Slavery and Four Years of War

Chapter VI Battle of Shiloh — Capture of Island No. 10 — Halleck’s Advance on Corinth, and Other Events

General Albert Sidney Johnston, while at Murfreesboro (February 3, 1862) assumed full command of the Central Army, Western Department, and commenced its reorganization for active field work, and on the 27th commenced moving it, with a view to concentrate to Corinth, Miss.( 1)

General P. G. T. Beauregard, March 5th, assumed command of the Army of the Mississippi. On the 29th the Confederate armies of Kentucky and the Mississippi were consolidated at Corinth under the latter designation, Johnston in chief command, with Beauregard as second, and Generals Leonidas Polk, Braxton Bragg, Wm. J. Hardee, and Geo. B. Crittenden, respectively, commanding corps. Later, General John C. Breckinridge was assigned to the Reserve Corps, relieving Crittenden. The total strength of this army was 59,774, and present for duty (April 3d) 49,444.( 2) This was, then, the most formidable and best officered and organized army of the Confederacy for active field operations. To confront this large force there was the Army of the Tennessee, with an aggregate present for duty of 44,895, of all arms.( 3) Grant had sixty-two pieces of artillery, and his troops consisted of five divisions commanded, respectively, by Generals John A. McClernand, W. H. L. Wallace, Lew Wallace, Stephen A. Hurlburt, W. T. Sherman, and B. M. Prentiss.

On April 3, 1862, the Army of the Mississippi was started for Shiloh, about twenty miles distant, under a carefully prepared field-order, assigning to each corps its line of march and place of assembling and giving general and detailed instructions for the expected battle, the purpose being to surprise the Union army at daylight on Saturday, the 5th. Hardee’s corps constituted the left of the Confederate army, and on reaching the battle-ground his left was to rest on Owl Creek, a tributary of Snake Creek, his right extending toward Lick Creek. Bragg’s corps constituted the Confederate right, its right to rest on Lick Creek. Both these corps were to be formed for the battle in two lines, 1000 yards apart, the right wing of each corps to form the front line. Polk’s corps was to move behind the two corps mentioned, and mass in column and halt on the Back Road, as a reserve. The Reserve Corps under Breckinridge was ordered to concentrate at Monterey and there take position from whence to advance, as required, on either the direct road to Pittsburg Landing or to Hamburg. Other instructions were given for detachments of this army. The order was to make every effort in the approaching battle to turn the left of the Union Army, cut it off from the Tennessee, and throw it back on Owl Creek, and there secure its surrender.( 4)

Johnston issued this address:

“Soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi:

“I have put you in motion to offer battle to the invaders of your country. With the resolution and disciplined valor becoming men fighting, as you are, for all worth living or dying for, you cannot but march to decisive victory over agrarian mercenaries, sent to subjugate and despoil you of your liberties, property, and honor. Remember the precious stake involved. Remember the dependence of your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your children on the result. Remember the fair, broad, abounding land, the happy homes, and ties that will be desolated by your defeat. The eyes and hopes of 8,000,000 of people rest upon you. You are expected to show yourselves worthy of your valor and lineage; worthy of the women of the South, whose noble devotion in this war has never been exceeded in any time. With such incentives to brave deeds and with the trust that God is with us, your generals will lead you confidently to the combat, assured of success.”

Five of Grant’s divisions were encamped at or in front of Pittsburg Landing, between Owl and Lick Creeks; Sherman’s division (except Stuart’s brigade) being in front, near and to the right of Shiloh Church, was most advanced. McClernand’s division was located about one half mile to his rear, covering his left. Prentiss’ division lay within about one half mile (a little retired) of McClernand’s left in the direction of the mouth of Lick Creek, and Stuart’s brigade was still to Prentiss’ left on the Hamburg road. Hurlburt’s and Smith’s divisions—the latter on the right, commanded on the field by General W. H. L. Wallace in consequence of Smith’s absence at Savannah sick—were about a mile in rear of McClernand and Prentiss, and about three quarters of a mile from Pittsburg Landing.( 5)

Lew Wallace’s division, numbering present for duty 7302 men, with ten pieces of artillery, was near Crump’s Landing on the west bank of the Tennessee, five miles below Pittsburg Landing and four miles above Savannah.( 6)

By a straight line Savannah is seven miles below Pittsburg Landing. Hamburg is four miles above this landing, on the same side of the river and above the mouth of Lick Creek. Shiloh Church, a log structure about two and a half miles from the river, gave the name to the battle.

We left Buell’s army at Nashville. It remained there from February 25 to March 15, 1862, when his cavalry started for Savannah, where the Army of the Tennessee was then partially assembled under General C. F. Smith. Halleck had, March 4th, relieved Grant from any active command in the field, and ordered him to place Smith in command of the “expedition,” and himself to remain at Fort Henry. Grant chafed much under this treatment, and repeatedly asked to be relived of further service under Halleck. Grant’s recent success at Forts Henry and Donelson, and his exceptional character for assuming responsibilities and fighting, led to a public demand for his restoration, which reached Washington and Halleck, and forced the latter, on the 13th of March, to restore him to the command of his army and district. Grant reached Savannah on the 17th of March, and found Smith fatally ill, and a portion of the troops already at Pittsburg Landing on the west bank of the Tennessee. He subsequently ordered other divisions to the Landing, and although the question of intrenching was considered, his chief engineer officer, Colonel (afterwards Major-General) James B. McPherson, reported against the necessity or practicability of employing the raw troops in constructing defensive works. It was decided the undisciplined and undrilled soldiers (as most of them were) could be better prepared for the impending campaign by drilling them.

Grant made his headquarters at Savannah (east of the Tennessee), leaving Sherman in charge of that portion of the army in front of Pittsburg Landing.

Besides some troops of Buell’s army who were left to hold Nashville, Mitchel’s division was detached to operate on a line through Murfreesboro south into Alabama or to Chattanooga, as might seem best.

McCook’s division left Nashville March 16th, following the cavalry, and other divisions of Buell’s army followed at intervals. At Columbia, Tennessee, McCook was detained, reconstructing a burned bridge over Duck River, until the 30th. Nelson reached this river, and by fording crossed his division on the 29th, and was then given the advance. Buell did not hasten his march nor did Grant, it would seem, regard his early arrival important. The purpose was to concentrate the Army of the Ohio at Savannah, not earlier than Sunday and Monday, the 6th and 7th of April.

Nelson’s division reached there the evening of the 5th, of which Grant had notice. Buell arrived about the same time, but did not report his arrival, or attempt to do so until 8 A.M. the 6th, when Grant had gone to Pittsburg Landing to take personal command in the battle then raging with great fury.

It is well to remember that General Grant, on whom the responsibility of the campaign and impending conflict rested, had been actually present with his army but twenty days when the battle commenced; that he did not select the position of the advance divisions of his army, and could not, if he had chosen to do so, have changed the place of the junction of Buell’s army with his, as Halleck had fixed upon Savannah as that place, and Buell was slowly marching towards it before Grant’s arrival there.

The unfriendly disposition of Halleck and the lack of cordiality of Buell towards Grant made matters extremely embarrassing. Buell was Grant’s junior, but he had commanded a department for a considerable time while Grant only commanded a district, and this alone may account for a natural reluctance on Buell’s part to serve under him. Had Buell’s army arrived promptly on the Tennessee, the battle of Shiloh would not have been fought, as both Johnston and Beauregard determined the attack was only practicable before Grant’s and Buell’s armies united.

Grant was seriously injured, after dark on the 4th of April, while returning to Pittsburg Landing in a rain storm from investigating some unusual picket firing at the front. His horse had fallen on him, injuring his leg and spraining an ankle so much that his boot had to be cut off. He was unable to walk without the aid of crutches for some days after the battle.( 7)

In the controversy as to whether the Union Army at Shiloh was surprised on the morning of the first day I do not care to enter. The testimony of Sherman and his brigade commander, General Ralph P. Buckland, as well as that of Grant, will all of whom I have conversed on this point, should be taken as conclusive, that as early as the 4th of April they knew of the presence of considerable organizations of Confederate cavalry, and that on the evening of the 5th they had encountered such numbers of the enemy as to satisfy the Union officers on the field that the enemy contemplated making an attack; yet it is quite certain these officers did not know on the evening of April 5th that the splendidly officered and organized Confederate Army was in position in front and close up to Shiloh Church as a centre, in full array, with a definite plan, fully understood by all its officers, for a battle on the morrow. Nothing had gone amiss in Johnston’s plan, save the loss of one day, which postponed the opening of the attack from dawn of Saturday to the same time on Sunday. The friends of the Confederacy will never cease to deplore the loss, on the march from Corinth of this one day. Many yet pretend to think the fate of slavery and the Confederacy turned on it. Grant was not quite so well prepared for battle on Saturday as on Sunday, and no part of the Army of the Ohio could or would have come to his aid sooner than Sunday. Grant, however, says he did not despair of success without Buell’s army,( 7)

Grant, when the battle opened, was nine miles by boat from Pittsburg Landing, which was at least two more miles from Shiloh Church, where the battle opened. Up to the morning of the battle he had apprehensions that an attack might be made on Crump’s Landing, Lew Wallace’s position, with a view to the destruction of the Union stores and transports.( 7) He heard the first distant sound of battle while at Savannah eating breakfast,( 7) and by dispatch-boat hastened to reach his already fiercely assailed troops, pausing only long enough to order Nelson to march to Pittsburg Landing and, while en route, to direct Wallace, at Crump’s Landing, to put his division under arms ready for any orders. Certain it is that the Union division commanders at Shiloh did not, on retiring the night of the 5th, anticipate a general attack on the next morning. They took, doubtless, the usual precautions against the ordinary surprise of pickets, grand-guards, and outposts, but they made no preparation for a general battle, the more necessary as three of the five divisions had never been under fire, and most of them had little, if any, drill in manoeuvres or loading and firing, and few of the officers had hitherto heard the thunder of an angry cannon-shot or the whistle of a dangerous bullet. But it may be said the private soldiers of the Confederate Army were likewise inexperienced and illy disciplined. In a large sense this was true, though many more of the Confederate regiments had been longer subjected to drill and discipline than of the Union regiments, and they had great confidence in their corps and division commanders, many of whom had gained considerable celebrity in the Mexican and Indian Wars.

The corps organization of the Confederate Army, in addition to the division, gave more general officers and greater compactness in the handling of a large army. At this time corps were unknown in the Union Army. And of still higher importance was the fact that one army came out prepared and expecting battle, with all its officers thoroughly instructed in advance as to what was expected, and the other, without such preparation, expectancy, or instruction, found itself suddenly involved against superior numbers in what proved to be the greatest battle thus far fought on the American continent. The Confederate hosts in the early morning moved to battle along their entire front with the purpose of turning either flank of the imperfectly connected Union divisions, but their efforts were, in no substantial sense, successful. The reckless and impetuous assaults, however, drove back, at first precipitately, then more slowly, the advance Union divisions, though at no time without fearful losses to the Confederates. These heavy losses made it necessary soon to draw on the Confederate reserves. The Union commanders took advantage of the undulations of the ground, and the timber, to protect their men, often posting a line in the woods on the edge of fields to the front, thus compelling their foes to advance over open ground exposed to a deadly fire. The early superiority of the attacking army wore gradually away, and while it continued to gain ground its dead and wounded were numerous and close behind it, causing, doubtless, many to straggle or stop to care for their comrades. It has been charged that much disorganization arose from the pillage of the Union captured camps. The divisions of Hurlburt and W. H. L. Wallace were soon, with the reserve artillery, actively engaged, and, save for a brief period, about 5 P.M., and immediately after, and in consequence of the capture at that hour of Prentiss and about 2000 of his division, a continuous Union line from Owl Creek to Lick Creek or the Tennessee was maintained intact, though often retired.

In the afternoon, so desperate had grown the Confederate situation, and so anxious was Johnston to destroy the Union Army before night and reinforcements came, that he led a brigade in person to induce it to charge as ordered, during which he received a wound in the leg, which, for want of attention, shortly proved fatal. To his fall is attributed the ultimate Confederate defeat, though his second, Beauregard, had written and was familiar with the order of battle, and had then much reputation as a field general. He had, in part at least, commanded at Bull Run. Beauregard now assumed command, and continued the attack persistently until night came. No reinforcements arrived for either army in time for the Sunday battle. Through some misunderstanding of orders, and without any indisposition on his part, General Lew Wallace did not reach the battle-field until night, and after the exhausted condition of the troops of both armies had ended the first day’s conflict. The Army of the Tennessee, with a principal division away, had nobly and heroically met the hosts which sought to overwhelm it; some special disasters had befallen two of its five divisions in the battle; General W. H. L. Wallace was mortally wounded, and Prentiss captured, both division commanders; the Union losses in officers and men were otherwise great, probably reaching 7000 (first day of battle), yet when night came the depleted Army of the Tennessee stood firmly at bay about two miles in rear of its most advanced line of the morning. Colonel Webster, of Grant’s staff, had massed, near and above Pittsburg Landing, about twenty pieces of artillery (pointed generally south and southwest) on the crest of a ridge just to the north of a deep ravine extending across the Union left and into the Tennessee. Hurburt’s division was next on the right of this artillery, extending westward almost at right angles with the river. A few troops were placed between the artillery and the river. The gunboats Tyler and Lexington, commanded, respectively, by naval Lieutenants Grim and Shirk, were close to the mouth of the ravine, and when the last desperate attack came their fire materially aided in repulsing it. Next on Hurlburt’s right came McClernand’s division, also extending westward; then Sherman’s, making almost a right angle by extending its right northward towards Snake Creek, to the overflowed lands and swamp just below the mouth of Owl Creek. Broken portions of other divisions and organizations were intermixed in this line, the three divisions named being the only ones on the field still intact.( 8) In this position Grant’s army received at sunset and repelled the last Confederate assault, hurling back, for the last time on that memorable Sunday, the assailing hosts. Dismayed, disappointed, disheartened, if not defeated, the Confederate Army was withdrawn for bivouac for the night to the region of the Union camps of the morning. After firing had ceased, Lew Wallace reached the field on Sherman’s right.

