of darkness, pushed through the streets to the Burnsville 
 road and made their escape to the open country. Buford 
 and Adams succeeded in finding a boat, which carried them 
 in safety to the south side of the Alabama River, while a 
 number of their men, in endeavoring to swim the great 
 stream, were swept away aud drowned. Taylor, .the depart-
 
 614 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ment commander, left early by a special train to the west- 
 ward, narrowly escaping capture. Although it was now dark, 
 it is not to be imagined that the victors drew rein or were idle 
 for a moment. Rapidly forming columns, they rode down 
 the streets of the town, sweeping every thing before them, 
 charging the retreating enemy as opportunity offered, taking 
 prisoners and horses, and picking up the spoils of war. An 
 hour or more passed before the streets were cleared, and 
 another before order was restored and the scattered cavalry- 
 men could be collected into camps and bivouacs. 
 
 A few stores were gutted by marauders and drunken 
 negroes, and here and there a fire broke out, but the mau- 
 rauders and negroes were soon cleared from the streets, and 
 the fires were suppressed by the provost guards. By mid- 
 night quiet and order were restored, but it was not till late 
 the next day that the full extent of the national victory was 
 understood. 
 
 Forrest, who had fled by the Burnsville road, turned 
 across the country to Plantersville, and thence west to Marion, 
 beyond the Cahawba, where he found several of his brigades 
 and the remainder of his artillery, all of which should have 
 reached Selma two days before. On his way during the night 
 he discovered a scouting party of the Fourth regulars, under 
 Lieutenant Royce, who had gone into camp after night a few 
 miles from Selma, and feeling that he was within the Union 
 lines, had failed to post sentinels. Forrest fell upon the 
 party with the ferocity of a wild Indian, and killed every 
 man of it. 
 
 The capture of Selma, surrounded by a continuous line 
 of earthworks well and fiercely defended by infantry, cavalry 
 and artillery, was one of the most notable feats ever accom- 
 plished by cavalry. The intrenchments contained twenty- 
 four bastions and a number of redans from eight to twelve 
 feet high and from ten to fifteen thick, with ditches of the 
 same width and depth, filled with water at places, and cov- 
 ered on the glacis with a stockade of pine logs firmly planted 
 in the ground. The curtains on that part of the line, fronted 
 by Mill and Bench creeks, were generally stockaded rifle 
 pits, but every foot of the four miles of intrenchment was
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Georgia and Alabama. 615 
 
 sufficiently strong to justify the belief that no cavalry could 
 break through it. But in order to ^make assurance doubly 
 sure, an interior line of four detached forts had been con- 
 structed from the Marion to the Plantersville road, about 
 three-quarters of a mile inside the outer line, and a curtain 
 had been laid out but not finished to make this line continu- 
 ous. At the time of the assault Forrest had inside the works 
 a force which, his biographer claims, did not exceed 3,100 
 men, but which really consisted of about 4,400 veteran cav- 
 alry, besides detachments of infantry and all the militia and 
 home guards that Forrest could force into the ranks. How 
 many there were of these there is no record to show, but 
 with a city of ten thousand inhabitants to draw from, and 
 the relentless Forrest insisting that every man, including the 
 preachers and lawyers, " should go into the works or into 
 the river," it is fair to assume that there could not have been 
 less than 2,500 of these, or enough to bring the fighting force 
 for the defense of the place quite up to 7,000 men. Forrest, 
 a few days afterward, admitted that Armstrong's brigade 
 alone, which filled the works assaulted by Long, had as 
 many men defending the parapets as were engaged in 
 attacking them.* 
 
 When it is remembered that, in addition to the men with 
 small arms in their hands, these works contained for their 
 defense 30 field guns and two 30-pounder Parrott's, so mounted 
 as to sweep all the approaches, and to concentrate their fire 
 on either, and that all of them were manned and engaged in 
 the effort to drive back the assaulting lines, it will be still 
 more difficult to understand why they did not succeed. 
 
 Wilson's entire force consisted of only two divisions 
 and two batteries, amounting in all to about 8,000 men pres- 
 ent for duty. His losses were 44 killed, 277 wounded, and 
 7 missing, a total of 328. 
 
 No list of Confederate killed and wounded was ever made, 
 but the aggregate could hardly have been so great as that of 
 the Union cavalry. 
 
 * For a fuller account of this campaign and the strength of the oppos- 
 ing forces, see " The Story of a Cavalry Regiment," by Wm. Forse Scott. 
 Putnam's, 1893.
 
 616 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 The trophies of victory were enormous. They included 
 2,700 prisoners with their officers and colors, about 2,000 
 horses, 32 guns in use, 26 field guns with carriages and cais- 
 sons in the arsenal, 44 siege guns in the foundry, 66,000 
 rounds of ammunition for artillery, and over 100,000 rounds 
 for small arms. But what was of still greater importance, 
 the capture of the city enabled the victors to destroy the 
 Selma arsenal, consisting of 44 buildings, covering 13 acres 
 of ground, and filled with machinery and munitions; the 
 the powder works and magazine, with 7 buildings con- 
 taining the necessary machinery, 14,000 pounds of powder, 
 and a large number of cartridges ; the niter works, with 18 
 buildings fully equipped and in operation ; 3 foundries and 
 their equipment for casting military and naval guns; 3 
 rolling mills in operation ; and a number of machine shops 
 and factories making tools and military equipments, besides 
 the central quartermaster and commissary depots and accu- 
 mulated supplies for a great department. As far as needed, 
 the captured horses were used to remount the train guards 
 who arrived with LaGrange's brigade on the 6th ; the re- 
 mainder were killed to prevent their being used again by the 
 enemy. 
 
 The blow was a fatal one to the Confederacy, for no 
 matter what might be the result of the contest in Virginia, 
 this city, with its government establishments and manu- 
 facturing plants, and the resources of the rich country sur- 
 rounding it, was essential to the further continuance of or- 
 ganized resistance. Fully realizing all this, the Federal 
 commander took every precaution to make the work of de- 
 struction complete. The machinery was broken and dis- 
 mantled, the round shot were rolled into the river, and all 
 the buildings and establishments, used or patronized by the 
 government, were burned, but this was done at night during 
 a heavy rain-storm, when it was comparatively easy to pre- 
 vent the fire from spreading to private property. 
 
 Immediately after the occupancy of the place, Upton 
 was sent out to scour the country, pick up prisoners and 
 property, and bring in the detachments and trains, all of 
 which was accomplished without further fighting or loss.
 
 The Cavalry Corps in Alabama and Georgia. 617 
 
 The first step in the campaign had been taken with rapidity 
 and success, but nothing had been heard from Grant, Sher- 
 man, Thomas, or Canby, and hence it was not known at 
 Selma that the Confederacy was tottering on the very verge 
 of ruin. General Wilson knew, of course, that the heart had 
 been torn out of the rebellion in Alabama, and that Canby 
 was simply wasting time in operating against Mobile instead 
 of marching boldly into the interior of the state. Feeling 
 assured that the cavalry corps could do no good by going 
 further south, aud that his true theater of operations lay to 
 the eastward, Wilson sent a trusty colored man, who volun- 
 teered for the service, in a skiff down the Alabama River, 
 with which he was well acquainted, to deliver a letter to 
 Canby, informing him of the fall of Selma, and advising him 
 to march inland at once. The letter also contained the in- 
 formation that Wilson would cross the river and move by 
 the way of Montgomery into Central Georgia. 
 
 Before starting on the new campaign, he felt that he 
 ought to know what had become of Croxton, and as he had 
 a large number of prisoners, he sought and obtained an in- 
 terview with Forrest under a flag of truce. The meeting 
 took place in the house of Colonel Matthews, at Cahawba, 
 near the mouth of the Cahawba River. Its ostensible object 
 was to arrange for an exchange or parol of prisoners, but 
 this was declined by Forrest, who had but few to release, and 
 felt that it would embarrass the Union commander to retain 
 and care for the large number in his possession. The con- 
 versation and exchange of courtesies was continued, how- 
 ever, till Wilson had drawn out the fact that Croxton and 
 his command were still at large and going where they 
 pleased in the country west of the Cahawba River. With 
 this information, all anxiety for Croxton's safety disappeared, 
 and Wilson galloped back to Selma, resolved to hasten his 
 preparations for continuing the campaign to the eastward, 
 with the purpose of breaking up the rest of the enemy's 
 depots and factories, destroying his interior line of railway 
 communication and supply, and ultimately taking part with 
 Sherman in North Carolina and Grant in Virginia, in the 
 destruction of the last armies of the Confederacy.
 
 618 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, West Point and Macon. 
 
 The first new objective point was Montgomery, the 
 capital of Alabama, and also the first capital of the Con- 
 federacy, but as it lay on the south or east side of the 
 Alabama River, it was necessary for the cavalry corps to 
 cross as the first step in its further operations. 
 
 Foreseeing this necessity, and finding that all the steam- 
 boats had been run beyond his reach, Wilson, on the first 
 day after his occupation of Selma, had set his staff officers 
 at the task of constructing a sufficient number of wooden 
 pontoons with the canvas boats in his bridge train, to span 
 the Alabama River, which was found to be nearly 900 feet 
 wide at the place selected for the crossing. By the use of 
 lumber found near by, and the help of colored carpenters, 
 the boats were finished and the bridge laid by the 9th of 
 April, immediately after which the command began crossing. 
 But as the river was rising rapidly, and carried by a large lot 
 of drift logs, it was with the greatest difficulty that the 
 bridge could be maintained in a condition of safety. It was 
 broken several times, but repaired each time without material 
 delay or loss of life. General Alexander, who was using a 
 small boat for the purpose of warding off the floating logs, 
 was overturned by an anchor line and nearly crushed to 
 death between a floating tree and the bow of one of the pon- 
 toons. Three of his ribs were broken, but he was rescued 
 without further injury, and although compelled to travel for 
 a few days in an ambulance, continued in command of his 
 brigade. General Winslow, who had been made military 
 governor of Selma, and had superintended the destruction 
 of the public property with marked ability, brought off the 
 rear guard, and destroyed the wooden boats after the last
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 619 
 
 mau had crossed. The passage of this great river was an 
 important aud interesting event, and characterized by many 
 romantic incidents and adventures. After the movement 
 began it was kept up constantly except while the bridge was 
 broken. During the last night the scene was lighted by the 
 blaze of burning frame buildings, which had been selected 
 and set on fire for that purpose. 
 
 The corps, after a week's comparative rest and repair, 
 had now successfully commenced its new campaign, but after 
 deducting Croxton's brigade, and the total of killed and 
 wounded, its effective strength was reduced to about 11,000 
 men, all of whom were now mounted and in better condition 
 for service than ever before. Harness, equipments, and shoe- 
 ing had been carefully looked after; wagons, pontoon train, 
 and pack-animals had been reduced to the lowest limit, and 
 all camp-followers had been rigidly cut off. A large number 
 of able-bodied negroes had come in, but they were enlisted 
 and formed into regiments, one for each division, under the 
 command of white officers detailed for that purpose. This 
 force was armed with captured rebel guns, and after a few 
 days was mounted on horses and mules impressed from the 
 country. It subsisted by foraging and made itself exceed- 
 ingly useful by helping with the heavy work of the command 
 during the closing days of the campaign. These regiments 
 were afterward regularly mustered into the Army of the 
 United States as infantry, and served in Georgia with credit 
 for several months after the war was at an end. 
 
