XLIII. NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE…

XLIII. NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE

Schofield to command the army assembled at Pulaski--Forrest's Tennessee River raid--Schofield at Johnsonville--My division at Thompson's--Hastening reinforcements to Thomas--Columbia--The barrens--Pulaski--Hood delays--Suggests Purdy as a base--He advances from Florence--Our march to Columbia-Thomas's distribution of the forces--Decatur evacuated--Pontoon bridge there--Withdrawing from Columbia--Posts between Nashville and Chattanooga--The cavalry on 29th November--Their loss of touch with the army.

Our railway train reached Nashville in the forenoon of Wednesday the 9th of November, and I at once visited General Schofield to report my arrival and get further orders. He had himself reported to General Thomas by telegraph when we reached Calhoun on the last day of October, and Pulaski, eighty miles south of Nashville, had been given as the rendezvous for our corps with the Fourth. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 538.] Thomas was taking a cheerful view of the situation now that the Twenty-third Corps had been ordered to him, and on the 3d of November, in giving Sherman an outline of the progress of events, said that if Beauregard "does not move before Sunday (6th), I will have Schofield and Stanley together at Pulaski, and he can then move whenever he pleases." [Footnote: Id., p. 618.] Schofield got part of Cooper's division off on Thursday, with arrangements for the rest to follow, and took the railway train himself next day. Thomas's plans then were to send the troops through Nashville without stopping, but he asked Schofield to stop for a short consultation. [Footnote: Id., p. 624.] Without waiting for this, however, he issued his order on Friday, assigning Schofield to command the troops assembling at Pulaski to operate in front of that place. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiv. pt. iii. p. 638.] This was a graceful act toward an officer of his own grade as a department commander, when as yet it was an open question whether the assignment by the President to command a department and army in the field gave precedence over officers in other organizations, senior in date of commission, but not so assigned. [Footnote: The matter has been decided in the affirmation by the War department and the decision had been transmitted in Halleck's letter to Sherman dated October 4th, but the interruption of communications had prevented its reaching Sherman for some time, and Thomas had not received it when he made the order. For the whole discussion and correspondence, see Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 734, 753, 797; vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 64, 638, 666, 684, 685, 691, 692, 703, 704; vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 959.]

When Schofield reached Nashville on the 5th, he found Thomas busy with a new problem. Forrest had set for him by his raid down the Tennessee valley on the west side. A gunboat had been captured, and demonstrations opposite Johnsonville by the raiders had been followed by the unnecessary destruction of a fleet of transports, three gunboats at the landing, and vast quantities of stores. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. i. p. 861, 864, 866.] The place was the terminus of a railway from Nashville to the Tennessee River, and was an intermediate depot of supplies in a low stage of water in the rivers. At other times steamboats could ascend the Cumberland all the way to Nashville. The exaggerated reports of the enemy's force and apparent purpose to cross the river there made Thomas think it wise to modify his plans for the moment, and he ordered Schofield to proceed at once to Johnsonville with the two brigades of the Twenty-third Corps then in hand, Moore's and Gallup's, intending to concentrate the whole corps there as fast as they should come from Georgia. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 647.]

As soon as Sherman could decipher Thomas's dispatches, he warned the latter of the danger of a false move, as only Forrest's cavalry was down the river, and Hood's army was known to be at Florence. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 647.] When Schofield got to Johnsonville, he soon saw the real state of affairs, and advised Thomas that the two brigades were enough. He instructed General Cooper as to improving the defences of the town, and returned to Nashville on the 7th. Next day he made a hurried visit to Pulaski to examine the situation there, [Footnote: Id., p. 708.] where was now the railway terminus of the line to Decatur, the bridges and trestles about Athens having been destroyed by Forrest in his September raid. He got back to Nashville before day on the 9th, and was ready to meet me on my arrival there. From him I got full information of the situation, and orders to take my division to Columbia, where he expected to join me in two or three days.

Leaving Nashville in the afternoon, we learned on reaching Franklin that a wreck on the railway near Spring Hill obstructed the track, and our trains were halted till the way should be cleared. We had made only twenty miles; the weather had changed again to a cold, drenching rain. Thursday, the 10th, was clear and cold, and whilst waiting for the railway to be open again, I made my first acquaintance with the pretty village on the banks of the Harpeth in which I was to feel a much more lively interest three weeks later. As soon as the railway officials could put the trains in motion we resumed our journey. Reilly's brigade gets to Spring Hill, half-way to Columbia, but the insufficiency of siding at that place makes it impracticable to handle all the trains there, and the rest of us are stopped at Thompson's Station, three miles short. We leave the cars and go into camp so as to release the trains for other work, whilst we organize again for field operations, though our wagons had not reached us. Strickland's brigade of Cooper's division has accompanied us and is attached to my command temporarily. Some five miles north of Columbia there is a break in the railway, and we are delayed till it can be repaired and communication with Columbia fully opened. The two or three days intervening are spent in getting forward horses for the artillery, rations, and advance stores, so as to become again a self-dependent unit of the army. We found the country in this part of Tennessee richer and finer than any we had campaigned in, much more open, with well-tilled farms.

The news we got indicated that Forrest had joined Hood at Florence, and that the enemy was preparing there for a forward movement. I opened communication with the Fourth Corps at Pulaski, and was under orders, to join them whenever an advance of Hood should make it necessary. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 748, 749.] On the 11th Sherman still inclined to the opinion that Beauregard would order Hood to follow him, as soon as his southward march should really begin. "I rather think you will find commotion in his camp in a day or two," he said to Thomas; for his own preparations were now complete, and his communications with the North were to be cut next day. [Footnote: Id., p. 746.] The humorous side of things struck him forcibly, and in giving to Captain Poe, his engineer, directions to destroy the foundries, workshops, and railway buildings at Atlanta, he had added, "Beauregard still lingers about Florence, afraid to invade Tennessee, and I think slightly disgusted because Sherman did not follow him on his fool's errand." [Footnote: Id., p. 680.] The irony fitted Hood better than Beauregard, for the latter had not taken personal direction of the active army; but the relations between the two Confederate generals were very imperfectly known to us, and we naturally assumed that Beauregard was himself responsible for the immediate conduct of the whole.

The progress of the work of reinforcing Thomas was not quite as rapid as it seemed. Grant had sent General Rawlins, his chief of staff, from Petersburg to St. Louis to see that A. J. Smith's corps went promptly forward from Rosecrans's department. Besides the 9000 in Smith's immediate command, 5200 men were collected from posts on the Mississippi and Ohio, and were put in motion toward Nashville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 684.] Rawlins's report on the 7th, that these were starting, was understood by Thomas to apply to the whole of Smith's force, and he therefore reckoned on their reaching him in a few days. [Footnote: Id., p. 685.] Rawlins in fact expected Smith's own divisions to leave St. Louis on the 10th, but even this was much sooner than they reached the river. The same news was sent to Sherman, and he expressed his joy that these veteran reinforcements were on the way, and his confidence that the enemy was now checkmated. [Footnote: Id., p. 686.] The result was a little over-confidence in all quarters, which probably had its influence in making Thomas less energetic in concentrating the troops available in Tennessee than he would have been had he known that Smith's 9000 would not reach Nashville till the last day of the month. [Footnote: See "Franklin and Nashville," pp. 132 et seq.; "Battle of Franklin," pp. 40, 41.]

On the 13th I marched to Columbia, and Schofield went in person to Pulaski, where he assumed command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt iii. pp. 764, 768.] Wooden pontoons were sent the same day to Columbia for the crossing of the Duck River there, and the bridge was completed at ten o'clock in the evening. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 795.] As the river was too high to ford, we had encamped on the north side, in the tongue made by the horse-shoe bend to the southward. We occupied the fine open wood on rolling ground, and made ourselves as well acquainted with the village and surrounding country as time would allow. Columbia, on the south bank of the river, had been a centre of education and refinement, and several college buildings were there, surrounded by ample groves. The neighborhood was the home of the Polks and the Pillows and other people of national reputation, whose ample estates lay on the roads diverging from the town. Between the village and the railway bridge below the place was an isolated hill on which was an enclosed redoubt, commanding the crossing. It was a strong position when connected with sufficient forces near by, but too small and too detached to have much independent value.

Leaving Strickland's brigade as a garrison for the town, the rest of my command marched next morning toward Pulaski, reaching Lynnville, eighteen miles south of the river, where a road from Lawrenceburg comes into the turnpike. I was pretty strong in artillery, having five batteries, two of which properly belonged to the second division. Ten miles south of Columbia we left the open country and entered a hilly, forest-covered region, with cultivation only in the narrow valleys of small streams. This high water-shed between the Duck River and the Elk extends nearly all the way from the plateau of the Cumberland westward to the Tennessee River, where it has made its great bend to the north. It is known as the "barns" (barrens), and is desolate enough. In many places one may travel for miles without seeing a house. Wood-chopping and charcoal-burning for smelting furnaces seemed to be the principal industry.