It is known that many stragglers appeared during the day in the rear of the Union Army, and soon assembled near the Tennessee in considerable numbers. The troops were new and undisciplined, and it was consequently hard for the officers to maintain the organizations and keep the men in line; but it is doubtful whether the number of stragglers, considering the character of the battle, was greater than usual, and they were not greater than, if as great as, in the rear of the Confederate Army. An advancing and apparently successful army in battle usually has comparatively few stragglers in the rear, but the plan of fighting adopted by Johnston and Beauregard, in masses, often in close column by regiments, proved so destructive of life as to cause brave men to shrink from the repeated attacks.

However, the gallantry displayed by the attacking force, and the stubborn defensive battle maintained by the Union Army, have seldom, if ever, been excelled or equalled by veteran troops in any war by any race or in any age.

Union officers of high rank may perhaps be justly criticised for not having been better prepared for the battle by intrenchments, concentration, etc., but certainly both officers and soldiers deserve high commendation for their heroic, bloody, and successful resistance after the conflict began. About twenty-five per cent. of those actually engaged fell dead or wounded, and at least a like number of the enemy was disabled. Napoleon fought no single battle in one day where the proportionate losses, dead and wounded, in either contending army were so great; and no battle of modern times shows so great a proportionate loss in the numerically weaker army, which was forced to retire steadily during an entire day, and yet at night was still defiantly standing and delivering battle, and its commander giving orders to assume the offensive at dawn on the morrow.

Grant was not perfection as a soldier at Shiloh, but who else would or could have done so well? If not a war genius, he was the personification of dogged, obstinate persistency, never allowing a word of discouragement or doubt to escape during the entire day, not even to his personal staff, though suffering excruciating pain from the recent injury from the fall of his horse. To him and to the valor of his officers and soldiers the country owes much for a timely victory, though won at great cost of life and limb. To him and them are due praise, not blame.

Thus far the Army of the Ohio is given no credit for participation in the Sunday battle. Buell and Nelson’s division of that army were at Savannah on the evening of the 5th, but Buell refrained from attempting to report his presence to Grant until the next morning. Grant had then departed for the battle-field. Grant was eating his breakfast at Savannah when the battle opened, and at first determined to find Buell before going to his army; but the sound of guns was so continuous, he felt that he should not delay a moment, and hence left a note for Buell asking him to hasten with his reinforcements to Pittsburg Landing, gave an order for Nelson to march at once, and then proceeded by boat up the river. Buell, after reiterating Grant’s instructions to Nelson to march to opposite the Landing, himself about noon proceeded by boat to that place with his chief of staff, Colonel James B. Fry.( 9)

Buell seems to have been much impressed by the number and temper of the stragglers he saw on his arrival, and he made some inquiry as to Grant’s preparations for the retreat of his army. Grant, learning that Buell was on board a steamboat at the Landing, sought him there, hastily explained the situation and the necessity for reinforcements, and again departed for the battle-field. He had before that been in the thick of the fight, where his sword and scabbard had been shot away. Not until 1 or 1.30 P.M.( 9) did the head of Nelson’s column move, Ammen’s brigade leading, for Pittsburg Landing, and then by a swampy river road over which artillery could not be hauled. The artillery went later by boat. At 5 or 6 P.M. the advance,—eight companies of the 36th Indiana (Col. W. Grose)—reached a point on the river opposite the Landing. These companies were speedily taken across the Tennessee in steamboats and marched immediately, less than a quarter of a mile to the left of the already massed artillery, to the support of Grant’s army, then engaged in its struggle to repel the last assault of the Confederates for the day. Other regiments (6th Ohio, Colonel N. L. Anderson, 24th Ohio, Colonel F. C. Jones) of Ammen’s brigade followed closely, but only the 36th Indiana participated in the engagement then about spent. This regiment lost one man killed.10 The expected arrival of the Army of the Ohio and the presence of such of it as arrived may have had a good moral effect, but its late coming gives to it little room to claim any credit for the result of the first day’s battle.

As always, those who only see the rear of an army during a battle gain from the sight and statements of the demoralized stragglers exaggerated notions of the condition and situation of those engaged. That Grant’s army was in danger, and in sore need of reinforcements, cannot be doubted. That the Confederate Army had been fearfully punished in the first day’s fighting is certain. Beauregard reports that he could not, on Monday, bring 20,000 men into action (11)— less than half the number Johnston had when the battle began. The arrival of Nelson’s and Lew Wallace’s divisions six hours earlier would have given a different aspect, probably, to the fist day’s battle. The Army of the Ohio was then composed, generally, of better equipped, better disciplined and older troops, though unused to battle, than the majority of those of the Army of the Tennessee.

Though night had come, dark and rainy, when the four divisions of Buell’s army reached the west bank of the Tennessee, and Lew Wallace’s division arrived on the right, Grant directed the ground in front to be examined and the whole army to be put in readiness to assume the offensive at daybreak next morning. Wallace was pushed forward on the extreme right above the mouth of Owl Creek, and Sherman, McClernand, and Hurlbut, in the order named, on Wallace’s left, then McCook (A. McD.),12 Crittenden (Thomas T.), and Nelson (Wm.) were assigned positions in the order named, from Hurlburt to the left, Nelson on the extreme left, well out towards Lick Creek; all advanced (save McCook) during the night a considerable distance from the position of the Army of the Tennessee at the close of the battle.13

Buell’s artillery arrived and went into battery during the night.

General George H. Thomas’ division and one brigade of General Thomas J. Wood’s division did not arrive in time for the battle. There were present, commanding brigades in the Army of the Ohio, Brigadier- Generals Lovell H. Rosseau, J. T. Boyle, Colonels Jacob Ammen, W. Sooy Smith, W. N. Kirk (34th Illinois), and William H. Gibson (49th Ohio). These Colonels became, later, general officers.

Soon after 5 o’clock in the morning the entire Union Army went forward, gaining ground steadily until 6 A.M., when the strong lines of Beauregard’s army with his artillery in position were reached, and the battle became general and raged with more or less fury throughout the greater part of the day, and until the Confederate Army was beaten back at all points, with the loss of some guns and prisoners, besides killed and wounded. The last stand of the enemy was made about 3 P.M. in front of Sherman’s camp preceding the first day’s battle. Both Grant and Buell accompanied the troops, often personally directing the attacks, as did division and brigade commanders. Grant, late in the day, near Shiloh Church, rode with a couple of regiments to the edge of a clearing and ordered them to “Charge.” They responded with a yell and a run across the opening, causing the enemy to break and disperse. This practically ended the two days’ memorable battle at the old log church where it began.14

The Confederate Army of the Mississippi which came, but four days before, so full of hope and confidence, from its intrenched camp at Corinth, was soon in precipitate retreat. Its commander was dead; many of its best officers were killed or wounded; its columns were broken and demoralized; much of its material was gone; hope and confidence were dissipated, yet it maintained an orderly retreat to its fortifications at Corinth. Beauregard claimed for it some sort of victory.15

From Monterey, on the 8th of April, Beauregard addressed Grant a note saying that in consequence of the exhausted condition of his forces by the extraordinary length of the battle, he had withdrawn them from the conflict, and asking permission to send a mounted party to the battle-field to bury the dead, to be accompanied by certain gentlemen desiring to remove the bodies of their sons and friends. To this Grant responded that, owing to the warmth of the weather, he had caused the dead of both sides to be buried immediately.(16)

The total losses, both days, in the Army of the Tennessee, were 87 officers and 1426 enlisted men killed, 336 officers and 6265 enlisted men wounded, total killed and wounded 8114. The captured and missing were 115 officers and 2318 men, total 2433, aggregate casualties, 10,547.(16)

The total losses in the Army of the Ohio were 17 officers and 224 privates killed, 92 officers and 1715 privates wounded, total 2048. The captured were 55.(16) The grand total of the two Union armies killed, wounded, captured, or missing, 12,650.

The first reports of casualties are usually in part estimated, and not accurate for want of full information. The foregoing statement of losses is given from revised lists. Grant’s statement of losses does not materially differ from the above.(17)

The losses of the Confederate Army in the two days’ battle, as stated in Beauregard’s report of April 11th, were, killed 1728, wounded 8012; total killed and wounded, 9740, missing 959, grand total, 10,699.(16) Grant claimed that Beauregard’s report was inaccurate, as above 1728 were buried, by actual count, in front of Sherman’s and McClernand’s divisions alone. The burial parties estimated the number killed at 4000.17

Besides Johnston, the army commander, there were many Confederate officers killed and wounded. Hon. George W. Johnson, then assuming to act as (Confederate) Provisional Governor of Kentucky, was killed while fighting in the ranks on the second day; General Gladden was killed the first day, and Generals Cheatham, Clark, Hindman, B. R. Johnson, and Bowen were wounded.

Thenceforth during the war there was little boasting of the superior fighting qualities of Southern over Northern soldiers. Both armies fought with a courage creditable to their race and nationality. Americans may always be relied upon to do this when well commanded. I have already taken more space than I originally intended in giving the salient features of the battle of Shiloh, and I cannot now pursue the campaign further than to say General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing April 11th, and assumed command, for the first and only time in the field. He soon drew to him a third army (Army of the Mississippi), about 30,000 strong, under General John Pope.

Island No. 10, in the bend of the Mississippi above New Madrid, was occupied early by the Confederates with a strong force, well fortified, with the hope that it could be held and thus close the Mississippi River against the Union forces from the North. Early after Fort Donelson was taken, Flag Officer Foote took his fleet of gunboats into the Mississippi, and in conjunction with the army under General John Pope sought the capture of the island. Pope moved about 20,000 men to Point Pleasant, on the west bank of the river, March 6, 1862, which compelled the Confederates, on the 14th, to evacuate New Madrid, on the same side of the river, about ten miles above Point Pleasant and the same distance below the island. Pope cut, or “sawed,” a canal from a point above Island No. 10 through a wood to Wilson’s and St. John’s Bayou, leading to New Madrid.18 The position of the Confederates was still so strong with their batteries and redoubts on the eastern shore of the river that Pope with his army alone could not take it. Attacks were made with the gunboats from the north, but they failed to dislodge the enemy. Foote, though requested by Pope, did not think it possible for a gunboat to steam past the batteries and go to the assistance of the army at Point Pleasant. With the assistance of gunboats Pope could cross his army to the east side and thus cut off all supplies for the Confederate Army on the island. Captain Henry Walke, U.S.N., having expressed a willingness to attempt to pass the island and batteries with the Carondelet, was given orders to do so. He accordingly made ready, taking on board Captain Hottenstein and twenty-three sharpshooters of the 42d Illinois. The sailors were all armed; hand-grenades were placed within reach, and hoses were attached to the boilers for throwing scalding water to drive off boarding parties. Thus prepared, the Carondelet, on the night of April 4th, “in the black shadow of a thunderstorm,” safely passed the island and batteries. It was fired on, but reached New Madrid without the loss of a man. The Pittsburg, under Lieutenant-Commander Thompson, in like manner ran the gauntlet without injury, also in a thunderstorm, April 7th. These two gunboats the same day attacked successfully the Confederate batteries on the east shore and covered the crossing of Pope’s army. Seeing that escape was not possible, the garrison on the island surrendered to Flag Officer Foote on April 7th, the same day the Confederates were driven from the field of Shiloh. Pope pursued and captured, on the morning of the 8th, nearly all the retreating troops. General W. W. Mackall, commanding at Island No. 10, and two other general officers, over 5000 men, 20 pieces of heavy artillery, 7000 stand of arms, and quantities of ammunition and provisions were taken without the loss of a Union soldier.19

Not until April 30th did Halleck’s army move on Corinth. Grant, though nominally in command of the right wing, was little more than an observer, as orders were not even sent through him to that wing. For thirty days Halleck moved and intrenched, averaging not to exceed two thirds of a mile a day, until he entered Corinth, May 30th, to find it completely evacuated. He commenced at once to build fortifications for 100,000 men. But the dispersion of this grand army soon commenced; the Army of the Ohio (Buell’s) was sent east along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, with orders to repair the road as it proceeded. We shall soon meet this army and narrate its future movements to the Ohio River—in retreat after Bragg’s army.

Grant, chafing under his treatment, on Corinth being occupied, at his own request was relieved from any duty in Halleck’s department. Later, on Sherman’s advice, he decided to remain, but to transfer his headquarters to Memphis, to which place he started, June 21st, on horseback with a small escort.