 The facility with which this organization was made, and 
 the readiness with which it, as well as the mounted men of 
 the train guard were mounted, make it certain that Hatch's 
 splendid division, over 5,000 strong, left on the Tennessee, 
 for lack of horses, might also have accompanied the cavalry 
 army, and remounted itself with horses captured or impressed 
 from the enemy. The lesson is of value, and should not 
 be lost sight of by military men dealing with such subjects 
 hereafter. 
 
 The line of march from Selma lay to the eastward 
 through the planting villages of Benton Church Hill and 
 Lowndesborough, and brought the corps with but slight re-
 
 620 Life of Thomas. 
 
 sistance from Clanton's brigade, of Buford's division, to 
 Montgomery, on the 12th of April. The authorities of that 
 city wisely decided that no effective defense of it could be 
 made although an elaborate series of earthworks had been 
 built around it. They therefore resolved to take time by 
 the forelock and place themselves and the town, without de- 
 lay, under the protection of General Wilson. For this pur- 
 pose the mayor, accompanied by some of the principal citi- 
 zens, rode out beyond the fortifications and surrendered their 
 charge, without conditions. This was an unexpected event, 
 and somewhat of a disappointment to both officers and men 
 of the Union cavalry, for they had approached the city ex- 
 pecting, and prepared for a battle, but there was nothing to 
 be done but accept the surrender, and show the good people 
 of the first Confederate capital how perfect was the discipline 
 of the invading army. 
 
 In perfect order the column closed in platoon front, with 
 every man in his place, flags unfurled, guidons flying, sabers 
 and spurs jingling, bands playing, and the bugles sounding, 
 that war-begrimed host of Union troopers traversed the city, 
 setting the brave but misguided people of that capital an 
 example of discipline far more impressive than a bloody vic- 
 tory would have been. The Union flag had been promptly 
 hoisted over the State House, and as regiment after regiment 
 filed beneath its starry folds, they made the welkin ring with 
 their exultant hurrahs. It was a great day for the country 
 and for the cavalry corps, the men of which seemed instinct- 
 ively to understand that the city, having surrendered without 
 a fight, belonged to the commanding general, and they were 
 bound in honor to respect his truce. Not a marauder showed 
 himself; not a house was entered, except by invitation; and 
 not a word was uttered to offend the most refined suscepti- 
 bilities. The flag had made its appearance in the first Con- 
 federate capital, not only as the emblem of national unity, but 
 as the emblem of order and justice under the law. While the 
 larger part of the corps camped in the vicinity of the city, 
 and Wilson made his head-quarters there for the night, La 
 Grange pushed on to the eastward, skirmishing with Buford. 
 During the afternoon he drove that leader to Mt. Meigs, ten
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 621 
 
 miles from Columbus, and ended the day's work by capturing 
 his battle-Hag and thirty of his men. 
 
 Detachments were sent out from Montgomery to destroy 
 all the vessels and military supplies within reach. Five steam- 
 boats, laden with subsistence stores, were captured and burned, 
 and five field-guns, with their carriages, were taken and dis- 
 abled for further service. At both Selma and Montgomery 
 the Confederate leaders had destroyed immense quantities 
 of cotton, under the mistaken notion that the cavalry corps 
 was hunting for it, and would take possession of it for the 
 Federal government. So long as the insensate policy of 
 burning the only surplus product of the South which could 
 be sold for gold was persisted in by the rebels, General Wil- 
 son ordered his subordinate commanders to help them in it 
 with all their might. And so it came about that what the 
 rebels missed or spared the national soldiery sought out and 
 gave to the torch. The consequence was, that many million 
 dollars' worth of this valuable staple went up in smoke at 
 Columbus, as well as at Montgomery and Selma, and many 
 planters, merchants, and warehousemen of Central Alabama 
 and Georgia were impoverished even after they must have 
 known that peace was near at hand. It should be stated in 
 fairness, however, that all the loss did not fall upon private 
 individuals, for such was not the case. It was well known 
 
 that much of the cotton had been taken by the Confederate 
 
 I 
 
 government and sold to foreigners in exchange for supplies, 
 which were to be brought in by blockade runners, whose re- 
 turn cargoes were to be the cotton in question. Until it was 
 known beyond question that the war was ended, and the re- 
 volted regions brought under sway of the national government, 
 to leave this cotton behind would have been like leaving its 
 value in gold for the purpose of carrying on the rebellion. 
 
 While at Montgomery, Wilson got the first intimation 
 that Lee had evacuated Richmond, but there was no sugges- 
 tion that he had met with disaster or surrendered at Appo- 
 mattox Court House. If any citizen knew it, he studiously 
 concealed it from the Union commander, and left him to 
 learn it as beat he might farther east. The evacuation of 
 Richmond was of itself no insignificant event, for, although
 
 622 Life of Thomas. 
 
 it might presage an immediate collapse of the Confederate 
 cause, it might also indicate a voluntary movement for the 
 union of Lee's and Johnston's armies, and a combined and 
 overwhelming attack against Grant or Sherman. Until it 
 was certainly known what had actually occurred in Virginia, 
 and what the occurrence portended, it served only to arouse 
 the anxiety and quicken the movements of the cavalry com- 
 mander. Tarrying in Montgomery, only one night, he pushed 
 eastward on the 13th, with celerity, his next great object be- 
 ing to cross the Chattahoochee at Columbus on the direct 
 road to Macon, if possible, or at West Point, farther to the 
 north, if he must. It was known that the river was spanned 
 by bridges at each of those places, and it was hoped that a bold 
 and rapid movement of the main column on the former, with 
 a strong demonstration on the latter, would prove successful 
 at one or both of those places. 
 
 Explaining his views to Upton, Wilson ordered that 
 most capable soldier to take the advance with his own di- 
 vision, and to detach McCook with LaGrange's brigade for 
 the side operation. Inasmuch as Long had been compelled 
 by the force of circumstances, to forestall Upton in the at- 
 tack on Selma, and had not only been severely wounded, but 
 had done most of the fighting and gained most of the glory, 
 it was now fairly Upton's turn to have the lead, and to man- 
 age the details of the movement. The sequel shows that he 
 was most worthy of the honor conferred upon him. One of 
 the most brilliant and distinguished commanders of artillery 
 and infantry in the Army of the Potomac, Upton had already 
 shown himself to be one of the best division commanders of 
 cavalry in the west, and was now about to crown his career 
 with his most brilliant performance. 
 
 The march of the two columns lay directly east by the 
 same route until they reached Tuskegee, at which point La- 
 Grange left the Columbus road and pushed northeastward 
 toward West Point, near which place he arrived on the 16th. 
 He found a strong bridgehead, the key-point of which was a 
 square redoubt called Fort Tyler, surrounded by a deep ditch 
 and mounting three guns, one of which was a 32-pounder 
 siege piece. The garrison consisted, as was afterward as-
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus^ etc. 623 
 
 t 
 
 certained, of 265 men, all the redoubt would hold, com- 
 manded by General Robert C. Tyler and Colonel James C. 
 Fannin, both officers of extraordinary gallantry. Quickly 
 informing himself of the situation and surroundings of the 
 town, LaG range led the attack, in person, through the street 
 directly to the bridge, dashed across it, leaping a chasm in 
 the flooring, closely followed by a battalion of his command, 
 beat out the fire which had already been started with lighted 
 turpentine balls, and then wheeled about, recrossed the bridge, 
 and gave his attention to the capture of the fort. His dis- 
 mounted men had already driven the rebel skirmishers back 
 to the redoubt, and discovered the ditch by which it was sur- 
 rounded. In an incredibly short time a detachment, without 
 arms, detailed for that purpose, had prepared the materials 
 consisting of the panels of a picket fence with the necessary 
 flooring boards, for three bridges, and a section of parrot rifles 
 had been put in position to sweep the parapet of the fort. 
 Under the fire of these guns which quickly dismounted or 
 silenced those in the redoubt, the way was soon cleared for 
 the bridging parties, and the assaulting detachments to charge 
 upon the enemy's position. The bridges were successfully 
 laid, but the first assault was repulsed. A number of the 
 men fell back, while others leapt into the ditch for shelter. 
 Encouraged by this result, the enemy threw lighted shells 
 over the parapet on to the heads of those below. A part of 
 these shells were extinguished by water in the ditch, a part 
 were stamped out, and a part were hurled back into fort still 
 blazing. 
 
 A second and more determined attack followed at once, 
 and this time resulted in complete victory. The bridges 
 which had been laid before were reached and safely crossed, 
 the parapet was scaled, and the gallant soldiers of Wisconsin, 
 led by Lieutenant-Colonel Harden, raced with those of In- 
 diana, under Captain Hill, to see who should have the honor 
 of hauling down the rebel flag. The garrison fought des- 
 perately, and yielded only when overpowered. General Tyler, 
 three of his officers, and 14 enlisted men were killed, 28 were 
 wounded, and 219 surrendered. La Grange had one horse 
 killed under him, and lost 7 men killed, and 29 wounded.
 
 624 Life of Thomas. 
 
 He captured 3 guns, 500 stands of small arms, 19 locomotive 
 engines, and 240 cars loaded with army supplies, all of which 
 were disabled or burned. Several large buildings, also filled 
 with army supplies, were taken possession of and devoted to 
 the same fate. 
 
 But what was of still greater importance, La Grange had 
 secured a safe passage into Central Georgia, not only for his 
 own column, but for the whole corps should it become nec- 
 essary for the latter to use it. His operations, although 
 he had throughout the advantage of a superior force, were 
 conducted with rare skill and judgment, and showed him 
 to be a commander of extraordinary ability and promise. 
 The main column continued its movement with rapidity on 
 the direct road for Columbus, making forty and fifty miles 
 per day. Small parties of Confederate cavalry were encoun- 
 tered from time to time, but they were too light to seriously 
 delay the progress of the invading force. 
 
 At Tuskegee, a beautiful country town, the seat of a 
 number of schools for girls, the corps added to its renown 
 by passing through the principal street as it passed through 
 Montgomery, with every man in his place, guidons unfurled, 
 and the bauds playing patriotic airs. General Wilson's horse 
 was decked out with garlands, and so far as external polite- 
 ness could show it, the national troopers were regarded as 
 friends rather than enemies. 
 
 At this place the provost-marshal of the corps discovered 
 a printing office from which a disloyal local newspaper had 
 been published, and of course he ordered it to be destroyed^ 
 but it so turned out that a lady claimed to be its owner, and 
 loudly protested against this arbitrary measure. The officer, 
 although firm, was not altogether without sympathy for the 
 sincere distress of the lady, who begged for a respite till she 
 could see the commanding general. As this was readily al- 
 lowed she was soon making decided inroads into his sympa- 
 thies. "When she declared that all the school books and 
 Bibles used in that region had also been printed on her press, 
 and pleaded, with a flood of tears, that it might be spared to 
 continue that good work, her case was almost won. The 
 general suggested that if she would enter into contract
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 625 
 
 never to print another number of a rebel newspaper, and to 
 devote her press henceforth and forever to the printing of 
 Bibles and school books, and would give a bond signed by 
 the mayor and two good citizens for the faithful perform- 
 ance of her undertaking, he would suspend his order in- 
 definitely. To this she eagerly assented. ' The agreement 
 was at once drawn up, and duly signed, sealed, and deliv- 
 ered, and the good woman went home rejoicing. The 
 general and his staff mounted and rode away, feeling that 
 they were leaving behind at least one loyal woman, but 
 whether she faithfully kept her contract is unknown. The 
 official records of the War of the Rebellion, so far as pub- 
 lished, throw no light upon that question. This episode, 
 however, did not for a moment suspend the movement of 
 the column toward its goal on the Chattahoochee. The 
 remnant of Buford's division did its best, by skirmish and 
 ambuscade, to retard the swift march of the advanced guard, 
 but with no other effect than to keep it on the alert and 
 full of determination. General Wilson and his staff twice 
 passed within a few yards of a party of bushwhackers, one 
 of whom took aim and tried to pull his trigger, but failed 
 for lack of courage or because his conscience would not 
 permit him, like an assassin from a place of concealment, to 
 shoot even a general. 
 
