XXXII. GRANT'S VISIT--THE DANDRIDGE AFFAIR…

XXXII. GRANT'S VISIT--THE DANDRIDGE AFFAIR

Grant at Knoxville--Comes to Strawberry Plains--A gathering at Parke's quarters--Grant's quiet manner--No conversational discussion--Contrast with Sherman--Talk of cadet days--Grant's riding-school story--No council of war--Qualities of his dispatches--Returns by Cumberland Gap--Longstreet's situation--Destitution of both armies--Railroad repairs and improved service--Light-draught steamboats--Bridges--Cattle herds on the way--Results of Grant's inspection tour--Foster's movement to Dandridge on the French Broad--Sheridan--His qualities--August Willich--Hazen--His disagreement with Sheridan--Its causes and consequences--Combat at Dandridge--A mutual surprise--Sheridan's bridge--An amusing blunder--A consultation in Dandridge--Sturgis's toddy--Retreat to Strawberry Plains--A hard night march--A rough day--An uncomfortable bivouac--Concentration toward Knoxville--Rumors of reinforcement of Longstreet--Expectation of another siege--The rumors untrue.

In the midst of the severest suffering of the army from cold and want, General Grant came in person to inspect the condition of affairs in East Tennessee. He reached Knoxville on the 30th of December, and after spending two or three days with General Foster, came up to Strawberry Plains. The first intensity of the cold wave had passed by, but it was still "zero weather" when he came: indeed he had waited in Knoxville for a little moderating of the temperature, but finding that it continued very cold, his desire to complete the inspection hurried him on. The corps and division commanders accompanied him in a ride through the camps that he might see the destitution of the army, and the necessity for sparing the troops all unnecessary exposure. The great trestle bridge across the Holston was examined, and the features of the topography which made Strawberry Plains an important point in military operations covering Knoxville and the line of communication with Cumberland Gap.

At the end of the ride we gathered in General Parke's quarters for what I supposed would be a discussion of the situation and a comparison of views as to our future work. It was my first meeting with Grant, and I was full of interest in observing him. On the ride he had been quietly attentive, making no show of curiosity, asking few questions, carrying himself in an unpretentious business-like way. In the social meeting at General Parke's I was disappointed that the conversation did not take the direction of a military discussion. Grant did not seem to desire further information, but was satisfied with what he had seen. He took no lead in conversation, and it was evident that he almost wholly lacked facility in that way. What he said was kindly; there was nothing like surliness in his manner; but he seemed to be without the faculty of drawing other people out and putting himself in easy accord with them. No doubt his interviews with General Foster had contained all that was necessary for making up his mind as to our situation except the personal inspection he was now engaged in; but had he been Sherman, he would have gone over the phases of the matter which could properly be made the subject of general discussion, would have emphasized whatever could be made encouraging, and exhorted to patience and courage in doing the present duty. Grant did nothing of the kind. He smoked and listened, and did not accept any of the openings which others made for conversation upon the campaign.

A majority of the officers in the group were West Point men, and college life is always a resource for small-talk when other subjects fail. The experiences of the military school, the characteristics of friends and classmates there, the qualities of the officers and professors, escapades and larks at Benny Havens' were found to have perennial freshness and interest. Grant evidently enjoyed this, and began to talk more freely. One could see that he did not lack the sense of humor, and he told an anecdote simply but without failing to make its points tell. His voice lacked volume, and seemed thin and rather high-keyed. It was half-deprecatory in tone, with an air of shyness, and he had a way of glancing quickly from one to another, as if looking for signs of response to his venture into talk. As he went on, this wore off to some extent, and he laughed quietly over the reminiscences he was telling. He told very well a story of his experience in the riding-school, where the riding-master in his time was an amusing sort of tyrant. Grant's strong point was horsemanship, and the riding-master, whether seriously or as a joke, determined to "take down" the young cadet. At the exercise Grant was mounted on a powerful but vicious brute that the cadets fought shy of, and was put at leaping the bar. The bar was raised higher and higher as he came round the ring, till it passed the "record." The stubborn rider would not say enough, but the stubborn horse was disposed to shy and refuse to leap. Grant gritted his teeth and spurred at it, but just as the horse gathered for the spring, his swelling body burst the girth and rider and saddle tumbled into the ring. Half stunned, he gathered himself up from the dust only to hear the strident, cynical voice of the riding-master calling out, "Cadet Grant, six demerits for dismounting without leave!"

I believe Grant's story is the only memory I brought away from what I had imagined would be a council of war presided over by the most prominent figure in our armies, soon to command them all. As a council of war it certainly did not fill the ideal of an eager and earnest young officer; but if we supplement it by a reading of the daily and hourly dispatches in which the clear practical judgment, the unswerving faith in final success, the unbending will, the restless energy and industry, the power to master numberless details, and a consciousness of capacity to command, all plainly stand forth as traits of Grant's character, we can see that a judgment based only on the incidents of the meeting around the fireplace in the shabby house at Strawberry Plains after our ride on that bitter winter's day would be very misleading.

Grant's visit had plainly shown him that the great problem with us was the clothing and subsistence of the troops, and that our very existence depended on it. He therefore determined to ride over the mountains by way of Cumberland Gap, and form his own judgment as to the truth of the reports of the impassable condition of the roads. The weather had hardly moderated at all when he left us on the 4th of January, and this long and severe journey was proof of his forgetfulness of personal comfort in his devotion to duty. Before following him further in his investigation, it may be profitable to go back and note some of the circumstances which brought him to Knoxville.

When Longstreet raised the siege of Knoxville, he took position near Rogersville, where he would be in reach of the unbroken part of the railway connecting him with Virginia, which now became his base. His force continued unchanged, and was not materially increased or diminished until the winter was nearly over, when the cavalry which belonged to the Army of Tennessee was ordered back into Georgia. Like Foster, he was reduced to inaction for lack of clothing and supplies. Forage had become very scarce in every part of Tennessee, and it was with great difficulty that the horses were kept alive in either army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 817, 819.] To go into cantonments, sheltering the men as well as possible, to send all extra horses to the rear and wait for the springing of the grass and the settling of the roads when winter should be over, was the dictate of common-sense, as was clearly seen by everybody on the ground. It was not pleasant to leave the loyal men of the upper counties of the valley to suffer under the Confederate occupation; but nothing short of a continuous and reliable line of supplies would enable Foster to occupy the country up to the Virginia line. There was no gate to be shut behind Longstreet if he were driven out. He could come back as soon as our troops withdrew. Marching and countermarching would destroy the nearly naked and barefoot troops without accomplishing any permanent good.

The authorities at Washington were beset by the well-grounded complaints of the loyal representatives of the upper valley, and had become blind by habit to the difficulties of supplying and moving troops among the mountains in winter. From the first week after Foster relieved Burnside, Halleck complained that Longstreet was not driven beyond the Virginia line and kept there. These complaints were repeated to Grant, and the latter promised, in dispatches of the 23d and 24th of December, to go to Knoxville in person. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 472, 479.] In the last of these he said, "If Longstreet is not driven from Tennessee, it shall not be my fault." He came, and saw that it was not Foster's fault, and that no more than Foster could he make a winter campaign with men in such a state of destitution. As I have already said, droves of beef, cattle, and hogs could be brought "on the hoof," in poor condition it is true, but fit to be eaten. Yet soldiers could not campaign on fresh beef and pork only, and bread stuffs and all vegetable food were practically not to be had; so of coffee, sugar, salt, and the small rations generally. This, however, was the least part of the trouble, for the condition of the army as to clothing and shoes was simply appalling. When many had not even rags to cover their nakedness, and none were clad as civilized men should be to face the winter's snows and rains, it was nonsense to talk of campaigning. Grant saw this at a glance when he reached our camps. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 19, 43.] We have not the whole situation when even this is told. Wagons and teams, artillery with their horses, cavalry with theirs, are as necessary as infantry; and when foraging trains could hardly collect forage enough to feed the animals seeking it, those that were left at the picket rope had to die there. To talk, then, of hauling supplies for man and beast in a marching column was preposterous.

It was quite proper to ask whether the impracticability of bringing wagon trains over the mountains was as complete as we reported, and Grant's horseback journey back into Kentucky when the thermometer was at zero is sufficient proof that he found it imperatively necessary to settle that question also with his own eyes and without delay. We shall see presently what he reported. He knew before he left Chattanooga that the railroad from Nashville was hardly supplying Thomas's army. To Foster's appeals for at least some clothing and shoes by that route, General Meigs, who was there, replied that it could only be done "at the cost of starvation to our animals or short rations to our men" in the Army of the Cumberland. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 476.] He said that the railroad must be "not only repaired, but rebuilt," before it could do more than supply the troops already dependent on it. General McCallum, the superintendent of military railroads, had gone west, and was inspecting the Nashville and Chattanooga Road, and carefully studying the problem of its possible capacity. [Footnote: Id., pp. 422, 444.] In consequence of this a change was made in the local superintendence, and Mr. Adna Anderson was put in charge of operating the line, while Mr. W. W. Wright was made constructing engineer. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 371, 372.] Under their energy and ability it was repaired and operated so that East Tennessee as well as Sherman's army in Georgia were abundantly supplied during the Atlanta campaign; but this is part of the history of the next spring and summer. To reduce the number of mouths to feed at Chattanooga, Grant sent portions of the Army of the Tennessee into northern Alabama, where they could be supplied by boats coming up the Tennessee River. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 429, 496, 502.] The same considerations influenced him in assenting to Sherman's plan of the Meridian Expedition, where the troops engaged in it could live partly at least on a country not yet ravaged by armies, whilst they would make a diversion in favor of the weakened army left with Thomas. It is safe to say that no such division of efforts would have occurred if the railroad had been ready to supply the concentrated army on an advance into Georgia. Sherman understood it to be an interlude, and expected to be back and join the main army by the time the railroad should be repaired and supplies accumulated. [Footnote: Id., p. 498.] As auxiliary to the line of supplies, the railroad from Bridgeport to Decatur was also to be repaired, so as to connect with steamboats at the latter place.

In Foster's department the same energy was directed toward improving the communication with Chattanooga. The hull of the light-draught steamboat which Colonel Byrd had found under construction at Kingston was taken as a model, and two more were put on the stocks. [Footnote: Ante, vol. i. p.523. Official Records vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 483.] Pontoon bridges were prepared for use at different points on the river. Lumber was cut to rebuild the great railway bridge at Loudon and the long trestle at Strawberry Plains. The little train of "twenty-odd cars" which Burnside had captured was carefully guarded and kept running on the only bit of railroad in East Tennessee that was now open, viz., that from Loudon through Knoxville to Strawberry Plains. Herds of cattle were threading mountain paths to avoid the deep mud of the wagon roads from Kentucky, and on those roads desperate but too often fruitless efforts were making to push forward some wagon-loads of shoes and clothing.

In the consultations at Knoxville Foster had plainly stated his own conviction that the only wise course was to abandon the thought of aggressive warfare until spring; to station the troops so as to cover Knoxville, but to select their positions chiefly with reference to collecting forage and breadstuffs; to send all unnecessary animals to the rear and in every way to simplify to the utmost the problem of carrying the army through the winter, preserving it for active use when the change of season and the improvement of the railway line should make regular supplies possible. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 281 et seq.] Grant listened and suspended his judgment till he had examined the situation for himself. An accident to General Foster had increased the complication of affairs. He was occasionally suffering from lameness resulting from an old wound in the leg, and had found on his first journey over the mountains that he was in danger of being disabled by it. Within a fortnight after he reached Knoxville, his horse fell with him in passing over some slippery rocks, and caught the wounded leg under him. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 502.] This completely disabled the general for active field service, and on the advice of his surgeon he asked to be relieved. This request was forwarded on the 26th of December, and Grant had been notified of it on the same day. It could not be acted on at once, and during the few weeks that Foster remained at the head of the department, he was obliged to remain in Knoxville, entrusting to General Parke, as senior officer, the active command of combined movements in the field.

When General Grant reached Nashville, he reported to the War Department the results of his visit to us. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 99.] He said that he found the troops so destitute of clothing and shoes that not more than two-thirds of them could march; that the difficulty of supplying them even with food was so great that it was not advisable to send reinforcements; consequently that the policy advised by Foster must be followed and active operations suspended. Of his own journey he said, "From the personal inspection made, I am satisfied that no portion of our supplies can be hauled by teams from Camp Nelson [Ky.]." He proposed, on the first rise of the Cumberland River, to send supplies by steamboat up the Cumberland to the mouth of the Big South Fork, in the hope that as this was a new route some forage for the teams could be got along it, and that wagoning would be possible by that line into East Tennessee. It did not turn out to be so, and the only relief we got was by way of Chattanooga, where light-draught steamboats added something to the facilities for supply. As his own most pressing needs were relieved, General Thomas sent the steamboat "Lookout" with a small cargo of shoes and clothing to Loudon. There our little railway train met the boat and brought the goods to Knoxville, so that in my own command we began to receive a little about the 10th of January. It was very little, but it was greatly encouraging as a foretaste of better things to come.

On the 12th General Foster was obliged to telegraph Grant that things had grown worse rather than better since his visit. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 71, 72.] Many animals were dying daily. The weather was still intensely cold, and floating ice combined with high water, in the Holston had twice broken the pontoon bridge at Knoxville. Food for man and beast was all eaten out on the north side of the Holston River, and he proposed to move most of the troops to the south and east of the French Broad, in the hope of finding a region in which some corn and forage might still remain. The great trestle bridge at Strawberry Plains was completed, and a strong post would be left there to protect it. A regiment was at work upon the bridge at Loudon. To diminish the number of mouths to be fed, Foster gave the "veteran furlough" at this time to several more of the regiments which had re-enlisted. Trustworthy evidence showed that Longstreet was quite as badly off as we were, and that he was not likely to move unless, like us, he was forced to do so to find forage. Cavalry parties had reported to us that there were considerable quantities of corn in the neighborhood of Sevierville, and this was the inducement to send most of our troops to that side of the French Broad River. To avoid any appearance of retreat, it was ordered that we march from Strawberry Plains to Dandridge, which was a flank movement to our right, one day's march. There we should extemporize some sort of ferry to cross the French Broad and seek camps in regions which promised some supplies, but within supporting distance of our several detachments. The men whose clothing was most lacking and who were without shoes would remain in our present camp and be temporarily attached to the post established to protect the bridge. The cavalry, which had been near Mossy Creek (fourteen miles up the Holston), was directed to move straight across the angle between the two rivers, and cover the flank march of the infantry to Dandridge. It was thought probable that the cavalry might subsist for a short time in the neighborhood of Dandridge and in the valley of the Nolachucky, the principal tributary of the French Broad from the north; indeed, the time of crossing the larger river by the infantry was not fixed, but would be determined by our good or bad fortune in finding forage and bread-stuffs near Dandridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 82, 87, 99, 101.]

The 15th of January was the day fixed for the march. The weather was not so cold as it had been, but was very raw and uncomfortable. At the last moment General Foster found it necessary to have a consultation with Parke and Granger; and Sheridan, whose division of the Fourth Corps led off on the road, was directed to select positions for the infantry of that corps and mine as we reached Dandridge. He was also authorized to assign mills to the use of the different commands so as to systematize our means of supply and prevent disorder. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 102.] The march was nineteen miles to Dandridge, and our positions were about a mile in front of the village, on the hills covering it. Both the Fourth and the Ninth Corps had remained in their camps at Blain's Crossroads up to this time, and the Ninth now took my place at Strawberry Plains, covering Knoxville from that direction. It had less than 4000 men present for duty. [Footnote: Id., p. 292.] Our moving column consisted of Sheridan's and Wood's divisions of the Fourth Corps and parts of three brigades from the Twenty-third; less than 10,000 men in all. The ground was frozen, and as we were moving over roads which had not been much travelled, the way was comparatively smooth for our artillery and wagons. It was not so much so for the infantry, and the little unevenness being sharpened by frost, quickly cut through the men's old shoes. Those who were barefoot were ordered to stay behind, but the shoes of others were in so bad a state that there were places where I saw the road marked with bloody tracks from the wounded feet of the soldiers.

Reaching Dandridge a little in advance of my command, I reported to Sheridan, and he showed me the line he had selected, on which we were to occupy the left. Colonel Sterling, my inspector-general, was assigned the duty of placing the brigades in position as they arrived. The cavalry had preceded us, and we found them occupying the town and picketing the roads toward Morristown and the elbow of the Nolachucky River northeast of us, locally called the Bend o' Chucky. A range of hills known as Bay's Mountain was the water-shed between the valleys of the Holston and the French Broad, and we expected the cavalry to cover the front on a line from Kimbrough's Cross-roads near the mountain to the Bend o' Chucky. This line would be nine or ten miles from Dandridge, and would communicate also with Mott's brigade of my command, which had been left in its post at Mossy Creek, on the Holston, under orders to fall back deliberately to Strawberry Plains if attacked by superior forces. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 99.] If these positions could be held, the cavalry could not only collect the forage in the Nolachucky valley as far up as their detachments could reach, but would also threaten the left flank of Longstreet's position at Morristown.

Those who only knew Sheridan after the war would hardly recognize him in the thin and wiry little man I met at Dandridge. His hollow cheeks made his cheekbones noticeably prominent, and his features had a decided Milesian cast. His reputation at that time was that of an impetuous and vehement fighter when engaged, rousing himself to a belligerent wrath and fury that made his spirit contagious and stimulated his troops to a like vigor. At other times he was unpretentious and genial, and whilst regarded as a good division commander was not thought of as specially fitted for large and independent responsibilities. He was not considered cool enough for the broader duties of a commander, and indeed had had rather bad luck in the great battles of Stone's River and Chickamauga, where the qualities called for were those which enable a perfectly self-possessed officer to extricate his command from a perilous position. He has told me himself that he was slow in learning to have confidence in his own power to direct in such cases, and that it was only after he had tested himself, step by step, that he came to rely on his own judgment and will, as he did in the Shenandoah valley and at Five Forks. It was his blazing impetuosity in action that made Grant think of him as specially fitted for a cavalry leader, and his growth into the able commander of an army was a later development of his talents. He received me very cordially, and in our trying wintry experience at Dandridge began a friendly acquaintance which continued unbroken till his death.

General Thomas J. Wood was not with his division, and it was under the command of General August Willich, whom I had seen drilling Robert McCook's German regiment, the Ninth Ohio, as its adjutant, at Camp Dennison in the spring of 1861. I had expected to find Brigadier-General William B. Hazen in temporary command during Wood's leave of absence, but when I went to his quarters was surprised to find him in arrest. Hazen had been one of the first of the officers of the regular army with whom I became acquainted at the beginning of the war, and he had offered to accept a staff position with me. I had a real regard for him, and naturally offered my friendly services in his present predicament. It seemed that Sheridan had called on him for a report as to the condition of things in his front, and Hazen had taken advantage of some peculiarity of the situation which he thought Sheridan did not sufficiently understand, to make a report which was ironical and so irritating that Sheridan's answer was to order him to keep his quarters in arrest. Their quarrel, however, dated from the battle of Missionary Ridge, where Sheridan accused Wood's division, and Hazen in particular, with usurping the honors of being first on the crest and capturing part of Bragg's artillery. Sheridan honestly thought his division entitled to the honor, but the official evidence seems to me to be against him. At any rate, it began a very pretty quarrel which never was wholly made up, and which had many queer little episodes, in war and in peace, on the Indian frontier and at Washington, for many years thereafter. Hazen was an officer of real ability, of brilliant courage and splendid personal presence. His fault was that he was too keen in seeing flaws in other people's performance of duty, and apt to dilate upon them in his official reports when such officers were wholly independent of him. This made him a good many enemies notwithstanding his noble qualities and his genial kindliness to his friends. A military officer usually finds it hard enough to submit gracefully to the criticisms of his superiors, and naturally takes it ill if this prerogative is exercised by those of equal grade without authority. Such a practice puts into the official records matter which does not belong there, and which, however honestly stated, may be very unjust, because all the explanatory circumstances are not likely to be known to the critic. At any rate, the person criticised is not amenable to that tribunal, and this is enough in itself to cause a sense of injury. [Footnote: See Review of General Hazen's Narrative of Military Service, "The Nation," Nov. 5, 1885.] Sheridan took very kindly my mediation in Hazen's behalf, and probably had never intended more than a temporary arrest. After Granger came to the front and resumed command of the corps, I heard no more of the trouble.

We had escorted a small train in which were some wagon-loads of clothing and shoes for the cavalry, and the mounted corps remained at Dandridge during the 15th of January, issuing these supplies. The rear of our infantry column came up on the next day, so that we were assembled and in position before evening. The cavalry moved out in the afternoon of the 16th, part on the right toward the Nolachucky River, and the left toward Kimbrough's Cross-roads on the Morristown road. The right wing found the enemy's cavalry in their front about five miles from town, but the left wing found Kimbrough's occupied by Longstreet's infantry. His whole force, except Ransom's division, had advanced upon information of the movement of our cavalry on the 14th. In doing this Longstreet had turned the position of the brigade of infantry left at Mossy Creek, and Colonel Mott retired on the 16th to Strawberry Plains in accordance with his orders. Toward evening the cavalry on our right were driven back in a lively skirmish, and those on the left were recalled to give them support. The whole were united and repulsed the enemy's horsemen, taking position for the night about a mile in front of our infantry camps. On the 17th the enemy's infantry advanced, and reached the posts of our cavalry in the afternoon. Longstreet now made a vigorous attack with his troops of both arms, and gradually drove back our horsemen, who resisted him with their carbines, fighting dismounted. Sheridan supported the cavalry with some infantry and a lively skirmishing combat continued for an hour or two till darkness came on. The affair was something of a surprise to both parties. Longstreet had evidently made his movement in the hope of giving our cavalry a lesson which might check their enterprise and make them keep their distance, and was astonished to come upon our infantry at Dandridge. We were in motion to put our infantry on the south side of the French Broad, and were equally surprised to find the enemy in force on the same route.