Halleck was, July 11, 1862, notified of his own appointment to the command of all the armies, with headquarters at Washington. Grant was therefore recalled to Corinth again. He reached that place and took command, July 15th, Halleck departing two days later, never again to take the field in person. The latter was not under fire during the war, nor did he ever command an army in battle. We here leave Grant and his brilliant career in the West. We shall speak of him soon again, and still later when in command of all the armies of the Union (Halleck included), but with headquarters in the field with the Army of the Potomac.

( 1) War Records, vol. vii., pp. 904, 911.

( 2) Ibid., vol. x., Part I., p. 398 (396).

( 3) Ibid., vol. x., Part I., p. 112.

( 4) War Records, vol. x., Part I., pp. 392-7.

( 5) War Records, atlas, Plate XII.

( 6) Ibid., vol. x., Part I., p. 112.

( 7) Battles and Leaders, vol. i., p. 466.

( 8) For maps showing positions of troops of each army both days see Battles and Leaders, vol. i., pp. 470, 508.

( 9) General Ammen’s diary, Nelson’s and Ammen’s reports, War Records, vol. x., Part I., pp. 323, 328, 332.

(11) War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 391 (398).

(16) War Records, vol. x., Part I., pp. 111, 105, 108, 391.

CHAPTER VII Mitchel’s Campaign to Northern Alabama—Andrews’ Raid into Georgia, and Capture of a Locomotive—Affair at Bridgeport—Sacking of Athens, Alabama, and Court-Martial of Colonel Turchin—Burning of Paint Rock by Colonel Beatty—Other Incidents and Personal Mention —Mitchel Relieved

General Mitchel’s division (to which I belonged) of the Army of the Ohio we left at Nashville, ready to move on an independent line. When the other divisions had started for Savannah, Mitchel, March 18, 1862, resumed his march southward, encamping the first night at Lavergne, fifteen miles from Nashville. The next day we marched on a road leading by old cotton fields, and felt we were in the heart of the slaveholding South. The slaves were of an apparently different type from those in Kentucky, though still of many shades of color, varying from pure African black to oily-white. The eye, in many instances, had to be resorted to, to decide whether there was any black blood in them. But these negroes were shrewd, and had the idea of liberty uppermost in their minds. They had heard that the Northern army was coming to make them free. Their masters had probably talked of this in their hearing. They believed the time for their freedom had come. Untutored as they all were, they understood somehow they were the cause of the war. As our column advanced, regardless of sex, and in families, they abandoned the fields and their homes, turning their backs on master and mistress, many bearing their bedding, clothing, and other effects on their heads and backs, and came to the roadsides, shouting and singing a medley of songs of freedom and religion, confidently expecting to follow the army to immediate liberty. Their number were so great we marched for a good part of a day between almost continuous lines of them. Their disappointment was sincere and deep when told they must return to their homes: that the Union Army could not take them. Of course some never returned, but the mass of them did, and remained until the final decree of the war was entered and their chains fell off, never to be welded in America on their race again. They shouted “Glory” on seeing the Stars and Stripes, as though it had been a banner of protection and liberty, instead of the emblem of a power which hitherto had kept them and their ancestors in bondage. The “old flag” has a peculiar charm for those who have served under it. It was noticeable that wherever we marched in the South, particularly in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, we found men at the roadside who had fought in the Mexican War, often with tears streaming down their cheeks, who professed sincere loyalty to the flag and the Union.

We reached Murfreesboro on the 20th without a fight, the small Confederate force retiring and destroying bridges as we advanced.

The division was kept busy in repairing the railroad, and especially in rebuilding the recently destroyed railroad bridge near Murfreesboro across Stone’s River. I worked industriously in charge of a detail of soldiers on this bridge. In ten days it was rebuilt, though the heavy timbers had to be cut and hewed from green timber in the nearby woods. The Union Army never called in vain for expert mechanics, civil or locomotive engineers.

I took a train of ninety wagons, starting to Nashville on the 31st, for quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance supplies, with instructions to repair, while on the way, broken places in the railroad. In consequence of the destruction of bridges the train and guard had to travel a longer route than the direct one, making the distance above forty miles. We repaired the railroad, and reached Nashville and loaded my wagons by the evening of the second day. The city was a demoralizing place for soldiers. A few of my men of the 10th Ohio became drunk, and while I was engaged in the night trying to move the train and guard out of the city, some one threw a stone which struck me in the back of the head, cutting the scalp and causing it to bleed freely. I got the train under way about midnight, and then searched for a surgeon, but at that hour could find none. Knowing that Mrs. McMeans, the wife of the surgeon of the 3d Ohio, was at the City Hotel, I had her called, and she performed the necessary surgery, and stopped the flow of blood. Long before sunrise my train was far on the road, and by 8 P.M. of the 2d of April it was safely in our camps at Murfreesboro. It was attacked near Lavergne by some irregular cavalry, or guerillas, but they were easily driven off. Such troops did not, as a rule, care to fight. The conduct of a supply-train through a country infested by them is attended with much responsibility and danger, and requires much energy and skill.

Mitchel, now being supplied, marched south, April 3d, and we reached Shelbyville the next day—a town famed for its great number of Union people. Loyalty seemed there to be the rule, not the exception. The Union flag was displayed on the road to and at Shelbyville by influential people. Our bands played as we entered the town, and there were many manifestations of joy over our coming. This is the only place in the South where I witnessed such a reception. I recall among those who welcomed us the names of Warren, Gurnie, Story, Cooper, and Weasner.

While here Colonel John Kennett, with part of his 4th Ohio Cavalry, made a raid south and captured a train on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad and some fifteen prisoners.

A short time before we reached Shelbyville, Mitchel sent a party of eight soldiers, in disguise, under the leadership of a citizen of Kentucky, known as Captain J. J. Andrews, to enter the Confederate lines and proceed via Chattanooga to Atlanta, with some vague idea of capturing a train of cars or a locomotive and escaping with it, burning the bridges behind them. The party reached its destination, but for want of an engineer who had promised to join it at Atlanta, the plan was abandoned, and each of the party returned in safety, joining their respective regiments at Shelbyville. Andrews, still desiring to carry out the plan, organized a second party, composed of himself and another citizen of Kentucky, Wm. Campbell, and twenty-four soldiers, detailed from Ohio regiments, seven from the 2d, eight from the 33d, and nine from the 21st.( 1) This party started from Shelbyville, Monday night, April 7, 1862, disguised as citizens, professing to be driven from their homes in Kentucky by the Union Army and going South to join the Confederate Army. They were to travel singly or in couples over roads not frequented by either army, but such as were usually taken by real Kentucky refugees to Chattanooga or some station where passage on cars could be taken to Marietta, Georgia, where the whole party were to assemble in four days ready to take a train northward the following (Friday) morning. Each man was furnished by Andrews with an abundance of Confederate money to pay bills. It was understood that if any were suspected and in danger of capture they were to enlist in the Southern army until an opportunity for escape presented. Mitchel, it was known to Andrews and his party, was to start for Huntsville, Alabama, in a day or two, and Andrews hoped to be able to escape with his captured train through Chattanooga, thence west over the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and join Mitchel at some point east of Huntsville.

The distance was too great for all the party to reach their destination before Friday, and on the way Andrews managed to notify most of his men that the enterprise would not be undertaken until Saturday. About midnight of the 11th of April the members reached Marietta, and, with two exceptions, spent the night at a small hotel near the depot. Big Shanty (where passengers on the early morning train were allowed to take breakfast), north of Marietta, was the place where the party proposed to seize the locomotive and such part of the train as might seem practicable, the engineer (Brown) of the party to run it north, stopping at intervals only long enough to cut telegraph wires, to prevent information being sent ahead, tear up short portions of the track to prevent pursuit, and to burn bridges, the latter being the principal object of the raid. Porter and Hawkins of the party, who had lodging at a different hotel from the others, were not awakened in time, and consequently did not participate in the daring act for which the party was organized.

During the night Andrews carefully instructed those at his hotel, each man being told what was expected of him. The party were almost to a man strangers to him until five days before, and hardly two of them, though of the same regiment, until then knew each other. Never before, for so extraordinary an attempt, was so incongruous a band assembled. I knew one of them—Sergeant-Major Marion A. Ross, of the 2d Ohio. He had no previous training, and no special skill for such an expedition. He was a farmer boy (Champaign Co., Ohio) of more than ordinary retiring modesty, with no element of reckless daring in his nature. He had almost white silky flaxen hair, and at Antioch College, where I first met him, he rarely associated with his schoolmates in play or amusement. He was called a ladies’ man; and this because he did not care for the active pursuits usually enjoyed by young men.

It is said that when Ross ascertained the number of trains, regular and irregular, with which the exigencies of war had covered the railroad, and considered also the distance to be passed over, he tried at the last moment to dissuade Andrews from undertaking the execution of the enterprise. In this he failed, but Andrews gave any of the party who regarded the design too hazardous the right to withdraw.( 2) Not one, however, availed himself of this liberty. Ross saw that the scheme must fail, but was too manly to abandon his comrades.

Saturday morning before daylight the party was seated in one passenger car, moving north. In this and other coaches there were several hundred passengers.( 3) At sunrise, when eight miles from Marietta, the train stopped, and the trainmen shouted: “Big Shanty —twenty minutes for breakfast.” At this, conductor, engineer, fireman, and train-hands, with most of the passengers, left the train. Thus the desired opportunity of Andrews and his party was presented. They did not hesitate. Three cars back from the tender, including only box-cars, the coupling-pin was drawn, and the passenger cars cut off. Andrews mounted the engine, with Brown and Knight as engineers and Wilson as fireman. Others took places as brakemen, or as helpers and guards, and, to the amazement of the bystanders, the locomotive moved rapidly north. The conductor, engineer, and train-men were dazed. The capture was accomplished, but how were the trains and the stations to be passed on the long journey to Chattanooga; and how was that place to be passed, and still a run of a hundred miles made over the Memphis and Charleston Railroad before they were within the Union lines at Huntsville? The train proceeded only a short distance when it was stopped and the telegraph wires cut, then it moved on again, stopping now and then long enough to enable Andrews and his men to tear up the track behind them. They reached Kingston, thirty-two miles north, where a stop had to be made, but by claiming their train was a powder train hastening to Beauregard’s army, they were allowed to pass on; so the flight continued until Dalton and the tunnel north of it were passed. The conductor, Fuller, started from Big Shanty with a small party on foot, then procured a hand-car and at Dalton a locomotive. His pursuit was both energetic and intelligent. At Dalton he succeeded in getting a telegram through to Chattanooga giving notice of the coming of the raiders. The locomotive seized, known as General, proved a poor one, and fuel soon gave out, and finally the pursuers came in sight. Cars were dropped and bridges were fired, but the pursuers pushed the cars ahead and put out the flames. At last, not far from Chattanooga, the General was abandoned, and the raiders scattered to the woods and, generally singly, sought to evade capture; but as the whole country was aroused and Confederate soldiers were at hand, most of the party were soon captured; one or two evaded discovery by going boldly to recruiting stations and enlisting in the Confederate Army. The history of the suffering, trials, and fate of this daring band is one of the most thrilling and tragic of the war. It is too long to be here told. The captured were imprisoned at Chattanooga, and Andrews, the leader (after making one attempt to escape), was heavily ironed, and a scaffold was prepared at Chattanooga for his execution, but for some reason he and his companions were transferred to Atlanta, where, on the day of their arrival, he was taken to a scaffold and hung, and his body buried in an unmarked and still unknown grave.( 3) He died bravely, resigned to his fate. He was a man of quiet demeanor, of extraordinary resolution, and more than ordinary ability. He was tried and sentenced by a sort of drum-head court-martial, charged with being disloyal to the Confederacy and hanged as a spy.( 3) Other men of more fame have died on the gallows, and others of less merit have occupied high positions.

Seven of the band were taken to Knoxville, and in June, 1862, tried by court-martial and condemned to be hanged as spies. Campbell, Wilson, Ross, Shadrack, Slaven, Robinson, and Scott were hanged June 18th, by order of General E. Kirby Smith, at Atlanta.( 3) Their bodies were buried in a rude trench at the foot of the scaffold. A grateful government has caused this trench to be opened and the mortal remains of these unfortunate heroes of cruel war to be removed to the beautiful National Cemetery near Chattanooga and buried amidst the heroes of Chickamauga, there to rest until the Grand Army of Soldier-dead shall be summoned to rise on the resurrection morn.

Eight others, Brown, Knight, Porter, Wood, Wilson, Hawkins, Wallam, and Dorsey, after suffering more than the pangs of death in prison, in various ways and at different times escaped; and after like suffering, six others, Parrot, Buffem, Bensinger, Reddick, Mason, and Pittenger were (March, 1863) exchanged. These fourteen were, save Wood and Buffem, living in 1881, honored and upright citizens. Pittenger was a member of the New Jersey Methodist Episcopal Conference, and the author of Capturing a Locomotive, in which is given the story of the tragic affair in all its painful details.