 By night of March 16th the advance of the column had 
 got within a half-day's inarch of Columbus, when it went 
 into camp. Before moving out the next morning men and 
 horses were carefully inspected, and every precaution was 
 taken to prepare them for the battle which was expected to 
 take place. Columbus was known to be a city of from ten 
 to twelve thousand people, containing work-shops, gun, 
 sword, and pistol factories, clothing and equipment depots, 
 mills, and supplies of every kind in greater numbers and 
 abundance than any other city left in the Confederacy. It 
 was the most remote city in the South, both from the borders 
 of the loyal states and from the sea-coast, and the idea of its 
 capture seems never to have been seriously considered by 
 the Confederate leaders. It had even been suggested in the 
 40
 
 626 Life of Thomas. 
 
 Confederate Congress to make it the capital instead of Rich- 
 mond, and a navy-yard had been located there. It was 
 known that the three bridges spanning the river at that 
 place had been covered by a strong ttte-de-pont, in which 
 many guns had been mounted, but nothing definite could be 
 learned as to the trace or profile of the intrenchments. No 
 itinerant engineer was found, as in the case of Selma, to 
 give the invaders a plan, or a statement of the guns in posi- 
 tion. They were forced to depend upon their own observa- 
 tion, and were confronted by a necessity for victory even 
 greater, if possible, than at the Alabama River. But Upton, 
 although young in years, was an old and experienced hand 
 at finding the weak spots and assaulting fortifications. He 
 had the advance, and was urged to reach the ground, and 
 after a careful reconnoissance, to make his plan of attack as 
 soon as possible, so that the troops might be brought directly 
 to the positions from which they were to move to the assault. 
 He arrived in sight of Girard, a small suburb situated on 
 the right or western bank of the river, with Columbus itself 
 on the left or eastern bank, at about one o'clock, and found 
 such a formidable and extended line of fortifications as to 
 demand a most careful examination, which he at once began. 
 Girard appeared to be about equally divided by Mill Creek 
 flowing from the north-west and entering the Chattahoochie 
 opposite the center of the city. It also became known that 
 two wooden bridges, about 1,000 feet long, and a half a mile 
 apart, connected the suburb with the city, and that a railroad 
 bridge was situated about a quarter of a mile above the up- 
 per wagon bridge. The lower bridge was used by the city 
 road to Eufaula and Crawford, and the middle one by the 
 road to Summerville, Opelika, and Salem, while the upper 
 bridge belonged to the Columbus and Western Railroad. 
 The country on which the line of works was traced, as well 
 as that which surrounds it, is hilly, and at that time was 
 generally covered with a thick growth of scrub-oak. The 
 hills are from one hundred to four hundred feet higher than 
 the river and separated by deep, narrow ravines, which made 
 the country an exceedingly difficult one to define or under- 
 stand. By the time Upton had mastered it and got ready
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 627 
 
 to submit his plan, the whole command had arrived, but it 
 was getting quite late, and Upton was disconcerted by the 
 fear that he could not place the troops in time for them to 
 make their attack before dark. After reporting fully lo 
 General "Wilson, he therefore advised that the troops should 
 be moved to the positions selected for them, and then sleep 
 on their arms till early dawn. Fully approving Upton's plan 
 of attack, the proposed disposition of the troops and their 
 formation, all of which were found to be admirable, and also 
 concurring in the suggestion that the various brigades should 
 be sent at once to the positions selected for them, Wilson de- 
 cided that, instead of delaying till morning the attack should 
 be made at 9 o'clock that night. He pointed out that the 
 troops were all veterans under perfect discipline, with full 
 confidence in their officers and accustomed to night fighting, 
 and hence could be depended upon to carry out their instruc- 
 tions at one time as well as another. Upton, realizing the 
 force of these suggestions, almost before they were completed, 
 promptly set about carrying them into eft'ect. 
 
 Alexander's brigade, having skirmished sharply with the 
 enemy for ten miles, was the first to catch sight of Girard. 
 Upton, seeing that the situation was a complicated one, di- 
 rected him to make a dash at the lower bridge in the hope 
 of carrying it before the rebels could rally to its defense. 
 Fortunately, the intrenchments were not continuous in front 
 of it, and although the road was swept by the fire of four 
 redoubts and two batteries, the gallant column led by Eggles- 
 ton with the First Ohio, had reached the very heart of the 
 village, within full sight of the bridge, not a quarter of a 
 mile away, when it was seen to burst into flames. It had 
 been prepared with cotton and turpentine, and the enemy, 
 now thoroughly alarmed, saw that nothing but fire could 
 save it from the invaders. Egglestou, discovering that it 
 was also swept by three guns, and that his column was under 
 a cross-fire from six more, wheeled about and took position 
 with the rest of the brigade, on the Sand Fort road, out of 
 range. 
 
 Winslow's brigade, after the plan of attack had been 
 decided upon, was directed across the country out of sight of
 
 t>28 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the enemy, to a position on the Summerville or Opelika road, 
 upon which the main attack was to be made. It was fully 
 dark by the time he got there and completed his dispositions. 
 Coble's Third Iowa Cavalry, numbering three hundred fight- 
 ing men, was dismounted and formed in single line, about 
 one man to the yard, with its left resting on the broad Sum- 
 raerville road, which shone white and dusty in the uncertain 
 light of the cloudy April evening. This made it a good di- 
 rectrix, and as it necessarily led directly to the middle bridge, 
 every man was expected to keep it in sight or to guide himself 
 by it. Benteen's Tenth Missouri Cavalry, three hundred and 
 and fifty strong, not counting an absent detachment, was 
 formed in column, mounted on the road a few hundred yards 
 in rear of Noble, ready to charge when the latter had cap- 
 tured the works in his front. The Fourth Iowa was halted 
 in column in the rear of Noble's right. It was now between 
 8 and 9 o'clock, and not a gun had been fired to show that 
 the presence of this brigade, or the point from which its at- 
 tack would fall, had been discovered. Wilson, Upton, and 
 Winslow were all on the ground and had just completed 
 their final conference and given the final orders, when firing 
 began in front. The charge was ordered, Upton and "Wins- 
 low riding along the road encouraging the dismounted men, 
 led by Noble in person. The line sprang forward with alac- 
 rity, breaking its way through a slashing or rough abattis, 
 and carrying two detached redoubts and a line of rifle pits 
 of greater length than its own front. The astonished rebels 
 opened fire all along their intrenchments, the main and con- 
 tinuous line of which lay inside and to the left of the works 
 already captured. The whole landscape was lit up with the 
 flashing of the enemy's guns, 27 of which were firing into 
 the darkness without aim, and without any other effect than 
 to guide their assailants to their goal. Wilson ordered Ben- 
 teen to advance as soon as the cheering of Nobte's men made 
 it known that they were driving the enemy, and Upton, with- 
 out knowing that he had not yet penetrated the main line of 
 defense it was too dark to see any thing but the road and 
 the flash of the artillery and musketry ordered Benteen to 
 halt his column and send forward two companies to follow
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 629 
 
 the road to the bridge and secure it at all hazards. This 
 work fell, of course, to the leading two companies, the senior 
 captain of which was Captain McGlasson. Without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation he advanced into the darkness, but had not 
 gone far before he encountered the inner line and real de- 
 fense of the town and bridges, yet he did not draw rein, but 
 with coolness and self-possession, pushed on through the 
 opening at which the road entered, just as though he be- 
 longed to the defending rather than to the attacking force. 
 Once through, he galloped to the bridge, sending a party 
 over it to sieze the battery ready to sweep it, but he was soon 
 surrounded by the enemy who had discovered that he was 
 not of their side, and were crowding fiercely upon him. 
 Fearing that he and his whole command would be captured, 
 he wheeled about and made his way back through the hos- 
 tile lines to his point of departure. Meanwhile, the fact had 
 become apparent that the main line had not been carried and 
 that there was more work to be done. The Third Iowa was 
 again hurried forward, wheeling to the left, facing what was 
 shortly afterward discovered to be the strongest part of the 
 intrenchments. It was covered by a slashing, a marshy 
 brook, and a deep ravine grown up with trees and scrub, 
 through which Noble again led his gallant dismounted 
 cavalrymen, with much confusion and hard work, to 
 victory. In the very midst of the racket Winslow dis- 
 mounted two battalions of the Fourth Iowa and brought 
 them hurriedly into action on the right of Noble. The whole 
 line, now under the lead of Upton, Winslow, and Noble, 
 now rushed through the trees and slashings, across the ra- 
 vine, up the slope, and over the intrenchments, carrying 
 every thing before them and scattering their dismayed oppo- 
 nents like chaff. No time was wasted on taking prisoners, 
 but the victors swept along the intrenchments, capturing guns 
 and clearing the way to the bridge. The third battalion of 
 the Fourth Iowa, mounted, was led rapidly by Winslow to 
 and across the bridge, which was crowded at the same time 
 by fleeing rebels. The night was so dark that it was im- 
 possible to distinguish friend from foe, and to this circum- 
 stance is due the fact that the list of casualties was not
 
 630 Life of Thomas. 
 
 much greater. The lattice work of the bridge was stuffed 
 with raw cotton, saturated with turpentine, and an effort 
 was made by a confederate to light it with a match, but 
 he was stricken down by the swing of a clubbed carbine 
 in the hands of a Union soldier. Two guns were stationed 
 at the east end, and so pointed as to sweep the bridge, 
 'but the men in charge of them were restrained from firing 
 by the fear of killing more of their friends than their foes. 
 A fierce fight for the possession of these guns resulted, but 
 it was soon decided in favor of the Iowa men, and this 
 ended the struggle for both Girard and Columbus. The 
 victory was complete. The towns were soon in full posses- 
 sion of the conquerors, and order was promptly restored. 
 
 Of course it was not known till the next day, who had 
 conducted the defense of the place, nor what the trophies of 
 victory were. It was then ascertained that Major-General 
 Howell Cobb, assisted by General Tombs and Colonels Van- 
 Zinken and Lamar, with about 3,000 men of the " Georgia 
 Line," had occupied the works and done what they could to 
 defend them. 
 