General Parke and General Granger had ridden over from Strawberry Plains and reached Dandridge in the afternoon. Hearing of the presence of what was reported to be the whole of Longstreet's army, and not liking to accept battle with superior forces with the river at his back, Parke had caused an examination of the river to be made, and learned that just below the town was a shallow, fordable at an ordinary stage of water, and now about waist-deep for the men. In the low physical condition of our troops and their lack of clothing he very wisely thought it would not do to make them march through the river, but devised a foot-bridge by putting army wagons end to end and making a path over the boxes of the wagons. Sheridan was ordered to detach a brigade immediately to make this bridge, and it set to work at once. The plan was to march the infantry to the south side of the river and afterward remove the wagons, covering the operation by the cavalry who could then ford the stream, which though very cold and running with ice was not impracticable for horsemen.

About dusk, as the skirmishing in front ceased, Sheridan and myself, with Sturgis, the commandant of the cavalry, were called to meet Generals Parke and Granger at a house in the town to report the condition of affairs in our front and to receive orders for marching. The bridge had been completed, as was supposed, and the brigade which had made it had been ordered across, when, on reaching the land on the left bank, they found, to their amazement, that they were upon an island with an equally deep and wide channel beyond! This news had just been received when we assembled at headquarters. Sheridan was greatly mortified at the blunder, but there was then no help for it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. i. p. 79.] It was impracticable to complete the bridge before morning, and it was doubtful if wagons enough could be got together. My own command was on the extreme left of the line, partly covering the road back to Strawberry Plains, and we had not been engaged. The fighting had been in front of the centre and right. I could therefore throw no light on the question of the enemy's force. The information from other parts of the line and from prisoners left no doubt that infantry had engaged in the attack late in the afternoon and that Longstreet was present in force. There was therefore no dissent from the conclusion that it would be unwise to accept a battle with the river behind us, and orders were given to leave the position in the night and retire to Strawberry Plains. The wagons and most of the artillery were to follow the advance-guard, which was Sheridan's division, my command to march next, and Willich's (Wood's) division of the Fourth Corps to be the rear-guard. The cavalry were to march on a road a little to the right, leading to New Market, and would thus cover our flank. [Footnote: For the Dandridge expedition, see Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. i. pp. 79 et seq.]

Granger had been ailing for a day or two and had not been with the troops. He was lying on a bed in the room where we met, and the rest of us sat about the fireplace, a tallow candle being on a rude table in the middle of the floor. Sturgis came in later than the others, having had a longer ride. He was a handsome fellow, with full, round features, sharp black eyes, and curly black hair and mustache. He had been seated but a few minutes when he noticed a bottle of whiskey on the table and a glass which had been placed there as camp hospitality for any one that wanted it, but had apparently been neglected. Glancing that way, Sturgis said, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." A colored boy produced a sugar-bowl and the toddy was taken. The conversation ran on a few moments, when, as if it were a wholly new suggestion, the same voice repeated, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy;" and again the attendant did the honors. Our orders were received and we were about ready to go to our commands, when again, with polite intonation and a most amusing unconsciousness of any repetition, came the words, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." The incident was certainly a funny one in itself, but I should not have cared to repeat it had not the official records of Sturgis's defeat by Forrest in the Tishimingo affair later in the year emphasized the mischief of lax habits as to temperance. The judgment of his superiors and of those who knew him well was made severer by the knowledge of his weakness in this respect. Railway officers insist upon absolute sobriety in locomotive engineers; but if there be one employment in which such coolness of head is more absolutely essential than in another, I believe it is in commanding troops in the field. [Footnote: See Marbot's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 242, for results of Wittgenstein's reliance on an intemperate officer, Kulnieff, in the Russian campaign of 1812.] Sturgis's military downfall was a severe lesson, but he gave every evidence afterward of having learned it, and "lived cleanly" through many years of service after the Civil War was over.

The march back to Strawberry Plains began by starting the wagon train to the rear as soon as it was dark. Sheridan's division was drawn out soon afterward. My command was ordered to leave the line at eight o'clock, and Willich's to follow when the road should be clear as far as the first defensible ridge beyond the village where a rear-guard could make a successful stand. The cavalry were to maintain their position till morning and cover the movement. It was about half-past eight when my column closed up upon the wagons ahead of me, but as they had not yet climbed the first hill, we found ourselves necessarily halted in the main street of the village. General Willich had prudently placed a tent a little to the right of the road where it leaves the town, and there he made his quarters until the column should completely pass that point. He could thus keep his division in their bivouac in support of the cavalry till he knew the rest of the little army had cleared the place and could secure some rest, whilst he was still in easy communication with both the marching column and his own men. He reaped the advantage of his forethought. As my command had to assist the wagons and the artillery, no such means of bettering the situation was possible for us. I had notified Willich that I would be in person at the extreme rear of my command so that he could communicate with me most promptly and obtain my support if he were seriously attacked. The brigade in the lead was directed to give the wagons and cannon every help in getting forward, and the column was ordered to keep well closed up.

The day had been a mild one in comparison with the fortnight preceding, and rain set in early in the evening. The surface of the clayey roads soon became very slippery, then cut into deep ruts, and the moisture was just enough to give the mud the consistency of tenacious putty. The teams, half starved, were very weak, and it seemed as if they would never mount the hills before them, which were the southern end of the ridge of Bay's Mountain, separating the Holston valley from the Nolachucky. Three or four teams had to be united to drag up a single cannon or caisson, and the time as well as the distance was thus trebled or quadrupled. In some instances more than twenty horses were thus hitched to a single piece, besides having infantrymen at the wheels as thick as they could cluster, pushing and lifting. The column which was halted thus waiting for the wagon trains and artillery to climb a hill, grew weary of standing. The men would break ranks and sit down in the fence corners, where they built little camp-fires, and, rainy as it was, they fell asleep leaning against each other in these little bivouacs. Then would come word from the front to close up, and the regimental officers would give the command to fall in. The men would rouse themselves, the column would march, perhaps less than a hundred yards, when the road would be blocked again, the men would again seek the fence corners and stir up the fires that had been left by those who were now in advance. Thus in cold and wet and weariness the night wore on, till when day broke about six o'clock next morning we had put a distance of less than two miles between us and the village, and Willich's division had barely reached the first wooded ridge beyond the town.

During all the last hours of the night we were anxious lest we should be attacked by the enemy, who by crowning the hills above the road would have had us at great disadvantage. I had concerted with General Willich a plan of action if we were assailed, but the enemy took no advantage of our situation, and I have always believed that as the meeting at Dandridge was a mutual surprise, by a similar coincidence both parties were retiring at the same time. Our cavalry moved off toward New Market at daybreak, but it was not till late in the forenoon, when we had toiled on several miles further, that the Confederate cavalry approached our infantry rear-guard and accompanied its march for a time with some light skirmishing.

The weather grew colder during the day, and in the afternoon the rain changed to moist driving snow. The sleepy, weary troops toiled doggedly on; the wagons and the cannon were helped over the bad places in the way, for we were determined not to abandon any, and the enemy was not hurrying us. When night fell, on the 18th, my own command and Willich's division were still three miles from Strawberry Plains, though Sheridan's division and part of the wagon train had reached that place and crossed the Holston. We halted the men here and went into bivouac for the night. It had been a wretchedly cheerless and uncomfortable march, but the increasing cold and flying snow made the camp scarcely less inclement. The officers were, as was frequently the case, worse off than the men, for they could not carry their rations in haversacks, and the separation from the wagons in such a desolate country meant a prolonged fast. The delay caused by the rain and mud had been unexpected, and the march we had hoped to make in the night had taken more than twenty-four hours. During that time myself and staff had not eaten a mouthful, and we had no expectation of seeing food till we should get across the Holston next day and reach our headquarters wagons. Better luck happened us, however. We found a deserted and unfinished log cabin which had a roof and a stick-and-clay chimney, though it had no floor or chinking. The snow drove through between the logs, but the roof was over our heads and we soon had a lively fire roaring in the chimney. Some bundles of corn-stalks were found in a field near by, and of these we made a bed on the ground in front of the fire, and began to think we might forget our hunger in thankfulness for fire and shelter such as it was. But still better was in store for us. One of our tired forage trains had gone into park near us, and the teamsters offered to share their supper with us. They had corn "pone," some salt pork, and for a rarity some newly arrived coffee. We sat on the corn-stalks around the fire with an iron camp-kettle in the midst containing the black coffee which we dipped out with battered tin cups, and we held in our hands pieces of the corn-pone and slices of fried pork, congratulating each other on the unexpected luxury of our supper. Hunger and fatigue were so good a sauce that it seemed really a luxury, and we banished care with an ease which now seems hardly credible. The supper ended, sleep was not long a-wooing, though my rest was more broken than that of the others, for frequent dispatches came from headquarters which I had to answer, and orders had to be sent to the troops to continue the march on the morrow in accordance with the directions which I had received. I had provided myself in Cincinnati with a field dispatch book in form of a manifold letter-writer which I myself carried in a sabretasch during all the rest of the war. In this, by means of the carbon sheets and agate-pointed stylus, a dispatch and its copy were written at once, and a valuable record kept of every day's business. I could sit by the bivouac fire and write upon my knee without troubling a weary aide-de-camp to make a copy. I had in my saddle portmanteau also a little pair of brass candlesticks screwing together in form of a large watch-case, so that I could be provided with a light at the root of a tree in the darkness, if it was necessary to send or receive dispatches where there was neither shelter nor fire. These were necessaries; for food we could take our chances.

We halted the troops in wooded slopes where they were sheltered from the storm and where the evergreen boughs were speedily converted into tents of a sort, as well as soft and fragrant beds. Their ration was still scant, but nearly all of them picked up some addition to it on a day's march, so that the camps were more cheerful than they had been in the intensely severe weather of the first half of the month. On the next day we continued the movement, passing through Strawberry Plains and three miles further on the road to Knoxville. The Fourth Corps troops were ordered to go to the last-named city, there to cross the Holston and move out toward Sevierville into the country we had expected to reach by way of Dandridge. The Ninth Corps remained a little longer at Strawberry Plains.

On the 18th of January General Foster's plans were unsettled by a dispatch received from General Grant, dated at Nashville on the 16th, but in some manner delayed in transmittal. This conveyed the rather startling information that Longstreet had been reinforced by a division of Ewell's Corps with expectation of another also, and that the Confederate commander was in fact moving in force on Knoxville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 109, 127.] The source of the information is not disclosed, but the news was stated with a positiveness uncommon with Grant. It reached Foster just as he had Parke's report of our having most unexpectedly met Longstreet's infantry at Dandridge and of our retreat on Strawberry Plains. The news was without foundation, for Longstreet had not been reinforced and his movement had no other significance than that which I have given it; but, coming on the heels of the accidental collision at Dandridge, there was a curious coincidence in the events which gave strong apparent confirmation to the report, and it was a matter of course that Foster should accept it as true and act upon it.

He directed the sick and all extra baggage to be sent at once to Knoxville. Part of the Fourth Corps troops were ordered to the same place. The cavalry, except two regiments left with General Parke for picket duty, was ordered to pass through Knoxville toward Sevierville to obstruct any further movement of the enemy on the Dandridge line. Parke was ordered to hold the rest of the army together, resisting Longstreet's advance, and retiring deliberately on Knoxville. Preparations were made to destroy the long trestle bridge at Strawberry Plains, and this important structure was devoted to ruin for the third or fourth time since Sanders entered the valley in the preceding summer. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 129, 162.] Grant had said to Foster that the impossibility of supplying more troops in East Tennessee made it useless to send reinforcements, and that he must keep between Longstreet and Thomas, retiring toward Chattanooga if necessary. Halleck complicated the situation by telegraphing direct to Thomas that he must aid Foster to any extent needed, and that the line from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap must be maintained at all hazards. [Footnote: Id., p. 130.] Foster reported to Grant that he had so greatly improved the defences and armament of Knoxville that it could not be taken, and that he would not retire further than this place unless it were explicitly ordered. [Footnote: Id., p. 138.] This was in accordance with General Grant's wish, and his confidence in the information as to Longstreet's reinforcement was such that he telegraphed Halleck on the 20th that the siege of Knoxville was about to be renewed. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 149.] The chronic inability of Halleck to understand East Tennessee affairs is shown in his insistence on still maintaining the Cumberland Gap line, which was necessarily uncovered whenever the enemy approached Strawberry Plains. Chattanooga had now become our base, and remained so for all troops in East Tennessee till the end of the war. We at the front got the first authentic information which disproved the report of Longstreet's reinforcement and showed that he had retired to Morristown. Foster was thus enabled to telegraph Grant on the 20th that the evidence did not sustain the report, and that he doubted whether the Confederate commander would again attempt Knoxville. [Footnote: Id., p. 151.]

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Chapter XXXIII

WINTER QUARTERS IN EAST TENNESSEE--PREPARATIONS FOR A NEW CAMPAIGN

Sending our animals to Kentucky--Consultations--Affair with enemy's cavalry--Roughing it--Distribution of troops--Cavalry engagement at Sevierville--Quarters in Knoxville--Leading Loyalists--Social and domestic conditions--Discussion of the spring campaign--Of Foster's successor--Organization of Grant's armies--Embarrassments in assignment of officers to duty--Discussion of the system--Cipher telegraphing--Control of the key--Grant's collision with Stanton--Absurdity of the War Department's method--General Stoneman assigned to Twenty-third Corps--His career and character--General Schofield succeeds to the command of the Department of the Ohio.

In connection with the movements of concentration about Knoxville, General Foster carried out his scheme of sending back to pasture in Kentucky and Tennessee all the horses and mules, except a very few teams needed to distribute supplies and two or three horses at each division headquarters for the commanding officer and an aide or two. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 203-204.] The animals were herded and driven together, an escort of cavalry accompanying them, and the whole put in charge of Captain Day of my staff, as quartermaster, the same whose energy in our journey over the mountains I have already noted. This measure definitely committed us, of course, to a quiet and defensive line of conduct for the next three months. On the 21st of January we were deliberately closing in around Knoxville, where the Fourth Corps was already concentrated, and General Foster had called upon the three corps commanders to meet him at his headquarters in the city for the purpose of putting in official form our opinion upon the necessity of suspending active operations in view of the condition of the troops and animals. We met there on the next day, and submitted our reports in response to interrogatories on several points. My own statement summarized the facts in regard to the supplies of food, forage, clothing, and the impossibility of drawing anything more from the country except some very limited quantities of bread-stuffs. My conclusion was that economy of life, animals, property, and (taking the next six months together) of time also, required that the troops should go into permanent quarters for a short period to be devoted to recuperation, drill, and instruction, organization of means of supply, and general preparation for an active campaign in the spring. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 176.] I, however, added that this was on the hypothesis that no imperative military reasons existed for continued active campaigning; for in presence of such a necessity every officer and man of the corps would most cheerfully continue to undergo every hardship and endure every privation. There was complete unanimity among us in regard to the subject, and General Foster's orders were issued accordingly.

Whilst we were in conference, reports came in from General Willcox, who had been left in command of the Ninth Corps at Strawberry Plains, that the enemy were pressing him rather vigorously. Word came also from General Spears that hostile infantry and cavalry had appeared in large force at Blain's Cross-roads. Sturgis also reported from the direction of Sevierville that the whole rebel army had gone to Strawberry Plains. [Footnote: Id., pp. 163, 174.] Toward evening of the 22d our troops had come within some five or six miles of Knoxville, but the enemy showed so strong a disposition to attack that Foster ordered me to return to the front, take command of both corps (Ninth and Twenty-third) and of the cavalry with them, and check the Confederates, as there was some danger that our troops would change the concerted movement into a precipitate retreat. General Parke was suffering in health from recent exposure and remained in Knoxville. Galloping out from the town, I reached the troops a little before dark, halted them, and by a personal reconnoissance satisfied myself that only cavalry were before us. Our men had passed some wooded hills which were important to cover our position and give a starting-point for an aggressive movement on our part. Reversing their movement, I reoccupied these hills, brusquely driving back the enemy's advance-guard and checking their main body. It was now dark, and putting our forces in line of battle ready for an advance at daybreak, they were allowed to bivouac for the night, whilst I rode rapidly back to Knoxville, in accordance with my arrangement with General Foster to report to him in person the particulars of the situation. He approved my suggestion that I should advance the whole line in the morning and settle the question what force was before us. The wagons had come into the town, and my headquarters with them; so taking each of us a blanket, myself and the two staff officers who had accompanied me (Colonel Sterling and my brother) rode back again at midnight to the front, and rested till daybreak on the rough floor of a log cabin. The line then was advanced, but the enemy had taken the hint from the preparations of the evening and had decamped. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 184.] Detachments went in pursuit some eight miles, but the Confederates had definitely withdrawn, and we obtained conclusive proof that only their cavalry had followed us across the Holston River.

The interrupted movement toward Knoxville was resumed, but it required me to remain another night in roughest bivouac, and another day without food, except as a mouthful could be found at hazard. I had begun the Dandridge movement with a cold which threatened pneumonia, but had grown steadily better through all the exposure, finding, as often happened to me in the course of the war, that the physical and mental stimulus of active campaigning even in the worst of weather was tonic and health-giving.

As soon as the situation was cleared up by trustworthy information of Longstreet's movements, General Foster resumed his plans for winter quarters. His first intention of sending the Fourth Corps toward Sevierville was modified by Grant's directions to put that corps where it could most readily rejoin the Army of the Cumberland. He therefore ordered me to move the Twenty-third Corps in that direction, and formally united to the corps the brigade of East Tennessee troops under Brigadier-General James G. Spears, which had theretofore been an independent organization. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 162.] Sturgis, who had marched with most of the cavalry on the route thus assigned to me, reported that the road was the worst he ever saw, and, with all the experience of bad roads we had had, this meant that it was impracticable for our few and weak teams. [Footnote: Ibid.] This put an end to all hope of living on the country, and Foster accepted the necessity of distributing his troops about Knoxville and along the lines leading to Chattanooga.

On the 22d of January orders were issued assigning the Fourth Corps to quarters extending from Kingston to Loudon along the river and railroad. The Ninth Corps took post between Campbell's Station and Knoxville. The Twenty-third Corps encamped at Knoxville and in the immediate vicinity. [Footnote: Id., p. 183.] The cavalry occupied the country southeast of the Holston holding a front on the French Broad River. A few small outposts further up the valley were maintained for observation.

A brilliant cavalry combat near Sevierville on the 27th ended the active work under General Foster's command. Longstreet, hearing of the presence of our cavalry south of the French Broad, directed General Martin, commanding his cavalry corps, to get his forces across the river and meet Sturgis at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 611.] The latter had McCook's division in advance, supported by Garrard's near Pigeon River. Martin advanced upon McCook, but was surprised to find his adversary seize the initiative. Learning of the Confederate advance, McCook marched to meet them on the road leading to Fair Garden. Martin was driven back, his right (Morgan's division) being routed by a gallant charge led by Colonel La Grange, First Wisconsin Cavalry, who commanded a brigade. [Footnote: Id. pt. i. pp. 139, 141.] Two regimental commanders, seven other commissioned officers, over a hundred privates, and two pieces of artillery were captured by the charge. General Morgan's battle-flag was also among the trophies. Our own casualties amounted to only thirty-one. Martin beat a hasty retreat across the French Broad to Dandridge, and Longstreet frankly admitted Martin's defeat with a loss of 200 men and the two guns. [Footnote: Id. pp. 149-150.] He attributed it to the inefficiency of his cavalry commander, and urged that one more competent be sent him. [Footnote: _Id_pt. ii. p. 632.] Sturgis followed on the 28th to Fair's Island Ford near Dandridge, where he was met by Armstrong's division of the Confederates. Longstreet now passed over an infantry force in rear of our cavalry, and they fell back to Maryville. [Footnote: Id., p. 653.] Both parties found the winter work too costly, and were now glad to take a few weeks for rest and recuperation.

As my headquarters were assigned to Knoxville, I had the opportunity of increasing my knowledge of the people and of the social complications which grew out of the war. I found quarters for myself and Lieutenant Theodore Cox, my aide, at the house of Mr. Cowen, a young merchant of the city, whose father was one of the prominent business men. The house was on the north side of a suburban street running parallel to the river, and not far from the buildings of the East Tennessee University, which were partially fortified and connected with Fort Sanders by a line of infantry trench. The fields on the opposite side of the road were open, and sloped down to the river bank, and in these my headquarters guard pitched their tents and the general quarters of the staff were also placed. A near neighbor, in the direction of the college, was the Rev. Dr. Humes, rector of the Episcopal parish, and after the war President of the University. General Burnside had spoken of him as a noble man, of devoted loyalty as well as earnest piety, and I was glad to know him as one who by his high intelligence and character was an authority on all that related to Holston valley. [Footnote: Thomas W. Humes, S.T.D. He has, since the war (1888), published a volume devoted to the East Tennessee loyalists, entitled "The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee."] John Williams, John M. Fleming, and O. P. Temple were among those who represented the Union sentiment of Knoxville, as did Perez Dickinson among the merchants. [Footnote: Since this chapter was written, Chancellor Temple has contributed a valuable work to the history of the Rebellion, in his "East Tennessee and the Civil War," Cincinnati. 1899.] John Baxter, afterward Judge of the United States Circuit Court, was a strong and wise friend of the government. Horace Maynard represented the district in Congress both before and after the war, and was regarded at Washington as its official representative even in the period when the Confederate occupation made him an exile from his home. William G. Brownlow was in Knoxville also, having returned as soon as our army had opened the way. His son, "Colonel Jim," was doing gallant service at the head of the First East Tennessee Cavalry. Around this group of leading men were arrayed the great majority of the people, devoted in their attachment to the Union. The men of property among them had sometimes been forced to dissimulate in order to protect their persons and their possessions; but now that the National army was in the valley, there was no mistaking the earnest satisfaction and the hearty sympathy of these people. There was a minority who had been open Secessionists, and these had been influential beyond their numbers, by reason of their wealth and social standing; for here, as well as everywhere else in the South, owners of slaves easily became champions of the extreme doctrines of what they called the constitutional guaranty of their property. They claimed to include most of the "upper class" in their numbers, though this was by no means true in this region.