Mitchel’s division resumed its march southward April 9th, and reached Fayetteville the next day; two brigades—Turchin’s and Sill’s—continued the march towards Huntsville on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. At Fayetteville the inhabitants seemed to be wholly disloyal, and extended no welcome. Huntsville was surprised and captured before daylight on April 11th. A large number of cars and fifteen locomotives were taken.( 4) One train was found at the depot loaded with recruits for Beauregard’s army at Corinth. Many Confederates who had been wounded at Shiloh were captured and paroled. The next day, at Stevenson, five more locomotives and a large amount of rolling stock were taken.( 4)

The only instance witnessed by me during the war of a body of soldiers refusing to obey orders was of the 10th Ohio when it was ordered at Fayetteville to prepare to march, each man carrying his knapsack. On some occasions prior to this time the company wagons carried the knapsacks of the men. Colonel Wm. H. Lytle (then commanding a brigade), being greatly chagrined and enraged at the insubordination of his regiment, ordered a section of a battery pointed on it, took out his watch, and gave the men two minutes to take up their knapsacks and be ready to march. The order was obeyed complainingly, and the incident was not again repeated. This regiment was a good one, and later it was distinguished for valor and good soldierly conduct.

As we proceeded south into the cotton regions, the slaves were more numerous and still flocked to the roadsides, seeking and desiring to follow the army. All believed the “Yankee army” had come solely to free them.

Colonel John Beatty was made Provost-Marshal and President of a Board of Administration for Huntsville.

Huntsville was a beautiful, aristocratic little Southern city. A feature of it was a large spring near its centre which furnished an abundant supply of water for the men and animals of a large army. It was the home of the Alabama Clays, all disloyal; of ex-Senator Jerry Clemens, who had early been a Union man, but later was disposed to accept secession as an accomplished fact; then, on the Union occupancy of Northern Alabama, he boldly advocated a restoration of the State to the Union. Colonel Nick Davis, likewise an original Union man, at first opposed secession; then, after Bull run, accepted a colonelcy in an Alabama rebel regiment; then declined it, and thereafter tried to remain loyal to the Union. The conduct of such strong men as Clemens and Davis is not to be wondered at when their surroundings are considered. There were many who, feeling bound to continue their residence in the South, and believing, after Bull Run, that the Confederacy was established, yielded their opposition to it.

Reverend Frederick A. Ross, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, who preached the divinity of slavery, resided here.( 5) Reverend Ross was arrested by General Rousseau and sent north to prison for publicly praying in his church at Huntsville (while occupied by the Union Army) for the success of the Confederacy, the overthrow of the Union, and the defeat of its armies.

There were some men, among whom were Hon. George W. Lane (later appointed a United States Judge), who adhered firmly to the Union. That part of Alabama north of the Tennessee had opposed secession.

Clement Comer Clay, a lawyer, who had been a soldier in the Creek Indian War, Chief-Justice of his State, and had served in both branches of Congress and as Governor of Alabama, was arrested and tried at Huntsville, when seventy-three years of age, by a military commission of which I was president. There were several charges against him, the most serious of which was for aiding and advising guerillas to secretly shoot down Union soldiers, cut telegraph lines, and wreck trains. This charge he vehemently denied until a letter in his own handwriting was produced, recently written to a guerilla chief, advising him and his band to do the things mentioned. He was not severely dealt with, but was sent to Camp Chase, Ohio, for detention. He was later liberated, and died in Huntsville in 1866. His son, Clement Claiborne Clay, had been a judge, and subsequently a United States Senator. He withdrew from the Senate in February, 1861, and was formally expelled in March, 1861. He became a Senator in the Confederate Congress in 1862, and during the last two years of the war was the secret agent of the Confederacy in Canada, where he plotted raids on the Northern frontier.

General O. M. Mitchel held advanced notions on the subject of the treatment and disposition of slaves of masters in arms against the government. The slaves of such masters, he thought, should be confiscated. He used some slaves as spies to gain information of the enemy, and to located secreted Confederate supplies, and to them he promised protection, if not freedom. Secretary Stanton approved his action and views in this matter.( 6)

But Buell, his immediate commander, wholly disapproved of all employment or use of slaves in any manner as instruments to put down the rebellion. Mitchel, therefore, soon fell into disfavor with him. Buell, on learning that Mitchel had employed some able-bodied escaped slaves to aid the soldiers in constructing stockades to protect railroad bridges, necessary to be maintained to enable supplies to be brought up, ordered Mitchel to send an officer to see that slaves thus employed were forthwith returned to their masters. I was accordingly directed by Mitchel to take a small guard, and, with a locomotive and car, go to the bridges west of Huntsville and north of the Tennessee River, on the line of railroad from Decatur through Athens towards Nashville, to execute this order of Buell’s. I executed it to the letter—only. While on this unpleasant duty I came to a place where a scouting party, commanded by a lieutenant sent out by Mitchel, had two citizen-disguised Confederate guerillas, just taken in the act of cutting the telegraph wires, an offence, by a proclamation of Mitchel, punishable by death. The scouting party proceeded to hang them with wire to telegraph poles. I did not approve the summary punishment, but was powerless and without authority over the officer; and was then engaged only in returning slaves to their owners.

Prior to this order of Buell’s, Congress had passed an act, as an Article of War, prohibiting the employment of any of the United States forces “for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have escaped, and any officer found guilty, by a court-martial, of violating this article to be dismissed from the service.”( 7) The order, and my execution of it, were alike in violation of the law, for the issuing and execution of which both Buell and I could have been dismissed from the service. Just after the capture of Fort Donelson Grant issued an order prohibiting the return of the fugitive slaves with his army and of all slaves at Fort Donelson at the time of its capture.( 8)

Both Stevenson and Decatur, to the east and west of Huntsville, were, by the use of captured locomotives and cars, seized by Mitchel on the 12th of April, and his command was soon so extended as to hold the one hundred miles of railroad between Stevenson and Tuscumbia. The last of the same month, however, the troops were withdrawn from Tuscumbia and south of the Tennessee. The 3d and 10th Ohio being in occupancy of Decatur, evacuated it under orders, and, on the night of April 27th, burned the railroad bridge (one half mile in length) over the Tennessee River.

An expedition started the same day for Bridgeport, where the railroad again crosses the Tennessee, and where General Danville Leadbetter had command of a small force on the west side of the river, somewhat intrenched. The expedition consisted of two companies of cavalry, two pieces of artillery, and six regiments of infantry, Mitchel commanding. Owing to the destruction by the Confederates of a bridge over Widow’s Creek, it was impossible to transport by rail the artillery with caissons and horses nearer than four miles of Bridgeport. By the use of cotton bales the two guns were floated over the deep stream, and the artillery horses and caissons with extra ammunition were left behind. The guns were dragged by two companies of the 3d Ohio, and the whole expedition pushed on to a ridge within about five hundred yards of Leadbetter’s redoubts near the north end of the bridge. The enemy was surprised or demoralized, and Leadbetter did not decide either to retreat or fight until a shot or two from our cannon emptied his redoubts and intrenched position near the end of the bridge.

Precipitately his guns were loaded on a platform-car, and a hasty retreat was made across the Tennessee by the railroad bridge; but before all the Confederate troops had succeeded in crossing Leadbetter caused to be exploded two hundred pounds of powder, with a view of blowing up the east span of the bridge. The explosion did not do the work, hence the drawbridge at the east end was fired, to complete its destruction.( 9) But few captures were made. Leadbetter also abandoned his camp east of the river, and was forced to abandon two guns placed in position on the east bank. One of the Andrews raiders of the 33d Ohio, who, to save himself from capture and punishment, had joined Captain Kain’s battery, and was acting as artillery sergeant with the two guns captured, hid under the river bank and signalled his desire to be allowed to surrender. He was permitted to cross over to us, and, his old regiment being present, he at once rejoined it.

Mitchel moved his command on Bridgeport with great rapidity and skill, but he showed a nervous temper, which gave the impression that in a great battle he would become too much excited for a commanding officer.

Just after Leadbetter’s retreat a body of cavalry appeared below Bridgeport in an open field, not knowing the place had been taken, and would have been captured had Mitchel not ordered them fired on before they came near enough to be cut off.

I was sent on the morning of the 30th, in command of a detachment, across the Tennessee to reconnoitre towards Chattanooga. We improvised rafts from logs and timber to carry the men, and a few horses for mounted officers were forced into the stream, and by holding their heads to the rafts compelled to swim the east channel of the Tennessee. We secured the two guns mentioned, some muskets and supplies at the enemy’s camps, and found evidence of a hasty flight of the Confederates. By a détour we came into a valley flanked to the east by Raccoon Mountain, and we visited a large saltpetre works at Nick-a-Jack Cave. These works we destroyed by breaking the large iron kettles and by burning all combustible structures. A portion of the detachment was sent under cover of the thick woods to the railroad east of Shellmound, a station near the river, where we expected to cut off a train of cars engaged in loading, for removal, supplies of provisions. The engineer, a few moments before the party reached the railroad, had run his engine to a water-station located east of the point of our intersection, and it thus escaped capture. We, however, captured one captain and about a dozen men; also the cars of the train and considerable supplies, all of which we were obliged to destroy, save some choice, much-needed hams. These we loaded on a flat car, which we pushed about ten miles to the east abutment of the broken bridge. This raid caused great consternation at Chattanooga for several days. The detachment was reported as 5000 strong at Shellmound, and Leadbetter ordered “all bridges on the railroad and country roads” burned, and a retreat to Lookout Mountain.10 It would have been easy then to have taken Chattanooga. A year and a half later it cost many lives and became about the only Union trophy of the battle of Chickamauga.

I learned on this raid, from prisoners, that Farragut and Butler had, on April 29, 1862, obtained possession of New Orleans. This was the first information of their success received at the North.(11)

My expedition was the first armed one of the war upon the mainland of Georgia.

On my return to the west side of the river I found my regiment, with others, under orders to march at 9 o’clock at night for Stevenson, destination Athens, Alabama. The enemy, under Colonel J. S. Scott, attacked (May 1st) and drove out of Athens the 18th Ohio, under Colonel T. R. Stanley. The affair was not a creditable one to either side. The troops under Scott were said to have been harbored in houses from which they fired on Stanley’s men as the latter fled through the streets, and it was claimed citizens aided in shooting down Union soldiers, though this was never shown to be true. Scott, in his report to Beauregard, dated the day of the fight, boasted that the “boys took few prisoners, their shots proving singularly fatal.”11

The affair itself was of but little consequence, as Colonel Scott was driven out of Athens the succeeding night, and the next day across the Tennessee, he only having captured Stanley’s baggage, four wagons, and twenty men, having suffered in killed and wounded a greater loss than he had inflicted.

Out of this incident arose one of the most exceptional occurrences of the whole war.

Colonel John Basil Turchin, of the 19th Illinois, in command of a brigade in Mitchel’s division, reached Athens, May 2d, and, it was said, in retaliation for the alleged bad conduct of its citizens the day preceding, he retired to his tent and gave the place up for two hours to be sacked by his command. It was asserted that private houses were invaded during this time, money and valuables seized and carried off, and revolting outrages committed. Turchin was a Russian,12 a soldier of experience, and a military man, educated in the best schools of Europe. He had served on the general staff of the Czar of Russia and in the Imperial Guard, rising to the rank of Colonel, and he had served his Czar also in the Hungarian War, 1848-49, and in the Crimean War of 1854-56.

It is more than possible that he had imbibed notions as to the manner and believed in methods of treating the enemy’s property, including their slaves, and of dealing with captured towns and cities and their inhabitants, not in harmony with modern and more humane and civilized rules of war.

He did not believe war could be successfully waged by an invading army with its officers and soldiers acting as missionaries of mercy for and protectors and preservers of the property of hostile inhabitants. Later, and after General McCausland burned Chambersburg, Penna., less criticism fell on Turchin for his behavior at Athens.

His conduct and that of his command were doubtless exaggerated in many particulars, but enough was true to excite much comment and fierce denunciation and condemnation. The affair was especially unfortunate as to place, Athens being justly celebrated for the number of inhabitants who honestly adhered to the Union cause.

General Mitchel repaired to Athens on hearing it had been sacked, addressed the citizens, induced them to organize a committee to hear and report on all complaints; then ordered the brigade commander to cause every soldier under him to be searched, and every officer to state in writing, upon honor, that he had no pillaged property. The committee subsequently reported, but no charge was made against any officer or soldiers by name. The bills of forty-five citizens, however, were presented by it, aggregating $54,689.80, for alleged depredations. The search was made without finding an article and the reports of officers showed that they had no stolen property.

Strict orders against pillaging and plundering were issued and thereafter enforced in Mitchel’s division. The outrages upon women, if any occurred, were greatly magnified.13

Buell caused Turchin to be placed in arrest, and he was later tried, convicted, and sentenced to be dismissed the service of the United States, the court having found him guilty of “neglect of duty, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline,” and of “disobedience of orders,” and of certain specifications to the charges, among others one embodying the allegation that he did “on or about the 2d of May, 1862, march his brigade into the town of Athens, State of Alabama, and having had the arms of the regiments stacked in the streets, did allow his command to disperse, and in his presence, or with his knowledge and that of his officers, to plunder and pillage the inhabitants of said town and of the country adjacent thereto, without taking adequate steps to restrain them.” He pleaded guilty to one specification only, namely, that of permitting his wife to be with him in Athens, and to accompany him while serving with troops in the field. This court-martial was ordered by Buell, July 5, 1862, and it met first at Athens and then at Huntsville, Alabama, July 20th.14 General James A. Garfield was its President, and Colonels John Beatty, Jacob Ammern, Curran Pope, J. G. Jones, Marc Mundy, and T. D. Sedgwick were the other members.