 The enemy's loss amounted to about 1,500 killed, 
 wounded and captured, while the national loss, thanks to the 
 broken ground and the night fighting, was, altogether, only 
 24 killed and wounded. Amongst the trophies were 27 
 guns, mounted and used in the defense, 36 in the arsenal, 10 
 battle-flags, the ram Jackson, mounting 6 guns and about 
 ready to go to sea, and a large number of small arms 
 and military stores. General "Winslow, who was placed in 
 command of the city, with Colonel Noble as Provost Mar- 
 shal, destroyed 7 warehouses containing 125,000 bales of 
 cotton, 15 locomotives, 250 cars, 2 bridges across the 
 Chattahoochee, one navy yard and armory, 2 rolling mills, 
 1 arsenal and niter works, 2 powder magazines, 2 iron 
 works, 3 foundries, 10 mills and factories, making cotton 
 cloth, paper, swords, guns, pistols, shoes, wagons and other 
 military and naval supplies, besides 100,000 rounds of ar- 
 tillery ammunition, and great quantities of machinery, ac- 
 couterments, equipments and army clothing, of which no 
 account was taken.
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 631 
 
 This was the last great manufacturing center of the Con- 
 federacy, arid the destruction of its establishments, both 
 public and private, was made so complete, that no matter 
 when the war might end, they could contribute nothing to its 
 continuance. In fact, the war was then over, but General 
 Wilson and his command, cut off' as they were, from all 
 communication with the North, and hearing nothing from 
 Confederate sources, were still in ignorance of the great 
 events which had happened in Virginia. Pausing, there- 
 fore, only long enough to make good the work of destruction, 
 "Wilson pushed forward Long's division, now commanded by 
 Minty, in the direction of Macon. It should be noted that 
 this division had not arrived in time to take any part in the 
 capture of Girard and Columbus, and was, therefore, fresh 
 and eager to take the advance. About half of Cobb's force 
 had crossed the river by the railroad bridge, and made haste 
 to escape into the open country. Being mostly militia the 
 men scattered as rapidly as they could to their homes, and 
 left the roads to the Double bridges on the Flint River but 
 slightly guarded. Minty's advance, riding all night, cap- 
 tured them the next day, and thus overcame the last im- 
 portant obstacle on the road to Macon, toward which he was 
 moving at the rate of fifty miles a day. 
 
 Two notable incidents, presaging the absolute collapse of 
 the Confederacy quite as much as the destruction of its phys- 
 ical resources, occurred at Columbus. The first was the 
 death of Colonel C. A. L. Lamar, the las 4 commander of the 
 American slave ship, the " "Wanderer," formerly the famous 
 sailing yacht " America," who was struck by a stray shot in 
 the street fight near the bridge, and instantly killed. The 
 second was the capture and absolute destruction of the 
 noted secession newspaper, known successively as the "Mem- 
 phis-Appeal," the " Memphis-Grenada Appeal," and the 
 u Memphis-Grenada-Jackson Appeal." It had been pub- 
 lished in and removed by turn from each of the places men- 
 tioned in its title, besides Atlanta and Montgomery, but had 
 now brought up in Columbus, though the owner had not 
 had time to set up his presses and issue his peripatetic paper. 
 The proprietor, a fierce rebel named Dill, was arrested and
 
 632 Life of Thomas. 
 
 put under a strenuous oath, and bond prepared by Colonel 
 Noble. If it did not secure the government against every 
 imaginable form of disloyalty that one man could commit it 
 was because the ingenuity of the provost-marshal was at 
 fault. 
 
 The new objective points of the cavalry corps were first 
 Macon, and then Augusta, on the direct road to the Carolinas. 
 La Grange, moving from West Point, and the main column 
 on the road by the Double bridges, through Thomaston, met 
 with no serious opposition. They easily and rapidly brushed 
 all show of resistance out of the way, preventing the destruc- 
 tion of every bridge, and arriving at Macon only a few hours 
 apart. Minty's advance, under Colonel Frank White, en- 
 countered about 300 men at the Tobesofkee bridge fifteen 
 miles out from Macon. They had set fire to the bridge and 
 taken up a position beyond it for the purpose of disputing 
 its passage, but this was a futile display of resolution. 
 White galloped to the bridge, but seeing that the planking 
 had been torn up, he dismounted his men, and clambering 
 over the stringers in a few minutes put the enemy again to 
 flight. The road to Macon was now clear, and in less than 
 two hours more the gallant White had closed in upon it and 
 received its surrender. 
 
 During the day he had been met by a flag of truce borne 
 by a young Confederate brigadier-general named Robertson, 
 carrying a letter from General Beauregard to the commander 
 of the Union forces, advancing on that road. It announced 
 that a truce had been entered into by Generals Sherman and 
 Johnston, " for the purpose of final settlement," and declared 
 that " the contending forces were to occupy their present po- 
 sition," till 48 hours' notice had been given in the event of 
 the resumption of hostilities. White was, however, a man 
 resources, accustomed to meeting the emergencies of war. 
 Observing that the letter was addressed to the " commander 
 of the forces," and that he had nothing to do with " truces," 
 but had been ordered to go into Macon, he pulled out his 
 watch, remarking that he would send the letter back to 
 General Wilson and give the flag of truce just five minutes 
 to get out of the way. At the end of the time he moved
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. 633 
 
 forward again, and continued his march till Macon was in 
 his possession. 
 
 General Wilson, who was eight or ten miles in rear, con- 
 tinued his march with his whole command, stopping nowhere 
 till he reached the city hall, long after dark. White had 
 collected here Generals Cobb, Mackall, Mercer, and Gustavus 
 W. Smith, and conducted General Wilson into their presence. 
 General Cobb received him with hauteur and reserve, and 
 demanded that he and his command should be released, and 
 that General Wilson should retire with his forces to the 
 point at which the flag of truce had met his advanced guard. 
 This demand was promptly denied on the broad and sufficient 
 ground that the Confederate authorities were not a proper 
 channel of communication from Sherman to any other com- 
 mander, and certainly not to one who was acting far beyond his 
 reach, and in a measure independent of him. Besides, General 
 Wilson declared that he had lost no time in going to the 
 head of his column, which he found in Macon, and which he 
 could not on any condition order to retire from .that place. 
 White had done only his duty in going there, and in not per- 
 mitting himself to be stopped by any one. The argument 
 was ended by a distinct refusal on the part of Wilson to 
 acknowledge the existence of an armistice, to retire from the 
 town, or to release his prisoners. Before announcing this 
 conclusion, however, he remarked to General Cobb that he 
 could imagine but one adequate justification for the existence 
 of the truce, which he did not deny, and thereupon asked 
 if Lee and his army had surrendered. Cobb declined to an- 
 swer, adding, he was not there to give information, but to 
 ask for his rights under the truce. Turning to General 
 Smith, Wilson asked him the same question. With some 
 hesitation, bat frankly and fairly, he replied that Lee had sur- 
 rendered, and that peace would probably follow soon. 
 Whereupon the Union commander announced his purpose to 
 remain for the present in Macon, and that while he could not 
 admit the application of the truce to him or his command, 
 he should conduct his future operations on the principle that 
 every man killed in action thereafter was a man murdered. 
 He then authorized Cobb and his officers to retire to their
 
 634 Life of Thomas. 
 
 quarters on parol, it being understood that they were to re- 
 port at the city hall at 9 o'clock the next morning. 
 
 The information obtained at this interview, held April 
 20th, between 10 and 11 P. M., was the first definite knowl- 
 edge which Wilson and his victorious troopers had received 
 of what had happened in Virginia. No details were given, 
 but the fact of the surrender became known, and it was 
 justly considered as ending the great rebellion. There might 
 be delays , the details might be difficult to manage, and the 
 individual commanders would have delicate duties to per- 
 form, but the end was at hand. 
 
 The surrender of Macon included four generals, 3,500 
 men, 5 colors, 60 guns, 3,000 stands of small arms, and large 
 quantities of military stores and supplies, besides many 
 millions of Confederate paper money. Communication was 
 opened the next day, by the courtesy of the Confederate au- 
 thorities, over the Southern telegraph lines, between Wilson 
 and Sherman. The news of the truce was confirmed, and 
 Wilson was instructed to desist from farther acts of war 
 until he should hear that hostilities had been renewed. A 
 few days later, orders were sent through Thomas from the 
 Secretary of War to Wilson, directing him to disregard Sher- 
 man's armistice, and to resume operations against the public 
 enemy, but before this order reached Wilson it had become 
 known to him that Johnson had surrendered all the Confed- 
 erate forces east of the Mississippi, and that peace was abso- 
 lutely assured. Under the authority allowed him by General 
 Grant as an independent commander, Wilson had governed 
 himself rather by his knowledge of the facts than by orders 
 from Sherman. He had moved his troops where he pleased, 
 had taken possession of the railroads and telegraph lines, 
 and while preserving order, and encouraging the people and 
 disbanded soldiers to return to their homes and resume their 
 peaceful pursuits, he had made arrangements for the arrest 
 of the fleeing confederate chieftains, and the disbandment of 
 all armed bodies of men within the limits of his command, 
 no matter in what direction they might be moving. 
 
 On the 1st of May, Croxton's brigade of McCook's divi- 
 sion rejoined the corps. He had been detached since the 27th
 
 The Capture of Montgomery, Columbus, etc. G35 
 
 of March, operating in the enemy's country without commu- 
 nication with the corps or with any other Union authority. 
 He had lost 172 men, mostly captured, but had taken 300 
 prisoners and 4 guns, and had captured Tuscaloosa, and de- 
 stroyed the military academy there. He had destroyed 5 
 iron works, 3 factories, 2 niter works, and large quantities of 
 supplies. His line of march was a hundred miles north of 
 that pursued by the corps, but as directly toward Macon as 
 if he had known that it was the chief objective of the cam- 
 paign. On the way through Alabama, be encountered a 
 force of several hundred rebels under Hill at Blue Mountain, 
 near Talladega. This affair, which was sharp and bloody, 
 took place on the 23d of April, and constituted the last real 
 engagement of the war. Croxton had marched, between the 
 27th of March and the 1st of May, something over 650 miles, 
 had crossed many rivers by fording and swimming, and had 
 brought hia command into camp in excellent condition.
 
 636 Life of Thomas. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The Capture of Jefferson Davis The Summary of Wilson's Operations and 
 their Influence upon the Collapse of Rebellion. 
 
 Immediately after reaching Macon and learning that 
 Richmond had certainly fallen and Lee had surrendered, 
 Wilson knew that Jefferson Davis, his cabinet, and perhaps 
 some of his leading generals, would endeavor to escape from 
 the country. He, therefore, set quietly about seeking in- 
 formation as to their movements, and fortunately was not long 
 in learning that they had lately been seen in North Carolina, 
 making their way southward. Upton's division was sent to 
 Atlanta, from which place detachments were sent out, north- 
 ward and eastward. McCook was sent with a part of his 
 division to Southern Georgia and Florida. Meanwhile, 
 Davis had been joined by a party of Union soldiers disguised 
 as rebels, and commanded by Lieutenant George O. Yoeman 
 of Ohio, of Alexander's staff, a most gallant and capable 
 officer, who sent couriers to the nearest telegraph station 
 every night with information as to the movements of the 
 Confederate chief and his party. By these means he was 
 reported as having crossed the Savannah river and gone to 
 Washington, Georgia, and also shortly afterward as having 
 disappeared from there traveling still southward, as it was 
 supposed. 
 
 On this information, coupled with the supposition that 
 the country was so well watched toward Dalton and along 
 the lines of the Chattahoochee, the Flint, and the Ocmulgee 
 rivers, to all of which strong detachments had been sent, 
 with instructions to guard all the crossings, that it would be 
 impossible for any considerable party to pass through the state 
 athwart these rivers to the westward, either north or south 
 of Atlanta, Wilson jconcluded that Davis and his party must 
 continue their flight southward toward the Florida coast.
 