On the 15th we continued our march in a heavy, cold rain to Pigeon Creek, two miles north of Pulaski, making sixteen miles. General Schofield met me there, and we examined the country westward some three miles, our reconnoissance determining him to keep the division at the turnpike crossing of the creek, where we accordingly encamped. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 357.] It had been confidently expected that Hood would march northward by the time we could reach Pulaski, but he delayed, and it was a week later before he really opened his new campaign. Various things combined to give plausible reasons for his delay. He could not get the supply of stores which he needed. The gap in his railroad from Cherokee to Tuscumbia was not rebuilt. The weather was continuously cold with heavy rains, and the roads going from bad to worse. The truth, no doubt, was that Sherman's march southward had a most perplexing effect, raising portentous problems as to its result upon the Confederacy, and reducing Hood's own campaign to a secondary place in the general progress of the war. Torn by doubts, he seemed willing to find excuses for postponing action, hoping to see clearer light on the future before committing himself to a decisive movement. An interesting item in the discussion between the Confederate generals was that Hood suggested Purdy as a better base than Tuscumbia, and proposed to abandon the work of rebuilding the railroad near that place. Purdy was some twenty-five miles north of Corinth on the Mobile and Ohio Railway, and not far from the old battlefield of Shiloh. Its landing-place on the Tennessee River was nearly opposite Savannah, and it was there that Grant had stopped his steamboat for a conference with General Lew Wallace on his way to Pittsburg Landing the morning of the great battle. It is probable that Hood thought it advantageous to take a line by which he might avoid the risk of expeditions from Decatur, and could more safely turn Schofield's position at Pulaski, by operating further from our line of railroad and making it necessary for us either to retire rapidly toward Nashville, or meet him so far from our supply line as to be dependent, like himself, on wagon transportation. Beauregard approved the change of base if made after the first stage of the campaign should be complete, and planned a scheme of floating booms armed with torpedoes to protect the pontoon bridge when it should be laid there. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 900, 905; vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1210.] The road from Savannah through Waynesborough to Columbia was a turnpike, and would be safer for wagon trains than that from Florence, because so much further from posts on our railway. It would also be a better line of retreat in case of disaster. The plan was not tried, because the withdrawal of our forces from Decatur and Pulaski removed the dangers which Hood apprehended, and made his communications secure. The rains raised the river so much that the bridge laid at Florence was no longer protected by its situation between Muscle Shoals above and Colbert Shoals below, and the Confederates had reason to fear that it would be destroyed by gunboats coming up the river. The navy had been unfortunate in the destruction of gunboats at Johnsonville, but Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee had been sent to take command of the river fleets co-operating with Thomas, and was planning active work with heavier vessels. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 734.]

On the 14th the river had risen eighteen feet at Florence, and Hood's bridge was with great difficulty kept in its place. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 887.] The same day General Wheeler informed him of Sherman's concentration at Atlanta, the destruction of the railroad above, and the strong rumors of the march on Augusta and Savannah. [Footnote: Id., p. 1206.] Forrest had not yet joined Hood, but did so in two days. Beauregard heard, through Taylor, of the movement of reinforcements to Thomas from Memphis and below, as well as of A. J. Smith's from St. Louis. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1208-1209.] On the 17th he got authentic news of Sherman's start from Atlanta, and ordered Hood to "take the offensive at the earliest practicable moment, and deal the enemy rapid and vigorous blows, striking him while thus dispersed, and by this means to distract Sherman's advance into Georgia." Hood replied that he had only one third of the quantity of rations accumulated which he needed for beginning the campaign. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1215.] Beauregard himself left Tuscumbia for Montgomery and Macon, giving Hood the choice either to send part of his troops to Georgia or to take the offensive immediately. Under this spur Hood gave orders for an advance on the 19th, but there was still some cause of delay, and Beauregard reiterated, on the 20th, the peremptory order to "push an active offensive immediately." Next day all were in motion, and Hood issued a brief address to his troops, saying, "You march to-day to redeem by your valor and your arms one of the fairest portions of our Confederacy." [Footnote: Id., pp. 1220, 1225,1226,1236.]

During the week we were at Pulaski the rain had made our camp anything but a pleasant one, yet, as we were daily in expectation of Hood's advance, we could do nothing to improve our shelter or the means of warming our tents. The forests were near enough to furnish us the fuel for rousing camp-fires, and we made the most of them. At night I fastened back the flaps of my tent, and a blazing pile of logs threw in heat enough to temper the cold, and one slept sweetly in the fresh air as long as the wind was in the right direction. The day Hood advanced the rain changed to snow, driving in flurries and squalls all day. Marching orders for the 22d came in the evening, and we prepared for an early start to Lynnville, for the enemy was making for Columbia through Lawrenceburg, and we must anticipate him. The night was a freezing one, the mud was frozen stiff on the surface in the morning, making the worst possible marching for the infantry, while the artillery and horses broke through the crust at every step. Our only consolation was in the reflection that it was as bad for Hood as for us. By getting off at break of day my division reached Lynnville by noon, and took position on the north and west of the village. Wagner's division of the Fourth Corps followed and reported to me. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 974, 985.] I gave them positions on the south and west. Schofield remained another day at Pulaski with two divisions of the Fourth Corps, but joined me at noon of the 23d, and under his orders I marched my division ten miles further north to the crossing of the road from Mount Pleasant to Shelbyville. Starting at three, we forced the pace a little, and went into position at six in the twilight. [Footnote: Id., pp. 357, 998.] The rest was a short one, for we were off again at four in the morning, hastening the march for Columbia in the cold and thick darkness. Schofield had learned in the night that the cavalry on the Lawrenceburg road had been driven back to Mount Pleasant, and that the advance of Hood's infantry was at the former place. [Footnote: Id., p. 989.] There was no time to lose if we were to reach Columbia in time to cover a concentration there. At the two-mile post south of the town a cross-road turns westward, leading into the Mount Pleasant turnpike where it crosses Bigby Creek, three miles out from Duck River. I turned the head of column upon this road, and reached the turnpike just in time to interpose between Capron's brigade of cavalry retreating into Columbia and the Confederates under Forrest who were sharply following. The rest of our horse were covering the flank of the Fourth Corps, which was on the march from Lynnville. It was close work, all round. My men deployed at double-quick along the bank of the creek, and after a brisk skirmish Forrest withdrew out of range. The head of the Fourth Corps column came up about eleven o'clock, having left Lynnville at three. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1017, 1018, 1020, 1021.] We naturally supposed Hood's infantry to be in close support of the cavalry, but they were still at Lawrenceburg, and learning that Forrest had been foiled in the effort to take Columbia, did not advance beyond Mount Pleasant till the 26th, though the cavalry made a vigorous reconnoissance on the 25th, giving us another lively skirmish in which my division had some fifteen casualties. My headquarters' tents were pitched in the grounds of Mrs. Martin, a member of the Polk family.

At Columbia we found General Ruger in command when we arrived. He had been transferred from the Twentieth Corps, and ordered to ours at the time we left Georgia, and Schofield had assigned him to the second division. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 661, 682, 700, 748.] He joined the two brigades at Johnsonville, but at Schofield's request Thomas ordered him on the 20th to bring one brigade (Moore's) to Columbia, where Strickland's of the same division already was. The railroad from Johnsonville was broken by some raiders on the 21st, so that Ruger was delayed, and only reached Columbia himself in the afternoon of the 23d. Moore's brigade did not arrive till half-past two o'clock of the morning of the 24th. Under Thomas's orders he at once, upon his arrival, sent two regiments of Strickland's brigade down Duck River to Williamsport and Centreville to hold crossings there. It thus happened that Strickland was left with only his own regiment (Fiftieth Ohio), till, some new reinforcements coming forward, other regiments were temporarily assigned to him. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 378, 955, 985, 999.] Until he reached Columbia, therefore, Schofield did not know that Strickland had been reinforced, and we all supposed that our safety depended on my getting there before the enemy.

Thomas also ordered General Cooper to march from Johnsonville on the 24th, with his own brigade, direct to Centerville and Beard's Ferry, some fifty miles. There he would be in communication with the two regiments sent down from Columbia to Williamsport, and he was put in command of the whole. He was thirty miles from our principal column, and posted his troops to observe the crossings through some fifteen miles of the river's course. He arrived at Beard's Ferry on the evening of the 28th, and was there only a day and a half, when our retreat to Franklin made it necessary for him also to fall back. He was beset by guerilla parties, so that he was almost without communication with his commanders, and being thrown on his own resources, made his way back to Nashville with a series of adventures. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 370.] Ruger's division was thus deprived of half its veteran troops at the battle of Franklin.

It must be noted also that it was not till the 24th that the troops at Decatur and Huntsville were ordered back, the withdrawal being made on the 25th. General R. S. Granger's old troops were then placed at Stevenson, and those recently recruited were sent to Murfreesborough.

Granger reported that the public property, except some forage, had been removed; but by what seems to have been a misunderstanding with the naval officers about convoying transports, the pontoon bridge was only detached at its southern end, and was neither taken up stream nor destroyed. It swung with the current against the northern shore, and proved of great use to Hood in his retreat a month later. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1003, 1027, 1046. See also "Franklin and Nashville," p. 125.] The continued hope that A. J. Smith's corps would arrive in time to reach Pulaski or Columbia before we should have to retreat counted for much, no doubt, in Thomas's postponement of decisive action; but it can hardly be disputed that the true military course would have been to strip his garrisons to the bone immediately after Sherman marched southward, concentrate at Pulaski a force superior to Hood's, and give him battle if he dared to advance north from Florence. [Footnote: For the forces on both sides in Tennessee, see Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 52-54, 678-679; "Franklin and Nashville," pp. 132-136; "The Battle of Franklin," pp. 9, 208. I discussed the same subject in "The Nation" for Nov. 9, 1893, p. 352.]