During the session of the court, General Garfield and Colonel Ammen were the guests of Colonel Beatty and myself at our camp near Huntsville. Though I had met Garfield, I had no previous acquaintance with either of them. They were even them remarkable men—both accomplished and highly educated, Ammen having previously had a military education. We were enabled to get intimately acquainted with them at our meals and during the long evenings spent in discussing the war and all manner of subjects. Both were fine talkers and enjoyed controversial conversation. Ammen, though not alone from vanity, was disposed to occupy the most of the time, and sometimes he would occupy an entire evening telling stories, narrating an event, or maintaining his own side of a controversy. He was the oldest of the party, and always interesting, so he was tolerated in this—generally. He was superstitious, and believed in the supernatural to a certain extent, denying that such belief was a weakness, else “Napoleon and Sir Walter Scott were the weakest of men.” General Beatty relates an incident of an evening’s talk (July 24th) at our camp thus:

“We ate supper, and immediately adjourned to the adjoining tent. Before Garfield was fairly seated on his camp stool, he began to talk with the easy and deliberate manner of a man who had much to say. He dwelt eloquently on the minutest details of his early life, as if they were matters of the utmost importance. Keifer was not only an attentive listener, but seemed wonderfully interested. Uncle Jacob undertook to thrust in a word here and there, but Garfield was much too absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his scheme, however, before he had gone far he made a touching reference to his mother, when Uncle Jacob, gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger levelled at the speaker, cried: ‘Just a word—just one word right there,’ and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, he held the floor for the remainder of the evening. The conspirators made brave efforts to put him down and cut him off, but they were unsuccessful. At midnight, when Keifer and I had left, he was still talking; and after we had got into bed, he, with his suspenders dangling about his legs, thrust his head into our tent-door, and favored us with the few observations we had lost by reason of our hasty departure. Keifer turned his face to the wall and groaned. Poor man, he had been hoisted by his own petard. I think Uncle Jacob suspected that the young men had set up a job on him.”15

The court having concluded the case, Buell, August 6, 1862, issued an order approving its proceedings and sentence of dismissal from the service, and declaring that Colonel Turchin ceased “to be in the service of the United States.”16

Although the charges against him and his trial were notorious, and well known at the War Department and to the country, President Lincoln, the day preceding Buell’s order of dismissal, appointed Colonel Turchin a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and the Senate promptly confirmed the appointment, and thus he came out of his trial and condemnation with increased rank. He accepted the promotion, served in the field afterwards, was distinguished in many battles, and left the army October 4, 1864.

Turchin at the time he entered the Union Army was, and still is, a resident of Illinois.

There were many excellent men of foreign birth and residence who found places in the Union Army and filled them with credit.17

At Paint Rock, on the railroad east of Huntsville, the train on which the 3d Ohio was being transported from Stevenson (May 2d) was fired upon from ambush by guerillas, and six or eight men more or less seriously wounded.

Colonel Beatty stopped the train, and after giving the citizens notice that all such acts of bushwhacking would bring on them certain destruction of property, as it was known that professed peaceful citizens were often themselves the guilty parties or harbored the guilty ones, himself fired the town as an earnest of what a repetition of such deeds would bring.

Many fruitless small expeditions were undertaken to drive out the constant invasions made by Wheeler’s, Morgan’s, Adams’, and Scott’s cavalry north of the Tennessee and upon our lines of communication.

On May 18th, having become restless in camp, I volunteered as special aide to Colonel Wm. H. Lytle on an expedition to Winchester, Tennessee. We passed through a region thickly infested with the most daring bands of guerillas, and at Winchester had an encounter with some of Adams’ regular cavalry, who, after making a rash charge into the town while we occupied it and losing a few men, retreated eastward to the mountains.

On May 13th General James S. Negley led a force from Pulaski against Adams’ cavalry at Rogersville, north of the Tennessee opposite the Muscle Shoals, and with slight loss drove it across the river. Later there was a more determined effort by the Confederates to occupy, with considerable bodies of cavalry and light artillery, the country north of the Tennessee below Chattanooga, but June 4th, an expedition under Negley, composed of troops selected from Mitchel’s command, surprised Adams with his principal force twelve miles northwest of Jasper, and routed him, killing about twenty of his men and wounding and capturing about one hundred more; also capturing arms, ammunition, commissary wagons, and supplies.18 Negley pushed his command over the mountains up to the Tennessee, threatening to cross to the south side at Shellmound, and at other points, and finally took position opposite Chattanooga.

The expedition caused much consternation among the rebels, though little was actually accomplished. The attack made on Chattanooga, June 7th and 8th, failed, and Negley’s command returned.19 Colonel Joshua W. Sill, 33d Ohio, afterwards Brigadier-General, and killed at the battle of Stone’s River, commanded a brigade under Mitchel and in the Chattanooga expedition. He was an accomplished, educated officer, modest almost to a fault, yet brave and capable of great deeds. His body is buried at Chillicothe, Ohio.

Mitchel’s position in Northern Alabama was at all times precarious; he covered too much country; lacked concentration, and was constantly in danger of being assailed in detail; besides, his relations to Buell, his immediate commander, were not cordial. He complained frequently directly to the Secretary of War for want of support. Shortly after Buell’s arrival from Corinth, the last of June, Mitchel tendered his resignation and asked to be granted immediate leave of absence, but the next day (July 2d) he was, by the Secretary of War, ordered to repair to Washington,20 and General Lovell H. Rousseau, a Kentuckian, who also believed in a vigorous prosecution of the war, succeeded him. General Mitchel on reaching Washington was selected by President Lincoln for command of an expedition on the Mississippi, but Halleck opposed his suggestion and failed to give the necessary orders for the contemplated movement, consequently Mitchel remained inactive until September, when he was assigned the command of the Department of the South, headquarters Hilton Head. He was stricken with yellow fever and died at Beaufort, South Carolina, October 30, 1862. He is buried at Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N. Y.

( 1) Pittenger, Capturing a Locomotive, pp. 26, 40.

( 2) Capturing a Locomotive, pp. 66-8.

( 3) Capturing a Locomotive, pp. 204-5, 182, 224, 353.

( 4) War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 641; Part II., p. 104.

( 5) Ante, p. 5.

( 6) War Records, vol. x., Part II., pp. 115, 162-5, 195.

( 7) Quoted in Lincoln’s 22d of September, 1862, proclamation.

( 8) McPherson, History of Reconstruction, p. 293.

( 9) War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 657.

“Marshall House, York Harbor, Maine, July 10, 1889. “My Dear General Keifer,—Your letter came to me just as I was leaving Washington.... I keep fairly well and vigorous for an old fellow so near to the octogenarian line. Accept my thanks for your kind remembrance and good wishes. You want to know about Colonel John DeCourcey, who commanded the [16th] regiment of Ohio Infantry for some time during our late war. I have not much to tell you of him, except that I made his acquaintance afterwards as a British nobleman. He was appointed a Union officer, I believe, by Governor Dennison, and had had, as I understand, some previous military experience and training.

“One night, in a party at the house of a friend in London, about 1872, I was told that Lord Kinsale desired especially to be presented to me. I said of course it would be agreeable. On being introduced he explained that, besides a general desire to pay his respects to the American Minister, he took an interest in me as being from Ohio. I was a little surprised to find an English gentleman having any particular knowledge about Ohio. He went on to tell me he had not been in London for some time, and had been ill, or he would have called on me before that time, for that he had served as commander of an Ohio regiment during our late war. This surprised me, but he explained that he was not then Lord Kinsale, else the fact might have attracted some attention, but only John DeCourcey, having succeeded rather unexpectedly to the title. I think he said on the death of a cousin, and perhaps the end of two or three other lives intervening. He was himself then an invalid, apparently, and has since died. I found him an agreeable gentleman.

“The Barony of Kinsale is an old title. I believe this Lord Kinsale was the 31st or 32d Baron. His ancestor, Earl of Ulster, for defending King John, in single combat, with a champion provided by Philip Augustus of France, was granted the privilege for himself and heirs, forever to go with covered head in the presence of Royalty. This, my dear general, must be about all that I told you of John DeCourcey, or could remember when I met you on the occasion you mention, at Springfield. Hope you are in good heart and health, I am

“Very sincerely yours,
  “Robt. C. Schenck.”

CHAPTER VIII Confederate Invasion of Kentucky (1862)—Cincinnati Threatened, and “Squirrel Hunters” Called Out—Battles of Iuka, Corinth, and Hatchie Bridge—Movements of Confederate Armies of Bragg and Kirby Smith—Retirement of Buell’s Army to Louisville—Battle of Perryville, with Personal and Other Incidents

As we have seen, Halleck’s great army at Corinth was dispersed, the Army of the Ohio going eastward. It spent the month of June, 1862, in rebuilding bridges, including the great bridge across the Tennessee at Decatur, but recently burned under his direction, and soon again to be abandoned to the Confederates.

The Confederate authorities projected an invasion on two lines and with two armies,—one under General E. Kirby Smith and the other under General Braxton Bragg,—the Ohio River and the cities of Louisville and Cincinnati being the objective points; the design being, also, to recruit the Confederate armies in Kentucky, obtain supplies, and force the evacuation by the Union Army of Alabama and Tennessee, and especially of Nashville. Early in August, 1862, these two Confederate armies were assembled at Knoxville and Chattanooga and along the Upper Tennessee, Kirby Smith’s main force at the former and Bragg’s at the latter place. The objectives of these armies were soon known, and the Army of the Ohio was therefore ordered to concentrate from its scattered situation at Decherd and Winchester, Tennessee.

General Robert L. McCook, late Colonel of the 9th Ohio, commanding a brigade under General George H. Thomas, while riding in an ambulance at the head of his command, ill and helpless, was shot and mortally wounded, August 5th, about three miles eastward of New Market, Alabama, by a body of ambushed men, said to have been guerillas in citizens’ dress. He died at 12 M., August 6th. His command, in retaliation, laid the country waste around the scene of his death.( 1) McCook had fought in Western Virginia; at Mill Springs (where he was wounded), at Shiloh, and elsewhere. He was one of the ten sons of Major Daniel McCook, who was killed (July 21, 1863), at sixty-five years of age, near Buffington’s Island, during the Morgan raid in Ohio, while leading a party to cut off Morgan’s escape across the Ohio River. Two brothers of his were killed in battle—Charles M., at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, and Daniel at Kenesaw, July 21, 1864. Alexander McDowell McCook commanded a corps, and all the brothers had honorable war records. Dr. John McCook, brother of the senior Daniel McCook, likewise served and died in the war. He had five sons, three of whom served with distinction in the volunteer army and two in the navy. I knew John’s son, General Anson George McCook, first in Mitchel’s division as Major and Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2d Ohio, then in the Forty-fifty, Forty-sixth, and Forty-seventh Congresses, and later as Secretary of the United States Senate.

The killing of General R. L. McCook, under the circumstances, was regarded as murder, and excited deep indignation both in and out of the army. Even Buell issued orders to arrest every able-bodied man of suspicious character within a radius of ten miles of the place where McCook was shot, to take all horses fit for service within that circuit, and to pursue and destroy bushwhackers.( 2) With the arrest of a few men and the taking of some horses, however, the incident closed so far as official action was concerned.

Memphis was taken, on June 6, 1862, by Flag Officer C. H. Davis, who had with him a Ram Fleet under Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr., and an Indiana brigade under Colonel G. N. Fitch.( 3)

The plan of the Confederate invasion, as already stated, was to operate on two lines. Kirby Smith from Knoxville was first to move on and take Cumberland Gap, then held by General George W. Morgan. Bragg was at Tupelo, Mississippi, July 18th, but, fired with the idea that on Kentucky being invaded her people would flock to arms under the Confederate standard, he commenced transferring his army to the new field of operations and removed his headquarters, July 29th, to Chattanooga.

Kirby Smith took the field August 13th, moving on Cumberland Gap, but, finding it impregnable by direct attack, he left General Stevenson with a division to threaten it and advanced on Lexington. John Morgan with a considerable body of cavalry preceded Smith into Middle Kentucky, and his incursion was taken as a forerunner of the greater one to follow. Alarm over the audacious movement was not limited to Kentucky; it spread to Ohio, and there were fears for the safety of Cincinnati.

General Horatio G. Wright was assigned to a new Department of the Ohio, composed of the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kentucky east of the Tennessee River, including Cumberland Gap, and he assumed command of it August 23d, headquarters at Cincinnati.( 4) On the 16th, Buell had ordered General Wm. Nelson from the vicinity of Murfreesboro, with some artillery and infantry, to Kentucky, to there organize troops to keep open communications and operate against John Morgan.( 5) Wright, on the 23d, ordered Nelson to Lexington to assume command of the troops in that vicinity and relieve General Lew Wallace. Nelson, with insufficient, and mainly new, undrilled, and undisciplined troops, moved to Richmond, Ky., where (August 30th) he was assailed by Kirby Smith’s army and his forces disastrously routed with much loss, principally in captured. He was himself wounded in the leg by a musket ball. There were few organized Union troops now between Smith’s army and the Ohio River, and such organizations as could be assembled were new and unable to cope with the Confederate veterans. The news of the defeat at Richmond reached Cincinnati the same evening, and it was at once assumed that Lexington and Frankfort would soon be in the enemy’s hands, and Kirby Smith’s army would forthwith march on Covington, Newport, and Cincinnati. The assumption proved correct, as the defeated troops retreated through Frankfort and Lexington.