 The Capture of Jefferson Davis. 637 
 
 On arriving at this conclusion he directed La Grange to de- 
 tach his best regiment and order it to march eastward to 
 Dublin on the Oconee River, leaving detachments at all the 
 cross-roads and patrolling the country in all directions. The 
 First Wisconsin Cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Harden, was selected for this service, and made a 
 forced march by night and day till it had reached Oconee, 
 where, after several hours' delay, he got information which 
 led him to believe that he had struck the trail he was in search 
 of. Meanwhile, Wilson had received additional intelligence 
 which increased his confidence that Davis was certainly trying 
 to work his way southward through the piney country between 
 Macon and the Atlantic coast, and in order to increase the 
 chance of capturing him, he directed Minty, the next day, to 
 select his best regiment and send it down the right or south 
 bank of the Altamaha, with orders to destroy the ferry-boats 
 and leave detachments at all important points. Minty de- 
 tached the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Pritchard commanding, and ordered him to continue the 
 march till he intersected the route of the fugitives, after 
 which he was to follow them till they were taken. Both 
 Harden and Pritchard were officers of the highest quality, 
 and both were notified that Davis was attended by a party, 
 variously estimated at from ten to fifty men, who would 
 doubtless make a desperate fight before surrendering. 
 
 As before stated, Harden was the first to strike the 
 trail at Dublin. After a futile effort to learn any thing con- 
 cerning the party he was seeking for from the white people 
 of the town, the ferryman's negro assistant came to him after 
 night and gave him such details of a party of men, women, 
 and children, which had crossed the river at that place that 
 morning, with wagons and ambulances, as to leave him but 
 little room to doubt that it was the party he was searching 
 for. The negro man had specially noticed one fine-looking 
 elderly gentleman, riding a fine bay horse, whom he had 
 heard spoken to as "Mr. Davis," and as "the President." 
 This persdn had not crossed the river with the party, but 
 had gone down the river several miles further to another 
 ferry, and after crossing, had rejoined the party in the edge
 
 638 Life of Thomas. 
 
 of the village, after which they had all gone south together. 
 Harden, on hearing this, was certain that Davis could not 
 be many miles away, although he had more than 12 hours 
 the start. Hastily selecting 75 of his best men and stoutest 
 horses, the grim old cavalryman took the road which had 
 been pointed out to him, and had not gone many miles be- 
 fore he discovered fresh wagon tracks and the broad trail of 
 a considerable party. It soon began raining, the creeks be- 
 came swollen, and the swamps filled with water, but the 
 hardy cavalrymen pushed on day and night, sometimes losing 
 the trail but speedily finding it again, and all the time be- 
 coming more and more certain that they should not fail to 
 overtake the party. They reached the Ocmulgee River at 
 Bowen's ferry on the 10th of April and learned there that they 
 were only a few hours behind the fugitives, but in hurrying his 
 command across the river the ferry-boat sprung a leak, which 
 made it necessary to reduce the number that the rickety 
 scow could take each trip, so that some time was lost before 
 the command got on its way again. 
 
 Meanwhile, the head of Pritchard's column, marching 
 down the south side of the river, had reached this point, and 
 the two commanders met and exchanged information and 
 compared orders. Harden told Pritchard that he was sure 
 he was on the trail and should continue the pursuit as long 
 as he could see the road that night. Pritchard agreed that 
 that was right, adding that he would continue his march down 
 the river, and be guided by such additional information as 
 he might obtain. 
 
 The two officers parted, each joining his command and 
 pushing on rapidly as he had indicated. Harden traveled 
 through the dark shadows of the pine forest through which 
 his road lay, till he could no longer see the trail. Feeling 
 assured that the party could not be more than three or four 
 miles further on, he went into bivouac to feed his horses and 
 allow his weary men to make coffee and catch a few hours' 
 rest. 
 
 Pritchard had gone only a few miles further down the 
 river when he got information also, it is said, of a negro 
 ferryman, that it was certainly Davis and his party which
 
 The Capture of Jefferson Dnris. 
 
 had crossed that afternoon at Bovvcn's ferry, and that it, wan 
 his duty to join in the pursuit. Accordingly, lie Holoeted 1M) 
 men, and arriving at Abbeville, a few miles further down 
 the river, took the road from that place to IrwiiiHville, 
 where it is joined by the one on which Harden wan march- 
 ing. The rest of the regiment continued its march down 
 the river, while Pritchard and his detachment hurried along 
 the forest road to the little country town twenty mil<;n away. 
 It was after midnight when they arrived, and an hour or 
 more later before they had located the camp of the fugi- 
 tives, and found a negro guide to show them to it. It, VVUK 
 pitched about two miles north of the hamlet near a little 
 stream in the edge of the pine forest. Pritchard m* 
 his command noiselessly to the immediate neighborhood '>f 
 it, and thereafter detaching a party of twenty-five m<-n 
 with orders to make their way through the wood to the 
 road on the north side of the little camp, waited till dawn 
 should bring enough light to enable him to make hiH <Je 
 scent upon it certain. 
 
 Harden, after resting and sleeping a few hour*, called 
 his men early to the saddle, and took the road again, hoping 
 to strike the camp before its occupant* were astir. He hud 
 gone only a few miles when his advanced guard was h; 
 by a challenge and a shot from the road ahead. Hastily dis- 
 mounting a part of his men and sending a part through the 
 woods, he charged boldly upon the party in his front. A 
 sharp skirmish ensued, in which one man was killed, several 
 wounded, and one prisoner was taken, from whom it was 
 learned that the Wisconsin men were fighting fellow Cavalry- 
 men instead of rebels. 
 
 The firing aroused both the sleeping camp and Pritcbard'* 
 detachments, and served as a signal for the latter to advance 
 and secure their prisoners. This wa done joft a* day was 
 breaking. Davis himself was caught, wearing a soft hat and 
 a fuD suit of Confederate gray, but covered by bin wife** 
 water-proof with a little narrow shawl wrapped about hU 
 head and neck. He was endeavoring to make bi* way, es- 
 corted by bis wife and sister-in-law, from his tent through 
 the cordon of soldiers which anrronnded the camp to the
 
 Life of Thomas. 
 
 rivulet, ostensibly to get water, but really to reach the cover 
 of the forest where an excellent bay horse, saddled and 
 bridled, was ready for him to mount and gallop away. Be- 
 fore the prisoner had been sent back into his tent, Colonels 
 Pritchard and Harden, having stopped the unfortunate 
 skirmish, rode up to the group surrounding him and made 
 sure of their prize. They found that they had not only 
 caught the Confederate President, but Mr. Reagan, his Post- 
 master-General ; Colonels Harrison and Lubbock, his private 
 secretaries; Lieutenant Howell, an aide-de-camp, and his en- 
 tire family, servants, and followers, numbering twenty-one 
 persons altogether. 
 
 There has been much controversy as to the disguise, 
 and what took place at the time of the arrest, and during 
 the march to Macon, but one and another of the persons 
 captured, including Mr. Davis himself, has admitted the sub- 
 stantial accuracy of all General "Wilson ever said about it.* 
 Of course these reports were based on the reports of his 
 subordinates, all of whom appear to have been both good 
 soldiers and truthful men. There seems to be no doubt that 
 he was treated by his captors with all the courtesy and con- 
 sideration consistent with a due regard to his safety. He 
 was received by General Wilson at Macon with a soldier's 
 hospitality, and after he had rested and refreshed himself, 
 was sent forward, under escort, via Atlanta and Augusta to 
 Savannah, where he was transferred to a gunboat, which 
 landed him a few days later at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin and General Breckinridge, also members 
 of Davis' cabinet, had been traveling with him, but on the 
 night of the capture, fortunately for them, they had slept 
 away from the party and thereby escaped the fate which 
 had overtaken it. The advanced guard of McCook*s divis- 
 ion rode down to the beach at St. Marks just as they were 
 disappearing in the offing in an open boat which landed 
 them safely in Cuba. 
 
 Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the 
 
 * See A Short History of the Confederate States, by Jefferson Davis, 
 pp. 494.
 
 The Capture of Jefferson Davis. 641 
 
 Confederate States, was found at his house at Crawfords- 
 ville, and sent under the same escort with Mr. Davis to the 
 North. A few days later Mr. Mallory, Secretary of the Con- 
 federate Navy, was also arrested, and about the same time 
 Clement C. Clay, a Senator from Alabama for whom the gov- 
 ernment had offered a reward of $25,000, voluntarily gave 
 himself up to General Wilson. 
 
 It is worthy of note that, although the government had 
 also offered a reward of $100,000 for the arrest of Davis, as 
 an accomplice in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, not an 
 officer or a man of either regiment engaged in the pursuit 
 or capture knew it, or was in any way influenced in the 
 performance of his duty by the hope of gain, or by the ex- 
 pectation of any other reward than praise and promotion, 
 which are ever dear to a soldier's heart for duty well and 
 faithfully performed. As a matter of fact, the reward was 
 duly paid a few years later to Wilson and the officers and 
 men of the two regiments actually present at the time of the 
 capture. 
 
 The importance of this event, coming as it did, at the 
 close of the most remarkable cavalry campaign of modern 
 warfare, can not be overestimated. The news of it burst 
 upon the country only a few weeks after the rejoicing over a 
 restored Union had been converted into universal sorrow by 
 the assassination of the President whose wisdom had guided 
 the nation safely through the rebellion. It is now well known 
 from Davis' own declaration that it was his fixed and un- 
 alterable purpose to continue the war in the Trans-Missis- 
 sippi Department if he could reach there.* His capture, to- 
 gether with that of Vice-President Stephens and most of the 
 cabinet, put an end for good and all to every possibility 
 of further organized resistance, inasmuch as it annihilated 
 the entire official fabric of the Confederate government by a 
 single blow. 
 
 In the general rejoicing which took place throughout 
 
 * See "A Short History of the Confederate States of America, by Jeffer- 
 son Davis," also Pollard's " Southern History of the war," and his " Life of 
 Jefferson Davis." 
 41
 
 642 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the Northern states on the receipt of this unexpected news, 
 but little credit or consideration was given to General Wil- 
 son, or to the deeds of his magnificent cavalry army. It is 
 true that the government promoted its commander to the full 
 rank of Major-General, and advanced his subordinate com- 
 manders to the grades recommended by him, but no one took 
 time to study the great campaign which had been closed in 
 such a signal manner, or to weigh the influence of its vic- 
 tories upon the final surrender of Johnston's army, and the 
 collapse of the Confederate cause east of the Mississippi 
 river. It would take a volume to properly describe the or- 
 ganization of the cavalry corps of the Military Division of 
 the Mississippi, and to set forth the details of its perform- 
 ances from the beginning of Hood's invasion, of middle Ten- 
 nessee to the end of its great march at Macon. As has been 
 shown, it was potential while still in an inchoate condition 
 in holding open the door for Schofield's retreat from Frank- 
 lin to Nashville, and in thus preventing a great disaster to 
 the Union arms before Thomas could unite his forces for the 
 offensive return which he delivered with such overwhelming 
 effect at Nashville two weeks later. 
 