As it was too late for concentration at Duck River or south of it, Schofield was limited to a careful defensive, though he was willing to receive Hood's attack upon our lines. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1017.] The latter, however, did no more than keep up a combat of skirmish lines, whilst he looked for ways to turn the position. Schofield, on his part, prepared a short interior line to be held by part of his troops when it was time to cross the river with the rest. In the night of the 25th this movement was made, and for a couple of days more our forces were divided, part holding the short line on the south side, and the greater portion encamped in the bend on the north bank, closely watching the development of the enemy's evident purpose to cross some miles above us. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1039, 1086-1091.]

The crossing of the river had been arranged for the early evening, the Fourth Corps moving first into the short line on the south of the river; and when this was done, I was to march two brigades of my division through the lines and across the river to the north bank by the pontoon bridge. There were delays in the change of position by the Fourth Corps, and it was past midnight when I was notified that they were in place and commenced my own movement. At that time a rain-storm had set in which made our whole operation uncomfortable in the wet and darkness, but especially the seeking a bivouac for the troops after we got over the river. We halted the men and parked the trains about a mile from the bridge at three o'clock. [Footnote: Id., p. 358.] I had a tent roughly pitched, and got a little sleep, but was roused at daybreak by musket firing, which sounded as if it were right among us. I sprang up with the feeling that I had been caught napping in a double sense; but a little examination showed that the enemy's pickets and our own were skirmishing on the other side of the river. The Confederates had pushed in a reconnoissance to find out what we had been at, and in the damp air the sound of the firing on the opposite bank where the flank of our new line rested was so loud and seemed so close that it had deceived me.

The remainder of our little army was brought over in the night of the 27th, and on the 28th Forrest's cavalry was over the upper fords of the river, pushing back our mounted troops and covering the laying of a pontoon bridge at Davis's ford, five or six miles above Columbia, where Hood's principal column of infantry crossed next day.

In the night of the 27th it occurred to General Thomas that Hood's advance left the bridge at Florence open to an attack, and on the next day he sent an officer to General Steedman, commanding at Chattanooga, with the suggestion that the latter should throw his force of 5000 men against Tuscumbia and destroy Hood's crossing of the Tennessee. Steedman was to use the railroad to Decatur, taking along the pontoons which Thomas supposed had been carried to Chattanooga from Decatur two days before, and relaying that crossing for the purposes of the expedition. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 1100, 1125, 1126.] There seems to have been hesitation in letting Thomas know that the Decatur pontoons had not been brought away, and Steedman said he would take his infantry by rail, send his cavalry by steamboat transports, and use these boats to cross the troops instead of pontoons. On further reflection, however, Thomas found that Hood's movement on the 28th to turn Schofield's left made the plan too adventurous, and on the 29th he revoked the order, directing Steedman to take his men to Cowan. Strong posts were thus established at Murfreesborough, Stevenson, and Cowan on the railroad between Nashville and Chattanooga, under the impression which Thomas retained till after the battle of Franklin, that Hood would not advance on Nashville, but would march toward one of the three places named. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 1159, 1160.]

A concentration in force at Decatur two weeks earlier, and an advance toward Tuscumbia, would have had much to recommend it, and it would perhaps have been the surest way to defend the line of the Tennessee; but it was now too late for that, as it was also too late to affect Hood's determination to seek an early battle with Schofield. Despite his hesitation to leave Florence and Tuscumbia, and his plea that his supplies were insufficient, Hood had found on reaching Mount Pleasant that he could live on the country, and telegraphed Beauregard that he found food enough and anticipated no further trouble on that score,--a confession that he might have advanced at the beginning of the month. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1245, 1254.] If Steedman had made the expedition, therefore, it would not have brought Hood back, and would only have wasted a strong division in a useless collateral operation. The scattering of 20,000 men along the Chattanooga route, "in small packages" (to use Napoleon's phrase), cannot be regarded as sound, though Steedman was more available at Cowan than at Chattanooga, and he got to Nashville "by the skin of his teeth" when the battle of Franklin proved that the enemy was aiming at that place, and made Thomas see the desirability of greater concentration. [Footnote: Thomas's order to Steedman to bring his troops from Cowan to Nashville was dated at 5.35 P. M. of the 30th, and his forces arrived, part on the 1st and part on the 2d of December, the last of the trains being attacked by the enemy five miles out of Nashville. Id., pp. 503, 1190.] He then ordered Steedman to bring his division to Nashville; but Rousseau, with Milroy's and Granger's commands, were still left at Murfreesborough and beyond. [Footnote: Id., p. 1153.]

I have already told the story of the march to Franklin, and the fierce battle at that place, in the Scribner Series, "March to the Sea; Franklin and Nashville," and in "The Battle of Franklin," and will not repeat it here. The effect of the belief that Hood would march eastward toward Murfreesborough had, however, so strong an influence upon General Wilson, the cavalry commander, that it is instructive to trace it in his dispatches. It seems to have been the cause of the loss of touch with our infantry during that important movement.

In the middle of the night of the 28th Wilson had reason to think that two divisions (Buford's and Jackson's) of Forrest's cavalry were north of Duck River upon the Lewisburg and Franklin turnpike, about Rally Hill, the rest of Hood's army on the Columbia and Shelbyville road in rear. They had driven our own horse away from the river, and the best Wilson had been able to do was to concentrate his troops about Hurt's Cross-roads, some miles further north on the same road. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1143.] His communication with Schofield was through Spring Hill by a cross-road, and by that route he sent a report at three o'clock in the morning of the 29th. [Footnote: Ibid.] He then had information that the enemy were laying pontoon bridges for the infantry, though the place was not accurately fixed. He thought it very clear that they were aiming for Franklin by the turnpike he was on, and said he would stay on that road and hold them back as much as he could. He indicated Spring Hill or Thompson's Station as the points on the Columbia turnpike where cross-roads would bring Schofield's couriers to him, and said he would try to get no further back than the Ridge meeting-house, due east from Thompson's Station. There he would leave the turnpike and take a still more eastern course toward Nolensville. He closed the dispatch with, "Get back to Franklin without delay, leaving a small force to detain the enemy. The rebels will move by this road toward that point." [Footnote: Ibid.]

These positions will be understood if we note that the Lewisburg and Franklin turnpike is some twelve miles in a direct line east of that from Columbia to Franklin where they cross the river, and that these roads converge toward the last-named place twenty-three miles north. Nolensville is about twelve miles northeast of Franklin and considerably nearer Nashville. As one goes north on the Lewisburg turnpike, after passing Rally Hill and Hurt's Cross-roads, the next important crossing is at Mount Carmel, where the road from Spring Hill to Murfreesboro intersects the turnpike. Three miles still further on, a road from Thompson's Station is crossed at the so-called Ridge meeting-house. All these cross-roads gave the means of regaining touch with Schofield's main column; but the cavalry commander was so dominated by the belief that Forrest was making directly for Nashville by roads still further east, that he proposed neither to join the infantry by the cross-roads, nor to adhere to the converging one leading to Franklin, but would go to Nolensville. The imperative form of his suggestion to his commanding officer to "get back" shows not only the force of this mental preoccupation, but a forgetfulness that Schofield might have other information and be under a necessity of forming other plans for the day's operations to which the cavalry must be subordinate.

The whole of Hood's force had not crossed the river, but two thirds of Lee's corps and nearly all the artillery were still in Columbia, and made their presence known by a vigorous cannonade in the early morning of the 29th. The enemy's infantry was not marching to the Lewisburg turnpike, but was seen making for Spring Hill by roads five miles east of Columbia, and Forrest was in touch with their right flank. Schofield, under orders from Thomas, was obstructing the lower fords of the river, and trying to get orders through to General Cooper, directing him to concentrate his forces and retire from Centerville. The concentration of our cavalry had been so complete that when it took an independent line of retreat it ceased, for the time, to be any efficient part of Schofield's forces, and left him without cover for his flank or means of rapid reconnoissance. For conclusive reasons he held during the day of the 29th the line from Spring Hill to the Duck River; but after ten o'clock in the morning Wilson was wholly out of the game, looking off to the east for Forrest, who had gone west from Hurt's Cross-roads and Mount Carmel to attack our infantry at Spring Hill. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 1144, 753, 769.]