The Mayor (George Hatch) and City Council of Cincinnati acted with courage and energy to meet the impending emergency, and the loyal people earnestly responded to all requirements and submitted to the military authorities, either to take up arms or to work on intrenchments. Lew Wallace, assigned by Wright to the immediate command of the three cities, proclaimed martial law to be executed (until relieved by the military) by the police; and business generally was suspended.

The Mayor, with Wallace’s sanction, permitted the banks to remain open from 1 to 2 P.M.; bakers to pursue their occupation; physicians to attend their patients; employees of newspapers to pursue their business; funerals to be permitted, but mourners only to leave the city; all druggists were allowed to do business, but all drinking saloons, eating-houses, and places of amusement were to be kept closed. Governor David Tod, September 1st, authorized the reception of armed citizens from throughout the State, who were denominated “Squirrel Hunters.” The patriotism of the people of Ohio and Indiana was heroically shown, and their rushing in large numbers to the defence of Cincinnati and other threatened cities may have had its influence, and was, at least, highly commendable; yet, if a real attack had been made on these cities, it is hardly likely that the “Squirrel Hunters” would have proved efficient as soldiers. Kirby Smith entered Lexington, Ky., September 1st, and two days later he dispatched General Heth with about six thousand men to threaten Cincinnati. Heth was joined the next day by Morgan and his raiders. By the 10th these forces were near Covington and threatened a serious attack. There were some artillery shots fired and some light skirmishing, but the next day it was ascertained the Confederates had commenced a retreat, and in a few days the “Squirrel Hunters” returned to their homes amid the plaudits of a loyal people, and business was resumed in the Queen City. A single act of disorder is reported in Cincinnati on the part of some citizens who began tearing up a street railroad because it was believed to be invidious to allow it to do business “when lager-beer saloons could not.”( 6)

The Legislature of Ohio authorized the presentation by the Governor of a lithographic discharge to each “Squirrel Hunter.”

Before narrating the movements of Bragg’s army from the Tennessee to the vicinity of Louisville, and of Buell’s army in pursuit on Bragg’s flank and rear, an attempt by another Confederate column to co-operative with Bragg in carrying out his general plan of invading Kentucky should be mentioned.

General Sterling Price, hitherto operating in Arkansas and Missouri, immediately after Shiloh, had been transferred with his army to Corinth to reinforce Beauregard, and when Bragg, who succeeded Beauregard, decided upon his plan of invasion, and had concentrated the bulk of his army at Chattanooga for that purpose, he assigned General Earl Van Dorn to the District of Mississippi and Price to the District of Tennessee, the latter to hold the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and both were to confront and watch Grant and prevent him from sending reinforcements to Buell. Price was left at Tupelo, Mississippi, with about 15,000 men. Later, September 11th, President Davis ordered Van Dorn to assume command of both his own and Price’s army, the latter then on its march to Iuka, Mississippi, intending to move thence into Middle Tennessee if it should be found, as Bragg was led to believe, that Rosecrans (who, June 11th, had succeeded Pope in command of the Army of the Mississippi) had gone with his army to Nashville to reinforce Buell. Two of Grant’s divisions, Paine’s and Jeff C. Davis’, had gone there, leaving the force for the defence of North Mississippi much reduced. Price entered Iuka September 14th, the garrison retiring without an engagement. Price, on learning that Rosecrans had retired on Corinth, telegraphed Van Dorn that he would turn back and co-operate in an attack on Corinth. Bragg telegraphed him to hasten towards Nashville. Rosecrans wired Grant to “watch the old wood-pecker or he would get away from them.” September 17th, Halleck telegraphed Grant to prevent Price from crossing the Tennessee and forming a junction with Bragg. Grant telegraphed he would “do everything in his power to prevent such a catastrophe,” and he began concentrating his troops against Price at Iuka. General E. O. C. Ord was moved to Burnsville, where Grant established his headquarters, and Rosecrans marched his two divisions to Jacinto, with orders to move on Iuka, flank Price, and cut off his retreat. General Stephen A. Hurlburt was ordered to make a strong demonstration from Bolivar, Tennessee, against Van Dorn, then near Grand Junction with about 10,000 effective men, and lead him to believe he was in immediate danger of an attack, and thus prevent him from making a diversion in aid of Price by marching on Corinth. This ruse was successful. Orders were given by Grant and preparation was made by Ord to attack Price at Iuka as soon as Rosecrans’ guns on the Jacinto road were heard. About 4 P.M., September 19th, C. S. Hamilton’s division, under Rosecrans, attacked Little’s division of Price’s army on the Jacinto road, and a severe combat ensued until night, with varying success, both sides at dark claiming a victory. Neither Grant nor Ord heard the sound of the battle in consequence of the intervening dense woods and an unfavorable wind. Rosecrans did not or could not advise Grant of the state of affairs, and the latter did not learn of the battle until 8.30 A.M. of the 20th. Price retreated in the night with his forces towards Baldwyn, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, whither Grant ordered Ord with Hamilton’s and Stanley’s divisions and the cavalry to pursue. The pursuit was ineffectual. The battle of Iuka was fought after 4 P.M., principally by two opposing brigades, each about 4000 strong. The Union loss was, killed 141, wounded 613, missing 36, total 790.

The Confederate loss, as reported, was, killed 85, wounded 410, missing 40, total 535.( 7)

After Iuka Rosecrans was placed in command at Corinth, Grant having established his headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee. Hurlburt was at Bolivar, Tennessee, with his division. Though Halleck had partly constructed defensive works around Corinth on occupying it in May, 1862, they were too remote from the town and too elaborate for a small army.

Grant had, more recently, partly constructed some open batteries with connecting breastworks on College Hill. These Rosecrans further completed, and also constructed some redoubts to cover the north of the town.

From Ripley, Mississippi, September 29th, Van Dorn, with his own and Price’s army, his force numbering about 25,000, by a rapid march advanced on Corinth, where Rosecrans could assemble not exceeding 18,500 men, consisting of the divisions of Generals David S. Stanley and C. S. Hamilton and the cavalry division of Colonel John K. Mizner, of the Army of the Mississippi, and the divisions of Generals Thomas A. Davies and Thomas J. McKean, of the Army of the Tennessee. It was not known certainly until the 3d of October whether Van Dorn designed to attack Bolivar, Jackson, or Corinth. The advance of Van Dorn and Price was met on the Chewalla road by Oliver’s brigade of McKean’s division, which was steadily driven back, together with reinforcements until, at 10 A.M., all the Union troops were inside the old Halleck intrenched line, and by 1.30 P.M. the Confederates had taken it and were pushing vigorously towards the more recently established inner line of intrenchments. Price’s army formed on the Confederate left and Van Dorn’s on the right. The brunt of the afternoon battle fell on McKean’s and Davies’ divisions. General Hackleman of Davies’ division was killed, and General Richard J. Oglesby of the same division was severely wounded. The Union troops engaged lost heavily. One brigade of Stanley’s division and Sullivan’s brigade of Hamilton’s division late in the day came to the relief of the heavily pressed Union troops. The coming of night put an end to the battle, but with the Confederate Army within six hundred yards of Corinth and the Union troops mainly behind their inner and last line of defence. The situation was critical. The morning of the 4th found Rosecrans’ army formed, McKean on the left, Stanley and Davies to his right in the order named, one brigade of Hamilton on the extreme right and the rest of Hamilton’s division in reserve behind the right.( 8)

Van Dorn opened fire at 4.30 A.M. with artillery, but he did not advance to the real attack until about 8 A.M. It came from north of town and fell heaviest on Davies’ division. His front line gave way, and later his command was broken, and some of the Confederates penetrated the town and to where the reserve artillery was massed. Stanley’s reserves, however, speedily fell on them and drove them out with great loss. Then the attack came on Battery-Robinett, to the westward near the Union centre. Three successive charges were made in column on this battery and on the centre with the greatest determination, and much close fighting occurred until the last assault was repulsed about 11 A.M. (October 4, 1862), when the enemy fell back under cover beyond cannon-shot. Van Dorn had hoped to take Corinth on the 3d, and now, being repulsed at every point, he beat a retreat, knowing Grant would not be inactive. It was not until about 2 P.M. that Rosecrans ascertained the enemy had commenced a retreat.( 9) General James B. McPherson arrived, October 4th, from Jackson with five regiments, but too late for the battle. The engagement was a severe one; both armies fought with desperation and skill; the Union troops, being outnumbered, made up the disparity by fighting, in part, behind breastworks.

The losses were heavy, especially in officers of rank. The Union loss was, killed 27 officers and 328 men, wounded 115 officers and 1726 men, captured or missing 5 officers and 319 men; grand total, 2520.10 The Confederate loss (as stated in Van Dorn’s report (11)), including casualties at Hatchie Bridge (October 5th), was, killed 594, wounded 2162, prisoners or missing 2102; grand total, 4858.

Grant, besides sending McPherson to Rosecrans’ support, had directed Hurlburt at Bolivar to march with his division on the enemy’s rear. Hurlburt started on the 4th by way of Middletown and Pocahontas. At the former place he encountered the enemy’s cavalry and forced them by night to and across the Big Muddy, where the division encamped, one brigade having taken and crossed the bridge to the east side. Hurlburt’s orders from Grant were to reach Rosecrans at all hazards.12 The situation for Hurlburt was critical. He had in front of his single division both Van Dorn and Price. But the situation was in a high degree desperate for the retreating army. If its retreat were arrested long enough for Rosecrans’ column to assail it in the rear it must be lost or dispersed. It was this that Grant confidently calculated on. On the morning of the 5th Hurlburt pushed vigorously forward to Davis’ Bridge over the Hatchie. General Ord arrived about 8 A.M. and took command of Hurlburt’s forces. The movement had hardly commenced when strong resistance was met with. Ord pushed the enemy back for about three miles with General Veatch’s brigade, taking a ridge—Metamora—about one mile from the Hatchie. Here a severe battle ensued, the enemy was driven from the field across the bridge, and a portion of Ord’s command gained a position just east of the river, though not without much loss. Ord was himself wounded at the bridge, and the command again devolved on Hurlburt. The latter soon thereafter secured a permanent lodgement on the east of the Hatchie, thus effectively stopping the retreat of Van Dorn by that route and forcing him to fall back and find another less desirable one. Under cover of night Van Dorn retreated upon another road to the southward, and crossed the Hatchie at Crum’s Mill, six miles farther up the river.13

The success of Ord and Hurlburt was so complete that Grant believed Van Dorn’s army should have been destroyed.14

Rosecrans did not move from Corinth until the morning of the 5th of October, and then not fast or far enough to overtake Van Dorn in the throes of battle with Ord and Hurlburt or in time to cut off his retreat by another route. Rosecrans gave as an excuse the exhausted condition of his troops after the battle of the 4th. At 2 P.M., the last day of the battle, he was certain the enemy had decided to retreat, yet he directed the victorious troops to proceed to their camps, provide five days’ rations, take food and rest, and be ready to move early the next morning.15 McPherson, having arrived with a fresh brigade, could have been at once pushed upon the rear of Van Dorn’s exhausted troops. Rosecrans’ army went into camp again in the afternoon of the 5th, while Ord and Hurlburt were fighting their battle. Although the pursuit was resumed by Rosecrans on the 6th, and thereafter continued to Ripley, it was after the flying enemy had passed beyond reach. But while it is possible that Rosecrans could have done better, it is certain that he and his troops did well; Van Dorn’s diversion in favor of Bragg’s grand, central invasion, at any rate, failed amid disaster.

But we must return to Bragg and Buell, the principal actors in the march to Kentucky.

Bragg’s army commenced to cross the Tennessee at Chattanooga August 26, 1862, and immediately set out to the northward, his cavalry, under Wheeler, keeping well towards the foot of the mountains to the westward, covering and masking the real movement. Buell’s army, as we have stated, was concentrated in the neighborhood of Dechard, Tennessee, with detachments of it still holding Huntsville, Battle Creek, and Murfreesboro.

Numerous and generally unimportant skirmishes took place at Battle Creek and other places. Murfreesboro was surprised and disgracefully surrendered to Forrest’s cavalry July 13th, and Morgan’s forces captured Gallatin, Tennessee, August 12th; but these places were not held.

Bragg continued his march through Pikeville and Sparta, Tennessee, crossing the Cumberland at Carthage and Gainesborough. Uniting his army at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, he proceeded through Glasgow to Munfordville, on Green River, where there was a considerable fortification, occupied by Colonel J. T. Wilder with about 4000 men.