 It should be remembered forever in the annals of war, 
 that Thomas insisted upon waiting to remount a portion of 
 the corps before he would consent to deliver battle, and that 
 when he did march forth, against the veteran and almost in- 
 vincible infantry of Hood, strongly intrenched in his front, 
 it was the cavalry corps which broke through his left, and 
 wheeling grandly in the same direction, captured 27 guns 
 from their redoubts on the first day, and which, continuing 
 its movement on the second day, enveloped and took in re- 
 verse the left and left-center of the Confederate intrench- 
 ments, and so shook their entire line as to make it a walk- 
 over for the infantry which Thomas finally hurled against 
 them. It was the harassing pursuit of Hood by the cavalry 
 corps which, notwithstanding the rains and sleet and the 
 swollen rivers, broke up and scattered the host which had so 
 confidently invaded Middle Tennessee only a month before. 
 Pausing on the banks of the Tennessee till the rough edge
 
 Efficiency of Cavalry Forces. 643 
 
 of winter had passed, to gather in the distant detachments, 
 to procure remounts, clothing, and equipments, and to weld 
 the growing force into a compact and irresistible army corps 
 of horsemen, the cavalry commander, with the full concur- 
 rence of Thomas, the beau ideal of American soldiers, began 
 his final and most glorious campaign. No historian or mili- 
 tary critic can read the story of the campaign which followed 
 without coming to the conclusion that it was characterized 
 by the most remarkable series of successes ever gained by 
 cavalry in modern warfare. They illustrate first, the import- 
 ance of concentrating and using that arm in compact masses 
 under one competent commander, and in operations of the 
 first importance ; second, the tremendous advantage of celer- 
 ity of movement, especially in modern warfare where im- 
 proved fire-arms play such a decisive part ; third, that the 
 chief use of horses, notwithstanding that they may in excep- 
 tional cases add to the shock of the charge, is to transport 
 fighting men rapidly to the vital point of a battle field, and 
 especially to the flank and rear of the enemy's position, or 
 deeply into the interior of the enemy's country against his 
 lines of supply and communication, and also his arsenals, 
 armories, and factories; fourth, that the best infantry armed 
 with the best magazine carbines or rifles make the best 
 mounted troops, irrespective of whether they be called cav- 
 alry, dragoons, or mounted infantry. 
 
 When the fact is recalled that the seven divisions of this 
 corps at the close of the war mustered about thirty-five 
 thousand men for duty with the colors, and that, had the 
 war lasted sixty days longer they could and probably would 
 have been concentrated in Virginia, it will be seen to what a 
 high degree of perfection the organization had been brought, 
 and that it fully justified Sherman's declaration that it was 
 by far the largest, most efficient, and most powerful body of 
 horse that had ever come under his command. But when the 
 capture of the strongly fortified towns of Selma, West Point, 
 and Columbus, with all the romantic incidents of night fight- 
 ing, together with the surrender of the no less strongly forti- 
 fied cities of Montgomery and Macon, carrying with them
 
 644 Life of Thomas. 
 
 the destruction of the last and only remaining arsenals, arm- 
 ories, factories, storehouses, and military munitions and sup- 
 plies, and also the destructio'n of the railways connecting 
 those places, with their bridges ahd rolling stock, are consid- 
 ered, it will be seen that Johnston and his generals had 
 nothing else left them but to lay down their arms and sur- 
 render. It was no longer possible for them to concentrate 
 an army, or to supply it with food, or to keep it armed and 
 equipped. With those places, and the manufacturing plants 
 which they contained, still in their possession, and with the 
 railways connecting them still unbroken, they might have 
 collected together in the Carolinas a force amply able to cope 
 with Sherman, and possibly to overwhelm him before re- 
 inforcements could reach him. That brilliant, but erratic 
 leader, with his splendid army, it will be remembered, had 
 avoided Macon on the one hand and Augusta on the other, 
 both the seats of important military industries, and by an 
 eccentric and unnecessary movement from his true line of 
 operations, had gone to Savannah, leaving the direct rail- 
 roads and highways behind him open and free for the use 
 of the remnants of Hood's army, and of the other scattered 
 detachments which were hastening to form a junction with 
 Johnston, now the sole hope of the Confederacy. 
 
 Had it not been for Wilson's wide swath of victory 
 and destruction through and not around the important cities 
 in his way, during which he captured over 8,500 prisoners, 
 and 280 guns, and afterward paroled 59,000 rebel soldiers 
 belonging to the armies of Lee, Johnston, and Beauregard, 
 it would have been easy for Johnston and Beauregard, had 
 they been so minded, to continue the war indefinitely. As 
 it was, to continue it was simply impossible, and for this the 
 country is indebted first, to Wilson and his gallant troopers, 
 and second, to Thomas, who insisted that they should have 
 time to remount and prepare for the work before them. 
 Neither the army nor the country ever appreciated that in- 
 vincible body of horsemen, or their division, brigade, regi- 
 mental, and company commanders, or the high character of 
 the enlisted men, or the performances of the whole at their
 
 Efficiency of the Cavalry Corps. 645 
 
 real worth. There were officers among them tit for any com- 
 mand that could have been given them, and as a body they 
 were as gallant and capable soldiers as ever drew saber or 
 wore uniform. Had the war lasted a few months longer 
 their fame would have been a household word. The leaders, 
 though young in years, were old in war. Wilson himself was 
 at the close, not yet 28. Kilpatrick was about the same age. 
 Upton was several months younger. Winslow, Alexander, 
 Croxton, La Grange, Watkins, Murray, Palmer, Noble, Kit- 
 chell, Benteen, Cooper, Young, Bacon, and Weston, were of 
 the younger set, while McCook, Minty, Long, Hatch, R. "W. 
 Johnson, Knipe, Hammond, Coon, G. M. L. Johnson, Atkins, 
 Spalding, Pritchard, Miller, Harrison, Biggs, Vail, Israel 
 Garrard, McCormick, Hammond, Pierce, and Frank "White 
 were somewhat older, though- none of them had reached 
 middle life. Harden, as sturdy as Burleigh of Balfour, and 
 Eggleston, the type of those who rode with Cromwell at 
 Marston Moor, were gray-beards, but were full of activity 
 and courage. Ross Hill and Taylor, although only captains, 
 were mere boys, but full of experienced valor. 
 
 The men in the ranks were mostly from the western and 
 north-western, and upper slave states, and of them it may be 
 truthfully averred that their superiors for endurance, self- 
 reliance and pluck, could nowhere be found. After they 
 were massed at Nashville they believed themselves to be in- 
 vincible, and it was their boast that they had never come in 
 sight of a hostile gun or fortification that they did not cap- 
 ture. Armed with Spencers, it was their conviction that, 
 elbow to elbow, dismounted, in single line, nothing could 
 withstand their charge. " Only cover our flanks," said Mil- 
 ler to Wilson, as they were approaching Selma, " and nothing 
 can stop us !" In conclusion, it may be safely said, that no 
 man ever saw one of them in the closing campaign of the 
 war skulking before battle or sneaking to the rear after the 
 action began. They seemed to know by instinct when and 
 where the enemy might be encountered, and then the only 
 strife amongst them was to see who should be first in the 
 onset. With a corps of such men, properly mounted and
 
 646 Life of Thomas. 
 
 armed, and with such organization and discipline as pre- 
 vailed amongst them during their last great campaign, no 
 hazard of war can be regarded as too great for them to under- 
 take, and nothing should be counted as impossible except 
 defeat. 
 
 When the " records " are all published and the story 
 properly written, it will show that no corps in the army, 
 whether of cavalry or infantry, ever inflicted greater injury 
 upon the " Lost Cause," or did more useful service toward 
 the re-establishment of the Union under the Constitution 
 and the laws, than was done by the cavalry corps of the 
 Military Division of the Mississippi.
 
 Thomas after War. 647 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Thomas after War His Rank Ignored in Assignments Persistently Pur- 
 sued Offered Grant's Place at the Head of the Army but Declines 
 Refuses to have his Name Used in Connection with the Presidency 
 The Story of his Death It is little less than the History of an Assas- 
 sination. 
 
 The close of the war brought no relief from a pursuit 
 which fell little short of persecution for General Thomas. 
 The efforts to ignore him, or worse, to disregard his rank in 
 assignments to command, were persisted in. "When the 
 country, immediately after the war, was divided into Military 
 Divisions, it was planned to make only five, and leave 
 Thomas, the sixth major-general, in command of a depart- 
 ment only. Hearing of this he sent a friend to President 
 Andrew Johnson to protest. He had submitted during the 
 war to promoting juniors over him, and kept quiet under 
 the wrong rather than to hesitate a moment while the con- 
 flict was on, but he saw no reason for such course in time of 
 peace. The matter was instantly rectified, Mr. Johnson him- 
 self carving out the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missis- 
 sippi, Alabama and Georgia the country which had been 
 the scene of his military operations and his victories and 
 establishing his head-quarters at Nashville, the city of his 
 recent renown. But the great soldier was never forgiven 
 for thus asserting himself. There were two reasons ; first, 
 he had openly defeated those who were attempting to wrong 
 him, and next, it made it necessary to assign favorite officers 
 elsewhere than where it had been determined to place them. 
 
 His arrangement of his extensive department during the 
 early years of reconstruction, was marked with great ability 
 in grasping the difficult questions which constantly arose in 
 the peculiar condition of civil affairs, and by moderation which 
 commanded respect from the conquered, but, at the same 
 time, by a vigor and justice in his rule in which there was
 
 648 Life of Thomas. 
 
 no "variableness or shadow of turning." He remained at 
 Nashville until November, 1866, and thereafter his head- 
 quarters were at Louisville, until May, 1869. 
 
 During this period he declined a nomination which would 
 undoubtedly have resulted in making him general of the army 
 in place of General Grant. Mr. Johnson, in February, 1868, 
 when his troubles with the Republican party were in progress, 
 and when he was not satisfied with the course of General 
 Grant, nominated General Thomas as brevet lieutenant-gen- 
 eral, and brevet general. Had he been confirmed, the next 
 step undoubtedly would have been to assign him to duty as 
 general of the army under his brevet rank. General Thomas 
 understanding this at once protested and declined, thanking 
 the President for the honor intended, but saying: "I have 
 done no service since the war to deserve so high a compli- 
 ment, and it is now too late to be regarded as a compliment 
 if conferred for services during the war." 
 
 The five years of his administration of civil affairs are 
 full of interest, and as successful in their peculiar field as his 
 great work with the armies had been. But it can not be 
 treated at length within the limits of this volume. 
 
 Following the move which, if he had not frustrated it, 
 would have led to his command of the army, a strong de- 
 sire to nominate him for the Presidency began to develop in 
 quarters which would soon have given him great strength. 
 This he resisted with such uncompromising refusals that 
 those who had set their hearts upon work in that direction 
 were obliged to abandon it. But it went far enough to ex- 
 cite keen jealousy and alarm in other quarters. 
 
 After the inauguration of General Grant as President, 
 General Thomas was decided upon to command on the 
 Pacific coast. Finding that this was against his wishes, a 
 characteristic way of rebuking him was found by arranging 
 that he should remain in Kentucky in command of a depart- 
 ment, when all others of his rank received divisions. There- 
 upon, rather than submit to the overslaughing of his rank, 
 he asserted his claims and took the Military Division of the 
 Pacific. To still further illustrate the nature of the treat- 
 ment he continually received, as soon as he reached San Fran-
 
 The Story of His Death. 649 
 
 cisco, the Department of Kentucky, where General Thomas 
 would have been glad to stay if he could have remained 
 without sinking his rank, was at once elevated to a military 
 division. 
 