The feelings of both Union men and Secessionists were very bitter, and social life was as strongly marked by these divisions as the hostile camps. The number of slaves was comparatively small, but they were the house servants in the towns, and their disposition to assert their liberty added to the social turmoil. The mistress of the house where I lodged hired her cook from a neighbor who claimed the woman as a slave; but the employer found herself obliged to make another bargain with the cook, and to pay her a second wage in order to keep her at work at all. The Unionists of East Tennessee were not yet fully advanced to the emancipation of the slaves as a result of the war. Parson Brownlow had fiercely denounced the Secessionists for arguing that secession was necessary to preserve property in slaves. Our army commanders thought it prudent not to agitate this question, and contented themselves with keeping within the limits of the statutes and the general orders of the War Department, which forbade military interference to return fugitives to the masters or to compel their obedience. The matter was left to work itself out, as it rapidly did.

After the first of February the weather became settled and gave us a more favorable opinion of the East Tennessee climate. We had sharp frosts at night with occasional light flurries of snow, but the days were usually bright, it thawed about midday, and the average temperature was such as to make active exercise delightful. The summits of the Great Smoky Mountains were covered with snow, and made a picturesque framing for the natural loveliness of the valleys. The roads were nowhere metalled, and the alternate freezing and thawing made them nearly impassable; but if we had been able to bring forward proper forage and supplies, we should have overcome the other obstacles to active campaigning. As it was, we could only await the approach of spring, when the settling of the roads and the opening of railroad communication with Chattanooga and Nashville would make it possible to bring back from Kentucky and feed our horses which had been sent to the rear.

There was, beside, the question of the change necessary in the command of the department, since there was no probability that General Foster's health would permit him to retain it and he had urgently requested that his successor should be assigned to duty. Indeed, the question of organization reached down to the regiments and brigades, and was a burning one in all the armies of Grant's Military Division. Besides this, the revival of the grade of Lieutenant-General was already mooted in Congress, and it was nearly a foregone conclusion that Grant would have the command of all the armies and the task of co-ordinating their movements. Our little army in East Tennessee was agitated not only with the speculations as to our new commander, but with debates as to our probable part in the next campaign, and the forces which would be given to us with which to do our work. Would the Ninth Corps remain in the department, or would it be ordered to the East for duty under Burnside, as was already rumored? Would our task be simply to garrison East Tennessee; should we make Longstreet's army our objective and follow him into Virginia; or should we be united to Sherman's and Thomas's armies for a campaign in Georgia? We eagerly listened for every hint which might be dropped at headquarters, but Grant's proverbial reticence left us to our conjectures, and each question was answered only when official orders were finally published. Much that was very blind to us is now easily traced in the Official Records.

When General Foster informed the War Department that the opening of his old wound made it necessary to relieve him of command in East Tennessee, the President was in some perplexity in regard to several prominent officers. He was disposed to find some adequate employment for Rosecrans, who was still backed by a very strong political coterie in Washington. He was convinced that injustice had been done Burnside, and was thinking of sending him with the Ninth Corps, largely increased in numbers, to his old field of successful work on the Carolina coast. The opposition of influential politicians of Kansas and Missouri to Schofield, whose confirmation as major-general was still obstructed in the Senate, he felt as a personal hostility to himself. Grant was also desirous of suitable assignments to command for McPherson, W. F. Smith, and Sheridan. The almost certain passage of the bill to give a higher grade in the army, and the assumption that Grant would be promoted to it, gave the opportunity to make a satisfactory arrangement of all these cases. Burnside's return to active work and the removal to the East of the Ninth Corps were determined on, with General Parke's return, at his own desire, to the position of Burnside's chief of staff. McPherson was to take the Army of the Tennessee when Sherman should be promoted to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Smith and Sheridan were to have high assignments in the Eastern army. Rosecrans was sent to Missouri, and Schofield, to his great content, was appointed to command the Army of the Ohio. These changes were gradually shaped in the correspondence of Grant with army headquarters during the fall and winter. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 122, 277, 458, 529, 571; vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 79, 80, 182, 202, 209, 229, 230, 251, 336; also a curious letter of Hooker to Stranton, id., pp. 467-469. See also Schofield's "Forty-six Years in the Army," pp. 108-110. I have treated these changes more in detail in chapter vii. of Force's "General Sherman" (Great Commanders' series). See preface of the work last named.] They were followed by others in the corps divisions and brigades, so that the organization of all the Western armies took permanent form before Grant was called to Washington to assume his new rank at the beginning of March.

In regard to general officers the question of assignments and promotions was always an embarrassing one for commanders of armies in the field. As the law prescribed the maximum number of major-generals and of brigadiers, political and military pressure combined to keep the list always full. [Footnote: In reply to Grant's request for the promotion of General W.F. Smith, Halleck Informed him, on Jan. 13, 1864, that there was not only no vacancy, but that by some error more had again been appointed that the law authorized, and some already in service would have to be dropped. Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 80. As to brigaders, see Halleck to Grant, Id., p. 481.] Closest watch was kept by politicians and others at Washington, and if a vacancy occurred, the pressure to fill it was exactly such as would be made for a civil office in the gift of the government. Officers of the regular army found in General Halleck a powerful support, and it was assumed that those appointed from civil life would be looked after by their political friends. The effort which was made by the War Department in the winter to force into active service or into retirement all officers who for any cause had been "shelved" was well intended, but in practice it accentuated the feeling of experienced commanders that a radical reform was essential. An intelligent system was demanded, reaching from top to bottom of the army, separating its discipline, its assignments to duty, its promotions and its removals from political influences, and making merit alone the basis of advancement. In the condition of public affairs no such thorough work was possible. The embarrassments of army commanders had been very bluntly explained to the War Department in the confidential dispatches of Mr. Dana from Chattanooga. His judgments may sometimes have been hasty, but he gives a very vivid picture of the mischiefs which follow from having incompetent, intemperate, or inefficient men saddled upon an army. The same dispatches, however, showed also how unwillingly the commanders resorted to extreme severity with men toward whom they had feelings of personal kindness. In strong hands like Grant's or Sherman's the power to get promptly rid of such incumbrances (which Dana recommended) would be ably used and work well. As to political considerations, the President on more than one occasion admitted that he felt obliged, at times, to let these control his action, instead of reasons based on the efficiency of the army. [Footnote: For Dana's dispatches on this subject, see Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 220; vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 69, 73, 265; pt. ii. pp. 54, 63. In his published "Recollections of the Civil War" (1898), Mr. Dana has omitted some of his most trenchant personal criticisms.]

Along with the graver embarrassments which General Grant found in organizing his armies for a new campaign were smaller ones, which though sometimes concerned with trivial matters were not on that account likely to be less annoying. When the general visited us at Knoxville and Strawberry Plains in the severe weather of early January, he came practically unattended. He had with him Lieutenant-Colonel C. B. Comstock of the engineers, who continued in confidential staff relations to him to the end of the war, well known then and ever since as an officer of rare ability and discretion. At Knoxville Grant received a dispatch in cipher which he could not read because the telegraph operator at his headquarters at Nashville alone had the key. This gave him great annoyance and might have had very serious consequences. When therefore he reached Nashville on his return ride over the mountains, he directed the operator to reveal the key to Colonel Comstock, who was always with him. The operator of course reported the fact to the superintendent of military telegraphs at Washington (Colonel Anson Stager), and on the report of the latter to the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton ordered the operator summarily dismissed from his employment, and formally reprimanded Colonel Comstock as if the revelation had been merely on his personal order. Of course Grant, who had never dreamed that he was treading upon anybody's toes, immediately assumed the full responsibility. He showed the folly of making details of method override the public necessity to which they were subservient, and asked that the operator should be restored to his employment and not made to suffer for obeying his personal order. He said: "I could see no reason why I was not as capable of selecting a proper person to intrust with this secret as Colonel Stager." One would think this ought to have ended the matter, but it did not, though the operator was restored to duty. Mr. Stanton had the old cipher thrown away, issued a new one, and stuck to the plan of trusting it to an ordinary civilian operator, whilst it was not allowed to be known to the commanding general or the most responsible staff officer. Grant made the sensible suggestion that the key be given to military officers only, and be kept from the civilian operators; but Mr. Stanton adhered to the farcical notion of carrying on a cipher correspondence which should be open to the irresponsible transmitter, but secret as to the responsible commanding general to whom it was addressed. If it were meant for a system of espionage upon the general by thus inseparably tying to him a civilian over whom he had no control, like an agent of a secret police reporting to a Fouche or a Savary, it would be an intelligible though bungling contrivance; but as a means of secret communication with a general it was ridiculous in the extreme. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 150, 159, 161, 172, 323, 324, 361.]

The telegraph operators were young men who had learned the art usually in the northern telegraph offices and were hired for military service like other civilian employees. The operator at Grant's headquarters at Nashville had a busy place, and could not be spared to accompany the general whenever he visited a distant post, even if such inseparable attendance had been agreeable to the commander. Many of the operators were faithful and intelligent men, but there were some who were not; and an incident occurred in the Nashville campaign in the next year which showed what mischiefs were likely to happen when a telegraph operator was cowardly or untrustworthy. [Footnote: See "The Battle of Franklin," by the present writer, pp. 29, 30.]

Returning to the affairs of the Army of the Ohio, at the same time that General Schofield was ordered to report to Grant for duty, Major-General George Stoneman was sent from the East with a similar order. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 166, 182.] It had not then been announced that the Ninth Corps would return to the East, and apparently assuming that the Army of the Ohio would include more than one corps of infantry, General Grant suggested the assignment of Schofield to the department and Stoneman to the Twenty-third Corps. This was ordered accordingly on the 28th of January. [Footnote: Id., pp. 229, 251.] Stoneman's last service had been as Hooker's chief of cavalry in the Chancellorsville campaign, and under Hooker's orders he had been upon a separate expedition of cavalry during that unfortunate battle. In the general miscarriage of the campaign, he was, with questionable justice, held responsible in part for the failure and was displaced. In the general plan of setting everybody to work again, he was sent to Grant, though, as time had brought about a more favorable judgment regarding him, it would have been fair to assign him to duty again with the Army of the Potomac. I think he expected the command of the cavalry of the western army, but Grant had selected Brigadier-General William Sooy Smith for that position, and looking about for suitable duty for Stoneman, the Twenty-third Corps was seen to have no permanent commander assigned by the President, and Stoneman was nominated for it. As events turned out, the appointment was for a very short period.

My command of the corps with the rank of brigadier was of course anomalous, and would necessarily be temporary unless the appropriate rank were restored to me. Had Burnside remained in East Tennessee, it is probable that his wish would have prevailed; but he was absent, and I was a comparative stranger, forming new relations to Grant and his principal subordinates. Foster had also assured me that he would wish no change in the corps command if he stayed at the head of the Department, but as his health caused his withdrawal, the new arrangements were made without consulting him. Under these circumstances there was nothing for me to do but to accept the inevitable and take such active work as my seniority in my present rank would give.

When General Foster learned that he would soon be relieved, he very cordially offered to do anything in his power to further my wishes in regard to any choice of duty when I should be superseded in the corps. I replied that my strong desire was to get the most active field service, and as it was doubtful whether the corps would not be kept to garrison East Tennessee, I would like to be transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, which was certain to make the next campaign in Georgia. On his suggestion I wrote a letter to General Grant asking the transfer on the grounds stated. This application General Foster forwarded with a letter of his own supporting it in very friendly manner. Nothing came of this, but it was the reason for the delay which occurred in my assignment to permanent work in the Army of the Ohio. Some of my friends in the Fourth Corps, knowing that Sheridan was to leave his division, had suggested my appointment there, but the surplus of general officers prevented. Major-General Newton, one of those who came west from the Potomac army, was assigned to that division. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. i. p.18.]

Generals Schofield and Stoneman reached Knoxville on the 9th of February, and the changes in command were promptly made. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 356, 358, 359, 364, 365.] For a fortnight I was off duty, awaiting orders. General Foster took his leave of us, thoroughly respected by all, though his crippled physical condition had interfered with his personal activity.

My separation from the corps command only affected myself and my two personal aides-de-camp. I had recommended Major Bascom, my adjutant-general, and Major Treat, my commissary, for permanent positions on the corps staff, and these recommendations were kindly adopted by General Stoneman, so that they ceased to belong to my military family, though both offered to follow my fortunes. The other staff appointments were in the nature of details, most of which were temporarily continued. Pending General Grant's action on my application, I remained at Knoxville, looking on and making the acquaintance of the officers newly arrived.

General Stoneman was a tall, thin man, full bearded, with large eyes. He had an air of habitual sadness, or gravity approaching it, and was commonly reputed to have an irritable temper, but I saw nothing of it. I think he would have made an acceptable commander of the corps if fortune had left him in that position. His place in the regular army (Major of the Fourth United States Cavalry [Footnote: He and General Sturgis were the two majors of the same regiment.]) had led to his assignment to a cavalry command at the East, and he returned to that arm of the service a little later. Grant took a dislike to Stoneman, partly on account of the manner in which he had been sent to him from the East. When the suggestion was made that, if the opposition in the Senate to Schofield's confirmation should defeat his promotion, Stoneman should succeed to his command, Grant dryly replied that he did not know General Stoneman's merits. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 394] Even a year later he showed the same distrust by speaking of him as an officer who had failed. This was by no means just, but showed the persistence of Grant's impressions. [Footnote: General Stoneman retired from the army at the close of the war and made his home in California, of which State he became governor.]

With General Schofield's arrival began my close association with him which was to last until the end of the war. In person he was a solid, rather stout man, of medium height, with a round bald head and long black beard coming down on his breast. He had a reputation for scientific tastes, and had, after his graduation at West Point, been instructor in astronomy there. He was two or three years my junior in age, and was among the younger general officers. The obstruction, thus far, to his confirmation in his higher grade so far resembled my own experience as to be a ground of sympathy between us. As I was glad of his better luck in his prompt reappointment, I may also say that his hearty recognition of my own service and experience inspired me with sincere friendship. I look back to my service as his subordinate with unmixed satisfaction.

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Chapter XXXIV

SCHOFIELD IN EAST TENNESSEE--DUTIES AS CHIEF OF STAFF--FINAL OPERATIONS IN THE VALLEY

Fresh reports of Longstreet's advance--They are unfounded--Grant's wish to rid the valley of the enemy--Conference with Foster--Necessity for further recuperation of the army--Continuance of the quiet policy--Longstreet's view of the situation--His suggestions to his government--He makes an advance again--Various demonstrations--Schofield moves against Longstreet--My appointment as chief of staff in the field--Organization of the active column--Schofield's purposes--March to Morristown--Going the Grand Rounds--Cavalry outpost--A sleepy sentinel--Return to New Market--Once more at Morristown--Ninth Corps sent East--Grant Lieutenant-General--Sherman commands in the West--Study of plans of campaign--My assignment to Third Division, Twenty-third Corps--Importance of staff duties--Colonel Wherry and Major Campbell--General Wood--Schofield and the politicians--Post at Bull's Gap--Grapevine telegraph--Families going through the lines--Local vendetta--The Sanitary Commission--Rendezvous assigned by Sherman--Preliminary movements--Marching to Georgia--A spring camp on the Hiwassee--The Atlanta campaign begun.

On assuming command in East Tennessee, Schofield was met by directions from General Grant, full of fresh urgency that Longstreet should be driven beyond the Virginia line. The occasion for this was the receipt of new intelligence that Longstreet was reinforced from the East, and would make another effort at an aggressive campaign. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 337.] The recurrence of this stereotyped form of alarm looked very much like information sent from the Confederates themselves for the purpose of keeping us on the defensive; but perhaps it is only of a piece with other evidence which shows the slight value of all information which is not got by contact with the enemy. The truth was that none of the reports that Ewell and others had been sent to Longstreet had any foundation. He was left to his own resources, with only the authority to call his next neighbor in southwestern Virginia to his assistance if he were in danger of being overwhelmed. But Grant was annoyed by these recurrent alarms, and his aggressive nature chafed at it. "I intend to drive him out or get whipped this month," he said to Thomas before Schofield's arrival; and on the 11th of February he wrote to the latter: "I deem it of the utmost importance to drive Longstreet out immediately, so as to furlough the balance of our veterans and to prepare for a spring campaign of our own choosing, instead of permitting the enemy to dictate it for us." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 367.]

Nothing would have pleased Schofield better than to have had Longstreet come down to Knoxville and fight there, but the cogent reasons which had made Foster suspend active operations and devote every energy to getting his men and animals in condition for a vigorous spring campaign, had lost none of their force. Our animals had already been sent away to save their lives, and by the help of the little steamboats built at Kingston and for which General Meigs had sent engines from the North, we were beginning to receive at Knoxville some of the clothing for which our men were suffering.

Grant had already ordered Thomas to be prepared to march at once to reinforce Schofield, [Footnote: Id., p. 359.] when he had a personal interview at Nashville with General Foster, who was on his way home. Foster so fully explained the impossibility of supplying troops much further up the valley than Knoxville, and the absolute need of building up the physical strength of man and beast after the half starvation since winter set in, that Grant yielded to the inevitable and directed Schofield to remain on the defensive till the approach of spring should give a prospect of activity which should not be destructive to the little army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 373-375.] He ordered that the re-enlisting veterans should have their furloughs as soon as possible, and that men and animals should have all the rest they could get, preparatory for early operations in the spring.

After his retreat from Knoxville, Longstreet had kept up an active correspondence with Mr. Davis, and with Lee, Johnston, and Beauregard, in reference to further plans of campaign. The ease with which Thomas could reinforce Schofield was so plain to him that he saw nothing attractive in another advance on Knoxville. The plan which seemed to attract him most was to mount his infantry on mules and make a dash through the mountains into Kentucky by way of Pound Gap. [Footnote: Id., pp. 652-789, 790-792.] To collect ten thousand mules and send them to him, to make a depot for rations and forage at Abingdon sufficient to support the column on its journey through the mountains, to furnish a train to carry it,--all this seemed evidently chimerical to those to whom he proposed it. [Footnote: Id., p. 760.] The Confederacy had all it could do to feed its existing armies where they were, and was living from hand to mouth.

The thing which the Confederate government seemed most to desire was that Longstreet should effect a junction with Johnston and the two open an offensive campaign against Thomas. [Footnote: Id. pp. 806, 808, 810.] The evil consequences of Bragg's blunder in detaching Longstreet before the battle of Missionary Ridge became more evident every day; but how were the commands to be reunited? A long and perilous flank march must be made by both armies, with an almost certainty that Grant would concentrate first and fall upon them in succession.

Longstreet was restless and anxious to do something pending this discussion, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 699.] and resolved to try an advance from Morristown upon Knoxville. He began his movement just as Grant had concluded to allow Schofield's army to remain quiet till spring. On the 19th of February he reached New Market, seven or eight miles above Strawberry Plains and twenty-five from Knoxville. The information he got gave him the idea that our troops were "demoralized," and that it was a favorable opportunity for an effort to capture Schofield's army. [Footnote: Id., p. 735.] He was quite wrong as to the morale of our troops, though we were depleted by furloughs and were nearly immovable for lack of train animals. He urged Johnston to move toward Knoxville to co-operate with him, [Footnote: Id., p. 744.] but Polk was now in trouble by reason of Sherman's march from Vicksburg upon Meridian and Johnston was ordered to assist Polk. [Footnote: Id., p. 763.] Then Grant, to balk both efforts, ordered Thomas to make a demonstration against Johnston, which was effective in preventing co-operation in either direction. [Footnote: Id., p. 480.]

Schofield was at first disposed to regard the enemy's advance as an effort to find forage and to strip the country more bare than it already was, if that were possible. On the 18th, however, Longstreet advanced again, and threatened to cross the Holston at Strawberry Plains, scouring the country in the angle between that river and the French Broad. The rumors which reached Schofield were [Footnote: Id., p. 415.] that his real purpose was to cross the French Broad, move along the foot of Chilhowee Mountains and make his way to Johnston. It is very probable that this was his real purpose. On the 19th he was ordered to send at any rate Martin's cavalry to rejoin Johnston, [Footnote: Id., p. 772.] and to make the junction complete would so evidently please the Confederate government that it may be assumed Longstreet would do it if he saw the way open. Schofield therefore prepared to concentrate and move in either direction, but took no active step for a few days. On the 23d the information was sufficient to make it clear that Longstreet was not moving in force toward Georgia, but was retiring toward Morristown, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 449, 455.] and Schofield immediately issued orders of march to his troops to follow. The fact was that Longstreet was so much disturbed by the withdrawal of Martin's cavalry [Footnote: Martin's cavalry at this time was what remained of Wheeler's corps which had accompanied Longstreet from Bragg's army the previous autumn.] that he declared this forced him to leave East Tennessee and place his forces at Bristol on the Virginia border. On getting a second dispatch from Mr. Davis, he modified his reasons, saying that Schofield had been reinforced from Chattanooga. [Footnote: Id., pp. 788-790.] This was incorrect, for the Fourth Corps was the only part of the Army of the Cumberland which joined the Army of the Ohio at any time during the winter, and only Wood's division of it participated in Schofield's present movement. He also wrote as if he had been near enough to Knoxville to discover for himself that the fortifications were greatly strengthened;[Footnote: Id., p. 810.] but as he had not approached nearer than seventeen miles, he could hardly have gained much information on this subject. No doubt rumors of work on the defences of the city had spread through the country during the winter, but there could hardly have been any discovery at this time. The use of it to smooth the appearance of an abortive effort was only a passage in military apologetics.

I had been awaiting orders in Knoxville a fortnight when the advance against Longstreet began, and as no definite answer had come to my application for transfer, General Schofield invited me to act as his chief of staff in the field during active operations or until my assignment to permanent duty should be settled. I gladly accepted the general's proposal and joined headquarters at once. [Footnote: See Official Records vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 495.] Our little army consisted nominally of parts of three corps, but the column in the field consisted of one division of the Twenty-third Corps, under the immediate command of General Stoneman, one of the Fourth Corps under Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood, and the skeleton of the Ninth Corps under General Parke. [Footnote: Id. p. 455.] We had also Colonel Garrard's division of cavalry. Another division of the Twenty-third Corps under Brigadier-General Milo S. Hascall was left as the garrison of Knoxville, with the heavy artillery organization under Brigadier-General Davis Tillson and a small detachment of cavalry. Hascall was particularly directed to scout far out to the eastward, watching for any attempt of the enemy to pass along the mountain base, as well as against any effort to capture the city by a coup de main.