At noon, north of the Ridge church and the road to Thompson's Station, Wilson was still of the opinion that the whole of the enemy's cavalry had gone to Nashville by eastern roads through Peytonsville, Triune, and Nolensville. [Footnote: Id., p. 1144.] At two in the afternoon he repeated the same opinion in a dispatch to Thomas, although he had heard heavy artillery firing in the direction of Spring Hill since eleven o'clock. He warned Thomas to look out for Forrest at Nashville by next day noon, but promised to be there himself before or very soon after he should make his appearance. [Footnote: Id., p. 1146.] At four o'clock he was four miles east of Franklin, still looking toward Nolensville for the enemy, who had "disappeared," and still of the opinion that Forrest had turned his left flank before he left Hurt's Cross-roads in the morning. The heavy firing he had heard all day had, however, awakened solicitude for Schofield. [Footnote: Id., p. 1145.] After nightfall he sent a scout back on the road he had travelled, nearly to the Ridge meeting-house, where was found a cavalry picket of the enemy, and a large camp was said to be discovered near by,--probably the light of the camp-fires at Thompson's Station, where they were still burning when Schofield placed Ruger's division there in the evening. [Footnote: Id., p. 342.] At ten o'clock Wilson had concluded that it was "probable that a part of the enemy's cavalry this afternoon aimed to strike your rear or flank at Thompson's Station," as he wrote to Schofield, and had marched a mile and a half toward Franklin, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 342.] where at the Matthews house his headquarters remained next day, when connection with the army had again been made. Nothing more than scouting parties and patrols from Forrest's column had gone north of Mount Carmel during the day. The adventures of the march had emphasized the danger that a preconceived opinion of probabilities may make an officer misinterpret such real facts as he may learn, or let very slight evidence take the place of thorough knowledge got by bold contact with the enemy. The experience also teaches how sure mischiefs are to follow the forgetfulness of the principle that, in such operations, it is the primary duty of the cavalry to keep in touch with the main body of the army, and where orders from the commanding general may be promptly received and acted on. Schofield, in fact, had no communication with his cavalry during the whole day, and none of Wilson's messages had reached him after the retreat from Hurt's Cross-roads began. [Footnote: Id., p. 343.]

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XLIV. NASHVILLE--HOOD'S ARMY ROUTED

Defensive works of Nashville--Hood's lines--The ice blockade--Halleck on remounts for cavalry--Pressing horses and its abuse--The cavalry problem--Changes in organization--Assignment of General Couch--Confederate cavalry at Nashville--Counter-movements of our own--Detailed movements of our right--Difference of recollection between Schofield and Wilson--The field dispatches--Carrying Hood's works--Confederate rout.

At Nashville, when we reached there on the 1st of December, after the battle of Franklin, we were left for a couple of days in bivouac. The city had been covered by a line of interior earthworks, suitable for a moderate garrison, with strong forts on commanding hills. The Cumberland River, in its general course from east to west, partially encloses the town on north and west by one of its bends, and the Chattanooga Railroad runs out of the place not far from the river, passing under St. Cloud Hill, on which was Fort Negley, one of the strongest of the defensive works. Southwest of this, about eight hundred yards, was the Casino block-house on a still higher eminence, and some five hundred yards northwest of the Casino was Fort Morton, on a summit connected with the other. My division was assigned to the line including these forts, which formed the strong southern salient of the original city defences. Other troops of our corps continued the line on my left to the river, and Steedman's division was placed in advance of the left, along Brown's Creek, which was crossed by the Murfreesborough turnpike. From Fort Morton the original works continued northwestwardly, skirting the city to the Hyde's Ferry turnpike. [Footnote: Official Atlas, pl. lxxiii.] But the army now collected needed more room, and instead of turning back at the Casino the line was continued southwest till it reached a prominent hill near the Hillsborough turnpike. There it turned to the northwest, following a succession of hilltops to the river, enclosing the whole of the bend in which the city was. The Fourth Corps occupied the part of the line next to us on the right, and General A. J. Smith's detachment of the Army of the Tennessee was on the right of all. Until the eve of the battle of Nashville the cavalry were concentrated at Edgefield, on the north side of the Cumberland.

Hood had followed us up promptly from Franklin, and established his lines nearly parallel to ours on our centre and left, though they were shorter in extent, and a wide space near the river on our right was only occupied by his cavalry. In my own immediate front, looking down from the Casino block-house, were the Nolensville and Franklin turnpikes with the Alabama Railroad, along which we had retreated. Near my right was the Middle Franklin turnpike, which goes southward, a mile or two distant from the main road, into which it comes again below Brentwood. It is known locally as the Granny White pike. My headquarters were in rear of Fort Morton, at the dwelling of Mrs. Bilbo, a large house with a pillared portico the full height of the front. We had two rooms in the house for our clerical work, and pitched our tents in the dooryard. A short walk along the ridge led to the Casino, from which was a fine outlook southward and eastward.

During the time of the ice blockade from the 9th of December to the 13th, the slopes in front of the lines were a continuous glare of ice, so that movements away from the roads and broken paths could be made only with the greatest difficulty and at a snail's pace. Men and horses were seen falling whenever they attempted to move across country. A man slipping on the hillside had no choice but to sit down and slide to the bottom, and groups of men in the forts and lines found constant entertainment in watching these mishaps. There had been a mingling of snow and sleet with the rain which began on the 8th, and this compacted into a solid ice sheet. On a level country it would have caused much less trouble, but on the hills and rolling country about Nashville manoeuvres were out of the question for nearly a week.

The dissatisfaction of General Grant with the delay in taking the aggressive had begun with the withdrawal from Franklin on the 1st. Objections to waiting for new supplies of cavalry horses were not peculiar to this campaign. The waste of animals had been a constant source of complaint through the whole war. On the 5th Halleck made a report to Grant that 22,000 new cavalry horses had been issued at the posts where Thomas's forces were equipping, since September 20th. This was exclusive of those used in Kentucky or sent to Sherman. "If this number," he said, "without any campaign is already reduced to 10,000 mounted men, as reported by General Wilson, it may be safely assumed that the cavalry of that army will never be mounted, for the destruction of horses in the last two months has there alone been equal to the remounts obtained from the entire west." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 55.] It was on this report that Stanton's famous dispatch was based, "If he waits for Wilson to get ready, Gabriel will be blowing his last horn." [Footnote: Id., p. 84.] Halleck repeated the same in substance to Thomas, adding, "Moreover, you will soon be in the same condition that Rosecrans was last year,--with so many animals that you cannot feed them. Reports already come in of a scarcity of forage." [Footnote: Id., p. 114.] Yet, to remove as far as possible the causes of delay, Grant directed mounted men from Missouri to be sent to Nashville, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 130.] and even the "pressing" of horses in Kentucky was permitted, sure as it was to be abused in practice. This soon brought protests from the leading loyal men of Louisville. Mr. Speed (U. S. Attorney-General) and Mr. Ballard (afterward Judge of the U. S. Courts) telegraphed Mr. Stanton, "Loaded country wagons with produce for market are left in the road; milk-carts, drays, and butchers' wagons are left in the street--their horses seized." [Footnote: Id., p. 139.] Indeed, from the very beginning of the war, the cavalry problem had been an insoluble one. Raw recruits could not be made to take proper care of horses, to groom them, to ride them with judgment, or to save their strength. We campaigned in regions where forage was scarce and where it could not be brought up from the rear. A big cavalry force would starve when not moving, yet exaggerated reports of the enemy's mounted troops made a constant clamor for more. [Footnote: An interesting contribution to the practical discussion of the subject is found in Sherman's letter to General Meigs, Quartermaster-General from Savannah, December 25th, ending with, "If my cavalry cannot remount itself in the country, it may go afoot." (Official Records, vol. xliv. p. 807.) For the discussion of it in Rosecrans's campaign of '63, see ante, chap, xxiii. See also Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp. 300, 320.] The attempts to use them in large bodies were rarely successful, and the more modest duties of outpost and patrol in connection with the infantry columns were distasteful. All this knowledge, combined with the special causes of impatience now existing, gave to Grant's dispatches a more and more urgent tone, leading up to the "Delay no longer" of the 11th. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 70, 97, 143.] To judge fairly the attitude of both Grant and Thomas, this must not be overlooked, whilst we must also remember that the new element of the icy covering of the earth in the immediate vicinity of Nashville was so exceptional that it was not appreciated or fully understood at the East.

The halt at Nashville was the occasion for some temporary changes in the organization of my division. Colonel Henderson had not fully recovered from the ill-health which had interrupted the command of his brigade, and having obtained a leave of absence to go home for a few weeks, the command of this brigade remained with Colonel Stiles. General Reilly also found the need of recuperation and was granted a short leave. It happened that Colonel Doolittle, who had distinguished himself in command of the post at Decatur, had got back from a short absence, and reached Nashville after communications with Murfreesborough were interrupted. Not being able to join his proper command, I was glad to make arrangements to give him temporary service with me and to renew the pleasant acquaintance made on our journey from Georgia. He acted as chief of staff for a few days till Reilly left, and I then assigned him to command Reilly's brigade, where there was no officer of sufficient experience. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 86, 187.]