 He had just completed a year of service on the Pacific 
 coast when he suddenly died under the most tragic circum- 
 stances, and such as formed a fitting climax to the long 
 series of wrongs with which his magnificent and unparalleled 
 services had been clouded. The story of his death is little 
 less than a tale of assassination. 
 
 When he arrived on the Pacific coast to relieve Gen- 
 eral Halleck this officer gave him a reception. During the 
 evening General Halleck related the details of the attempt 
 to relieve him at Nashville, first with General Schofield, 
 next with General Logan. General Thomas had never 
 known the names of those with whom it was determined to 
 supersede him, in fact, he did not know of the second at- 
 tempt with Logan at all. General Halleck further explained, 
 what is now known, that it was through delay secured by 
 him that the removal was not consummated when first or- 
 dered. During the delay came a telegram from General 
 Thomas in regard to the situation which postponed immedi- 
 ate action. Before the second plan for superseding him by 
 Logan had been worked out, the ice-storm which had de- 
 layed the attack broke, and the notable victory was won. 
 
 One of those who heard General Halleck's recital to 
 General Thomas gave the facts to an eastern correspondent 
 and he printed it in a form that gave General Logan great 
 concern, since he thought it open to the false construction 
 that he had intrigued to secure General Thomas's place. 
 General Logan thereupon made an arrangement with Gen- 
 eral Grant, then President, to tell the complete story of Nash- 
 ville to the Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Ga- 
 zette. This the President did, the present writer being then 
 that correspondent. 
 
 When the story, as related by General Grant, was writ- 
 ten out, it was submitted to him for revision. He said that 
 it was in exact accordance with his statement, but that upon 
 having his mind refreshed by the consideration of the sub-
 
 650 Life of Thomas. 
 
 ject he had concluded that the best thing to do would be 
 to give the correspondent all the dispatches relating to the 
 Nashville affair. He, thereupon, ordered General Badeau, 
 then his military secretary, to furnish the whole of them. 
 
 General Badeau pretended to comply with the order, 
 and gave the Gazette correspondent what he assured him was 
 the complete official history of the contemplated removal, 
 and all the dispatches relating to it. Its publication at- 
 tracted wide attention, since up to that time the war records 
 had remained, in large degree, a sealed book. The story, as 
 furnished, was creditable in high degree to General Thomas, 
 and his admirers were delighted with it. Two weeks later, 
 however, the correspondent who had published it received a 
 letter from a friend at General Thomas's head-quarters in 
 San Francisco, asking whether every thing supplied from the 
 White House had been printed, and intimating that there 
 had been some very serious omissions. Immediate inquiry 
 was made of General Badeau. He insisted that he had given 
 every thing needed to make the story complete, and that 
 nothing had been suppressed. 
 
 A letter quoting this emphatic assurance was started for 
 San Francisco, but before there was time for a reply, the 
 press dispatches announced General Thomas's sudden death. 
 
 The story of what had happened is a startling one. See- 
 ing that there had been deliberate suppression at the White 
 House of the strongest dispatches in his favor, and the great 
 number of such proving that it could not have been by ac- 
 cident, he became indignant to a degree that he had never 
 shown before, and his system was wrought up by the feeling 
 of deep wrong to a state of high tension. This condition 
 was still further intensified by the appearance of some public 
 criticisms called out by the published dispatches, which he 
 deemed flagrantly unjust. Thus aroused, and thus stirred by 
 violent emotions, he sat down to write the full story of Nash- 
 ville. An officer of his staff had gathered the necessary of- 
 ficial papers and left him in his private room at work. An 
 hour later he had fallen in the midst of his work. He did 
 not regain consciousness, and a few hours later assassination 
 had done its work, and General Thomas was dead.
 
 The Story of His Death. 651 
 
 
 
 His friends, soon after his burial, went earnestly to work 
 to try to obtain the suppressed dispatches. Every attempt 
 made at Washington was blocked. Finally, nearly a year 
 afterward, they were secured, in spite of continuing refusals 
 at the White House, and as persistent declarations that the 
 whole official story had been told. 
 
 A sufficient outline of affairs about Nashville before, 
 and following the battle, has appeared in a previous chapter 
 to clearly show the keen injustice done General Thomas by 
 the suppressions now to be indicated. 
 
 The official history of Nashville, as furnished for publi- 
 cation upon President Grant's order, by his military secretary, 
 General Badeau, opened with the three dispatches which 
 
 follow : 
 
 WAR DEPARTMENT, 1 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 210:30 A. M. / 
 Lieut.-Gen. Grant, City Point : 
 
 The President feels solicitous about the disposition of Thomas to lay in 
 fortifications for an indefinite period, " until Wilson gets equipments." 
 This looks like the McClelland and Rosecrans strategy of do nothing, and 
 let the enemy raid the country. The President wishes you to consider the 
 matter. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 
 
 CITY POINT, Dec. 2, 186411 AM. 
 Maj.-Gen. George H. Thomas, Nashville: 
 
 If Hood is permitted to remain quietly about Nashville, we will lose all 
 the roads back to Chattanooga, and possibly have to abandon the line of 
 the Tennessee river. Should he attack you it is all well, but if he does not, 
 you should attack him before he fortifies. Arm. and put in the trenches, 
 your Quartermaster's employes, citizens, etc. 
 
 [Signed,] U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-Gcn. 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., Dec. 2, 18641:30 p. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. George H. Thomas, Nashville: 
 
 With your citizen employes armed, you can move out of Nashville with 
 all your army, and force the enemy to retire or fight upon ground of your 
 own choosing. After the repulse of Hood at Franklin, it looks to me that 
 instead of falling back to Nashville, we should have taken the offensive 
 against the enemy, but at this distance may err as to the method of deal- 
 ing with the enemy. You will suffer incalculable injury upon your rail- 
 roads, if Hood is not speedily disposed of. Put forth, therefore, every pos- 
 sible exertion to attain this end. Should you get him to retreating, give 
 him no peace. 
 
 [Signed,] U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-Gen.
 
 652 Life of Thomas. 
 
 The situation had, however, at this time been fully made 
 known to General Grant in dispatches which Badeau sup- 
 pressed. First in order came these, which, in view of the 
 fact that Forrest had 12,000 excellent cavalry, while Thomas 
 had been able to mount less than half that number, it is, per- 
 haps, not surprising that they were suppressed. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., Nov. 24, 18644 p. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. George H. Thomas, Nashville, Tenn.: 
 
 . . . Do not let Forrest get off without punishment. 
 
 [Signed,] U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. 
 
 The rest of this dispatch was not relevant to the subject 
 in hand. General Thomas's reply was to the above extract. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT CUMBERLAND,! 
 NASHVILLE, TENN., Xoi: 25, 1864 11 A. M. ) 
 Lieut. Gen. Grant, City Point, Va.: 
 
 Your dispatch of 4 P. M. yesterday just received. Hood's entire army 
 is in front of Columbia, and so greatly outnumbers mine at this time that 
 I am compelled to act on the defensive. None of Gen. Smith's troops have 
 arrived yet, although they embarked at St. Louis on Tuesday last. The 
 transportation of Gens. Hatch's and Grierson's cavalry was ordered by Gen. 
 Wash burn, I am told, to be turned in at Memphis, which has crippled the 
 only cavalry I had at this time. All of my cavalry was dismounted to fur- 
 nish horses to Kilpatrick's division, which went with Gen. Sherman. My 
 dismounted cavalry is now detained at Louisville, awaiting arms and horses. 
 Horses are arriving slowly, and arms have been detained somewhere 
 en route for more than a month. Gen. Grierson has been delayed by con- 
 flicting orders in Kansas and from Memphis, and it is impossible to say 
 when he will reach here. Since being placed in charge of affairs in Ten- 
 nessee, I have lost nearly 15,000 men, discharged by expiration of service 
 and permitted to go home to vote. My gain is probably 12,000 perfectly 
 raw troops. Therefore, as the enemy so greatly outnumbers me, both in 
 infantry and cavalry, I am compelled for the present to act on the de- 
 fensive. The moment I can get my cavalry I will march against Hood, and 
 if Forrest can be reached, he shall be punished. 
 
 [Signed,] GEO. H. THOMAS, Maj.-Gen. Vols., Com'cFg. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 NASHVILLE, Dec. 1, 1864 9:30 P. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. Halleck, Washington, D. C.: 
 
 After Gen. Schofield's fight of yesterday, feeling convinced that the 
 enemy very far outnumbered him, both in infantry and cavalry, I deter- 
 mined to retire to the fortifications around Nashville, until Gen. Wilson
 
 Suppressed Dispatches. 653 
 
 can get his cavalry equipped. He has now but about one-fourth the 
 ber of the enemy, and, consequently is no match for him. I have two 
 ironclads here, with several gunboats, and Commodore Fitch assures me 
 that Hood can neither cross the Cumberland, nor blockade it. I therefore 
 think it best to wait here until Wilson can equip all his cavalry. If Hood 
 attacks me here, he will be more seriously damaged than he was yesterday. 
 If he remains until Wilson gets equipped, I can whip him, and will move 
 against him at once. I have Murfreesboro strongly held, and therefore feel 
 easy in regard to its safety. Chattanooga, Bridgeport, Stevenson, and Elk 
 River bridges have strong garrisons. 
 
 [Signed,] GBO. H. THOMAS, 
 
 Major-General U. S. Volunteers, Commanding. 
 
 Then came the three dispatches first given above, with 
 which the White House history began, followed by these: 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT CUMBERLAND,) 
 NASHVILLE, TENN., Dec. 2, 186410 p. M. ) 
 Gen. U. S. Grant, City Paint, Va.: 
 
 Your two telegrams of 11 A. M. and 1:30 P. M., to-day, are received. At 
 the time Hood was whipped at Franklin I had at this place but about five 
 thousand (5,000) men of Gen. Smith's command, which, added to the force 
 under Gen. Schofield, would not have given me more than twenty-five 
 thousand (25,000) men. Besides, Gen. Schofield felt convinced that he 
 could not hold the enemy at Franklin until the 5,000 could reach him. As 
 Gen. Wilson's cavalry force, also, numbered only about one-fourth that of 
 Forrest, I thought it best to draw the troops back to Nashville, and await 
 the arrival of the remainder of Gen. Smith's force, and also a force of about 
 five thousand (5,000) commanded by Gen. Steedman, which I had ordered 
 up from Chattanooga. The division of Gen. Smith arrived yesterday morn- 
 ing, and Gen. Steedman's troops arrived last night. I now have infantry 
 enough to assume the offensive, if I had more cavalry ; and will take the 
 field any how as soon as the remainder of Gen. McCook's division of cav- 
 alry reaches here, which I hope it will in two or three days. 
 
 We can neither get re-enforcements nor equipments at this great dis- 
 tance from the North very easily, and it must be remembered that my com- 
 mand was made up of the two weakest corps of Gen. Sherman's army, and 
 all the dismounted cavalry except one brigade, and the task of re-organizing 
 and equipping has met with many delays, which have enabled Hood to 
 take advantage of my crippled condition. I earnestly hope, however, in a 
 few more days I shall be able to give him a fight. 
 