Our marching column numbered 13,873 officers and men, distributed thus: Wood's division, 5477; Parke's detachments of two divisions of the Ninth Corps, 3031; Stoneman with the second division of the Twenty-third Corps, 3363; Garrard's cavalry, 2002. [Footnote: Id. pp. 502, 504.] Longstreet's forces were 20,787, of which 5034 were cavalry. Schofield's purpose was essentially that of a reconnoissance in force to learn definitely the composition and apparent plans of the enemy, though willing to accept a defensive battle if a favorable opportunity should occur. If Longstreet were finally leaving East Tennessee, Grant's intention was to send all troops of the Fourth Corps back to Thomas, so as to concentrate the Army of the Cumberland in preparation for the spring campaign in Georgia. [Footnote: Id., pp. 456, 490.]

On the 24th of February we were at Strawberry Plains. The long trestle bridge of the railway had been destroyed when our forces had concentrated at Knoxville a month before, and our first task was to complete a wagon bridge across the Holston so that we could move onward toward New Market and Morristown with a possibility of keeping up a supply of food. We did not wait for the bridge to be completed, however, and orders were issued on the 26th to begin crossing, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 474.] using flatboats for the men, whilst the artillery and wagons used a ford that was then passable. Grant did not expect Schofield to march his infantry farther than Strawberry Plains, but to push the reconnoissance beyond that point with cavalry. [Footnote: Id., p. 495.] Schofield, however, felt that to do his work thoroughly, his horsemen should be strongly and closely supported. On the 29th our headquarters were at New Market and the column on its way to Morristown. We overtook it in the afternoon and occupied the town that evening. As so often happens in war, our movement had hardly begun when the fine weather ended, and we marched from Strawberry Plains in pouring rain, over wretched roads which rapidly became worse. This delayed the troops and only part were at Morristown when darkness fell. These were disposed so as to cover the town in front with pickets well out, and a detachment of cavalry a mile or two farther forward. Most of the horsemen were on our flanks, covering roads by which our position could be turned.

All the information we could get pointed to an abandonment of East Tennessee by the enemy, but it was hard for us to believe that the sudden retreat of Longstreet, after his announced intention to attack Knoxville, was not under orders which indicated a plan we ought to fathom. We had heard of his first purpose at many places on our road, for it is almost impossible to keep the people of the country from learning the destination of a moving column, and now the inhabitants who remained at Morristown were aware that Longstreet's men regarded Bristol as their destination. There were, however, rumors and some evidence that Longstreet had stopped his retreat and was about to turn upon us. This called for a careful disposal of our troops and preparation for supporting them promptly with those that were still on the road. As nothing came of it, there would be no reason for mentioning it, except that it was the occasion for an amusing bit of personal experience of my own.

Some of the more pronounced Secessionists had left the town with Longstreet, through fear that the loyalists might take vengeance on them for some of the wrongs they had suffered. We occupied as headquarters a house thus vacated, but it was absolutely empty and gave us only a roof over our heads. We had a few camp stools and a camp desk or two, and slept on the bare floor wrapped in our blankets, with our saddles for pillows. Late in the evening some loyal men brought in such reports of the enemy advancing to attack us at daybreak, that as a measure of prudence determined to go the "grand rounds" an hour or two before day, and especially to visit the cavalry outpost at the front and send forward a reconnoissance from it to make sure of full warning if there was any need of it. When I was roused by the sergeant of the headquarters guard and my horse was brought to the door, it was not a night for a pleasure excursion. A cold winter rain was pouring down, and the blackness of darkness was intense. I took only a single orderly with me, buttoned my cape close over my great-coat, pulled down the rim of my felt hat and started off, trusting to my horse to keep the road till my eyes should get a little used to the darkness. As both armies had encamped around the town, the fences were of course all gone and the wagons had cut so many tracks to right and left that it seemed all road, or rather all mire and no road. Whilst we were among the camps the smouldering camp-fires were of some help, but when we got beyond these we could only splash along cautiously, steering for the smaller fires which marked the picket reserves. Beyond the line of sentries there was nothing to guide us, and keeping our direction as well as we could, we plodded on until a faint glimmer showed the camp of the cavalry outpost. It was in an open wood, and the dying camp-fires gave only light enough to show the tall trunks of the forest trees, black against a background of dull red. Part of Longstreet's army had been in cantonments here during the winter, and many of the huts were still standing, their dim outlines and irregular forms hardly visible, but giving an air of weird mystery to the surroundings. Some of these huts were occupied by the cavalry, and the first we came upon had as its tenant an Irish dragoon, and him we turned out to guide us to the captain's quarters. The occasionally flashing light only seemed to make the darkness visible, and the Irishman told us to follow him closely, "and look out," says he, "for there's pits every little way where thim ribils dug foundations for their chimbleys." He started on and I followed, keeping my horse's nose close to his shoulder. Suddenly he disappeared, and as I jerked my horse back on his haunches, Paddy sung out: "Och! I've found one, sorr!" and sure enough he had gone in, head and heels, in one of the "pits." He scrambled out and cautiously led my horse around the hole, but we had hardly gone a rod further before Pat went out again, like a candle, with "Be jabers, I've found another." But he took his mud baths good-humoredly, and led us without further accident to the captain. From him I got the reports from the vedettes at the front, and after ordering a reconnoissance to be pushed well forward, turned back to inspect the infantry line of sentinels. These were generally found on the alert and well instructed, but as we went across ditches and miry fields we came suddenly upon one asleep in a fence corner where he had tried to make some shelter from the storm. When the horses halted beside him, he sprang up bewildered, and stood bolt upright, trying to look at us, evidently uncertain whether we were rebels, but too confused to utter a single word. I ordered him to call the corporal of the guard, and asked him if that was the way he guarded the camp. He began to stammer out denials of being asleep with a foreign accent and in broken English, which made his stupidity seem more stupid. I reported him to the officer of the guard, but finding he was a raw recruit, I refrained from ordering him before a general court-martial, and directed a lighter summary punishment that his regimental officers could impose.

After examining the more important part of the line, we splashed back to quarters as day was breaking, got a fire built in our cheerless room, hung my coat, which was heavy with water, before it to dry, and crossing my mud-cased legs, sat down for half an hour of rest and revery, listening for carbine shots at the front that would tell if the scouting party had found an enemy. The rest of the staff were still sleeping, oblivious of war's alarms and preparing for the work of the day by trusting the watching to those on duty, as they would be trusted in turn when similarly on guard. How often were such incidents repeated, night and day, through campaign after campaign, till they became so familiar that it seems almost puerile to mention them!

On beginning the movement to Morristown, orders had been given to press the rebuilding of the railroad bridge at Strawberry Plains, for our continuance so far from our supplies depended upon it. We had no trains of wagons to keep up our communication with our base, and the utmost we could do was to carry four or five days' supply with us. We therefore spent three or four days in vigorous efforts to gain information of the enemy by means of our cavalry. We learned that Longstreet held the line of Bays Mountain, where the railway passes through Bull's Gap, thirteen miles above Morristown. His right flank seemed to be at Rogersville on the Holston, and his left rested near the Nolachucky beyond Greeneville. We could not learn that any of his forces except Martin's cavalry had left him, though we were mystified by the disappearance of Ransom's division from the accounts of the enemy's organization. The fact was that that officer was transferred to the cavalry command, and the organization of his division was merged in the others.

On the 2d of March Grant directed that McCook's division of cavalry should go back to Thomas as soon as they could possibly be spared, and on Schofield's reporting the results of our reconnoissances, he advised the latter not to bring on an engagement, but to content ourselves with holding as much of the country as we could. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 14.] The bill creating the grade of lieutenant-general was now the law, and Grant had been promoted to it. On the invitation of the President he was about to go to Washington for consultation, keeping in telegraphic communication with his department commanders. [Footnote: Id., p. 17.] Consequently it agreed well with his views to let affairs remain quiet during his absence. The rains continued, however, and even if he had desired further advance it would have been out of the question till the bridge at Strawberry Plains was rebuilt. The rations brought with us were exhausted, and on the 4th we withdrew the infantry fourteen miles, to a position four miles above New Market, where we hoped to be able to feed the troops with our few wagons, until the railroad should again be available.

Headquarters in the field were established at New Market, and I remained there with authority to direct and support the cavalry movements actively kept up in our front. General Schofield was thus enabled to spend part of his time at Knoxville attending to the clothing and supply of the troops, the gathering of reinforcements, return of veterans, and all the matters of department administration which centred there. In case of the necessity of combined action in Grant's absence, Thomas was authorized to assume command.

The Holston bridge at Strawberry Plains was completed on March 11th, and our forces were at once put in motion for Morristown, where we once more encamped on the 12th. Nothing new had been learned of the enemy; but there was nothing to learn, for Longstreet quietly occupied the line of Bays Mountain, and, like ourselves, was busy getting his troops clothed and shod, while he discussed with the Richmond authorities various plans of campaign. The cavalry ordered back to Johnston was making its way along the base of the mountains, and occasional news of their advance was exaggerated into stories of all Longstreet's army being in motion. Schofield very wisely thought the best way to know what his enemy was doing was to be as near him as practicable without assaulting his strong positions with an inferior force, and therefore ordered the fresh advance as soon as the railway could be made to transport supplies.

On the 14th Grant was again at Nashville, and took immediate steps to send the Ninth Corps to Burnside at Annapolis, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 67.] in accordance with an arrangement which was settled at the Washington conferences. Schofield was directed to have no delay in getting the Ninth Corps off, and he issued his formal orders to that effect on the 16th. [Footnote: Id., p. 82.] This reduced the forces in East Tennessee to a very small number, but a bold front was preserved and active reconnoitering kept up. On the 18th Stoneman's infantry was placed at Mossy Creek, between New Market and Morristown, and Wood with two brigades of his division was ordered to Rutledge about half-way to Cumberland Gap. The other brigade was placed at Strawberry Plains to protect the stores accumulated there. The cavalry which remained to Schofield was divided, part reporting to Stoneman and part to Wood, and the country was carefully watched from the Nolachucky on the east to Cumberland Gap on the northwest. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 88, 89.] I was personally directed to keep headquarters in the field, with power to act, in emergencies and in matters of detail, in Schofield's name, while the general returned to the department headquarters at Knoxville, where he made to Sherman, as his now superior, a full report of the situation, with suggestions as to the future work of the army of the Ohio. [Footnote: Id., p. 96.] It was now settled that a new campaign, both East and West, should open in April, if possible, and everything else was to be made subservient to preparation for it. Steps were taken to bring back the furloughed veterans, to remount the cavalry in Kentucky and bring it forward, and to secure such additional infantry as should enable Schofield to take the field with three strong divisions of foot, and at least two of horse, besides leaving about ten thousand men in Kentucky and five thousand in East Tennessee.

The question what should be the work of the Army of the Ohio had naturally interested us who belonged to it, and while Grant was in Washington I prepared and submitted to General Schofield a sketch of a plan of campaign. It was based on the assumption that the Army of the Potomac would not operate by its left along the lowlands of Virginia, as McClellan had done, but would follow the railway through Culpepper and Orange Court House to Richmond. This route was in a high and healthy country, the streams would be crossed where they were comparatively insignificant, and the natural obstacles to an advance seemed much less formidable than upon the coast line. True, the army would have to depend upon the railway for its supplies, but so must Sherman in the West, and the Virginia line was only a fraction of his in length. It had the advantage of covering the Shenandoah valley as it advanced, and saving the large detachment which had to be devoted to that region and to the protection of Washington. But besides this (and this was the feature directly affecting us in East Tennessee), it opened for the Army of the Ohio a rôle of usefulness which seemed to me very important.

If Schofield were to take the field in Georgia, he could carry to Sherman, at most, some twelve or fourteen thousand infantry and six or eight of cavalry. The proper protection of Kentucky and East Tennessee required just about the same number of troops. His active column in the decisive campaign would therefore be only half of the forces in his department. Whenever it should be apparent that Georgia was our field of operations, Longstreet's twenty thousand men would be set free to join Lee in Virginia (as actually happened), or could be used in any other theatre of operations, whilst our garrisons could not be greatly reduced because small raids of mounted men could harry the wide expanse of country behind us unless all the important points were fully guarded. This also was demonstrated by our actual experience, and was a plain deduction from facts and principles. To drive Longstreet into Virginia and destroy the railroad so that he could not return was, therefore, to force the enemy to do the thing most advantageous to himself; that is, to concentrate his forces at the East in entire security that he would not be troubled by any advance on our part into southwestern Virginia.

If, on the other hand, we could move eastward along the railroad, we could bring our supplies to our camps as we advanced. Sherman's army behind us would make our base at Chattanooga safe; the great mountain barrier on the right would so cover our flank that scarce any force need be left in Tennessee, but all could be put in the aggressive column: the troops in Kentucky could be brought forward as we progressed, for our movement would cover that district; finally, on reaching the New River valley we could be joined by the forces in West Virginia. The advance, therefore, instead of being with a dwindling column would be with a growing one, and when the Army of the Potomac should approach the valley of the James, we should be ready with about forty thousand to come into line as the right wing of that army. Approaching Richmond from the north and west, the south side railroad would be at once in our grasp, and that to Petersburg within easy reach.

The objection to such a plan which would first occur to a critic, would be that convergent movements from so distant bases are proverbially uncertain; but this objection is greatly weakened by a study of the topography of the country. The Holston valley is so isolated that, approached by the railway line with a good base behind the column, it is strongly defensible, and if the advance is so timed as not to pass the New River before the Army of the Potomac should be swinging in toward Richmond from the northwest, Lee's army would be too fully occupied to make a detachment strong enough to oppose us, and the line by which he would operate against us would be threatened by the army of our friends. There would also be a safe line of retreat always open for us, in case of check. [Footnote: Napoleon was a master of strategy who fully appreciated the objections to exterior lines, but in the campaign of Wagram in 1809 he ordered Marmont to lead a column from Italy to Vienna by a route having strong resemblances to that which I have sketched. He regarded the character of the route itself, protected as it was by mountain ranges, and giving the assurance of a line of retreat, as making an exception to ordinary cases and overcoming the objections which would have been conclusive against attempting it in an open country.] Another interesting feature in this plan is that if railway communication between Sherman and the Potomac Army had been opened in the summer of 1864, it would have been an interior line of immense importance, not improbably modifying essentially the final campaign of the war.

General Schofield thought well enough of my sketch to adopt it as a suggestion to General Grant, which he submitted as soon as the latter returned from the East. The General-in-Chief had, however, already made arrangements which committed him to operating by the left of the Potomac Army. He had sent General W. F. Smith to Fortress Monroe for the purpose of taking the field at the head of the movable part of Butler's Army of the James, and Burnside's command at Annapolis was at that time expected to make another line of operations from the seacoast in North Carolina. There was also a disposition to leave in Sherman's hands all the departments which constituted the Military Division of the Mississippi, and allow him to concentrate the movable forces of all in his operations against Johnston. Grant therefore adhered to his original purpose of destroying enough of the railroad near the Watauga River to make a serious obstruction to hostile movements against East Tennessee from the east, and turn everything that could be spared into the advance upon Atlanta. Another thing which had weight with him was the fact that Schofield's confirmation as major-general was still delayed and opposed in the Senate, and he intended, if it were finally defeated, to consolidate the Department of the Ohio with that of the Cumberland under General Thomas. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 11.]

On the 29th of March General Sherman visited Schofield at Knoxville, and a full understanding was reached regarding the place the Army of the Ohio was to take in the great campaign of the spring. All the troops in the department were to constitute the Twenty-third Corps, and Schofield was to command the moving column in the field as well as the department. To avoid the inconvenience of having a double head to this column, Stoneman was to be transferred to the command of the cavalry in place of Sturgis, and Schofield was to be assigned to the formal command of the corps. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 221, 268, 312.] Sturgis was then to be sent to Memphis to take command of the column there organizing for the purpose of operating against Forrest.

As to operations in the upper valley of the Holston, it was determined to occupy Bull's Gap at an early day, and to keep up such an apparent purpose of advancing as should detain Longstreet in East Tennessee as long as possible. If he retreated he was to be followed, so as to induce him to burn the railway bridges, and thus to avoid disclosing our own purpose of leaving that portion of the valley which we should plainly proclaim if we ourselves should destroy the railway. Everything was to be ready for movement, and at the last moment, if the enemy had not already done it, we were to burn railway bridges and tear up the track for a considerable distance. Then the divisions which were to take the field in Georgia were to march rapidly to Cleveland, and come in on the left of Sherman's grand army as he advanced from Chattanooga.

As the plan of campaign thus took definite shape, it gave the occasion also for a settlement of my personal problem of permanent assignment to duty. It had become evident that there was no room for transfer to another command, and the active part marked out for the Twenty-third Corps removed the only ground for wishing it. No better soldiers could be found than those which made up our divisions, and my acquaintance with General Schofield had ripened into a confidence which made me entirely content to follow him as my commander. He warmly invited me to continue permanently in the position of chief of staff, but gave me the alternate choice of one of the divisions of the active column. My preference for responsible command in the field decided me to take a division, and by his further permission I chose the third, in which were a considerable number of officers who had served with me in other campaigns. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 245.] I would not be understood, however, to depreciate the position of chief of staff of such a department and army. Properly filled, few positions in active service could be pleasanter or more useful. I had tested this during the six weeks preceding, and had found the associations and the duty every way most agreeable. The general was always prompt to assume his proper responsibility and to order the movements or the administrative acts which are peculiarly the province of the commander; but he gave me the task of arranging the subordinate details, and the authority to direct them in his name. To distribute the parts each corps or division was to perform; to co-ordinate all the arrangements so that they should move harmoniously; to bring to a common centre all the information, external and internal, which affected the conduct and efficiency of the whole; to supervise the matters of organization, of equipment, and of supply; to consult with the medical director as to hospital work and the sanitary condition of the army, and to be guarantor that the common end is vigorously and intelligently pursued by every part of the army,--all this, as scarcely needs telling, makes a chief of staff the right arm of the commander, and his most trusted adviser and confidant. He makes his commander feel free to give his own thought to the larger problems of a campaign, with confidence that the whole machinery of the army will work smoothly toward the object which he has in view. I did not then, nor do I now, underestimate the importance of the duty which an industrious staff officer may thus perform, and I had found it made personally pleasant by the even temper and appreciative justice of General Schofield's rule. I had, however, formed so strong a predilection for the immediate and active conduct of troops in the field, that this determined me to choose the division command. In the new organization of the corps I should, in this, report directly to the general, and should be next in rank to him (in the infantry) by virtue of seniority, so that in his absence, or when two divisions were temporarily detached from the army, I should exercise a superior command. These were advantages which every experienced soldier estimates highly, and I was to enjoy them, until good fortune and the steady friendship of my superiors gave me, a second time, and this time in permanent form, the corps command with the rank belonging to it. There was no mistake, therefore, in my choice of duty; and considering the part Sherman's whole army was to play in the remaining campaigns of the war, it was a matter of personal good fortune also that the Army of the Ohio became an integral part of the great western organization, and marched southward, not eastward.

On the staff I had been thrown into intimate relations to Colonel William M. Wherry, senior aide-de-camp, and Major J. A. Campbell, adjutant-general. These officers continued to the end of the war in these positions, which they filled with great credit and usefulness. Major Campbell was admirably fitted for the supervision of the records and the correspondence of the army, and for reducing to the form of clear and succinct orders the directions of the general. He was accurate, systematic, and untiring; always at his post, whether it were at his desk in camp, or by the side of his chief in the field. Of slight, almost frail body, with an intellectual face, he looked unequal to rough field work, but showed a stamina in fact which many a more robust man envied. Colonel Wherry was the incessantly active personal representative of the general, intrusted with his oral orders, and making for him those examinations and investigations which are only satisfactory when the commander has learned to trust the eye and the cool judgment of his assistant as his own. Wherry had been with General Schofield from the first campaign in Missouri in 1861, and both were with Lyon when he fell at Wilson's Creek. He remained his confidential aide through the whole war, and for years afterward, being early appointed from Missouri to the line of one of the new regiments of the regular army. Lithe, graceful, and genial, he was always welcome, when he came to a point where fighting was going on, to learn for the general the actual situation or to bring his orders. [Footnote: Wherry is now (1899) Brigadier-General of the United States Army, retired, after brilliant service in the campaign of Santiago, Cuba.]

During the winter the division of the Fourth Corps commanded by Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood had been in closest connection with us. It had taken part in all the marchings and countermarchings of the period when I was chief of staff, and I had thus begun an acquaintance with its commander which was to grow into lasting friendship. General Wood was colonel of the Second Regular Cavalry, a Kentuckian who had earnestly taken the National side, and an influential officer of the old army. His intelligence and activity were very marked, and his courage was of the cool indomitable character most highly prized in divisions of a great army. Of medium height, solid but not large build, dark hair and complexion, high forehead, he was a noticeable man in any assemblage of officers. A fluent talker, attentive to polite forms of speech as well as of conduct, he was liked and respected throughout the army, and especially in the Army of the Cumberland, where he had served throughout the war. He had won promotion by gallant and meritorious services again and again, when at the battle of Chickamauga it was his ill fortune to receive the famous order to "close up on Brannan and support him." The situation made the order ambiguous, but Wood understood it to mean that he should move to the left till he should find himself in rear of Brannan's division, since another division was between them in the line. He thought it a strange order, but thought also that Rosecrans must know why he sent it, and that it was "his not to reason why" but to obey. The obedience opened the gap through which Longstreet's men poured, breaking the line and routing part of the right wing. Wood took the place assigned him by Thomas in the horse-shoe curve around the Snodgrass hill, and did his full share of the desperate fighting which held that part of the field. But he had thus become the subject of a controversy, and the friends of Rosecrans charged him with a too literal obedience, and a failure to use a sound discretion in his action. The result was that whilst Rosecrans was removed from active field service, Wood still found himself under a cloud, and opposed by influences which stood in the way of his promotion till the war was almost ended. He continued to be distinguished in every engagement of the Atlanta campaign and that of Nashville, and no division saw harder or more honorable service than his.