Buell, after having sent some of his divisions as far east into the mountains as Jasper, Altamont, and McMinnville, with no results, moved his army to Nashville, thence with the reinforcements from Grant (two divisions), leaving two divisions and some detachments under Thomas to hold that city, through Tyree Springs and Franklin to Bowling Green, Kentucky, the advance arriving there September 11th.16 Bragg was then at Glasgow. General James R. Chalmers and Colonel Scott, each with a brigade, the former of infantry, the other of cavalry, attacked, and Chalmers’ brigade assaulted Wilder’s position September 14th. The assault was repelled with much slaughter, Chalmers’ loss being 3 officers and 32 men killed and 28 officers and 225 men wounded.17 Chalmers then retired to Cave City, but returned with Bragg’s main army on the 16th. Bragg having his army up, and Polk’s corps north of Munfordville and Hardee’s south of the river, opened negotiations for the surrender of the place. Being completely surrounded, with heavy batteries on all sides, Wilder capitulated, including 4133 officers and men. Chalmers was designated to take possession of the surrendered works on the morning of the 17th. Had Buell marched promptly on Munfordville from Bowling Green he would have found Bragg with one half of his army south of Green River and Polk with the other half north of it, and Wilder still holding a position on the river between the two.

Bragg, after the surrender, concentrated his army south of Green River opposite Munfordville along a low crest of hills. He had not yet formed a junction with Kirby Smith, and his force then in position probably did not much exceed 20,000.18

The position had no special advantages, was well known to many of Buell’s officers, and should have been to Buell himself. In case of defeat, Bragg’s army must have been lost and Kirby Smith’s left to the same fate. Green River, passable in few places in Bragg’s rear and to the north, would have rendered retreat impossible for a defeated army, and, besides, Bragg had no base north to retreat to. The situation was well understood in our army, except by Buell, who seemed to fear a junction with Kirby Smith had been formed, though Wilder (just paroled) and others of his officers on the day of the surrender informed Buell that no junction had been made. Wilder, however, had an exaggerated opinion of Bragg’s strength at Munfordville. The junction of the two Confederate armies did not take place until October 9th, at Harrodsburg, the day succeeding the battle of Perryville.(19)

Buell had, south of Bragg, not less than 50,000 effective men. He since admits he had 35,000 men present before he ordered Thomas’ division and other troops up from Nashville.19 Thomas arrived on the 19th and 20th. There was some skirmishing on the 20th, and Bragg was then permitted to withdraw without further molestation across the river, whence he marched northward. The slowness of the movement of Buell’s army from Nashville to Bowling Green and, after delaying there five days, thence towards Munfordville, was freely commented on by his army at the time. It was composed of seasoned and experienced troops, eager to find the enemy and give him battle.20 In the history of no war was a more favorable opportunity presented to fight and reap a victor’s fruits than at Green River, but the time and men for great and controlling success were not yet come.

The water supply northward of Bowling Green, already spoken of, was at best poor and deficient, especially in the hot September weather. The pools or ponds, befouled by the shooting in the February preceding of diseased and broken-down animals of Hardee’s army on its retirement from Bowling Green, contained the most noxious and revolting water, yet it was at one time, for a large part of the army, all that was to be had for man or beast. I remember Colonel John Beatty and I, on one occasion near Cave City, stood in a hard rain storm holding the corners of a rubber blanket so as to catch a supply of water to slake our thirst. The army, however, as was generally the case when moving, suffered little from sickness.

The wagon train of Buell’s army was dispatched with a cavalry guard from Bowling Green on a road to the westward of Munfordville through Brownsville, Litchifield, and Big Spring to West Point at the mouth of Salt River on the Ohio, thence to Louisville.(21)

Bragg continued his march unmolested and unresisted north from Green River along the railroad to near Nolin, thence northwestward by Hodgensville to Bardstown, then through Perryville to Harrodsburg, some part of his army going as far as Lawrenceburg, Lexington, and Frankfort.21

Buell marched after Bragg to near Nolin, thence keeping to the west through Elizabethtown and West Point to Louisville, the advance, General Thomas’ division, arrived there September 25th, and the last division the 29th. Both train and army reaching the city in safety had the effect, at least, of relieving the place from further danger of capture, and for this Buell had due credit, though the country and the authorities at Washington were highly displeased with the result of his campaign.

Cumberland Gap, for want of supplies, was, on the night of the 17th of September, evacuated by General George W. Morgan, and though pursued by General Stevenson and John Morgan’s cavalry, he made his way through Manchester, Booneville, West Liberty, and Grayson to Greenup, on the Ohio, arriving there the 2d of October. Stevenson then rejoined Kirby Smith at Frankfort.

It is true Nashville was still held of the Union forces, but Northern Alabama and nearly all else in Middle Tennessee occupied during the campaigns of the previous spring were lost or abandoned. Grant alone held his ground in Northern Mississippi and Western Tennessee, and his army had been dangerously depleted to reinforce Buell.

Clarksville, on the Cumberland below Nashville, in Grant’s department, was captured, August 18th, 1862, and some steamboats and some supplies were there taken and destroyed. Colonel Rodney Mason (71st Ohio) was in command, and had under him at the time only about 225 men. His position was not a good one for defence; he had no fortifications, and was without cavalry to give him information of the approach or strength of the enemy. It was variously claimed that Mason surrendered to only a few irregular cavalry with no artillery, and without firing a gun, on being deceived into the belief that he was surrounded by a superior force with six pieces of artillery.(22) The War Department, somewhat hastily, August 22d, by order, without trial, dismissed Colonel Mason from the service. This order was revoked March 22, 1866.22 Twelve officers of the regiment signed a statement to the effect that they had advised the surrender. For this the War Department mustered them out August 29, 1862. The President directed the order revoked as to Captain Sol. J. Houck, because he signed the statement under a misapprehension of its contents.23 The order dismissing the others was revoked after the war, except as to Lieutenant Ira L. Morris, who enlisted in 1864 as a private soldier, and was thereupon honorably discharged as a Lieutenant.

The Confederate Army was now in occupancy of Frankfort, Lexington, Cumberland Gap, and most of middle Kentucky. Buell’s army, largely reinforced by fresh troops and numbering, present for duty, 65,886,24 was apparently besieged at Louisville. Nelson had retired there from his disaster at Richmond (August 30th), and had collected a very considerable army and thrown up some breastworks.

At West Point I obtained permission to proceed with the advance of the army to Louisville, having previously been notified of my appointment as Colonel of a newly-organized regiment.

On reaching Louisville I first saw President Lincoln’s 22d of September Proclamation, announcing that on January 1, 1863, he would proclaim all slaves within States or designated parts of a State, the people whereof should be in rebellion, “thenceforward and forever free.” The idea of prosecuting the war for the liberation of slaves in rebellious States had, to say the least, had not been fostered in Buell’s army, hence there was much criticism of this proclamation by officers, and some foolish threats of resigning rather than “fight for the freedom of the negro.” Even the army, fighting patriotically to suppress the rebellion, did not then fully appreciate that it was not in God’s divine plan that peace should ever come to our stricken country until our banner of liberty waved over none but freemen.

On the 24th of September the President issued an order creating the Department of the Tennessee and assigned to its command Major-General George H. Thomas; and the same day Buell was ordered to turn his command over to him and to retire to Indianapolis.25 These orders were forwarded by Colonel McKibben, but not delivered until the 29th.(26) Buell immediately turned over his command to Thomas, but the latter, with his natural modesty, protested against accepting it in the emergency. Halleck suspended the order, and Buell again resumed command, announcing Thomas as second in command.26

More than a year elapsed before General Thomas was again given so important a command as the one he thus declined, and then he relieved Rosecrans and took command of the Army of the Cumberland when it was besieged by Bragg at Chattanooga. Thomas, though diffident to a degree, was one of our greatest soldiers. He served uninterruptedly from the opening to the close of the war, distinguishing himself in many battles, especially at Stone’s River, at Chickamauga, on the Atlanta campaign (1864), and at Nashville, December 15 and 16, 1864. He was admired, almost adored, by the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland, and he deserved their affection. His principal characteristics differed from those of Grant, Sherman, Meade, or Sheridan, who, though great soldiers, each differed in disposition, temper, and quality from the others. General Thomas, being a Virginian by birth, was at first expected and coaxed to go into the rebellion, then later he was abused and slandered by statements coming from the South to the effect that he had contemplated going with his State. There is no evidence that he ever wavered in his loyalty to the Union.

I had Grant’s opinion of General Thomas as a commanding officer when I was making an official call on him at City Point, December 5, 1864, just at the time Hood was besieging Nashville. Grant had been urging Thomas to fight Hood and raise the siege, fearing, as Grant then said, Hood would cross the Cumberland and make a winter raid into Kentucky. Thomas refused to fight until fully ready. Grant, after inquiring of me about the roads and hills around the south of Nashville, of which I had acquired some knowledge in the spring and fall of 1862, said, somewhat impatiently:

“Thomas is a great soldier, and though able, at any time, with his present force to whip Hood, he lacks confidence in himself and the disposition to assume the offensive until he has seventy-five per centum of the chances of battle, in his own opinion, in favor of success.”

Thomas was born July 31, 1816, and died in San Francisco, March 28, 1870. His body is buried at Troy, N. Y. Sherman, in command of the army, in announcing his death, said:

“The very impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will stand to posterity as the beau-ideal of the soldier and gentleman. Though he leaves no child to bear his name, the old Army of the Cumberland, numbered by tens of thousands, called him father, and will weep for him in tears of manly grief.”

I witnessed, in principal part, a great tragedy resulting from a quarrel between high officers of the Union Army. This occurred September 29, 1862, at the Galt House, Louisville, whither I had repaired to tender my resignation to Buell as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3d Ohio Infantry, to enable me to accept promotion.

General Jeff C. Davis had been in command of a division under General William Nelson at Louisville, and had in some way incurred Nelson’s censure. Nelson relieved him of command and ordered him to report to Wright, the department commander, at Cincinnati. Wright ordered Davis to return to Louisville and report to Buell for duty. Davis, being from Indiana, returned via Indianapolis, and from there was accompanied to Louisville by Governor Oliver P. Morton, who, with another friend, was with Davis in the vestibule of the Galt House about 9 A.M. when Davis accosted Nelson, demanding satisfaction for the injustice he claimed had been done him, and, it was said, at the same time flipped a paper wad in Nelson’s face.(27) Nelson retorted by slapping Davis in the face with the back of his hand, and then, after denouncing Morton as Davis’ “abettor of the deliberate insult,” at once passed from the vestibule to adjoining hallway and started up the steps of a stairway, apparently going towards his room. He soon, however, returned to the hall and walked quietly in the direction of Davis. The latter meantime had obtained a pistol from his friend, and as Nelson approached fired on him, the bullet striking Nelson in the left breast, just over the heart, producing what proved, in half an hour, to be a mortal wound.27 The incident was a deplorable one. Nelson was an able, valuable officer, and had proved himself such on many fields. He was known to be hasty, and sometimes unwarrantably rough in his treatment of others, yet he promptly repented of any act of injustice and made amends as far as possible. Davis was placed in military arrest by Buell, but later was released, by orders from Washington, to be allowed to become amenable to civil authority. Still later he was restored to the command of a division, then given a corps, and, by his gallantry, soldierly bearing, and general good conduct to the end of the war, atoned in some degree for the bloody deed.

My resignation was accepted on this memorable 29th of September, 1862, and thenceforth my official connection with my first regiment, its gallant officers and soldiers, and with the noble Army of the Ohio and the other great armies of the West, ceased, and forever, and not without the deepest regret, especially in parting from Colonel John Beatty, with whom I had, as more than a friend and companion, eaten and slept, marched and bivouacked, on the closest terms of confidence, without receiving from him an unkind or ungenerous word, for seventeen months, although he was my immediate superior officer, and we had both gone through many hardships and vexatious trials together. This was the more remarkable as we were each of sanguine temperament and obstinate by nature.

Beatty was appointed by President Lincoln a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, November 29, 1862, and he thereafter, as before at Perryville, especially distinguished himself at Stone’s River and Chickamauga. He has since served three terms in Congress with distinction.

It was my good fortune to meet and shake hands, one year and about eight months later, with some of the survivors of this Western army at Greensborough, North Carolina, after Lee’s surrender, and on the occasion of the surrender of Joe Johnston’s army to Sherman.

Although my humble connection with Buell’s army ceased at Louisville, I will summarize its history, covering a few days longer.

Polk’s and Hardee’s corps constituting Bragg’s army we left in the vicinity of Bardstown and Harrodsburg, with some portions at Frankfort and Lexington. Kirby Smith was at Salvisa, about twenty miles northeast of Perryville, with the main body of his army, and, believing he would be the first attacked, called loudly for reinforcement, and Bragg sent him, on the eve of Perryville, Withers and Cheatham’s divisions from Polk and Hardee’s corps. Bragg placed Polk in command of his army in the vicinity of Perryville, and repaired to Frankfort to witness the inauguration (October 4th) of a new Secession Provisional Governor of Kentucky—Richard Hawes (28)—her former one, George W. Johnson, having been killed at Shiloh while fighting as a private soldier.