Another change which occurred was among the general officers, and strongly illustrated the chafing likely to arise under such circumstances. In pursuance of a policy before mentioned, the War Department was bringing pressure to bear upon officers to make them accept any active service suitable to their rank, or resign and leave room for promotions for others, since Congress refused to enlarge the number of general officers. Major-General Darius N. Couch had been, during the war, hitherto connected with the Army of the Potomac, but had drifted out of active service and was "waiting orders." Grant had suggested that he be sent to command the district of Kentucky, relieving Burbridge, whose administration was not satisfactory to the General-in-Chief. [Footnote: Id., pp. 16,28.] But political influences at Washington did not favor this change, and Couch was ordered to report to General Thomas for duty, and by him was sent to the Fourth Corps to report to General Stanley. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 58.] The latter was just going on "sick leave" on account of his wound received at Franklin, and without being assigned to any division, Couch, by rank, assumed temporary command of the corps in the absence of the regularly assigned commandant. [Footnote: Id., p. 72.] The immediate result of this was to supersede Brigadier-General Wood, who had been second in rank in the corps through the year, and was one of the oldest officers in the Army of the Cumberland. In the rearrangement of divisions when the temporary command would cease, it would displace General Kimball, who was also one of the most experienced brigadiers, and would reduce him to a brigade. The dissatisfaction thus caused in Thomas's own department made him transfer the problem to Schofield and the Army of the Ohio. Thomas proposed to Couch to take a division, therefore, in the Twenty-third Corps. [Footnote: Ibid.] Schofield was induced to consent to this, as it was accompanied by an arrangement for the speedy organization of a division of new troops, to which General Ruger could be assigned whilst Couch should take that which Ruger now commanded. When the new scheme was laid before Couch, he replied with dignity that he would readily serve where he was ordered, but could not, of his own election, take a position that would throw him into a lesser command. The formal orders making the changes were then issued. [Footnote: Id., pp. 86, 103, 104.] We had two good brigadiers in our corps, who had recently proved their capacity to take the new division,--Reilly, who had been distinguished in the battle of Franklin, and Cooper, who had conducted his brigade by a most perilous and circuitous retreat from Centerville to Nashville; [Footnote: "Battle of Franklin," chap. vii. and p. 206.] but the commissions of these dated only from the taking of Atlanta, and being juniors on the list of general officers, their claims to the larger command were not considered very strong.

My own position was the one most affected by the advent of a senior in rank into the corps. I had been senior of the division commanders in East Tennessee as well as in the Atlanta campaign, and actually in command of the corps in the absence of its regular chief or his assumption of still wider duties. As second in rank, one is necessarily in confidential possession of much knowledge which he would not otherwise have, for the possibility that accidents of the campaign may throw the larger command upon him requires that he should have the means of judgment and action in such an event. He is therefore in much closer relations to his superiors than he would be as division commander merely. Again in marches and in any scattering of forces, as senior, his command will be extended over other portions of the corps in the absence of the commander, and I had not infrequently found myself in command of another division beside my own, either by definite orders or by operation of the articles of war. [Footnote: "Battle of Franklin," pp. 277, 278.] When to this is added such command as fell to me in the October campaign in Georgia, and in the battle of Franklin, which could not have been mine if I had not stood next to Schofield in the corps, it will be seen that for me it was the practical loss of a grade, as it would have been for General Wood in the Fourth Corps if General Couch had remained there. My only purpose in noting these things is to make intelligible the feeling in the army that such transfers are not good administration, except where they are in the nature of promotion for brilliant service. The feeling was also strong that the loss of one's footing in one large army, unless caused by exceptional reasons, fully understood, is a reason against a transfer to another, where, in generous rivalry, all have been striving to merit advanced instead of diminished grades. In justice to General Schofield, however, I must not omit to say that he fully appreciated my situation, and with an earnestness which outran anything I could claim, exerted himself to secure my promotion and to make me eligible to the permanent assignment to the corps' command when his own authority was afterward enlarged. General Couch's position was by no means a desirable one for him; for he could not be ignorant of the sentiment of the army, and he would probably have preferred a division in the Potomac Army to one in ours, for there in spite of a temporary eclipse, he had a fixed and honorable reputation which would justify a reasonable expectation of regaining prominence in it. [Footnote: In the spring of 1863 General Couch was the senior corps commander in the Army of the Potomac, and as such was nominally in command on the field in the battle of Chancellorsville during the temporary disability of General Hooker. Shortly after that battle he asked to be transferred to some other command, and was assigned to the Department of the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, where the duty was merely administrative. In reducing these organizations in the fall of 1864, he became a supernumerary. See Walker's Second Army Corps, pp. 234, 235.]

Without going into a narration of the battle of Nashville, it may be worth while to remark that the publication of the official records increases the importance of the absence of Forrest's cavalry, which gave the opportunity for an almost unopposed advance of Thomas's right in the manoeuvres of the 15th December to turn Hood's flank. We had known that Chalmers, one of Forrest's division commanders, had been sent to cover the four miles of space intervening between the left of the Confederate line and the river. [Footnote: "March to the Sea, Nashville," etc., pp. 107, 114.] Chalmers' report now tells us that he had only Colonel Rucker's brigade with him, the rest of the division having been sent to the other flank. He asserts that, after leaving one regiment on the Granny White turnpike in immediate touch with the infantry line, he had only 900 men left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 765.] With so small a force he, of course, could hardly do more than observe and report the advance of our three cavalry divisions. Coleman's brigade of infantry which had held the Hillsborough and Hardin turnpikes was recalled to the main line early in the day, [Footnote: Walthall's Report, Official Records, vol. xiv. pt. i p. 722] and as it moved away without his knowledge, Chalmers, on learning it, supposed it was driven back. It left uncovered the cavalry baggage train on the Hardin turnpike, which was captured by part of Colonel Coon's brigade of our horse. [Footnote: Chalmers' Report. Id., p. 765; Coon's Report, Id., p. 589.] Chalmers then took Rucker's brigade to the Hillsborough turnpike so as to cover more closely the infantry flank, and left only one regiment to delay the advance of our cavalry on the roads nearer the river.

During the night of the 15th and the morning of the 16th the movement of Cheatham's corps to Hood's left had been observed by both our infantry and our cavalry. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 217, 224.] As part of these troops had been seen marching northward on the Granny White turnpike, Schofield very naturally took into consideration the probability of their being new reinforcements coming to Hood from the rear. [Footnote: Id., p. 214.] The extension of the enemy's fortified line to our right had made it necessary to extend my division in single line without reserves, and even then they were stretched almost to the breaking-point. [Footnote: Cox's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 407.] Thomas began his inspection of the line at Wood's position on the left in the forenoon, and came westward visiting the commands in turn. [Footnote: Wood's Report, Id., p. 131; A. J. Smith's Report, Id., p. 435; "Franklin and Nashville," p. 118; Schofield's "Forty-six Years in the Army," p. 246.]

At ten o'clock in the morning Wilson had most of his cavalry "refused, on the right of Schofield, the line extending across and perpendicular to the Hillsborough turnpike." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 220. In the dispatch quoted, the name is given "Murfreesborough" by a manifest clerical error. Schofield's right was near the Hillsborough turnpike, the Murfreesborough turnpike being beyond the other flank of the whole army.] A regiment had been sent to try to reach the Granny White turnpike, but had been driven off and reported Cheatham's infantry moving to the left upon it. [Footnote: Id., p. 224.] Wilson reported this to Schofield, adding, "The country on the left of the Hillsborough pike, toward the enemy's left, is too difficult for cavalry operations. It seems to me if I was on the other flank of the army I might do more to annoy the enemy, unless it is intended that I shall push out as directed last night." [Footnote; Id., p. 216. See also Schofield's "Forty-six Years," p. 244.] Schofield acknowledged the receipt of this information at 11.15, and forwarded it to General Thomas. In view of the apparent concentration of the enemy's forces in his front, he advised Wilson, until he should receive other orders from Thomas (who was then on the left with General Wood), to hold his forces "in readiness to support the troops here, in case the enemy makes a heavy attack." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 216. See also Schofield's "Forty-six Years," p. 244.] At half-past one his dispatch to Thomas, from his position on the field close to my own, fixes with clearness the situation at that hour. "Wilson is trying to push in toward the Granny White pike, about a mile south of my right. My skirmishers on the right are supporting him. The skirmishing is pretty heavy. I have not attempted to advance my main line to-day, and do not think I am strong enough to do so. Will you be on this part of the line soon?" [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 215; see also Stiles's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 431.]

In a letter written in 1882, to assist me when preparing to write my account of the battle of Nashville, [Footnote: "Franklin and Nashville," etc., chap. vi.] General Schofield gave me his recollection of the situation on our right during the morning of the 16th of December. [Footnote: Letter of June 1, 1882.] "I had gone back to Nashville in the night preceding," he said, "to persuade Thomas to order Wilson to remain on my right and take part in the battle the next morning, and A. J. Smith to close up on our left. Thomas had only partially adopted my views, and had not given Wilson any orders to attack. I had waited impatiently all the morning, and until some time after noon for Wilson to get orders from Thomas, or to comply with my request to put his troops in without waiting for orders. Finally, some time after noon, Wilson had consented to go in with his cavalry (I relieving him of all responsibility), and I had directed you, with your reserve brigade, which was not then in contact with the enemy, to support Wilson or join with him in attacking the enemy's flank." When Schofield received the proposal from McArthur through Couch, that an assault should be made on Shy's hill, in the angle of the enemy's line, by one of McArthur's brigades, supported by Couch, he "became impatient," he says, "for Wilson and Stiles [my flank brigade] to get possession of the commanding ground to the enemy's left-rear, so as to prepare the way for your [my] assault upon his intrenched line." [Footnote: See also General Schofield's discussion of the events of the 16th, in his "Forty-six Years," pp. 263-275.] The field dispatch of General Couch in regard to supporting McArthur was dated at 2.30 P.M. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 217.]