The first week in April saw the changes in the organization of the Twenty-third Corps which I have indicated. On the 3d I was relieved of staff duty and assigned to the third division, with orders to proceed at once to Bull's Gap and take temporary command of the corps whilst General Stoneman should hasten to Kentucky to prepare the cavalry corps for active service. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 245, 259, 268.] I think the change was agreeable to Stoneman, for he was most at home with mounted troops and liked that service. Schofield's permanent assignment to the Twenty-third Corps was made on April 4th by the President, though the general had still to await for some time the action of the Senate on the confirmation of his promotion. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 258.] His enemies were still persistent, and even succeeded in obtaining a report of the Senate committee against his confirmation. General Sherman wrote to his brother, the senator, in behalf of his subordinate;[Footnote: Id., pp. 332, 343.] but it was not till General Grant was back in Washington and used his powerful personal influence that the confirmation was finally secured after the campaign had opened. It seemed at one time that not even the manifest mischief of deranging the organization of the army, as deliberately settled by both Grant and Sherman, would overcome the political hostility arrayed against him. This was without any reasonable foundation. Although Schofield was not given to political discussion, my closeness to him enabled me to know that he was an earnestly loyal man whose heart was warmly engaged in the National cause. He believed in emancipation as a right and politic war measure, and in fighting the rebellion vigorously till it should be conquered. He had made enemies among the Kansas politicians because he tried to prevent the war on that frontier from degenerating into a vendetta when murder and robbery should take the place of civilized warfare. Some influential radicals in Missouri were hostile because he held the scales even between them and the conservative Union men.

At Bull's Gap I found the corps headquarters in a shingle-palace which had been built for a hotel at the railway station, and which was now the only house there. It was empty as a barn and fast going to ruin, but it gave shelter for our office work. Wood's division of the Fourth Corps was put in march to join the Army of the Cumberland, and we were left to watch the enemy and await the moment when the destruction of the railway and our own march southward should begin. We soon had a curious bit of evidence that Longstreet had finally abandoned the expectation of re-occupying East Tennessee. It was found in the applications made by women to join their husbands who were in the Confederate service. The "grapevine telegraph" was an "institution" during the whole war. News which was either interesting or important was passed on through the lines, and it was impossible to be so rigid in precautions as greatly to delay it. To stop it was utterly futile. Longstreet had hardly received the orders from his government to prepare to rejoin Lee's army in Virginia, when the headquarters of our army at Knoxville felt the pressure of applications for leave to pass the lines. On the 6th of April a party of forty women and children came up by railway, to be sent through the lines under a flag. They were of course without tents or any means of camping out, and the crazy building in which I had my quarters was that night as crowded and as picturesque as an Asiatic caravanserai. The rain and the almost impassable roads made their journey anything but one of pleasure, but by the aid of the few wagons at the post they went forward in a day or two. A second party, about as large, followed in the course of a week, and had even a rougher time than the first. There were delays on the part of their friends, in sending trains and escort to meet them at the break in the railway, but the hope of rejoining loved ones gave them courage, and they bore cheerfully their sufferings and privations.

The bitterness of the feud between the loyalists and disunionists in the Holston valley can hardly be imagined by those who did not witness it. The persecutions of the loyal mountaineers had been such that when their turn of ruling came they would have been more than human if they had not retaliated. The organization of home-guards gave to these armed bodies of men the power, and with it came the temptation to abuse it. The memory of the men who had been hanged for bridge-burning, and of those who had languished and died in prison charged with no crime but disloyalty to the Confederacy, was a constant stimulus to severity. Their blood seemed to cry from the ground. We found a constant necessity for moderating their passions, and it was not always possible to keep them within the bounds of civilized warfare. My experience in West Virginia was repeated with some phases of still greater intensity. When we got these loyal men away from home, campaigning on distant fields, there was no trouble in enforcing discipline, and they showed no more fierceness of personal retaliation than other troops. I suspect this will everywhere be true, in greater or less measure, and that in all wars it will be found for the interest of humanity not to allow local troops to garrison their own homes.

The scouts and irregular organizations were, as usual, the most likely to fall into excesses. I had an example of this, falling under my own eye at the time I am speaking of, and showing how, under this intense exasperation, the "bush-whacking" degenerated into guerilla war in which no quarter was given on either side. I had sent out a reconnoissance of a party of Indiana cavalry accompanied by some thirty of the Tennessee scouts, the whole force about a hundred in number. They had encountered a hostile party of "irregulars" some thirty strong, and had routed them. They brought in fifteen prisoners, and reported ten of the enemy killed. Those who were captured had all surrendered to the Indiana men, and the Tennesseeans were disposed to complain that quarter had been given. True, the party which had been attacked was said to have committed great outrages, and to have been engaged in forcing loyal men into the Confederate Army under their conscription laws. The chief of the scouts came to my quarters, and I put to him the ordinary question as to the luck of his last expedition. "Oh," said he, in a dejected nasal tone; "some pretty good luck and some bad luck." "What bad luck?" said I, thinking some of his men had got hurt. "Oh, them Indiana cavalry fellows let the captain of the gang and fourteen of his men surrender to 'em." "And what became of the rest?" "We had to deal with them," said he, significantly; "and they didn't surrender." Such is civil war when it becomes a deadly feud between old neighbors and acquaintances.

The month of April ran on with continued activity of reconnoitring parties, but no larger movements. The spring was unusually backward. There was a flurry of snow on the 16th, but it did not lie on the ground, and about the 20th lovely spring weather began in earnest. The best evidence we had that our lines of communication were getting in more efficient condition, was the arrival of an agent of the Sanitary Commission with a large shipment of fresh vegetables for gratuitous distribution. We were sorely in need of them. There was a good deal of incipient scurvy in camp, and scarce any one was wholly free from disorders caused by too restricted diet. Our regular rations were bacon and flour, varied occasionally by a small issue of dried white beans or rice. This was nutritious enough, but after some months' steady use, nature pretty imperatively demanded a change. The noble organization of the Commission had been watching for the opportunity, and the arrival of a generous supply of potatoes, onions, and pickled cabbage made feast days for everybody from the general down. At my headquarters we had been confined to the soldiers' rations, and it was impossible to get anything else. The only ferment to raise our bread was saleratus, and we had become very tired of saleratus biscuit. No luxuries ever tasted so well as these plain vegetables. Our physical condition craved them, and they were food and medicine at once. The sauerkraut was finely shaved cabbage laid down in brine, and a steaming platter of it made the pièce de résistance of our camp dinner as long as it lasted. The onions we sliced and ate raw with a dressing of vinegar. The gusto with which we enjoyed this change of diet remains a vivid remembrance after a quarter of a century, and is the best proof of our need of it. The health of the whole camp was restored, and we were "hard as nails" during the year of rough campaigning that was to follow.

The first week in May was the time of rendezvous for Sherman's grand army in northern Georgia, and with the opening of the last week in April the signal was given to destroy the railroad between Bull's Gap and the Watauga River, or further if the enemy should leave the crossing of that stream unharmed. Our position at the gap was high in the cleft of Bays Mountain through which the railway passes and then turns southeastward to the Nolachucky. The road then goes up the valley of that stream and over a ridge to the Watauga, which runs to the northwest, joining the Holston again by a route which is nearly at right angles to the general trend of the valley. The Watauga is not easily fordable at an ordinary stage of water, and thus the triangle between the Holston on the left, the Watauga in front, and the Nolachucky on the right, made the debatable ground of the upper valley. Whilst we held the barrier at Bull's Gap the enemy could not stay on the hither side of the Watauga, nor could we pass the river and stop short of a strong position an equal distance beyond.

We made a strong demonstration of cavalry supported by infantry, as if we were determined to cross the Watauga and push on into Virginia. The Confederate cavalry set fire to the bridge, as we expected them to do. One brigade was ordered to Jonesboro, to march back destroying all the railway bridges and tearing up and twisting the iron rails as far as possible. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 477, 492.] With another force I began in person a similar work of destruction on the section nearest Bull's Gap. Time could only be given us for this work till the 27th of April, but on the evening of that day my division was reunited at the gap, having torn up and twisted about one third of the track over a space of fifty miles, and thoroughly destroyed all the wooden bridges. [Footnote: Id., pp. 500, 512.]

The footsore and sick were put on a railway train, and with the rest I began the march for Knoxville. As General Sherman was urgent for speed in our movement, the columns were kept near the railway and the trains were run to meet them, taking the men in detachments. The first day of May found us at Charleston, the crossing of the Hiwassee River, with two divisions of the Twenty-third corps and with General Schofield in our midst. A new division from Indiana was on its way, by rail, to join us at Cleveland, and it was certain that we could be in our place as left wing, before the 5th, the day assigned by Sherman. Two days were given to getting up and organizing our trains, and on Tuesday, the 3d, we marched at daybreak, with our field organization complete. The Atlanta campaign was begun. General Schofield went over to Chattanooga to meet Sherman, and the command of the corps on the march was committed to me. [Footnote: Id., xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 5, 22, 32, 48.] On the 4th, leaving Cleveland, we crossed the Georgia line and advanced to Red Clay, where, with the Army of the Cumberland on our right, the union of Sherman's forces in the field was completed.

At the Hiwassee we were a hundred and forty miles from Bull's Gap, and had made the distance in three days, marching half the way and being carried the other half by rail. In going south we seemed to meet the advancing spring. In the upper valley we could only see a suspicion of green, here and there, on an early tree, but at our Sunday camp at Charleston in a fine bend of the Hiwassee, a fresh green robe covered all the hills, and the sun was so bright and warm that the shade of my clean new tent was very comfortable. It would be hard to find a scene better making a romance of campaigning than that about us. Chilhowee and the great Smoky Mountains piled their deep blue masses against the eastern horizon, whilst at our feet rolled as beautiful a river as ever bore a musical Indian name. The grassy banks rise about a hundred feet above the water, and then the hills roll and rise around us in charming variety. Near the water's edge a great spring pours out from the bank in a swift steady stream two yards wide and six inches deep, giving sweet and pure water enough for a whole army, and the zigzag paths to it are filled with picturesque groups of soldiers loaded with camp kettles or canteens. We should have been dull indeed if we had not felt the exhilaration of the scene.

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XXXV. GRANT, HALLECK AND SHERMAN--JOHNSTON AND MR. DAVIS

Grant's desire for activity in the winter--Scattering to live--Subordinate movements--The Meridian expedition--Use of the Mississippi--Sherman's estimate of it--Concentration to be made in the spring--Grant joins the Potomac Army--Motives in doing so--Meade as an army commander--Halleck on concentration--North Carolina expedition given up--Burnside to join Grant--Old relations of Sherman and Halleck--Present cordial friendship--Frank correspondence--The supply question--Railway administration--Bridge defences--Reduction of baggage--Tents--Sherman on spies and deserters--Changes in Confederate army--Bragg relieved--Hardee--Beauregard--Johnston--Davis's suggestion of plans--Correspondence with Johnston--Polk's mediation--Characteristics--Bragg's letters--Lee writes Longstreet--Johnston's dilatory discussion--No results--Longstreet joins Lee--Grant and Sherman have the initiative--Prices in the Confederacy.

The threshold of the new campaign is a fit place to pick up the threads of the relations of Sherman to his superiors and his subordinates, and to notice the manner in which he laid out the responsible work before him.

Grant had no thought of suspending operations in winter, further than circumstances should make it imperative. As soon as the siege of Knoxville was raised, he applied himself earnestly to the question, What next? His first choice would have been to start from Chattanooga as a base, and make the Confederate Army his object. The insuperable obstacle to this was the impossibility, at the time, of supplying the forces already collected on the upper Tennessee. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 503.] The railroad to Nashville must be practically rebuilt and made much more efficient than it was, or both Thomas's and Foster's armies would be tied fast without the possibility of advancing. To make it possible to feed Sherman's auxiliary force, he sent it down the river to Bellefonte, some thirty miles below Bridgeport, opened steamboat communication with it, and set it at work repairing the railway from Nashville to Decatur and from Decatur to Stevenson. This would furnish an additional line to Chattanooga when completed, and would make an accumulation of stores there a possibility. He saw the risks involved in this scattering of forces, but he had no choice; they must scatter to live. He did not mean that the army should be inactive, however; as early as the 7th of December, 1863, he wrote quite fully to Halleck suggesting a movement from the lower Mississippi on Mobile, using for this purpose the forces that would be relieved from guarding the lines about Chattanooga. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 349.]

By the middle of the month he had begun to organize a cavalry force under Gen. W. Sooy Smith, to move against Forrest in West Tennessee, and was giving shape to other plans of activity. [Footnote: Id., pp. 429, 431, 473.] Sherman had taken a short leave of absence to visit his family upon the death of one of his sons, a bright lad, whose loss was a severe bereavement. On his return to duty, he was directed to go down the Mississippi, visit the important posts of his department, and take steps to suppress guerilla interference with the navigation of the Mississippi. Before leaving his command, he had suggested an active movement of part of his army in northern Alabama, to break up the railroad in the neighborhood of Corinth, whilst he himself led a force up the Yazoo River to attack Granada from the south, with a similar purpose. He thought he could do this and get back in time to take part in the "plan of grand campaign" which Grant was studying. In the same letter he said he deemed Sooy Smith "too mistrustful of himself for a leader against Forrest," and suggested Brigadier-General Joseph A. Mower, of whose energy and courage he had a high opinion. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 445.]

On the subject of the necessity of protecting the river navigation by every means, Sherman expressed himself in superlatives, as he was apt to do, but his meaning was plain and sensible. He said to Logan, to secure its safety "I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad," and will convince the natives that "though to stand behind a big cotton-wood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off." [Footnote: Id. vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 459.] Out of this discussion came finally his suggestion of an extensive movement from Vicksburg upon Meridian for the purpose of destroying the railway lines, especially in the vicinity of the latter place, and of isolating the region bordering on the Mississippi, so that a small force could garrison it and protect commerce. The suggestion was adopted by Grant. With Sherman's column the cavalry under Sooy Smith was to co-operate. [Footnote: Id., pp. 473, 527.]

Meridian was made the objective point of this movement, though Grant intimated to Halleck that if Sherman found it would not too greatly prolong the subordinate campaign, he might march on Mobile. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 100.] When the march began, Sherman allowed it to be given out that he would attack Mobile, but this was to deceive the enemy. In his correspondence with General Banks he limited his task to that which has been stated, though he asked Banks to help him keep up the notion that Mobile was aimed at, as it would deter the enemy from heavily reinforcing General Polk by the garrison there and by troops sent from Atlanta. "I must return to the army in the field in Alabama in February," said he, "but propose to avail myself of the short time allowed me here in the department, to strike a blow at Meridian and Demopolis." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 114.] In this view the movement was a success, notwithstanding the failure of the cavalry column to co-operate. [Footnote: Id., p. 498.] The biographer of General Polk disputes the importance and the permanence of the interruption of railway communication in Mississippi; [Footnote: Leonidas Polk, Bishop and General, vol. ii. p. 309.] but it is certain that no important hostile movement from that region was made again till Hood's campaign against Thomas a year later, and that was seriously if not fatally delayed by the want of railway communication between Florence or Tuscumbia and the interior of the Gulf States.

On his first visit to Washington after he became lieutenant-general, Grant found that it was the general expectation of members of Congress that he should infuse his personal energy into the next campaign of the army in Virginia. He learned also that the President, the Cabinet, and General Halleck despaired of the accomplishment of this by any stringency of orders from a distance, and thought it could be done only when he should be near enough to solve questions as they arose by his personal presence and influence. As a subordinate, few men could do better service than General Meade; but he seemed to develop a caution amounting almost to inaction in the presence of the Confederate Army under General Lee. This had allowed the Richmond government to send Longstreet's corps to reinforce Bragg at the west; and it was because the grand opportunity was not improved by Meade that it became necessary to send Hooker a thousand miles with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps to reinforce Rosecrans. Halleck expressed the sentiment of the administration and of the country when he wrote to Grant on December 13th, "As General Meade's operations have failed to produce any results, Lee may send by rail reinforcements to Longstreet without our knowing it. This contingency must also be considered." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 396.] It was, in fact, what Longstreet strenuously urged his government to do. As late as February 17th, when it was certain that Grant would soon be in command of all the National armies, Halleck, in a long letter of which the burden was that Lee's army must be made the objective in the Eastern campaign, plainly intimated that Meade could not give the Army of the Potomac the necessary aggressive energy. "Meade retreated before Lee with a very much larger force," he said, "and he does not now deem himself strong enough to attack Lee's present army." [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pt. ii. p. 411] After mentioning the opportunities to break or defeat the enemy which had been lost or not improved at Antietam and Chancellorsville, he adds that of Meade after Gettysburg, and continues: "I am also of opinion that General Meade could have succeeded recently at Mine Run had he persevered in his attack." [Footnote: Id., p. 412.] Pointing out that McClellan had operated by exterior lines, and Burnside, Hooker, and Meade by interior ones, and that all had alike failed, he argues that this does not prove anything against either line of operation, whether by the James River or by Culpepper; but the sound military principle still is to avoid scattering the eastern army by North Carolina expeditions and the like, which were then mooted, and to concentrate the forces in the east against Lee's army and fight it out to a finish. [Footnote: Id. p. 413.] The letter is an able one, but the reference to it is now made for the sole purpose of showing how the problem was placed before General Grant when the supreme responsibility was cast upon him. He accepted the view so ably presented. He did not allow the proposed expedition to be made by Burnside, though he had himself favored it before; but united his troops to the army on the Rapidan. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 143.] He kept up for a time a nominal duality of organization, not putting Burnside under Meade or Meade under Burnside. This made an ostensible reason for the next step, which was to take the field there in person and try what effect his own inflexible will might have in giving an aggressive impetus to that army. It seemed to him to be a choice between that and a continued dead-lock to the end of the chapter. Thus it was that Grant gave up his own desire to continue at the head of the western armies which he had led to successive and glorious victories. Thus it was that Sherman was right in saying to him, "Like yourself, you take the biggest load." [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 313.] The decision was not prompted by egotism. There was no vanity in Grant's composition. He simply saw, as he thought, that in that way decisive progress might be made, and so he quietly went that way.

Sherman's relations to Halleck had always been close and most friendly. Outside of official communications they had kept up a personal correspondence, part of which is found in the Official Records. From the day when it became apparent that Grant was to become lieutenant-general, Sherman yielded to his impulse to comfort and reassure his older friend on what must necessarily involve disappointment if not humiliation. In a long letter from the Mississippi in January, he takes pleasure in telling how he had spoken in public of Halleck's good qualities and talents. "I spoke of your indomitable industry and called to mind how, when Ord, Loeser, Spotts, and I were shut up in our stateroom, trying to keep warm with lighted candles and playing cards on the old Lexington, off Cape Horn, you were lashed to your berth studying, boning harder than you ever did at West Point." [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 261.] This was on their voyage out to California during the Mexican War. In a cordial answer (February 16th), Halleck said he expected Grant to receive the promotion, and should most cordially welcome him to the chief command, glad himself to be relieved from so thankless and disagreeable a position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 408.] He enlarged upon its difficulties, though he did not see, apparently, that it had been in his power to take the field as Grant afterward did, and that it was by his own act that he had become "simply a military adviser of the Secretary of War and the President." He bore witness to the fact that there was more harmony in the western army than in the eastern, saying, "There is less jealousy and backbiting and a greater disposition to assist each other." [Footnote: Ibid.] In reply Sherman assured Halleck of his own belief that Grant would prefer to command the "army of the centre" which was to advance from Chattanooga, and did not want the position of general-in-chief at Washington. [Footnote: Id., p. 498.]

At the beginning of April Sherman wrote again to Halleck, expressing his belief that he could make his army a unit in action and feeling. "We have never had," he said, "and God grant we never may have the dissensions which have so marred the usefulness of our fellows whom a common cause and common interests alone ought to unite as brothers." [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 222.] It was in this letter that he asked Halleck to say to the President that he would prefer not to be nominated to the vacant major-generalship in the regular army. "I have now all the rank necessary to command, and I believe all here concede to me the ability, yet accidents may happen, and I don't care about increasing the distance of my fall. The moment another appears on the arena better than me, I will cheerfully subside. Indeed, now, my preference would be to have my Fifteenth Corps, which was as large a family as I feel willing to provide for; yet I know Grant has a mammoth load to carry. He wants here some one who will fulfil his plans, whole and entire and at the time appointed, and he believes I will do it. I hope he is not mistaken. I know my weak points, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for past favors and advice, and will in the future heed all you may offer, with the deepest confidence in your ability and sincerity."

A single reference more will complete this sketch of the relations of those prominent men. The week before the opening of his campaign (April 24th) Sherman wrote again: "I see a mischievous paragraph that you are dissatisfied and will resign; of course I don't believe it. If I did, I would enter my protest. You possess a knowledge of law and of the principles of war far beyond that of any other officer in our service. You remember that I regretted your going to Washington for your own sake, but now that you are there you should not leave." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 469.] This hearty friendship and cordial comradeship lasted unbroken till Halleck's too famous advice to Mr. Stanton after Lincoln was assassinated, to direct Sherman's subordinates in the Gulf States and in the West not to obey the orders he might issue in pursuance of his convention with the Confederate General Johnston. That was a sore blow which shattered this lifelong friendship, though it now seems probable that had Halleck's dispatch to Stanton not been published without the rest of the correspondence, Sherman might have found possible a more innocent meaning for his words than they seemed to have when they were read by themselves. This, however, is not the place to discuss that subject. [Footnote: See Chap. L., post.]