Buell, being further reinforced with new troops, mostly from Ohio and Indiana, commenced, October 2d, a general movement against both Bragg and Smith. General Joshua W. Sill’s division of General Alexander McD. McCook’s corps, followed by General Ebenezer Dumont with a raw division, moved through Shelbyville towards Frankfort. McCook, with the two remaining divisions of the First Corps, commanded, respectively, by Generals L. H. Rousseau and James S. Jackson, moved from Bloomfield to Taylorsville, where he halted the second night. Crittenden’s corps marched via Bardstown on the Lebanon and Danville road, which passed about four miles to the south of Perryville, with a branch to it. Gilbert’s corps moved on the more direct road to Perryville. Thomas, second in command, accompanied Crittenden on the right, and Buell kept his headquarters with Gilbert’s corps, the centre one in the movements. As the Union columns advanced, the armies of Bragg and Kirby Smith found it necessary to commence concentrating. For some reason, not warranted by good strategy, two points of concentration were designated by Bragg, Perryville and Salvisa, twenty miles apart. Smith persisted in the belief he would be the first to be struck by the advancing army.

General Sill, on the road to Frankfort, encountered some opposition on the 3d, but on the 4th pressed the enemy back so close that the booming of his cannon interrupted Richard Hawes in the reading of his inaugural address. Bragg, while witnessing the ceremony, received dispatches announcing the near approach of the Union columns.29 This led to a general stampede of the assembly, most of which was Confederate military, and the inaugural was never finished. Hawes fled from the capital, half inaugurated, accompanying the army, and this was about the last heard of a secession Governor of Kentucky.

Bragg personally hurried to Harrodsburg and there met Polk, who gave him news of the movements of his army and of the approach of the Union columns. Bragg reached the conclusion that the wide front covered by the Union forces (about fifteen miles) afforded an opportunity to beat a part of them in an early engagement, and he therefore, at 5.40 P.M. of the 7th, ordered Polk to recall Cheatham’s division, hitherto ordered to reinforce Smith, and to form a junction with Hardee’s corps near Perryville, and there give battle immediately, and then move to Versailles, whither Smith was ordered with his army.30 McCook was turned directly on Perryville and Sill was ordered in the same direction. Buell, at 7 P.M. of the 7th, seemed to be aware that stubborn resistance would be met with the next day at Perryville. He so advised General Thomas.31 Polk, with Cheatham’s division, reached Perryville about midnight of the 7th, and the troops were placed in position on a line previously established with the expectation that a battle would be opened early the following morning. The Confederate troops thus in position numbered about 18,000, while immediately opposed to them were no divisions yet in position, and, in fact, no real preparation for battle had been made on the Union side. There was some skirmishing on the Confederate extreme left in the night, between Colonel Dan McCook’s brigade of Sheridan’s division, for the possession of the water in Doctor’s Fork, but nothing more.

Bragg, at Harrodsburg, not hearing the battle open at dawn, hastened to Perryville, and there learned at 10 A.M. that a council of Confederate generals had been held, on Polk’s suggestion, at which it was determined to act only on the defensive. He, however, after some reconnoissances and adjustment of the lines, ordered Polk to bring on an engagement.32

McCook with his two divisions came within about three miles of Perryville about 10.30 A.M. of the 8th, and there encountered some resistance, and later his troops were advanced and formed with the right of Rousseau’s division, resting near a barn south of the Perryville and Mackville road, its left extending on a ridge through a corn field to a wood occupied by the 2d and 33d Ohio. The right of General William R. Terrill’s brigade of Jackson’s division rested on woods to the left of Rousseau, his left forming a crotchet to the rear. Starkweather and Webster’s brigades of Rousseau and Jackson’s divisions, respectively, were posted by McCook in support of the line named. Sheridan and R. B. Mitchell’s divisions of the Third Corps were posted, not in preparation for battle, several hundred yards to McCook’s right, but supposed to be near enough to protect it.33

Save some clashes of the skirmish lines and bodies seeking positions, no fierce engagement took place until 2 P.M., when a determined attack in force fell on Terrill’s brigade, causing it to soon give way, General James S. Jackson, division commander, being killed at the first fire, and Terrill fell soon after. McCook had previously (about 12.30 P.M.) ridden to Buell’s headquarters, about two and a half miles distant, and informed him of the situation, but this did not awaken him to the apprehension that a battle was about to be fought. McCook’s entire command present on the field was soon engaged against great odds. Of this Captain Fisher of McCook’s staff informed Buell in his tent at 3.30 or 4 P.M., and Buell claimed it was his first news that a battle had been raging on his front.

Polk, with three divisions of infantry and a complement of artillery, and with cavalry on each flank, had fallen on the two unsupported divisions of McCook, choosing his place and manner of attack skilfully. Rousseau’s right was struck soon after Terrill’s brigade was driven back, and the whole of his division was soon in action. The Confederates advanced under cover of their artillery fire, outflanking Rousseau’s right. His troops stood to their work against odds and made a most gallant resistance. Their right was turned, when Gilbert’s idle corps was near enough to have come at once into action and afforded it protection. McCook’s command, though suffering much, was not driven from the field. My old regiment occupied the crest of a hill, its right behind a hay-barn. In this position, under Colonel John Beatty, it fought, exposed to a heavy fire from the enemy’s batteries and to a front and flank fire from his infantry. The barn at last took fire, and its flames were so hot the right of the regiment was forced to temporarily give way. Its loss was 190 of its then 500 men in line, including Captains Cunard and McDougal and Lieutenants St. John and Starr among the killed. Colonel W. H. Lytle, commanding the brigade, was wounded and captured.

The Confederates gained possession temporarily of only portions of the battle-ground, and night found McCook’s corps still confronting them.

Sheridan and R. B. Mitchell’s divisions of the Third Corps in the evening made some diversion, driving back and threatening Polk’s left. Buell late in the day ordered reinforcements sent to McCook, but they reached him too late for the battle. Polk claimed a victory, but while he had some temporary success, both armies slept on the field.

The failure of Buell to know or hear of the battle until too late to put his numerous troops near the field into it was the subject of much comment. Had Crittenden and Gilbert been pushed forward while Bragg’s forces were engaged with McCook, his army should have been cut off, captured, or dispersed; Kirby Smith’s lying farther to the north, would also have been imperilled.

Such an opportunity never occurred again in the war. It is said Buell was in his tent and the winds were unfavorable. But where were his staff officers, who should furnish eyes and ears for their General?

The Union loss was 39 officers and 806 men killed, 94 officers and 2757 men wounded, total 3696; and captured or missing 13 officers and 502 men, grand total 4211. Of these Rousseau’s division lost 18 officers and 466 men killed, and 52 officers and 1468 men wounded, total 2004; and Jackson’s division lost 6 officers and 81 men killed, and 8 officers and 338 men wounded, total 433; grand total, two divisions, 2437. The few others killed and wounded were of the three divisions of the Third Corps.(34)

The Confederate loss, as reported by General Polk, was 510 killed and 2635 wounded, total 3145; captured 251, grand total 3396.34

Bragg withdrew from the field of Perryville during the night after the battle and united his army with Smith’s at Harrodsburg. Commencing October 13th, he retreated through Southeastern Kentucky via Cumberland Gap to the Tennessee, thence transferred his army to Murfreesboro, to which place Breckinridge, also Forrest’s cavalry, had been previously sent.

Thus the great invasion ended. It bore none of the anticipated fruits. Both Bragg and Kirby Smith felt keenly the disappointment that Kentucky’s sons did not rally under their standards. Bragg frequently remarked while in Kentucky: “The people here have too many fat cattle and are too well off to fight.”

From Bryantsville he wrote the Adjutant-General at Richmond:

“The campaign here was predicated on the belief and the most positive assurances that the people of this country would rise in mass to assert their independence. No people ever had so favorable an opportunity, but I am distressed to add there is little or no disposition to avail of it.”35

The conception of the invasion was admirable, and the execution of the campaign was vigorous, and, under all the circumstances, skilful, but if the Army of the Ohio had been rapidly moved and boldly fought, together with its numerous auxiliaries, both Bragg and Kirby Smith’s armies would have been separately beaten and destroyed.

Buell’s army pursued the enemy from Kentucky, and finally concentrated in front of Nashville. By direction of the President, October 24, 1862, the State of Tennessee east of the Tennessee River and Northern Alabama and Georgia became the Department of the Cumberland, and General W. S. Rosecrans was assigned to its command, his troops to constitute the Fourteenth Army Corps.36 Buell was, at the same date, ordered to turn over his command to Rosecrans. The latter relived Buell at Louisville October 30th. Buell retired to Indianapolis to await orders. He was never again assigned to active duty, though he held his Major-General’s commission until May 23, 1864. He was not without talent, and possessed much technical military learning; was a good organizer and disciplinarian, but was better qualified for an adjutant’s office than a command in the field. Many things said of him were untrue or unjust, yet the fact remains that he failed as an independent commander of an army during field operations. With great opportunities, he did not achieve success—the only test of greatness in war—possibly in any situation in life. He was not, however, the least of a class developed and brought to the front by the exigencies of war, who were not equal to the work assigned them, or who could not or did not avail themselves of the opportunities presented.

Rosecrans, while in command of the Army of the Cumberland, won the battle of Stone’s River (December 31, 1862); then pushed Bragg across the Tennessee and fought the great battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863. He was relieved at Chattanooga by Thomas, October 19, 1863, and was assigned to the Department of Missouri, January 28, 1864. In this new field Rosecrans displayed much activity and performed good service, but he was relieved again, December 9, 1864, and thereafter was on waiting orders at Cincinnati. Notwithstanding some mistakes, his character as a great soldier and commanding general will stand the severe scrutiny of military critics. He was a man of many attainments, a fine conversationalist, and a genial gentleman who drew to him many devoted friends.

This chapter, already of greater length than was originally designed, must here end, as I must turn to other campaigns, armies, and fields of battle more nearly connected with my further career in the War of the Rebellion.

( 1) War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 838-841.

( 2) Ibid., Part II., p. 290.

( 3) War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 910.

( 4) Ibid., vol. xvi., Part II., p. 404.

( 5) Battles and Leaders, vol. iii., p. 39, and see War Records, vol. xvi., Part II., pp. 394, 395.

( 6) Ohio in the War, vol. i., p. 93.

( 7) Battles and Leaders, vol. ii., p. 736.

( 8) Battles and Leaders, vol. ii., p. 744, map.

( 9) War Records, vol. xvii., Part I., pp. 158, 170; Battles and Leaders, vol. ii., p. 752.

(11) Ibid., p. 381 (382-4).

(28) Battles and Leaders, vol. iii., pp. 47, 602.

Notes

10 Ammen, Ibid., vol. x., Part I., pp. 334,337.

12 McCook did not arrive until early on the 7th. War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 293.

13 Official map, Battles and Leaders, vol. i., p. 598.

14 Grant’s Memoirs, vol. i., p. 351.

15 War Records, vol. x., Part II., pp. 384-5, 424, 482 (407-8).

17 Battles and Leaders, vol. i., p. 485.

18 Battles and Leaders, vol. i., p. 460.

19 Battles and Leaders, vol. i., pp. 446, etc.

10 Leadbetter’s report, War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 658.

11 War Records, vol. x., Part I., p. 878.

12 Russian name—Ivan Vasilevitch Turchinoff. Turchin, Battle of Chickamauga, pp. 5, 6.

13 War Records, vol. x., Part II., pp. 204, 212, 290, 294-5.

14 War Records, vol. xvi., Part II., pp. 99, 273.

15 Citizen Soldier, p. 159.

16 War Records, vol. xvi., p. 277.

17 My last letter from Gen. Robert C. Schenck speaks of meeting, while Minister in England, a former Ohio soldier. I give his letter, omitting unimportant parts.

18 War Records, vol. x., Part I., pp. 904, 919-920.

19 War Records, vol. x., Part I., pp, 904, 919-920.

20 Battles and Leaders, etc., vol. ii., pp. 706-7; War Records, vol. xvi., Part II., p. 92.

10 War Records, vol. xvii., Part I., p. 176.

12 Ibid., p. 158, 308.

13 War Records, vol. xvii., Part I., pp. 205-8, 302, 322.

14 Ibid., p. 158; Grant’s Memoirs, vol. i., p. 417.

15 Battles and Leaders, vol. ii., p. 753; War Records (Rosecrans’ Report), vol. xvii., Part I., p. 170.

16 Atlas, War Records, Part V., plate 24.

17 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., p. 978.

18 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 966, 970.

19 Battles and Leaders, vol. iii., pp. 603-42.

20 While the army was massed at Dripping Springs, a beef-ox escaped from a herd about midnight, and in wild frenzy rushed back and forth through the army, jumping on and running over the bivouacked sleeping soldiers, seriously injuring many, until a large part of the army was alarmed and called up. He was finally surrounded and bayoneted to death.

21 Atlas, War Records, Part V., plate 24.

22 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 862-8.

23 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., p. 862-8.

24 Ibid., Part II., p. 564.

25 Ibid., pp. 539, 554-5, 560.

26 War Records, vol. xvi., Part II., pp. 554-5, 560.

27 Battles and Leaders, vol. iii., pp. 43, 61.

29 Battles and Leaders, vol. iii., pp. 602, 47.

30 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 1092-6.

31 Ibid., Part II., p. 580.

32 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 1092-3.

33 Ibid., p. 1040.

34 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., pp. 1033, 1112.

35 War Records, vol. xvi., Part I., p. 1088.

36 Ibid., Part II., pp. 641, 654.