General Schofield sought an opportunity to compare recollections with General Wilson, and wrote me again on the 29th of June, 1882, saying that he was greatly surprised to find that Wilson did not recollect the proposal and request stated above, but thought that General Thomas had come in person to his position on the Hillsborough turnpike, and about 10 or 10:30 o'clock A.M. had given him the orders under which he then undertook to advance against Hood's left-rear. Wilson also associated with it the capture of a dispatch from Hood to Chalmers, urging the latter to drive the Yankee cavalry from his left and rear, as otherwise he could not hold the position. This dispatch, Wilson said, he promptly sent to Thomas. As the conference between Schofield and Wilson was for the purpose of assisting me in getting undisputed facts for the history of the campaign, I was permitted to know the result and to have the contents of a letter from Wilson to Schofield of date of June 28, 1882, restating his recollection. In pursuance of my rule to avoid as far as possible the debate of subsidiary controverted points in my connected history, I omitted any reference to them in this instance. General Schofield's memory is, however, so strongly supported by the field dispatches, that it does not seem difficult now to reach a sound historical judgment.

It is plain that during the earlier part of the day General Wilson was reporting through General Schofield, who forwarded to General Thomas the information received. At some time before noon the latter had completed his examination of the position of the Fourth Corps on the left of the army, so that General Wood was at liberty to ride to General Steedman's headquarters on the Nolensville turnpike. [Footnote: Official Records, vol xlv. pt. i. p. 131.] Thomas passed westward to General Smith's headquarters at the centre, where he seems still to have been at three o'clock, [Footnote: Id., p. 435.] or at the time of the arrangement between McArthur and Couch, which the latter places at half-past two. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 217.] Thomas then visited General Schofield's position, where he was when the final assault was made and the enemy routed. General Wilson's reports make no mention of a visit from General Thomas on the 16th, and the contents of his dispatches show that there had been none up to eleven o'clock, when Thomas was with Wood on the other flank of the whole army. It can hardly be necessary to mention the extreme improbability of the commander's omission to visit Schofield's quarters near the Hillsborough turnpike, if he were going by that road to Wilson, who was also on it. We must conclude that General Wilson is mistaken in his recollection. That he saw General Thomas at Schofield's position late in the day, is conceded by all. [Footnote: The account in "Franklin and Nashville," etc., p. 119, must be modified in accord with the facts above stated.]

We find no mention in the records of any capture of an important dispatch from Hood to Chalmers, except that found on the person of Colonel Rucker, when he was wounded and captured at 6.30 P.M., trying to hold the pass of the Brentwood hills on the Granny White turnpike, in the darkness, two hours after the collapse of Hood's line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 218.] This dispatch seems to have strongly resembled the language used by Wilson in his letter to Schofield in 1882. It is said to have stated that Chalmers' cavalry must take care of this flank. In sending the information to General Johnson, Wilson added, "Go for him with all possible celerity, as Hood says the safety of their army depends upon Chalmers." [Footnote: Wilson to Johnson, Id., p. 222.] As we have already noted, Rucker's brigade, just routed, was all there was of Chalmers' division on that flank except a regiment covering trains making for Franklin.

The Confederate records support this view. Chalmers' report relates the skirmishing during the morning in which Rucker was holding the Hillsborough turnpike against Wilson, and the attempt on our side to move to the Granny White turnpike, from which Hammond's detachment was driven back. He says that with one regiment and his own escort he "held the enemy in check for more than three hours." [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 765.] This agrees very well with the situation as indicated in General Schofield's dispatch of 1.30 P.M., when a serious effort was making on our side to reach that road. Chalmers reported the fact that the regiment was hotly beset, and Hood's adjutant-general, in acknowledging it at 3.15 P.M., said, "Your dispatch, saying you were fighting the enemy with one regiment on the Granny White pike, received. General Hood says you must hold that pike; put in your escort and every available man you can find." [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 697.] Chalmers reports that he received this about 4.30, when the regiment had been driven back; that he then moved up Rucker's brigade, which had reached the same turnpike nearer Brentwood, and after a sharp struggle it was routed. "By this time," he adds, "it was so dark that it was impossible to re-form the men, or, indeed, to distinguish friend from foe, so closely were they mingled together." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 766.] It was in this mêlée that Rucker was wounded and captured.

In preparation for the attack in concert with A. J. Smith's command, my flank brigade (Stiles's), which had been in echelon on our right, was ordered to swing forward in touch with our cavalry advance. [Footnote: My Report, Id., p. 407.] My own main attack was to be upon the bastion which made the flank of the enemy's works before us. I ordered Doolittle's brigade to charge straight at it. Casement's brigade, on Doolittle's left, was to march by the right flank at double-quick in rear of Doolittle, so as to become a second line to him and support the advance as might be necessary. The skirmishers of Stiles's brigade had accompanied the cavalry advance since half-past one, and in the final effort his troops in line were to take part as already stated. [Footnote: See Schofield to Thomas, 1.30 P. M., Id., pt. ii. p. 215; Stiles's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 431; my own Report, Id., p. 407, and sketch map accompanying the latter, Id., p. 408; also "Franklin and Nashville," etc., pp. 119-122.] After personal conference with my brigade commanders to insure complete mutual understanding, I rode to the hill in rear of my lines where Thomas and Schofield were together, [Footnote: Marked 2 in map, p. 359.] watching for the concerted attack upon Shy's hill in the salient angle of Hood's lines.

When Smith's men were seen to reach the summit of Shy's Hill, I received the signal from Schofield, and galloped down the hill toward Doolittle; but he also had caught sight of the movement, and his brigade was already charging on the run when I reached him. The excited firing of the enemy was too high, and Doolittle's men entered the works with very little loss. The collapse was general. As soon as we were over the works, I was ordered to stand fast with my command and give General Smith's command the right of way down the Granny White turnpike. Doolittle's brigade had carried the bastion in front of our right and the curtain adjoining it, and his line halted immediately in rear of these, partly facing the turnpike. He had captured a four-gun battery of light twelves in the bastion and another of the same number in the curtain, with the artillerists and part of the supports. [Footnote: See the official reports cited above, and special reports as to the guns, Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 234, 235; also regimental reports, Twelfth Kentucky, Id., pt. i. p. 417, One Hundredth Ohio, Id., p. 420, and Eighth Tennessee, Id., p. 423.] Stiles, advancing with the cavalry, was halted a short distance in front of Doolittle, facing southward on the right of the turnpike. Casement was halted in the trenches from which Doolittle had started. [Footnote: Casement's Report, Id., pt. i. p. 425. All the reports on the National side except that of the cavalry refer to the concerted attack on Shy's hill as the signal for the general advance. The Confederate reports also speak of the carrying of that salient as the cause of the rout. In his second report, dated Feb. 1, 1865, and in his letter to General Schofield in 1882, cited above, General Wilson says that it was on his personal report of what his men were doing on the enemy's left rear that Thomas ordered the final assault.]

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XLV. PURSUIT OF HOOD--END OF THE CAMPAIGN

Night after the battle--Unusual exposure--Hardships of company officers--Bad roads--Halt at Franklin--Visiting the battlefield--Continued pursuit--Decatur reoccupied--Hood at Tupelo, Miss.--Summary of captures--Thomas suggests winter-quarters--Grant orders continued activity--Schofield's proposal to move the corps to the East--Grant's correspondence with Sherman--Schofield's suggestion adopted--Illness--I ask for "sick-leave"--Do not use it--Promotion--Reinforcements--March from Columbia to Clifton--Columns on different roads--Western part of the barrens--Fording Buffalo River--An illumined camp--Dismay of the farmer--Clifton on the Tennessee--Admiral Lee--Methods of transport--Weary waiting--Private grumbling--Ordered East--Revulsion of spirits--On the transport fleet--Thomas's frame of mind at close of the campaign.

The night after the battle of Nashville was one we were not likely to forget. Twilight was falling when we halted, after the crushing of the Confederate lines, and as we were likely to join in the pursuit before morning, I had announced that I would be found with Doolittle's brigade. Owing to the darkness and a gathering storm, the troops having the advance did not get far, but the risks of missing dispatches that might be sent in haste made me adhere to my rule of staying where I had said I might be found. This kept the staff and headquarters in the space a little in rear of the captured line of works, a spot unclean and malodorous. We built a camp-fire, and tried to clean off spots on which we could sit on the ground; but a heavy rain soon came on, and as we were in the woods, the light soil soon made a mire, and we were forced to stand upright and take the weather as it came. The extreme weariness of standing about, with nothing to vary the monotony, physically tired and sleepy, in the reaction from the excitement of the afternoon, was something which cannot be understood unless one has had a similar experience. We had hoped our servants might find us during the evening and bring us something to eat; but the advance over hills and intrenchments had made it hard to follow our course even in daylight; but in the darkness and storm they entirely failed to find us. We felt a good deal like "belly-pinched wolves," but we had no den in which we could "keep the fur dry." Indeed, the suffering of a dog that was with us was a thing we often referred to as illustrating our utter discomfort. A fine pointer, astray in northern Georgia, had attached himself to me in October, and had been constantly with us, leaping and barking with joy whenever I mounted my horse. He was with us now, and when the rain came on he stood in the mud like the rest of us, finding no spot to lie down in. He grew tired and sleepy, and looked wistfully about for a place he could consent to lie in, but gave it up, and spreading all four legs well apart he tried to stand it out. Occasionally his eyes would close and his head droop, his body would slowly sway back and forth till he made a greater nod, his nose would go into the mud, and gathering himself up he would lift his head with a most piteous whine, protesting against such headquarters.