In considering Sherman's means of supplying his army in the field, we must note the situation and connections of Nashville, which made it naturally the principal depot for operations in Alabama and Georgia. A hundred and eighty-six miles by rail south of the Ohio River, centrally situated as the capital of Tennessee, it was directly connected with Chattanooga by a hundred and fifty miles of railroad, and indirectly by way of Decatur, Alabama, and Stevenson, a line thirty-five miles longer. These railway connections would of themselves make Nashville an important post, but it had also the advantage of water communication with the Ohio. It lies at the southern bend of the Cumberland River, the course of which is nearly due north from the city to its mouth, and the stream is navigable for steamboats the greater part of the year. The Tennessee, a much larger river, is nearly parallel to the Cumberland in this part of its course, and a partially constructed railroad from its banks at Johnsonville to Nashville, seventy-odd miles, was completed during the winter. With these three lines of communication, there was very little danger that the great Nashville depot could run short of munitions or rations, or be seriously isolated by raids of the enemy. It was to communication between Chattanooga and Nashville that Sherman had to give his best thought and will. The War Department had sent out Colonel McCallum, the General Superintendent of Military Railways in January, and improvements had then been begun, which under Sherman's energetic command made a brilliant success of this part of the military administration through the whole campaign. [Footnote: See "Sherman" (Great Commanders Series), pp. 199 et seq. Also letter of McCallum to Stanton, Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 143-145: Order appointing Adna Anderson general superintendent of transportation and W. W. Wright chief engineer of construction, Id., p. 365: Sherman's order organizing the military use of the railways, Id., pt. iii. p. 279.] The management of the railways in use was given to Adna Anderson, and the engineering and bridge-construction to W. W. Wright. These gentlemen were both civil engineers and experts in railroad building and management. Military rank was given them later in order to enable them to control officers and men of the army on proper occasions. Their skill and energy were of inestimable value to the army, and gave them brilliant reputations which they fully earned. They remained in their military railway duties to the end of the war, and were distinguished in the same profession in civil life to the end of their lives. When Sherman assumed command of the Division of the Mississippi, about eighty carloads a day was the limit of the capacity of the road and the delivery at Chattanooga. It was only half of what was needed to insure rapid progress of the campaign. By the 1st of May it had increased to a hundred and thirty cars a day, with exceptional days on which the delivery ran higher; but a steady average of a hundred and fifty (the needed quantity) had not been reached, and every day's advance into Georgia would increase the length of the line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 466, 490.]

In a characteristic letter to General Thomas, Sherman explained the necessity of having the railway management directed from his own headquarters instead of those of the Army of the Cumberland, and in one to Mr. Lincoln he tersely repelled the idea that he was unduly hard on the inhabitants of the country and their business. [Footnote: Id., p. 489; and vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 25, 33.] General Meigs, the quartermaster-general, who knew the country by personal inspection, fully agreed with Sherman and wrote him on April 20th, advising him to "resist the pressure of civilians and private donations and supplies; march your troops, and devote the cars solely to transportation of military necessities.... Many civilians," he added, "can give charitable, patriotic, benevolent, and religious reasons to be allowed to go to the front; the reasons are so good that nothing but an absolute and unchangeable prohibition of all such travel will do any good." [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 434.]

The business management of the military railways was a matter of greatest importance, but it must be supplemented by an adequate system of defence. To cut the long line and interrupt the communications of the army would, of course, be the constant effort of the enemy. Every wooden bridge across a stream was a most vulnerable point. A burnt bridge meant a delay of trains till it could be rebuilt, and Sherman's estimate that he must receive at the front a hundred and fifty car-loads daily, shows how soon trouble would be caused if the steady roll of car-wheels should cease. For the freight cars of that day, ten tons made a load, and with the light locomotives and iron rails then in use, twenty or thirty cars made a full train. A system of blockhouses for the protection of the bridges had been gradually developed by the engineers of the Army of the Cumberland on suggestions made by General Halleck and others, and was under the charge of Colonel W. E. Merrill, who enlarged and improved it. This able officer was retained at the head of the defensive system, and his success in it was noteworthy. [Footnote: Colonel Merrill has given a valuable memoir on the construction and use of the blockhouses, in "Ohio Loyal Legion Papers," vol. iii. p. 389. After the war, he was for many years United States Engineer in charge of Ohio River improvements.]

With a careful system of railway work went also thorough study of the wagon trains necessary in the field to carry the baggage of the army, its ammunition, and a few days' rations, its hospital supplies, and the records and papers of all the business departments. Besides the supplies for men, the food for the teams, for the cavalry horses, and for the horses of mounted officers makes in the aggregate a bulk and weight astonishing to those who for the first time undertake the calculation. Great droves of beef cattle accompanied the march, and were coming forward on all the roads from the country in the rear where they could be bought and collected. The purchase, driving, coralling, feeding, and distributing of these made, of itself, a great business for the commissaries of subsistence. The introduction of the shelter tent of two india-rubber blankets got us rid of the regimental trains, which at the beginning of the war had been the most unwieldy of all our impedimenta. The two soldiers who were thus partners in the little house they carried on their backs, clubbed all their arrangements for comfort, and by working together greatly reduced the hardships of campaigning. Sherman applied the full force of his mind and the strong impulse of his personal example to discarding everything not essential to the army work, and to securing the utmost mobility in his columns. Throughout the campaign his own headquarters looked small and bare compared with those of many of his subordinates. Some writers have ridiculed this, as if it were a mere "fad" of the general; but it was both wise and shrewd to keep before the army the constant lesson that privation was necessary, and that the orders on the subject must be obeyed, since the commander set the example of obedience. It was akin to Bonaparte's marching on foot through the burning sands of Syria after his repulse from St. Jean d'Acre. It was speaking to the soldiers in the ranks a language which they understood, and which helped them in their arduous work more than proclamations.

A marked trait of Sherman's military intellect was his accurate judgment of the force of his enemy, and his freedom from the common fault of overestimating the army opposed to him. In his correspondence with General Thomas in April, discussing the preparations for the campaign and the severe reduction of burdens to a scale which was "rather the limit of our aim than what we can really accomplish," he had occasion to acknowledge the receipt of information concerning the enemy which Thomas had collected. "I read the reports of your scouts with interest," he said, but added, "I usually prefer to make my estimate of the enemy from general reasoning rather than from the words of spies or deserters." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 323.] The remark is significant. Prior to the opening of a campaign, whilst affairs are quiet, pretty reliable information of an enemy's strength and positions may usually be got; but when the time of action comes, the very air is full of excitement, and the "secret service" is apt to be a machine for self-delusion. Precedent knowledge supplemented by actual contact with the enemy is the best reliance for a capable general. His own reasoning from trustworthy data at the earlier point of departure, is, with such aids, his best guide. He knows where his enemy must be and what his force ought to be, better than his spies, or the enemy's deserters who, by a common stratagem, may be really hostile spies stuffed with the disturbing information they are sent to reveal.

In the Confederate Army changes had also been occurring under the stress of Bragg's great defeat which culminated in the loss of Missionary Ridge on the 25th of November. Dissatisfaction with the conduct of the campaign was prevalent in both military and civil circles. Lee pointed out the embarrassment which must result to Longstreet from Bragg's misfortune, especially as the retreat of the latter had been promptly followed by Grant's occupation of Cleveland. Communication between Longstreet and Bragg was thus interrupted, and unless short work was made of Burnside, Longstreet would have to retreat into Virginia or North Carolina. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 779.] In the letter to President Davis which contained these suggestions, Lee added a strong hint that Beauregard was the most available officer of proper rank to succeed to the command of which Bragg asked to be relieved on the 29th. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 682.] The unfortunate Bragg coupled with this request another; namely, that the causes of the defeat should be investigated. In his official report [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 665] he attributed it to a panic amongst the troops holding the apparently impregnable heights of Missionary Ridge, and he characterized the conduct as shameful. "The position was one," he said, "which ought to have been held by a line of skirmishers against any assaulting column." He declared that our troops reached the crest so exhausted by climbing as to be powerless, and that "the slightest effort would have destroyed them." One who stands on that ridge and looks down into the valley can easily agree with this opinion, and believe that no commander would order his troops to attack the position in front. The impulse of Wood's and Sheridan's divisions to attack, and the feebleness of the resistance of the astonished Confederates, are both phenomenal, and in a superstitious age would certainly have been attributed to supernatural influences.

The truth, however, seems to be that the confidence of the Confederate Army in its leader had declined so far that it lost hope when opposed to the prestige of the conqueror of Vicksburg, and was morally prepared for disaster. Mr. Davis's prompt acceptance of Bragg's retirement can only be understood in this way, for the general was with good reason reckoned a favorite with the Confederate President. Except for this loss of prestige he would have been answered as Lee was when he made a similar suggestion after Gettysburg,-that confidence was undiminished, and that neither the army nor the people wished for a change.

Bragg was directed to turn over the command to Lieutenant-General William J. Hardee, next in rank, and the evidence indicates that Hardee could have retained it, had he been willing. But, surpassed by none in ability and soldierly quality in command of a corps, he shrunk from the burden of chief responsibility for a campaign, and declined the permanent appointment. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 764.] Mr. Davis seems to have taken no notice of Lee's suggestion of Beauregard, but asked whether Lee himself could not, even temporarily, go to the West and by a vigorous campaign restore the prestige of the Army of Tennessee. Lee calmly presented the objections to this, from the point of view of the army of northern Virginia as well as that of the western army; though he submitted fully to the decision the President might reach after further consideration. [Footnote: Id., pp. 785, 792.] Mr. Davis was convinced that it would be unwise to transfer Lee, but he did not take kindly to the idea of appointing Beauregard. The estrangement between them which began in the first campaign in Virginia had not been removed, but had rather been intensified by the fact that Beauregard had, as he thought, failed in the command of the army after A. S. Johnston fell at Shiloh, and now seemed to have a party of friends and supporters in the Confederate Congress who were looked upon as an organized opposition to his administration. [Footnote: For some indications of this, see Beauregard's letters to Pierre Soulé and to W. Porcher Miles, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 812, 843. Davis's Rise and Fall of the Southern Confederacy, vol. ii. p. 69.]

Whilst the subject was under consideration, General Polk, who was a warm friend both of President Davis and of General Johnston, wrote to Mr. Davis a strong letter urging Johnston's appointment. He advocated it on the double ground of the wish of the army and of the country. He did not ignore the fact that the personal friendship once existing between Davis and Johnston had been broken, but appealed to the sense of public duty to yield to a general desire, and to motives of magnanimity to overlook personal differences. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 796.]

Beauregard and Johnston were in fact the only ones, out of the five officers of the full rank of general, who were available to take Bragg's place; for the Confederate grades were much less flexible than ours, where any major-general by assignment of the President acquired the legal right to command an army, and a superiority over him who had just laid down the power. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 835.] Mr. Davis felt the embarrassment keenly, but finally decided to appoint Johnston. On the 16th of December the latter was ordered to turn over the command of the Army of the Mississippi to Lieutenant-General Polk, and proceed to Dalton to assume command of the Army of Tennessee. [Footnote: General W. W. Mackall, who had been chief of staff to Johnston and Bragg in turn, wrote to Johnston on December 9th: "I never did believe that Mr. D. would give you your place as long as he can help it; but he can't." The letter has other piquant passages. Id., p. 801.]

The result of conferences with Lee, and correspondence with Longstreet and others, had been the conviction on the part of the Confederate President that the only promising military policy in the West was for the Army of Tennessee to take early aggressive action, turning Chattanooga by the east, getting between Thomas and Schofield by the occupation of Cleveland, and, if both the National commanders kept within their fortifications, move boldly over the Cumberland Mountains by way of the gaps near Kingston. As part of this plan Longstreet should advance close to Knoxville, and join Johnston either by turning Knoxville on the east before Johnston passed far beyond Cleveland, or by the west if Johnston had got to Kingston.

This indication of the wishes of the Richmond Government was gradually developed. The earliest suggestions were of the necessity for a prompt renewal of the aggressive. Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, in the letter informing Johnston of his transfer (December 18th), had said it was hoped that he would assume the offensive as soon as the condition of the army would allow it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 843.] A few days later (December 23d) Mr. Davis himself wrote, quoting General Bragg as to the good effect a prompt resumption of the initiative would have on the morale of the army, and General Hardee as to the fit condition of the troops for action. [Footnote: Id., p. 856.] To this he added that an "imperative demand for prompt and vigorous action arises, not only from the importance of restoring the prestige of the army, and averting the dispiriting and injurious results that must attend a season of inactivity, but from the necessity of reoccupying the country upon the supplies of which the proper subsistence of our armies materially depends."

Johnston's reply (January 2d) was a presentation of the difficulties in the way of action. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt ii. p. 510.] He said that Bragg and Hardee had made the considerable reinforcement of the army a precedent condition of resuming the offensive. His conclusion was that without large reinforcements there was "no other mode of taking the offensive here than to beat the enemy when he advances and then move forward." A fortnight later he said: "My recent telegrams to you have shown, not only that we cannot hope soon to assume the offensive from this position, but that we are in danger of being forced back from it by the want of food and forage, especially the latter." [Footnote: Id., p. 559.] The shortness of forage he attributed to bad management of the Georgia Railroad, owned by the State. Supposing this were remedied (as a little later he said it was), he compared the advantages of two routes of advance into Middle Tennessee,--one by Rome, Gunterville, and Huntsville, the other by East Tennessee through the Cumberland Mountains. He pronounced in favor of the former, which would turn the mountains by the south and save the task of surmounting them. If, whilst this was going on, the National army should push for Atlanta, two or three thousand cavalry could, he thought, prevent it from reaching that place in less than a month. Large reinforcements were, however, essential for any aggressive movement. He was willing to try the East Tennessee route and unite with Longstreet, if he were satisfied that the country could furnish the provisions and forage for the march. To both of these routes, he preferred one which should make a base still farther west, in northern Mississippi.

At the beginning of February he reviewed the situation as he then believed it to be, and concluded that it was impracticable to assume the offensive from northern Georgia. He advised the collection of as large an army as possible in northern Mississippi, with a bridge equipage for the passage of the Tennessee. This army, he thought, should be larger than his and Folk's united. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 644.]

Sherman's Meridian expedition now interrupted the discussion of plans for a month, except that Mr. Davis suggested a movement of Johnston's army to strike Sherman's column in co-operation with General Polk. [Footnote: Id., p. 729.] Assuming that Sherman was aiming at Mobile, Johnston declared it impossible to strike him before he should establish a new base. Hardee's corps was, however, put in motion to reinforce Polk. [Footnote: Id., p. 769.] Beauregard was ordered to send ten thousand men from his department on the southern seacoast to Johnston, if possible, but he reported that it was not practicable. [Footnote: Id., p. 772.]

It must be said that making the correspondence a personal one on the part of Mr. Davis, instead of carrying it on through the War Department, was a waiving of etiquette, and thus it was also a step toward a cordial and frank understanding. It must equally be noted that General Johnston's tone remained that of cold formality, and his letters do not show the hearty readiness to bend his views to meet those of the President which is always apparent (for instance) in the letters of General Lee. The situation was not one in which a general may say, "I need certain supplies, equipment, transportation or pontoon bridges, and must have them before I can move." The Confederate cause was unquestionably in great straits, and calling for men and means was a good deal like Glendower's call, "Will they come?" Every commanding officer was expected to act with what he had or could get, were it much or little. Very warm friends of Johnston saw that his attitude was one likely to increase estrangement. General Polk, the mutual friend who had probably thrown the casting influence which gave Johnston the command, wrote to him through a confidential intimate of both (Colonel Harvie, Johnston's inspector-general), suggesting that he take private steps toward a reconciliation with Mr. Davis. He urged the general, as he had urged the President, that private feeling and personal pride should be sacrificed to the cause in which both were engaged. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 593.] The appeal seems to have failed, and cold formality continued to be the tone of Johnston's communications with the government. About the first of March Mr. Davis dropped the correspondence, turning it over to General Bragg, now his chief of staff.

Johnston had written to Bragg (February 27th) that the President's letters had given him the impression that a forward movement was intended in the spring; but if this were so, much preparation would be necessary, and large reinforcements and equipment. [Footnote: Id., p. 808.] He assumed that Longstreet was to unite with him, if the President's plan had not changed. This treatment of the matter as problematic and intended only as a plan for the spring, must be admitted to be somewhat exasperating to Mr. Davis, as the pressure from Richmond since the 18th of December had been for immediate aggressive action, and had been so emphatically put that to speak of it as creating only "an impression" sounded very like a sneer, and was unfortunate if not so intended.

Bragg answered in good temper, and after disposing of the matters of business, he added: "The enemy is not prepared for us, and if we can strike him a blow before he recovers, success is almost certain. The plan which is proposed has long been my favorite, and I trust our efforts may give you the means to accomplish what I have ardently desired but never had the ability to undertake. Communicate your wants to me freely and I will do all I can to give you strength and efficiency. We must necessarily encounter privations and hardships, and run some risk; but the end will justify the means." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 592.]

This, of course, implied prompt action whilst Grant's forces remained scattered and were still suffering from the dearth of supplies which had so nearly approached starvation and nakedness. Schofield's forces were at Knoxville, over a hundred miles northeast of Chattanooga. Part of Sherman's were on the Meridian expedition or now returning to Vicksburg on the Mississippi. Another part, under Logan, were about Huntsville, as far to the southwest as Schofield was to the northeast. In this condition of things a quick blow at Thomas would find him isolated. He could be turned by the north before Schofield could join him if he stayed in his fortifications, and he could be fought on equal terms in the field if he came out of his lines. This made the southern opportunity. To wait for spring was to wait for Grant and Sherman to concentrate the now scattered armies, to have them clothed and fed, and to have the horses and mules ready for a campaign. It is no wonder the government at Richmond thought it worth while to "encounter privations and hardships and to run some risk."

Lee had been in Richmond and was in accord with this plan. He wrote to Longstreet on the day after the date of Bragg's letter just quoted, urging him to drop all other schemes and to unite in influencing Johnston to adopt it. "If you and Johnston could unite and move into Middle Tennessee," he said, "it would cut the armies of Chattanooga and Knoxville in two and draw them from those points, where either portion could be struck at as opportunity offered.... By covering your fronts well with your cavalry, Johnston could move quietly and rapidly through Benton, cross the Hiwassee, and then push forward in the direction of Kingston, while you, taking such a route as to be safe from a flank attack, would join him at or after his crossing the Tennessee River. The two commands, upon reaching Sparta, would be in position to select their future course; would necessitate the evacuation of Chattanooga and Knoxville, and by rapidity and skill unite on either army." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 594.]

There were no doubt difficulties in the way--when are there not? But we who were in Grant's command are glad that we were not called upon to meet the enemy under this plan of campaign vigorously executed. We did not lack faith that we could defeat it, but we were much better pleased to have the enemy await the completion of our own preparation and allow us to take the initiative. It cannot be denied that it was based on sound strategy. With his usual considerateness, Lee said that Johnston and Longstreet on the ground should be better able to judge the plan and to decide; but he urged it with much more earnestness than was common in his letters. That Johnston rejected it must be admitted to be very strong evidence that he lacked enterprise. His abilities are undoubted, and when once committed to an offensive campaign, he conducted it with vigor and skill. The bent of his mind, however, was plainly in favor of the course which he steadily urged,--to await his adversary's advance, and watch for errors which would give him a manifest opportunity to ruin him.

Longstreet had written to Johnston on the 5th of March that Mr. Davis had directed a conference between them on the practicability of uniting their armies between Knoxville and Chattanooga, with a view to the movement into Middle Tennessee. Longstreet thinks he can make his part of the movement, but must leave the question of supplies to Johnston after they unite. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiii. pt. ii. p. 587.] Lieutenant-General John B. Hood, who had been assigned to a corps in Johnston's army, wrote to Mr. Davis on the 7th that the army was well clothed, well fed, with abundant transportation, in high spirits, anxious for battle, and needing only a few artillery horses. A junction with Longstreet's army he thought would make it strong enough to take the initiative, and he strongly supported the plan of moving before Grant could concentrate. [Footnote: Id., p. 606.]

Johnston wrote to Bragg on the 12th that no particular plan of campaign had been communicated to him. [Footnote: Id., p. 613.] He does not appear to have telegraphed a brief inquiry on this subject, but wrote at some length in regard to his requirements before he could be in condition to take the field. He referred to his first opinion in favor of a defensive campaign as unchanged. The ordinary course of mail seems to have required about a week for a letter to reach Richmond. It happened that on the same day Bragg at Richmond was writing to Johnston outlining the plan of campaign mentioned above, adding that it was intended to throw a heavy column of cavalry into West Tennessee as a diversion, and that if by rapid movement Johnston could capture Nashville, Grant would be in a precarious position. The President, on assurance of the immediate execution of the plan, would order to him 5000 men from General Polk, 10,000 from Beauregard, and Longstreet's command estimated at 16,000, but which was really nearer 20,000. Putting these reinforcements and Johnston's own army at lowest figures, his column would amount to 75,000 men. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 614.]

After posting his letter of the 12th, Johnston went on an inspection tour to Atlanta, and there on the 13th he received and answered Longstreet's letter of the 5th. He pronounced impracticable the plan submitted to them, and reiterated his fixed opinion that it was best to wait for Grant's advance. In any event, he thought a forward movement should "wait for the grass of May." [Footnote: Id., p. 618.] He argued that it was better to let the enemy's forces advance, and fight them far from their base and near his own. Bragg, on the other hand, had urged the recovery of the populous region of Middle Tennessee as necessary both for obtaining army subsistence and forage, and for the recruitment of the ranks. Both these resources he estimated very highly, and as Tennessee was still claimed as a seceding State, the Confederate conscription laws would be enforced there. On the other hand, every movement in retreat cut off a part of their area for supplies and men, was discouraging to the army, and was followed by numerous desertions of soldiers whose families were within our lines.