 [Signed,] GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 
 Major-General U. S. Vols., Commanding. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., Dec. 5, 18646:30 P. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. George H. Thomas, Nashville, Tenn.: 
 
 Is there not danger of Forrest's moving down the Tennessee River
 
 654 Life of Thomas. 
 
 where he can cross it ? It seems to me, while you should be getting up 
 your cavalry as rapidly as possible to look after Forrest, Hood should be 
 attacked where is. 
 
 Time strengthens him, in all probability, as much as it does you. 
 
 [Signed,] U. S. GBANT, Lieut.-Gen. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 NASHVILLE, Dec. 6, 1864. 
 Lieui.-Gtn. U. S. Grant, City Point: 
 
 Your telegram of 6:30 p. M., December 5, is just received. As soon as 
 I get up a respectable force of cavalry I will march against Hood. Gen. 
 Wilson has parties out now pressing horses, and I hope to have some 6,000 
 or 8,000 cavalry mounted in three days from this time. Gen. Wilson has 
 just left me, having received instructions to hurry the cavalry remount as 
 rapidly as possible. I do not think it prudent to attack Hood with less 
 than six thousand (6,000) cavalry to cover my flanks, because he has under 
 Forrest at least twelve thousand (12,000). I have no doubt Forrest will at- 
 tempt to cross the river, but I am in hopes the gunboats will be able to 
 prevent him. The enemy has made no new developments to-day. Breck- 
 inridge is reported at Lebanon with six thousand (6,000) men, but I can 
 not believe it possible. 
 
 [Signed,] GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 
 Maj.-Gen. U. S. Vols., Commanding. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 CITY POINT, VA. December 6, 1864 4 p. M. 
 Maj. Gen. Geo. H. Thomas, Nashville : 
 
 Attack Hood at once, and wait no longer for a remount for your cavalry. 
 There is great danger in delay resulting in a campaign back to the Ohio. 
 [Signed,] U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-Gen. 
 
 What passed between the arrival of this dispatch, upon 
 receiving which, Thomas, while dissenting from its wisdom, 
 gave immediate orders to prepare for attack, and the one 
 next below, appears in a preceding chapter : 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN., Dec. 12, 186410:30 P. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. Halleck, Washington, D. C.: 
 
 I have the troops ready to make the attack on the enemy as soon as 
 the sleet which now covers the ground has melted sufficiently to enable the 
 men to march. The whole country is now covered with a sheet of ice 
 so hard and slippery it is utterly impossible for troops to ascend the slopes, 
 or even move over level ground with any thing like order. It has taken 
 the entire day to place my cavalry in position, and it has only been finally 
 effected with imminent risk and many serious accidents, resulting from the 
 numbers of horses falling with their riders on the road. Under these cir-
 
 Suppressed Dispatches. 655 
 
 cumstances, I believe an attack at this time would only result in a useless 
 sacrifice of life. 
 
 [Signed,] GEO. H. THOMAS, 
 
 Maj.-Gcn. U. S. VoU., Com'd'g. 
 
 The next day came the order directing the relief of 
 Thomas by Logan, and then, before this order could be exe- 
 cuted, the overwhelming victory. 
 
 After the suppressions already set forth there can be no 
 further surprise that the following were withheld from this 
 pretended history, although it was being furnished under 
 the orders of President Grant, and upon the President's as- 
 surance that it should be complete : 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 186412 M. 
 Maj.-Gen. Geo. H. Thomas: 
 
 Permit me, general, to urge the vast importance of a hot pursuit of Hood's 
 army. Every possible sacrifice should be made, and your men for a few days 
 will submit to any hardships and privations to accomplish the great result. 
 If you can capture or destroy Hood's army General Sherman can entirely 
 crush out the rebel military force in all the Southern States. He begins a 
 new campaign about the first of January, which will have the most important 
 results if Hood's army can now be used up. A most vigorous pursuit on 
 your part is, therefore, of vital importance to General Sherman's plans. No 
 sacrifice must be spared to obtain so important a result. 
 
 [Signed,] H. W. HALLECK, 
 
 Major-General and Chief of Staff. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 IN THE FIELD, Dec. 21, 1864. 
 Maj.-Gen. Halltck, Washington, D. C.: 
 
 Your dispatch of 12 M., this day, is received. General Hood's army is 
 being pursued as rapidly and as vigorously as it is possible for one army to 
 pursue another. We can not control the elements, and you must remember 
 that-, to resist Hood's advance into Tennessee, I had to reorganize and almost 
 thoroughly equip the force now under my command. I fought the battle of 
 the 15th and 16th instants with the troops but partially equipped ; and, 
 notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather and the partial equipment, 
 have been enabled to drive the enemy beyond Duck River, crossing two 
 streams with my troops, and driving the enemy from position to position, 
 without the aid of pontoons, and with but little transportation to bring up 
 supplies of provisions and ammunition. I am doing all in my power to 
 crush Hood's army, and, if it be possible, will destroy it. But pursuing an 
 enemy through an exhausted country, over mud roads completely sogged 
 with heavy rains, is no child's play, and can not be accomplished as quickly
 
 . 
 
 656 Life of Thomas. 
 
 as thought of. I hope, in urging me to push the enemy, the department 
 remembers that General Sherman took with him the complete organization 
 of the Military Division of the Mississippi, well equipped in every respect, as 
 regards ammunition, supplies, and transportation , leaving me only two corps, 
 partially stripped of their transportation to accommodate the force taken 
 with him, to oppose the advance into Tennessee of that army which had 
 resisted the advance of the army of the Military Division of the Mississippi 
 on Atlanta from the commencement of the campaign till its close, and which 
 is now, in addition, aided by Forrest's cavalry. Although my progress may 
 appear slow, I feel assured that Hood's army can be driven from Tennessee, 
 and eventually driven to the wall by the force under my command. But too 
 much must not be expected of troops which have to be reorganized, especially 
 when they have the task of destroying a force, in a winter's campaign, which 
 was able to make an obstinate resistance to twice its numbers in spring and 
 summer. In conclusion, I can safely state that this army is willing to submit 
 to any sacrifice to oust Hood's army, or to strike any other blow which may 
 contribute to the destruction of the rebellion. 
 
 [Signed, G. H. THOMAS, Major-General. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 18649 P. M. 
 Maj.-Gen. Geo. H. Thomas: 
 
 I have seen to-day General Halleck's dispatch of yesterday, and your re- 
 ply. It is proper for me to assure you that this department has the most un- 
 bounded confidence in your skill, vigor, and determination to employ to 
 the best advantage all the means in your power to pursue and destroy the 
 enemy. No department could be inspired with more profound admiration 
 and thankfulness for the great deeds which you have already performed, or 
 more confiding faith that human effort could do no more, and no more than 
 will be done by you and the accomplished and gallant officers and soldiers 
 of your command. 
 
 [Signed,] E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 CITY POINT, Dec. 22, 1864. 
 Maj.-Gen. Geo. H. Thomas : 
 
 You have the congratulations of the public for the energy with which 
 you are pushing Hood. I hope you will succeed in reaching his pontoon 
 bridge at Tuscumbia^efore he gets there. Should you do so, it looks to 
 me that Hood is cut off. If you succeed in destroying Hood's army, there 
 will be but one army left to the so-called Confederacy capable of doing us 
 harm. I will take care of that, and try to draw the sting from it, so that 
 in the spring we shall have easy sailing. You have now a big opportunity, 
 which I know you are availing yourself of. Let us push and do all we can 
 before the enemy can derive benefit either from the raising of negro troops 
 on the plantations or white troops now in the field. 
 
 [Signed,] U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
 
 Suppressed Dispatches. 657 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 WAR DEPARTMENT, Dec. 24, 1864. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS, Nashville: 
 
 With great pleasure I inform you that for your skill, courage, and con- 
 duct in the recent brilliant military operations under your command, the 
 President has directed your nomination to be sent to the Senate as a major- 
 general in the United States Army, to fill the only vacancy existing in that 
 grade. No official duty has been performed by me with more satisfaction, 
 and no commander has more justly earned promotion by devoted, disin- 
 terested, and valuable services to his country. 
 
 EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 
 
 [Suppressed.] 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OP THE CUMBERLAND,) 
 MC-KANE'S CHURCH, TENN. f 
 
 HON. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War: 
 
 I am profoundly sensible of the kind expressions of your telegram of 
 December 24th, informing me that the President had directed my name to 
 be sent to the Senate for confirmation as major-general United States Army, 
 and beg to assure the President and yourself, that your approval of my 
 services is of more value to me than the commission itself. 
 
 GEO. H. THOMAS, Major-General Commanding. 
 
 There were other congratulatory dispatches, which, if 
 there had been the least friendliness toward General Thomas, 
 would have been published, among them, these : 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 15, 1864 11:30 p. M. 
 Atajor-General Bawlins, Chief of Staff: 
 
 I send yoil a dispatch just received from Nashville. I shall not now 
 go there. Will remain absent, however, until about Monday. 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. 
 
 This was the dispatch from Nashville announcing the 
 victory of the first day. Its enthusiastically congratulatory 
 character will be readily detected: 
 
 CITY POINT, VA., Dec. 16, 18C4. 
 Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Grant, Washington. D. C.: 
 
 It you have any further news of General Thomas's success will you 
 please send it, as it inspires the army here with great enthusiasm. 
 
 JNO. A. RAWLINS, Brig.-Gen. and Chief of Staff. 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,^ 
 December 16, 1864. ) 
 
 Brigadier-General Rawlins, Chief of Staff: 
 
 Your dispatch announcing General Thomas's success has been received 
 with great satisfaction, as the situation of affairs at Nashville were such as
 
 658 Life, of Thomas. 
 
 to afford cause for anxiety. I had every confidence in the judgment and 
 high soldierly qualities of General Thomas, and am truly rejoiced to hear 
 of his brilliant success. GEORGE G. MEADE, Major-General. 
 
 It is not strange that this culmination of long continued 
 and varied injustice aroused an indignation which over- 
 whelmed even the great physical powers of General Thomas. 
 He had waited silently and patiently through the years for 
 the official record to make his services fully known, and set 
 forth the continuing slights and the many indignities which 
 had been either openly or covertly put upon him from the 
 time when his name was left out of the President's order 
 thanking his army for Mill Springs, the first western victory, 
 down to his deportation to the Pacific coast against his will. 
 And now, after all this waiting, he saw the country deliber- 
 ately misled as to the real history of Nashville, his greatest 
 victory, and the credit due him deliberately concealed, and 
 apparently by the authority of General Grant. No wonder 
 that, as he roused himself to smite this unexpected and ma- 
 licious wronging, nature gave way, and the great heart of 
 Thomas failed. 
 
 So died the only uniformly successful commander in the 
 Union armies during our civil war. 
 
 Others were great, even with the shadows of their grave 
 mistakes upon them ; but his military statur^ surpassed 
 theirs, and, as the result of his uniform deliberation in prep- 
 arations, which more reckless and perhaps jealous ones called 
 slowness, his record is not burdened with that fearful load 
 which the wasted lives of men imposes. 
 
 When the official record is unfolded and studied till its 
 truths clearly appear to the people, there will be many sharp 
 revisions of present popular judgments and misconceptions, 
 and, thereafter, the name of Thomas will head the list of our 
 greatest captains. 
 
 THE END.
 
 
 I 
 
 
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