The longest night must have an end, and early in the morning one of our black boys found us, bringing with him on horseback a haversack full of hard-tack, and in his hand a kettle of coffee which we soon made piping hot at the camp-fire, and found the world looking much more cheerful. The storm continued, however, and made the pursuit slower and more difficult than it would have been in better weather. The cavalry had the advance, supported by A. J. Smith's troops on the Granny White turnpike, and by Wood's Fourth Corps on the Franklin turnpike. We were ordered to follow Smith. Our camp on the evening of the 17th was not far from Brentwood between the two roads which come together a little further on after crossing the Little Harpeth, some seven miles from Franklin and the larger stream of the same name.

Our headquarters the second night after the battle were an improvement on those of the night before. We found a knoll which was fairly drained, we borrowed a tarpaulin from a battery, and with fence-rails made of it a lean-to with back to the storm. A pile of evergreen boughs made a couch on which we lay, and a camp-fire blazing high in front made a heat which mitigated even the driving December storm. Our faithful black boys had coffee-pots and haversacks, so that we did not go supperless. I wrote home that my overcoat with large cape weighed about fifty pounds with the water in it, but it kept my body dry, and I found it better to wear it than to put on a rubber waterproof, for perspiration did not evaporate under the latter.

Our private soldiers wore the rubber poncho-blankets above their overcoats in wet weather, and two "pardners" would make a shelter tent of the pair of waterproofs which had metal eyelets to adapt them to this use. Veterans carefully selected the place for the tent, pitched it in good form, trenched it so that the water would flow off and not run into the tent; then with their bed of cedar boughs, their haversacks and coffee-kettles, they were not worse off than the officers,--better off indeed than their company officers who trudged afoot like themselves.

Transportation was so difficult to get that, in pressing forward, baggage was reduced to smallest possible allowance. In bad roads such wagons as we had were far behind the troops, and the company officers were exposed to severe hardships by the delay. I laid their condition before General Schofield, in a letter which better tells the tale than I could now give it from memory alone. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 312.] "From the time we left Nashville," I wrote, "until last night [21st December], these gentlemen had no shelter, and only such food as they could obtain from the private soldiers, being far worse off than the men, since the latter had their shelter-tents and their rations in haversacks. The officers' rations and their cooking utensils are in the regimental wagons, which are necessarily left behind in movements such as we have lately made, and they must either furnish themselves with knapsacks and haversacks, and carry their cooking utensils upon their own persons or those of their servants, or be utterly destitute. Even if they do this, the wagons of the commissary of subsistence are also at the rear, except upon ordinary days of issue, and it would be necessary to issue to them precisely as is done to the soldiers in the ranks, and so break down the last vestige in distinction in mode of life between them and their commands. As it is, I state what I know from personal observation when I say that no individuals in any way connected with the army are enduring so much personal suffering and privation upon the present campaign as the officers of the line. As I know the commanding general will be most desirous to make any arrangement which is feasible to reduce the amount of discomfort, I take the liberty of suggesting that during the winter campaign the transportation for each regiment be one wagon for regimental headquarters and for company books and papers, desks, etc., as now, and in addition one pack-mule for each company. The pack-mules make little or no obstruction in the road, are easily moved to flank or rear in case of manoeuvre of troops, and will be up with the command when the regiment goes into camp. Unless some such arrangement is made, I fear many of our officers will break down in health, and many more, becoming disgusted with the hardships of the service, and especially with the difference between themselves and their more fortunate brethren of the staff and staff-corps, will seek to leave the army. In many commands some similar arrangements to the one I have suggested have been surreptitiously made; but as I have rigidly enforced the rule turning over to the quartermaster all unauthorized animals, I am the more desirous of obtaining for the gentlemen of the line whom I have the honor to command such authority to regulate their transportation as will save them from the apparently unnecessary hardships they have of late endured, without detracting from the mobility of the division." The plan suggested was one we had used in exigencies in the Atlanta campaign, and General Schofield immediately authorized it for winter use.

The cold rainstorm, in which the battle of Nashville had ended, lasted for a week, turning to sleet and snow on the 20th and clearing off with sharp cold on the 24th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 360, 361.] Worse weather for field operations it would be hard to imagine. The ordinary country roads were impassable, and even the turnpikes became nearly so. They had never been very solidly made, and had not been repaired for three years. In places the metalling broke through, making holes similar to holes in thick ice, with well-defined margin. These were filled to the brim with water, and churned into deep pits by the wheels of loaded wagons. It required watchfulness to see them, as the whole surface of the road was flowing with slush and mud. When a wheel went into one, the wagon dropped to the axle, and even where there was no upset it was a most difficult task to pry the wagon out and start it on the way again. The wagon-master was lucky if it did not stop his whole train, and it was no uncommon thing for a mule to be drowned by getting down in one of these pits. Hood's rear-guard under Forrest and Walthall destroyed bridges behind them, of course, and that our cavalry with the head of our infantry column were able to keep close on the enemy's rear till they passed Pulaski is good proof of the energy with which the pursuit was conducted. Yet it was necessarily slow, for it was confined to one road, the rest being impassable, and flanking operations could only be made on a small scale when in contact with the enemy.

When we reached Franklin on our southward march, we were halted for a day, so that we might not crowd too much upon the rest of the column, and I took advantage of the opportunity to study the condition of the battlefield there. My division camped between the Columbia and the Lewisburg turnpikes, on the ground over which the Confederates had advanced to attack it in the battle. Portions of the second line of works close to the Carter house and the retrenchment across the Columbia road had been levelled, but the principal defences were as we had left them. The osage orange-trees which we had used for abatis had been evenly cut away by the bullets, and the tough fibres hung in a fringe of white strings, the upper line quite even, and just a little lower than the top of the parapet. The effect was a curiously impressive one as we looked down the line we had held and thought what a level storm of lead was indicated by this long white fringe, and what desperate charges of Hood's divisions they were that came through it, close up to the line of this abatis. Every twig was weeping with the cold pouring rain of the dark midwinter storm, and this did not lessen the gloomy effect of the scene. At the Carter house we learned from the family many incidents of their own experience during the battle and of the scenes of the next day. [Footnote: See "Franklin," chap. xv.]

Our position in the rear of the marching columns put upon us the duty of building bridges, repairing roads, and improving the means of supplying the troops in front. We consequently made halts, one of two or three days at Spring Hill, and another in our old camps north of Duck River, where we had held the line of the river on the 28th and 29th of November. The day after Christmas we moved over the river and encamped in front of Columbia, on the Pulaski turnpike. We remained here for several days, whilst the Fourth Corps and the cavalry, making Pulaski their depot for supplies, followed Hood until he crossed the Tennessee on the 28th and 29th of December. The line of the Confederate retreat was stripped bare of supplies and forage, and every energy was devoted to rebuilding railroad bridges and getting the road opened to Pulaski so that wagon transportation might be limited to the region beyond the head of the rails. Thomas had ordered Steedman's and R. S. Granger's divisions to Decatur by rail, going by way of Stevenson. Once there, they were to operate in the direction of Tuscumbia and Florence, seeking to destroy Hood's pontoon bridges crossing the Tennessee. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 260.] The light steamboats in the upper river were reckoned on to take supplies from Chattanooga, where an abundance was in depot. Steedman reached Decatur on the 27th of December, and Granger joined him from Huntsville, but Hood had reached Bainbridge, at the foot of Muscle Shoals on the 25th; [Footnote: Id., p. 731.] and next day had a bridge there, built in part of our pontoons which had been floated down from Decatur. [Footnote: Ante, p. 343.] He assembled the remnants of his army at Tupelo, Miss., fifty miles south of Corinth. The inspection report of January 20th showed 18,708, infantry and artillery, present for duty; Forrest's cavalry not reported. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 664.] Thomas's prizes in the two days' fighting at Nashville were reported by him as amounting to 4462 prisoners and fifty-three pieces of artillery. [Footnote: Id., p. 40.] The pursuit after the battle doubled the number of the prisoners, gathered large numbers of deserters, and considerably increased the number of guns captured. [Footnote: Id., pp. 46, 48, 51.]

On the 29th of December Thomas indicated to General Halleck his opinion that all had been done which was now practicable, and his purpose to put his forces into winter quarters,--A. J. Smith's corps with most of the cavalry at Eastport, where the Mississippi and Alabama line reaches the Tennessee River; the Fourth Corps at Huntsville, Ala., and the Twenty-third at Dalton, Ga. Steedman's and Granger's divisions were already at Decatur, and would hold that important position, with which direct railway communication from Nashville would be opened as quickly as the road could be repaired from Pulaski southward. Thomas also outlined for the spring a concerted advance of the columns into southern Alabama. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 402.] The same day he issued his order to Schofield to prepare at once for the march of a hundred and fifty miles to northern Georgia. [Footnote: Id., p. 409.] A march of the same distance southward along the Mobile and Ohio Railway would have carried us to Hood's camps at Tupelo, with a prospect of immediate results, and we were not exhilarated by the order, which, however, was countermanded on the 30th in consequence of dispatches received by Thomas from Halleck.