In answering Longstreet, Johnston had said that he would execute zealously any plan the President would order; but he evidently insisted on definite and formal commands if he were to depart from his preconceived views to which he held tenaciously. On the 16th of March he wrote again, this time in answer to Bragg's of the 7th. After telling of the impossibility of collecting artillery horses in northern Georgia, he mentions Longstreet's letter to him, to say that he thinks the point of junction suggested is too near the enemy, and that his army should have an accumulation of eighteen or twenty days' supplies before entering upon such a movement. They must also have ordnance stores for a campaign, and wagon trains to carry it all. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 636.] Two days later he received Bragg's full letter of the 12th sent by the hand of Colonel Sale as special messenger, and he now answers by telegraph. He says that Grant is back at Nashville, and is not likely to stand on the defensive. To meet at Dalton his expected advance, the reinforcements that had been spoken of must be sent at once. "Give us those troops," he says; "and if we beat him we follow. Should he not advance, we will thus be ready for the offensive. The troops can be fed as easily here as where they now are." [Footnote: Id., p. 649.] Next day he elaborated the same ideas in a letter, adding the suggestion before made by him that the line of advance by way of North Alabama was a preferable one to the route through East Tennessee.

The telegram was answered from Richmond whilst the longer letter was on its way. The answer conveyed the information that Grant would not personally lead the western army, but would turn over its command to Sherman. It also briefly noted the fact that Johnston had not accepted the aggressive policy on which the large reinforcements were made conditional. [Footnote: I do not find this dispatch in the Official Records. It is given in Johnston's "Narrative of Military Operations," p. 298.] He replied that his dispatch expressly accepted taking the offensive, and the only difference was as to details. He therefore repeats the urgent request that the troops be sent at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 666.]

It is not easy to accept his interpretation of his former dispatch. Waiting indefinitely to see whether the National army would advance, and declaring the administration plan impracticable, hardly looks like assuming the initiative. It was not a difference as to details. The very gist of the subject under discussion was a prompt advance against the parts of our army before they could be united for any purpose. The question would naturally arise, What might happen in the places from which troops were drawn, if they were not used by Johnston immediately? The latter had already said to Longstreet that his requisitions on the commissaries and quartermaster's departments for supplies and wagon-trains were so large as to make filling them "a greater undertaking than anything yet accomplished by those departments, and if they succeed, it will not be very soon." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 618.] Yet these were only part of the conditions which he considered essential to any advance.

There seems to have been no rejoinder to Johnston's last telegram, and the subject was dropped. Longstreet was persuaded by his correspondence with Johnston that the combined movement could not be made, and turned to the scheme (already mentioned), of mounting his troops and making an expedition from southwestern Virginia into Kentucky. This was decisively rejected by the Richmond government. [Footnote: Id., p. 748.] Grant was now known to be in Virginia, inspecting the commands there and preparing for an active campaign. Concentration on both sides, and not further morselling of armies was to be the wholesome order of the day, and Longstreet was soon ordered to report to Lee. Between Bragg and Johnston correspondence was limited to the current business of the army, and general plans of campaign were not again mentioned. In April, Johnston became uneasy at the silence which indicated that the President regarded it unprofitable to discuss plans with him, and sent Colonel B. S. Ewell of his staff to Richmond to make explanations in person. He was politely received, and his visit no doubt tended to relax a little the strain in the relations between Mr. Davis and Ewell's chief; but it was too late to accomplish what had been hoped for in January. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 839, 842.] Spring had come, and Sherman's concentration was in progress; indeed it was almost completed. Ewell reported to Johnston again on the 29th of April. On the 1st of May Schofield was at the Hiwassee River in touch with the left wing of Thomas's army, whilst McPherson was closing in on the right.

The certainty that Grant was in Virginia had brought the Confederate government to the conclusion that Lee must be reinforced by Longstreet and by whatever troops Beauregard could spare. The Atlantic coast States were thus to supply Lee with men and means. About four thousand men were to be immediately added to Johnston's army, mostly drawn from Mobile. Polk's infantry would be sent to him also, if, as was nearly certain, Sherman's advance on Atlanta should prove to be our great effort in the West. [Footnote: Id., p. 841.] The doubt whether one of our columns might not move through Alabama made it necessary to continue to the last moment ready for either event. The Gulf States would then become the feeders of Johnston's army in the campaign.

The very unsatisfactory relations between Mr. Davis and General Johnston cannot be overlooked if we would judge intelligently the events of the Atlanta campaign. It may be that the general was right in thinking a winter advance impracticable, though Lee's concurrence in the President's plan is no small argument in its favor. It is, nevertheless, the indisputable province of a government to determine, in view of the whole situation, political and military, whether continued operations are necessary. The army is organized for the sole purpose of reaching the ends at which its government aims in the war. The expenditure of life and treasure should be stopped and the government should sue for peace, unless its armies can be relied upon to act in hearty subordination to its view of the existing exigencies. The general should meet it with absolute ingenuousness and the promptest and clearest decision. He should act at once or ask to be relieved in time to let another carry out the plan. Mr. Davis, like Mr. Lincoln on several occasions, had reason to feel that a prolonged discussion had in fact thwarted him, and that he had not the cordial service he might fairly expect.

One of the results of the financial embarrassments of the Confederacy was the great and growing depreciation of its paper currency. Its officers in the field found their pay a merely nominal pittance, and those who had no independent fortune were reduced to the greatest straits. Interesting evidence of this has been preserved in petitions forwarded to the War Department in February, asking that rations might be issued to them as to the private soldiers. The scale of prices attached to their petition was that at which the government sold the enumerated articles to its officers, and was supposed to show the average cost and not a market price fixed by the retail trade. They paid for bacon $2.20 per pound, for beef 75 cents, for lard $2.20, for molasses $6 per gallon, for sugar $1.50 per pound, for a coat $350, for a pair of boots $250, for a pair of pantaloons $125, for a hat from $80 to $125, for a shirt $50, for a pair of socks $10. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 658.] Their statements were verified and approved by their superiors, and General Johnston, in forwarding the petitions, said that at existing prices the pay of company officers was worth less than that of the private soldiers. [Footnote: Id., p. 661.]

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XXXVI. ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: DALTON AND RESACA

The opposing forces--North Georgia triangle--Topography--Dalton--Army of the Ohio enters Georgia--Positions of the other armies--Turning Tunnel Hill--First meeting with Sherman--Thomas--Sherman's plan as to Dalton--McPherson's orders and movement--Those of Thomas and Schofield--Hopes of a decisive engagement--Thomas attacks north end of Rocky Face--Opdycke on the ridge--Developing Johnston's lines--Schofield's advance on 9th May--The flanking march through Snake Creek Gap--Retiring movement of my division--Passing lines--Johnston's view of the situation--Use of temporary intrenchments and barricades--Passing the Snake Creek defile--Camp Creek line--A wheel in line--Rough march of left flank--Battle of Resaca--Crossing Camp Creek--Storming Confederate line--My division relieved by Newton's--Incidents--Further advance of left flank--Progress of right flank--Johnston retreats.

The history of the campaigns of 1864-1865 under Sherman have been given in another form, and I need not repeat the narrative of the connected movements of his forces. [Footnote: See "Atlanta," and "The March to the Sea, Franklin and Nashville."] I shall confine myself to the more personal view of events as they came under my own eye, and to such additional knowledge as the publication of the Records has brought within our reach.

Nashville and Chattanooga, being large depots of supply, were fortified and furnished with garrisons. A few other points had also to be garrisoned in some force, besides the numerous small posts and blockhouses. But after all deductions, Sherman still expected to take the field with an army of a hundred thousand men of all arms, and this was what he did. His returns for the 30th of April show his strength to have been 93,131 infantry, 12,455 cavalry, and 4537 artillery. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. i. p. 115.] His cavalry were not all at the front, and fell short of the nominal strength. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 23, 24; Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 26.]

General Johnston's similar returns for the end of April show his army actually present at Dalton to have consisted of 54,500 infantry, cavalry, and artillery, not including part of a brigade at Resaca and some detachments en route. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 866.] General Polk was on his way to join with 14,000 men, [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 670, 737, 740.] and these with about 5000 increase of Hardee's and Hood's corps reached Johnston before he was seriously engaged with Sherman, giving him an army of 75,000 men. [Footnote: For a careful analysis of these forces, see "Century War Book," vol. iv. p. 281, a statistical paper by Major E. C. Dawes; also "Atlanta," Appendix A. For the meaning of "effective total" in Confederate returns, see ante, p. 482.] The Richmond government only delayed ordering Polk to join Johnston until it was certain that Sherman intended to operate with a single army upon the Atlanta line, and Polk went even beyond what they seemed to expect of him in carrying the troops of his department to the army at Dalton.

Although he was not aware of the urgency of the Confederate government with Johnston to induce him to take the initiative and operate by turning our left flank, Sherman had considered the possibility of this. The Fourth Corps had been concentrated at Cleveland on the East Tennessee and Georgia Railway about a dozen miles north of the Georgia state line and thirty-five miles from Dalton. The line of this railway was the easy road out of northern Georgia into Tennessee, and pretty closely followed the old Federal road. Had Johnston marched northward, he must have taken this route, and would have found his way barred by the Fourth Corps, which was strong enough to retard his advance till Sherman could have concentrated to meet him. The railways made a nearly equilateral triangle of the country between Cleveland, Chattanooga, and Dalton. It was thirty-eight miles from Chattanooga to Dalton, and twenty-seven to Cleveland. The east side of the triangle was near the Cooyehuttee Creek, a stream heading quite close to Cleveland and uniting, below Dalton, with the Connasauga. This valley is narrow west of the river, and is, much of the way, separated by a high and sharp ridge from the very broken country, which makes up the greater part of the triangle, where the branches of the Chickamauga run northward in parallel valleys till they unite near Chattanooga, and empty into the Tennessee. For nearly forty miles, therefore, the waters on the east side of the dividing ridge run southward to the Gulf of Mexico, whilst on the west side they run northward to the Ohio.

Going south from Chattanooga, the railroad and the wagon roads have to thread their way from one valley to another, the latter climbing painfully the high ridges intervening, the former taking shorter cuts by deep excavations and tunnels. Within sight of Chattanooga the north end of Missionary Ridge is pierced for the railway where Grant's left wing fought in the battle which closed General Bragg's career as a commander in the field. Some twenty miles further on, another ridge is tunnelled where the railroad passes from the Chickamauga valley into that of Mill Creek, a small tributary of the Cooyehuttee, flowing eastward into that river in front of Dalton. Here, at Tunnel Hill, had been Johnston's advanced post during the winter, and Thomas's had been above Ringgold on the top of Taylor's ridge facing it on the west. But as Tunnel Hill did not extend many miles northward, and could be turned in that direction, the Confederates had made Dalton their intrenched camp, and were prepared to retire from Tunnel Hill whenever Sherman should advance in force.

The position at Dalton was an impregnable one to an attack in front on the Chattanooga road. Mill Creek breaks through the Chattanooga Mountains (here known by the local name of Rocky Face), by a crooked gorge flanked by precipitous cliffs called the Buzzards Roost. The west side of Rocky Face is a nearly perpendicular wall, and in the Mill Creek gorge, spurs from the sides so project as to enfilade the entrance like bastions. A little north of the gorge a larger spur from the ridge runs down to the east, connecting with a subordinate parallel ridge, and from the lower slope a line of heavy earthworks continued the defences toward the Cooyehuttee. Mill Creek had been dammed so as to make an inundation in the gorge, and the Confederates held the ridge and cliffs on both sides as well as the fortified line in the lower ground. Some three miles north of Mill Creek Gap, Rocky Face and Tunnel Hill break down into smaller disconnected hills, and here about Catoosa Springs a bit of more open country made a practicable connection between the centre of the Union Army at Ringgold and its left wing advancing from Cleveland. Johnston hoped that Sherman would dash himself against the walls of Rocky Face and suffer severe loss in doing so; and if the ridge was turned on the north by part of the Union Army, this wing would find itself in presence of the strong earthworks skirting Mill Creek, and would be so separated from the centre that he could reasonably hope to crush it. Sherman, of course, could know little of the Confederate position till he was near enough to reconnoitre it, and must find out by experiment how the nut was to be cracked.

On Thursday, the 5th of May, the Army of the Ohio under General Schofield was at Red Clay, a hamlet just south of the Georgia state line. My own division (the third) was encamped a mile in advance, at some springs which furnished a good supply of water. General Judah's division (the second) was at Red Clay. General Hovey's division (the first) was still at Blue Springs, Tennessee, covering the army trains and the repairs of the railway. The cavalry covered the left flank and reconnoitred forward toward Varnell's Station, skirmishing with the enemy's horse. The valley was a narrow one, tributary to the principal valley of the Connasauga, and, near my camp, was filled with a dense thicket of loblolly pine, a second growth which came up in the exhausted light soil of abandoned fields, and which we were to become very familiar with as we advanced into Georgia. As we could not see out in any direction except that of the road, I covered my front with a slashing of the trees by way of a rough abatis to prevent a surprise. We were now the left flank of the grand army.

When we passed Cleveland, the Fourth Corps took up its line of march, bearing away to the westward of ours and went into position at Catoosa Springs, about eight miles southwest of Red Clay, with a ridge intervening. Here General Howard became the left of the Army of the Cumberland, having Palmer's Corps (the Fourteenth), next beyond him facing Tunnel Hill, and Hooker's (the Twentieth) still farther to the southwest, marching by way of Woods Station over Taylor's Ridge upon Trickum in the upper valley of the East Chickamauga. Thomas's army was the heavy centre of the grand army, and his infantry was about two-thirds of the whole. This great preponderance of one organization was faulty in a purely military point of view, but Grant and Sherman both felt that it would not be wise to disturb the esprit de corps of the Cumberland Army by subdividing it, or to offend Thomas by diminishing it, and, anyhow, no such change could have been made without the concurrence of the President.

General McPherson's Army of the Tennessee was to constitute Sherman's right, but was a little delayed in its concentration. At this time it contained only Logan's Corps (the Fifteenth) and the left wing of the Sixteenth (Brigadier-General G. M. Dodge in command). It was moving behind the Army of the Cumberland, to Lee and Gordon's Mills, and thence upon Villanow. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 39.] General Kenner Garrard's strong division of cavalry accompanied McPherson's movement.

Sherman was anxious to allow the enemy as little time for preparation as might be, yet, as he had to give McPherson a day or two to come into line, he set Saturday the 7th of May as the time for the more complete concentration, and an attack upon Tunnel Hill if Johnston should continue to hold it. [Footnote: Id., p. 38.] Accordingly, on Saturday morning all the columns were in motion. Palmer advanced against the ridge of Tunnel Hill in front, and Howard coming from the north turned the flank of the ridge. The hill was held by the Confederate cavalry under Wheeler, supported by Stewart's division of infantry, who were ordered to resist our advance with stubbornness enough to force the display of Thomas's forces. [Footnote: Id., p. 672.] A lively skirmishing fight was kept up till Howard's men advanced toward the flank and rear of the position, when the enemy retreated within Mill Creek Gap. Wheeler was ordered to let a brigade of cavalry retire up the valley of Mill Creek, outside of Rocky Face, and to cover Dug Gap, through which runs the road from Villanow to Dalton. [Footnote: Ibid.]

My division marched from its camp in front of Red Clay over the ridge by Ellidge's Mill to Dr. Lee's on the main road from Varnell's Station to Ringgold, and near the northern end of Tunnel Hill ridge. Here we came into close connection with the Fourth Corps. The rest of the Army of the Ohio followed, the rear-guard holding a gap looking eastward above Ellidge's Mill, and the cavalry covering the front and flank to Varnell's Station. [Footnote: Id., pp. 48, 54.] Our supply station was moved over to Ringgold on the Chattanooga line, and the railroad at Red Clay was soon abandoned. In the movement all the division commanders were ordered to report to me in the absence of General Schofield.

At Dr. Lee's I met Sherman and Thomas for the first time. They had come over from Ringgold to reconnoitre for themselves and observe the effect of Howard's movement turning Tunnel Hill. The house stood upon a knoll looking southward over farm fields and rolling country to the sharp end of Rocky Face, and when my column halted near by, I rode forward with General Schofield to meet the army commander. It was a bright May morning, and a picturesque group was gathered on the sloping lawn in front of the house. The principal officers were dismounted, their horses and escort in the background. An occasional puff of white smoke on the slope of Tunnel Hill in the distance marked the attack going on there, but it was too far away for the cannonade to be more than a muffled sound, not interrupting the conversation. Sherman was tall, lithe, and active, with light brown hair, close-cropped sandy beard and moustache, and every motion and expression indicated eagerness and energy. His head was apt to be bent a little forward as if in earnest outlook or aggressive advance, and his rapid incisive utterance hit off the topics of discussion in a sharp and telling way. His opinions usually took a strong and very pronounced form, full of the feeling that was for the moment uppermost, not hesitating at even a little humorous extravagance if it added point to his statement; but in such cases the keen eye took a merry twinkle accentuated by the crow-foot lines in the corner, so that the real geniality and kindliness that underlay the brusque exterior were sufficiently apparent. The general effect was of a nature of intense, restless activity, both physical and mental. In conversation he poured out a wealth of original and striking ideas, from a full experience, observation, and reading; his assertions would be strong and confident, highly colored by the glow of momentary feeling, unsoftened by the modifications and exceptions which have to tame down broad generalizations before they are put in practice. One did not know him long before discovering that in responsible action he did not lack the prudence which took all probable contingencies into account. His practical work in the field was never reckless, but his boldest outlines of plan were worked out with thoughtful caution in detail and full provision for possible disappointment. When discussing a situation with his familiars, after strongly stating his own view he would add, "Now what is Joe Johnston's game?" and he would analyze his adversary's possible moves with a candor and insight that left no doubt of his full comprehension of the problem before him. In carrying out a plan he was free from the common weakness of giving increased weight to doubts when the conflict is joined, and making a timid execution of a strong purpose; he knew when it was time for debate to stop (even with his own thoughts), and to bend every energy to decisive action. All this was, of course, not visible in the first meeting at Dr. Lee's, but no one could doubt that here was a most original and interesting character, and I soon acquired an undoubting conviction that of all the men I had met, he was the one to whose leadership in war I would commit my own life and the lives of my men with most complete confidence. In him the combination of intellectual insight with fertility of invention and with force of will in execution was of the highest order. I felt that if the end we aimed at was a noble and worthy one, the price he asked us to pay was reasonable, and the object was worth the sacrifices he called for: we were therefore enthusiastic in our obedience.

General Thomas was in person and manner a strong contrast to Sherman. Equally tall, he was large and solidly stout, with an air of dignified quiet and deliberation. His full beard was not of so stubbly a cut as Sherman's, his countenance was almost impassive, and the lines of his brow gave an air of sternness. His part in the conversation was less, his words much fewer and less expressive, but always clear and intelligent. His manner was kindly, but rather reserved, and one felt that his acquaintance must be gradually cultivated. His reputation for cool intrepidity and stubborn tenacity could not be excelled, and no soldier could approach him without a deep interest and respect that was not diminished by his natural modesty of demeanor. Better acquaintance with him made one learn that his intellect was strong and broad, and his mind had been expanded by general reading, with some special scientific tastes beyond his military profession. He was a noble model of patriotic devotion to country, and of the private virtues that make a great citizen. His military career had been an important one from the beginning of the war. Second in rank in the armies of Buell and Rosecrans in 1862 and 1863, at the great battles of Stone's River and Chickamauga he had held his wing of the army defiant and invincible when other parts were swept back by the Confederate impetuosity. No sobriquet conferred by an admiring soldiery was more characteristic than the "Rock of Chickamauga." Between him and Sherman the old affection of schoolmates at the Military Academy was still warm. Sherman still called him "Tom," the nickname of cadet days, and Thomas evidently enjoyed, in his quiet way, the vivacious talk and brilliant ideas of his old friend, now his commander. His army so much outnumbered the organizations of McPherson and Schofield that, as a massive centre, it was necessarily the chief reliance of Sherman for the results of the campaign, and was personified in its leader's weight and deliberation; while the lighter organizations of the Tennessee and the Ohio were thrown from flank to flank in zigzag movements from one strategic position to another as we penetrated into Georgia.

Grant's plan of having the armies of the East and West begin simultaneous movements on the first days of May had been responded to by Sherman with the information that on the first of the month his three armies were in mutual support, and that he would "draw the enemy's fire within twenty-four hours of May 5th." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 1.] The delay in McPherson's reaching his position, slight as it was, had to be considered in ordering other movements in view of the promise to Grant to get into immediate contact with the enemy, and helped in the decision to let Thomas's army advance strongly in the centre and engage the enemy if the chance seemed at all favorable, while McPherson made the flanking movement by way of Snake Creek Gap. On the 4th Sherman had telegraphed Grant that he would "first secure the Tunnel Hill, then throw McPherson rapidly on his (the enemy's) communications, attacking at the same time cautiously and in force." [Footnote: Id., p. 25.]

McPherson's orders went to him on the evening of the 5th, directing that whilst the movements of Thomas and Schofield already described were in progress, on Saturday the 7th he should "secure Snake Creek Gap, and from it make a bold attack on the enemy's flank or his railroad at any point between Tilton and Resaca." [Footnote: Id., p. 39.] Sherman expressed the hope that Johnston would fight at Dalton, but should he fall back along the railroad McPherson was to hit him in flank. "Do not fail, in that event," he continued, "to make the most of the opportunity by the most vigorous attack possible, as it may save us what we have most reason to apprehend, a slow pursuit, in which he gains strength as we lose it." McPherson was assured that Thomas and Schofield would prevent Johnston from turning on him alone, and the sound of battle at the north would show the greater necessity for rapid movement on the railroad. "If once broken to an extent that would take them days to repair, you can withdraw to Snake Creek Gap, and come to us or await the development according to your judgment or information you may receive." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 39.]

Sherman's orders to Thomas were to take Tunnel Hill, and threaten Dalton in front, but not to attack its defences "unless the enemy assume the offensive against either of our wings, when all must attack directly in front toward the enemy's main army, and not without orders detach to the relief of the threatened wing." [Footnote: Id., p. 40.] With similar orders to Schofield, Sherman added: "As soon as Tunnel Hill is secured to us, I shall pause to give McPherson time for his long march; but we must occupy the attention of all the enemy, lest he turn his whole force on McPherson, which must be prevented. Therefore, on the sound of heavy battle always close up on Howard and act according to circumstances. We will not be able to detach to McPherson's assistance, but can press so closely from this direction that he (Johnston) cannot detach but a part of his command against him." [Footnote: Id., p. 38.]

These lucid orders show that Sherman was not contemplating merely a flanking movement to make Johnston retreat and yield territory; on the other hand he strongly expressed the desirability of forcing conclusions as near his own base as possible, and showed his apprehension of the disadvantages which must come from stretching still further his long line of communications. The same desire and the same apprehension were constant with him throughout the campaign, and it was with an unwillingness growing at times into impatience that he found himself compelled to follow Johnston's slow and skilful retreat. It was not till the change of the Confederate commanders that aggressive tactics on the part of the enemy gave the opportunity for severe punishment and led to the speedy destruction of the hostile army. Herein lies the key of the whole campaign.

The possession of Tunnel Hill enabled Sherman to look into Mill Creek Gap, the break in Rocky Face, and the first look was enough to show how desperate would be an attack either upon the precipitous cliffs or into the fortified gorge. His orders for the 8th of May were for Thomas to threaten the Buzzard Roost pass and try to get a small force on Rocky Face ridge. Schofield from Dr. Lee's was to feel along the same ridge southward toward the gap and the signal station which the enemy had established above it on Buzzard Roost. It was to be a skirmishing advance, but no battle, attracting the enemy's attention whilst McPherson was seizing on Snake Creek Gap in Johnston's rear. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 56.]

On our part, Schofield ordered Judah's division to ascend the north point of Rocky Face and press along the sharp ridge southward. My own division was to occupy the passes looking toward Varnell's Station, sending a regiment to support the cavalry there. [Footnote: Id., pp. 55, 66, 85.] General Thomas, seeing no chance of getting to the top of Rocky Face from the west, had ordered the Fourth Corps to attempt it from the north, and Howard had sent in Newton's division to do this before Schofield received his orders for the day. The latter therefore put Judah's division in support of Newton's, extending the line along the east base of the ridge, and called up Hovey's division into close support. With my own division I advanced southeastwardly to hills in that direction, keeping abreast of the movement on Rocky Face. [Footnote: Id., pp. 82, 83; pt. ii. p. 675.]

Sherman had conjectured that the hill-tops would be found to be plateaus on which troops might manoeuvre to some extent, but they proved to be sharp and steep to the very summits, and composed of loose rock of every size, but all as angular as if from fresh cleavage. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 675; pt. iv. p. 84.] Harker's brigade of Newton's division had the advance, but even a brigade was too large a body for combined action, and Colonel Opdycke with his regiment (One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Ohio) took the lead. He made a demonstration as if to turn the north point and go up the eastern side; then leaving the brigade skirmish line to continue to push there, he rapidly moved again to the west side and climbed swiftly to the ridge. Here was only room for four men to march abreast, but charging from rock to rock he succeeded in advancing about a third of a mile southward along the ridge to a breastwork of stone where the enemy, who had fought bravely for every "coign of vantage," were finally enabled to check him. He also threw together a heap of stones to cover and enable him to hold the ground he had gained. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 367.]

Schofield in person had followed the advance of Judah's division, and reconnoitred along the ridge parallel to Rocky Face on the east. It was plain that there was little chance of getting near Buzzard Roost by following Harker's path along the knife-like summit, and he was disposed to let Judah try the effect of a night attack upon the fortified outpost at the enemy's signal station in front of Harker. [Footnote: Id., pt. iv. p. 83.] Sherman realized that he could not hope to carry the Dalton lines from the west and north, and that Johnston was too well satisfied with his defensive position to leave it unless some part of our army was compromised by making a false move. McPherson, however, was entering Snake Creek Gap with so little opposition as to show that the importance of that pass was not understood by Johnston, if indeed he knew of its existence. Sherman therefore determined to keep up active demonstrations with watchful observation of the enemy for another day, whilst the decisive part of McPherson's movement should go on, and was already planning to transfer Hooker's Corps to McPherson's column as soon as the latter should hold the outlet of his gap. He wrote to Schofield, "We must not let Johnston amuse us here by a small force whilst he turns on McPherson." He sometimes suspected this was being done, and had been uneasy during the day at the absence of cannonade from Johnston's lines. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 83, 84.] The orders for the 9th were that Thomas should continue to push along the crest of Rocky Face from the north and make demonstrations on other parts of his line, whilst Schofield cautiously swung his left flank out toward the east at right angles to the principal ridge and made a strong reconnoissance of the enemy's lines in the immediate front of the town. At midnight Sherman learned that Hooker had made an effort to carry Rocky Face at Dug Gap, two or three miles south of Buzzard Roost, and had failed with considerable loss to Geary's division, which was engaged.

At daybreak on the 9th, my own camp was astir. The division advanced beyond the left flank of the position of Hovey's, then swung the left forward and moved southward astride of the ridge parallel to Rocky Face on the east. Judah's division connected our movement with the left flank of the Fourth Corps across the intervening valley. Hovey's division marched in rear of my left flank as a reserve. McCook's division of cavalry covered the extreme flank at Varnell's Station, under orders to demonstrate on the direct road to Dalton as our infantry advanced. [Footnote: Id., pp. 98-100.] The enemy resisted with strong outposts and skirmish lines posted in several strong barricades of timber and stones. We drove him from these and continued the movement till we confronted the main line of intrenchments. Schofield intended to attack these as soon as Newton's division of the Fourth Corps (which was our pivot) should be able to force the position in its immediate front on the crest of Rocky Face, but Newton was obliged to report that Harker's brigade had failed in its effort, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 102.] and Schofield ordered us to stand fast where we were.

McCook had found a superior force of Confederate cavalry under Wheeler on the Dalton road; his advanced brigade under Colonel La Grange had been roughly handled, and that officer was captured. [Footnote: Id., p. 96.] General Stoneman was, however, advancing from Charleston with the cavalry of the Army of the Ohio, and the affair was of no great significance, though the Confederates claimed a considerable victory for their horse. [Footnote: Id., p. 683.]

Our movement had been an interesting one. As we went forward on the ridge, we could see Judah's line keeping pace with us in the valley and on the lower slopes of Rocky Face, whilst Newton's men continued the line to the summit, where Harker was having a sharp combat in which both artillery and small arms were brought into play. Off beyond our left was a separate rounded height, Potato Hill, on which the enemy had artillery which annoyed us, and to which our own guns answered. The space between was filled with skirmishers, horse and foot, and a rattling fusillade accompanied our march. It was evident that the lines before us were very formidable and held in force, and that the reconnoissance had been pushed as far as possible; to go further would commit us to a desperate attack upon intrenchments. [Footnote: When Johnston's retreat gave us possession of Dalton, we found the works of a very strong character, putting that front quite beyond a coup-de-main. I examined them myself later in the campaign.] But Sherman did not desire to do this. He wished to keep the enemy employed so that he could not send a great force against McPherson, and thus to give the latter a chance to make a success of the movement against Resaca. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 98.] Toward evening he directed Schofield to fall back to a strong defensive position again, as from the news he got from McPherson he was sure Johnston must either attack us or retreat on the next day, and he wished to be ready for a prompt transfer of his army to Snake Creek Gap. But Schofield thought a night movement too uncertain in that broken and tangled country, especially as he had not been pleased with the handling of Hovey's division during the day, and obtained permission to bivouac for the night where we were, sending a couple of infantry regiments to support McCook's cavalry and cover our flank. [Footnote: Id., pp. 99, 119.]

During the night Sherman learned that McPherson had not succeeded in taking Resaca or breaking the railroad, and had retired to the mouth of Snake Creek Gap. Johnston was, of course, now aware of the turning movement, and before morning we had evidence that he was changing the positions of his army to meet the new situation. Sherman immediately turned his whole energy to transferring his army to McPherson's position. Hooker's Corps leading off was followed by Palmer's, and this by ours. Howard's was ordered to remain in position covering the Chattanooga railway, and to follow Johnston directly through Dalton when he left his intrenchments. The movement could not be begun till the 11th, as Stoneman with the cavalry of the Army of the Ohio was marching from Cleveland, and another day was needed to enable him to get upon our left flank, the place assigned him in the combined advance. [Footnote: Id., pp. 112, 113, 126.] Three days' rations in haversacks and seven more in wagons gave provisions for a short separation from our base, and orders to send back all baggage to Ringgold were strictly enforced.

At daybreak of the 10th I advanced my skirmishers to reconnoitre the enemy's lines, which were found to be still held in force, and his troops on the alert. We then proceeded to wheel the whole of the corps backward in line of battle, ready to halt at any moment, and engage the enemy if he should come out and attack us. My division being on the flank, it was to regulate the movement, Judah's conforming to mine on the right, and Hovey's in reserve immediately in rear of mine. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 123, 131.] We were under a warm skirmish fire of infantry in front, and the enemy's cavalry on our left flank also followed up the movement sharply. Reinforcing the skirmish line till the enemy was driven back, a good position in rear was selected for my second line and it was made to lie down. My first line was then marched slowly to the rear over the other, to another position, where it halted and lay down in turn, whilst the other rose and marched to the rear in a similar manner. Making the troops lie down avoided the danger, incident to such a manoeuvre under fire, that the men in second line would be confused by the passing of the first line through their ranks and break their organization. [Footnote: Officers experienced in war know that manoeuvres which are easy and of fine effect on parade are difficult and even dangerous under fire, and that it is wise to simplify the tactics as much as possible. Marshal Saint-Cyr, whose reputation for tactical skill was second to none in the wars of the French Republic and Empire, thus speaks of the matter in his comments on the battle of Novi, apropos to the break of the French division Watrin, which was in two brigade lines: "La première, attaquée avec vigueur par le général Lusignan appuyé par Laudon, ne soutint qu'un moment le choc, et se rabattit sur la seconde; elle espérait se reformer en arrière de celle-ci, en faisant ce qu'on appelle une passage de ligne; mais il fut démontré une fois de plus, que cette manoeuvre, qui fait un assez bel effet à la parade, ne peut réussir à la guerre lorsqu'on est suivi par un ennemi actif. La premiere entraîna la seconde dans un mouvement rétrograde; de plus elle y apporta assez de confusion pour que ces deux lignes réunies crussent n'avoir d'autre parti à prendre que celui de la fuite," etc. Mémoires, vol. i. p. 257. There can be no question as to the general soundness of this criticism, and we should not have continued the movement described if we had been attacked in force. We should then have fought where we stood, bringing the reserves to support the front line. It justifies, however, the precaution of selecting carefully the alternate positions and making the rear line lie down.] When we came opposite the positions assigned us in the extension of the Fourth Corps line, the division changed front to rear on right battalion and so swung into its place. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 675.] Sherman had sent Captain Poe, his chief engineer, to observe our movement from the crest of Rocky Face held by Newton's troops, and congratulated Schofield upon it, saying it "was described to me by Captain Poe, as seen from the mountain, as very handsome." [Footnote: Id., pt. iv. p. 121.] In his full report made at the close of the campaign, General Schofield referred to it as "a delicate and difficult one, owing to the character of the ground, the position and strength of the enemy, and our comparative isolation from the main army." He adds: "I regarded it as a complete test of the quality of my troops, which I had not before had opportunity of seeing manoeuvre in presence of the enemy." [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 510.]

Schofield had been so dissatisfied with General Hovey that on the same day he asked to have him removed from the command of the division, notwithstanding his high personal esteem for him and his confidence in his personal gallantry. The trouble seemed to be in the comprehension of orders and in the grasp of the surrounding circumstances. Sherman did not feel at liberty to act on the request, as Hovey had been assigned to the new division, before it took the field, in fulfilment of a promise of General Grant under whom Hovey had served in the Vicksburg campaign, and had been recommended for promotion as a recognition of good conduct at the affair of Champion Hill. [Footnote: Id., pt. iv. p. 122. Brigadier-General Alvin P. Hovey had been a Judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana, and a "War Democrat" in politics. His subsequent withdrawal from the army and his connection with Sherman's famous protest against promotions given under stress of personal and political influences at Washington would not be entirely clear without mention of the incident here told.]

Johnston seems to have heard rumors of Sherman's original plan to send McPherson's column against Rome, much further in rear, and he remained under the impression that this was the meaning of the movements he now heard of, until McPherson was in possession of Snake Creek Gap. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 674, 675.] On the 7th he had urged Polk to hasten his concentration at Rome, and ordered Martin's division of cavalry to Calhoun to cover the communications with Polk, and protect the railroad south of the Oostanaula. Brigadier-General Cantey was at Resaca with at least four thousand men, his own and Reynolds's brigades with fourteen pieces of artillery. [Footnote: Id., pp. 679, 682.] Movements toward his rear were reported to Johnston, and all his subordinates were on the alert to find out what it meant; the cavalry was ordered to watch all gaps south of Dug Gap, but no mention is made of Snake Creek Gap till McPherson had passed through it. [Footnote: Id., pp. 681, 683, 686, 687.] Then Cantey was told to hold Resaca firmly, and call on Martin for assistance if he needed it. Cars were sent to bring a brigade from Rome, intrenchments were made to cover the south end of the Resaca bridge; Major Presstman, chief engineer, was sent to mark out more extensive works about Resaca, and Hood was ordered there with considerable reinforcements. As soon, however, as it was known that McPherson had retired to Sugar Valley, Hood was called back to Dalton, and Johnston requested Polk to hasten in person to Resaca and take command, hurrying forward his corps as fast as possible. [Footnote: Id., pp. 687, 689.] This was the situation on the evening of the 10th of May.

When we took our position on the ridge of Rocky Face as the left of the line, the division was somewhat exposed to a flank attack, and I ordered the fallen timber on the hillside to be thrown together to make obstruction to any hostile advance, besides the usual tactical precautions of outposts and reserves. This, like the slashing made at Red Clay a few days before, was suggested by the difficulty of knowing what was going on around us in a country covered by dense forests with only small cultivated openings here and there. In this instance it was only the gathering of logs and tree-tops already lying on the ground, and utilizing them as a means of delaying an enemy till our lines could be formed. From such beginnings grew up our more and more elaborate system of intrenched camps; a natural evolution of campaigning in a country only partially cleared, with no roads worthy of the name.

To pass such a defile as Snake Creek Gap with an army was no small undertaking. Hooker was ordered to clear a second track, so that two lines could march by the flank at once, but this could only be imperfectly done in the time at command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 126, 135, 145.] Careful orders in detail were made, fixing the time for each corps and division to move, keeping the roads filled night and day. Wagons were sent by the rear to Villanow, and the regular subsistence trains were stopped at Ringgold and Tunnel Hill till the Confederate army should be dislodged. For night marching men were stationed with torches at the forking of paths, and boards were nailed to trees as finger-posts.

Early on the morning of the 12th May, my division left its position on Rocky Face and marched through Tunnel Hill station. General Schofield, finding the shorter road to Snake Creek Gap blocked by wagons of the Cumberland Army, ordered a detour to the west, and we marched over to the Trickum and Villanow road, some two miles, and then pushing southward got within three miles of Villanow. It was evident that our movement and that of the whole army were visible from the high ridge of Rocky Face. Johnston was aware of them, and telegraphed to Richmond that Sherman was moving to Calhoun or to some point on the Oostanaula. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 698.] He put everything in motion upon his interior line to Resaca, and the last of his infantry left Dalton that night, covered by a cavalry rear-guard. [Footnote: Id., p. 160.] Howard entered the place next morning.

Taking only a short rest, my division marched again at one o'clock through Villanow and Snake Creek Gap into Sugar Valley, followed by Judah's division of our corps, the other (Hovey's) being left to guard the gap and the trains. McPherson's army covered the direct road to Resaca, having Kilpatrick's cavalry on its right flank toward the Oostanaula; Thomas's army was in the centre, consisting of two corps (Hooker's and Palmer's) in Howard's absence; and Schofield was ordered to continue the curve to the left, my own division being the flank and directed to rest the left upon the ridge or near it, facing northward.

The different corps advanced from McPherson's intrenchments to the new line which was near Camp Creek on the Resaca road, facing east, thence curving north and west through a quarter circle to my position on the left close to the dominant ridge, and about four miles north of Sugar Valley P. O. on the main Dalton road. I sent Hanson's brigade forward to reconnoitre toward Tilton (where Howard was), and it reached Martin's store, at the forks of the Dalton and Tilton roads and the crossing of Swamp Creek. A Confederate division had left that position only an hour before, marching toward Resaca. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 675. In the official Atlas (compiled after the war), plate lvii. map 2, Martin's Store is given as Roberts' Store, and the position of the enemy there is marked.]

Later in the afternoon the centre and left of the whole army swung forward toward the east into the line along Camp Creek, quite away from the Dalton road. Reilly's brigade of my division was therefore left as a detachment covering that road until we should know that Howard had advanced beyond Tilton. A regiment of Hanson's brigade was left as an outpost at Martin's store, and the rest of the brigade marched across country by the right of companies to the front, keeping touch with Judah's division and this with the left of the Army of the Cumberland. It was a rough march over ridges and streams through the forest, on the long outer curve, of which the pivot was several miles to the southeast.

Sherman had hoped to be in time to interpose between Resaca and Johnston's army, as he had said in his orders of the 12th, [Footnote: Id., pt. iv. p. 158.] but the Confederates had the short interior line, and Johnston had been able to concentrate about Resaca in the course of the 13th, his rear-guard resisting Howard's advance at Tilton, and his left under Polk holding some high hills west of Camp Creek in front of Resaca which commanded the railroad bridge over the Oostanaula. With the latter exception his chosen line of defence was on the broken ridge between the Connasauga River and Camp Creek, which were nearly parallel to each other for some miles.

On the morning of the 14th the advance was renewed, guided as before by the progress of the Army of the Tennessee on the right and continuing the wheeling movement toward the east. My right brigade (Manson) continued its connection with the rest of the army, but Reilly's had a very difficult and laborious march. I ordered it to advance a mile upon the road it had covered during the night, and then by the right flank to position in line with the rest of the command. After leaving the road Reilly had to break his way through the woods, crossing sharp and deep ravines and watercourses, with no path or landmark to guide him. It was especially difficult for the artillery, and that they got through at all proved that the officers and men were experts in woodcraft. The regiment at Martin's store remained there as an outpost during the day.

Reilly came into line about ten o'clock, and we rested an hour till our flankers reported Howard's corps within supporting distance coming from Tilton. We were on the west bank of the main stream of Camp Creek, where its upper course makes an angle with the lower, some small branches coming into it from the northeast. The valley itself was open, and the change in its direction allowed it to be enfiladed by the enemy's batteries at the angle. Generals Thomas and Schofield were together upon a hill having a commanding view, and at the word from them, "The line will advance," we moved forward into the valley from the slope before them. Each brigade was in two lines, and the artillery was left on the hither side of the valley to cover the movement and reply to the enemy's cannonade. The skirmish line had been advanced to the edge of the woods on the far side, and kept the lead until we approached the Confederate trenches. We passed over two or three ridges and ravines, driving back the skirmishers of the enemy, and charged the line of earthworks on the crest of a higher ridge. Our men dropped fast as we went forward, but the line was carried and the Confederates broke from the next ridge in rear, some two hundred yards away. The direction of these ridges was such that our left was constantly thrown forward as we passed from one to another.

Judah's division on our right had not succeeded in crossing Camp Creek, and our flank was exposed to a galling artillery fire, as the ridge on which we were had its shoulder bare when it came out into the valley, whose curve gave the enemy an enfilading fire upon us. His infantry sought also to drive us out of the position we had captured, and the fighting was heavy for an hour or two. But Howard's corps came up on our left, and we made firm our hold on the hills we had gained, forcing the Confederates to adopt a new line curving to the eastward.

The division had lost 562 men, and our ammunition was nearly exhausted. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. pp. 676-679.] Wagons could not follow us, and toward evening Generals Thomas and Schofield arranged to relieve us with Newton's division of Howard's corps, let us replenish the cartridge boxes, and then pass to the left. This brought again the Army of the Cumberland together, and gave us our usual position on the flank. Newton's men came over part of the ground we had traversed, and as they crossed the open we saw them under the enemy's cannonade, the balls here and there bowling them over like tenpins. Harker's brigade came up to relieve Manson's, which was the most exposed, and Manson and I were standing together arranging the details, our horses being under cover in the edge of the wood. Harker rode up to confer with us and learn the situation, and as we talked, a shell exploded among us, the concussion stunning Manson and a fragment slightly wounding Harker. Manson's experience was a curious illustration of the effect of such an accident. He was unaware of his hurt, and only thought, in the moment of failing consciousness as he fell, that the motion was that of his companions flying upward instead of his own falling; and on coming to himself in the hospital began to speak his sorrow for what he supposed was the death of his friends. He himself never fully recovered from the effects of the concussion. Colonel Opdycke's regiment was one of the first in the winning column, and his men were hardly placed in the line before he was led back, wounded; but as soon as his wound was dressed and he had recovered a little from the shock, he was back at his post. The place was so hot a one that Harker's brigade also exhausted its ammunition and had to be relieved before the left of my own line was moved.

The captured position was firmly held by Howard's corps, whilst Hooker's, which had been relieved by the Army of the Tennessee, was marched to the left of Howard's, extending the line across the ridge toward the Connasauga and turning the enemy's flank. The whole Twenty-third Corps was also united during the night and moved to Hooker's support, where next day Hood made strong efforts to drive our line back. My own and Judah's division were held in reserve, but Hovey's was put in on Hooker's left, extending the line practically to the river, and the division took a gallant part in repulsing Hood. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 511.]

On the extreme right McPherson had bridged the Oostanaula at Lay's Ferry and made demonstrations on Calhoun. The whole Army of the Tennessee had pressed forward to Camp Creek, and toward evening of the 14th forced a crossing and carried some hills near its mouth which commanded the railway bridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iii. pp. 92, 377.] Polk's Confederate corps made strong efforts to dislodge McPherson's men, but failed, and the latter intrenched the position. As Johnston had not succeeded in dislodging Sherman at either flank of the position, and the course of the Oostanaula made it possible for Sherman to put himself upon the railway near Calhoun, the Confederate general evacuated the Resaca position in the night of the 15th, retreating southward toward Kingston and Cassville.

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