General Grant had, on the 16th, authorized Sherman to make his own plan for a new campaign, and the latter had indicated the march from Savannah to Columbia and thence to Raleigh as that which he would make if left to himself. [Footnote: Id., vol. xliv. pp. 727-729.] The necessity of reducing the war expenses as soon as possible, as well as more purely military reasons, seemed to the General-in-Chief to make a continuous winter campaign imperative, and by his orders Halleck had directed Thomas not to go into winter quarters, but to assemble his army at Eastport and prepare for further active work. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 441.] Grant rightly concluded that Hood's army would be sent to the Carolinas as soon as Sherman marched northward. He was therefore considering combinations of Thomas's with Canby's forces for the capture of Mobile and a movement on Selma, Ala., which was the only great armory and manufacturing centre now remaining to the Confederates in the Gulf States. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 419, 420.] Our army was a good deal worn with the hardships of the campaign, our wagon trains had not been brought up to the requirements for full field service, and we were receiving new troops which were not yet fully assimilated to the old; but the advantages of following up our successes by unflagging efforts in the West as well as in the East, and of making the "long pull and a pull all together" which would end the war, were so plain that all responded cheerily to the call.

But in the Twenty-third Corps a new element entered into the debate, which resulted, a fortnight later, in orders for us to move in a widely different direction. On the 27th, the day that we received at Columbia the news that Sherman had taken Savannah, Schofield wrote an unofficial letter to Grant, suggesting that the corps would no longer be needed for the spring campaign which Thomas was then planning, and that with its increase of strength it might be of more use in Grant's own operations in Virginia if it was not practicable for us to rejoin Sherman. [Footnote: Id., p. 377.] Circumstances were making Schofield's situation in Tennessee uncomfortable, for, as he said in the same letter, he was in an anomalous position, nominally commanding a department and an army, but practically doing neither. Such considerations reinforced the military reasons, but the latter were strong enough to establish the wisdom of his suggestion to Grant. He wrote at the same time to General Sherman, indicating that his strongest wish would be to join the army at Savannah if it should be feasible, for he recognized the great military importance of now concentrating against Lee. [Footnote: "Forty-six Years," p. 254.] It happened that on the same day that Schofield was writing these letters, Grant was writing to Sherman, expressing his pleasure in the latter's confidence of his ability to march through the Carolinas, and his own belief that it could be done. "The effect of such a campaign," he said, "will be to disorganize the South, and prevent the organization of new armies from their broken fragments." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xliv. p. 820.] Giving a sketch of the situation in the West, he thought Sherman's advance would force the Confederacy to use Hood's broken army without allowing it time to collect its deserters and reorganize. As it would thus be "wiped out for present harm," he was considering the plan of ordering A. J. Smith away from his temporary connection with Thomas's main army, and bringing him with ten or fifteen thousand men to Virginia to make his own army strong enough to deal effectually with Lee, whether the Confederate general continued to defend Richmond or should abandon that city. [Footnote: Ibid.] Schofield's suggestion fitted so well the plan Grant was revolving in his mind, that he decided to bring the Twenty-third Corps East, instead of Smith's. On the 7th of January he directed Thomas to send Schofield and the corps to him with as little delay as possible, if he were sure that Hood had gone further south than Corinth. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 529.] When Thomas received the order on the 11th, he was at Paducah on the Ohio River, and about to start up the Tennessee by steamboat. We were at Clifton on the Tennessee, after a hard march of some seventy miles southwest from Columbia, and were awaiting steamboats to take us up to Eastport, wholly ignorant of the surprise that was in store for us. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 363.] Even Schofield had received no word from Grant as to his action.

In making this outline of the changing plans of our superiors, I have outrun the current of my personal experience in which some things may be worth noting. On the day after the battle of Nashville, I was conscious of malarial poisoning from the specially unwholesome conditions of our bivouac on the night of the 16th, but was so confident in the vigor of my constitution in throwing off such ailments that I paid no attention to my health, and kept about my duties with my ordinary activity. I found, however, that my strength was not equal to the demands upon it, and by the time we reached the Duck River on the 23d of December, I was glad to find quarters at the house of Mrs. Porter, in the bend of the river, where we had been during the two days before the battle of Franklin, and where we were again received with a kindness and hospitality which was wonderful when one considers how the passing and repassing of armies had ruined the country and overstrained the sympathies of the people.

Fortunately for me, our movements were suspended for a week and we made but one change of camp, crossing to the south side of the river, and taking the position in front of Columbia which I have already mentioned. [Footnote: Ante, p. 373.] My medical director, Surgeon Frink, gave me heroic treatment, and by the time we marched again on the 2d of January, I was able to do my ordinary duties, though I did not become quite well again till I reached the sea-coast and got a complete change of climate. At this time we were expecting to go into winter quarters, and when, on 29th December, I learned that orders were issued for the corps to winter at Dalton, I requested and received a leave of absence for thirty days, to go home and recover my health. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 361.] My order had been issued, turning over the command to Colonel Doolittle, the senior brigade commander present, [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 476.] when I learned from General Schofield that the active campaign was to be resumed and that he had abandoned the purpose he had formed of going north himself as far as Louisville. I immediately rescinded my own order, and marched with the command. [Footnote: Id., pp. 426, 474, 475, 486.]

During the pursuit of Hood from Nashville, Thomas had followed in person the Fourth Corps, which was in advance of ours, and Schofield had no opportunity of personal conference with him, so that our only knowledge of his purposes was got from the formal correspondence with his headquarters. When Colonel Doolittle sent forward his communication reasserting the capture of the battery in the curtain of the Confederate works on the 16th of December, [Footnote: Ante, p. 366.] it was accompanied by my own and indorsed by General Schofield. It reached Thomas at Duck River, and he made it the occasion of indorsing upon it a recommendation for my promotion to the grade of Major-General. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 234, 235.] On the 19th, from Franklin, General Schofield made his own recommendation in terms which I may be pardoned for feeling more pride in than in the promotion itself. [Footnote: See Appendix C.] This was earnestly supported by General Thomas and forwarded on the 20th. The only vacancy in the grade was one made by the resignation of General McClernand, and to this I was assigned, as of the 7th of December, the date of General Schofield's report of the battle of Franklin, though the official notice of the promotion did not reach me till the 15th of January, at Clifton, as we were about to take steamboats for our movement to the East. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 273, 274; Id., pt. i. p. 364. Army Register for 1865, pp. 54, 95. Another vacancy occurred on the 13th December, by the resignation of General Crittenden, and to this General W. B. Hazen was appointed for his assault of Fort McAllister near Savannah. (Ibid.) On December 22d Mr. Stanton asked Thomas to make a list of promotions he desired to recommend, but informed him that there was then no vacancy in the grade of Major-General, and only two in that of Brigadier. (Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 307.) General Schofield thinks that Stanton, in the dispatch last mentioned, referred only to vacancies in the regular army. (Forty-six Years, p. 279.) The circumstances and the whole correspondence seem to me inconsistent with this view. Thomas made out his list on the 25th, and it was for promotions in the volunteer service only. (Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 343.) Thomas's own promotion as Major-General in the regular army was made on the 24th. (Id., pp. 318, 329.)]

Before leaving Columbia, General Schofield had, on the 28th of December, a consultation with his three division commanders in regard to the assignment of the new regiments, to the number of twelve or thirteen, which had been added to the corps. [Footnote: These included two or three which had been temporarily attached at Franklin, but were now made permanent parts of the organization.] It was agreed that it was best to preserve the older organizations of divisions and brigades, and to strengthen these by some new regiments, while the rest of the new regiments were organized into a division under General Ruger. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 409.] Schofield had the promise of several other regiments whenever they should come forward; and by correspondence with Halleck and with the Governor of Illinois, as well as with Thomas, he was actively striving to bring the corps to the proper strength of three full divisions. At the end of the month we had 15,000 men, with at least two other regiments ordered to join us, one of them convalescing from the measles, which was very apt to run through a new organization taking the field. [Footnote: Id., pp. 426, 436, 445, 461, 473, 475.] The new troops were nearly all officered by men of experience, and contained many veterans who had re-enlisted. We thus welcomed back valuable men who had served in the corps, and came to us with increased rank and a renewed zeal which made our reinforcements at once nearly equal to seasoned troops.

Our orders to march from Columbia on the 1st of January were in pursuance of the orders Thomas had received to concentrate his army at Eastport and Tuscumbia for the continuance of the campaign. The Fourth Corps was en route to Huntsville, and Thomas did not change its destination, as he thought it could take part in new movements as well from that position as from Tuscumbia. A. J. Smith's corps had already been ordered to Eastport for winter quarters, and had marched from Pulaski by way of Lawrenceburg and Waynesborough, reaching Clifton on the 2d of January, where it awaited steamboat transportation. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 396, 410, 420, 427, 486. Clifton is called Carrollville in official Atlas, pl. cxlix. The former name is that used in the dispatches and which we found in use by everybody. The roads and topography in the map are very incorrect.] Thomas himself was at Pulaski, and went back by rail to his headquarters at Nashville, whence he took a steamer to convey his field headquarters and staff by way of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers to Eastport. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 470, 530, 567.]

We marched from Columbia on the morning of the 2d of January, 1865, following the turnpike to Mt. Pleasant, ten miles, through some of the finest farms in the State. The afternoon was spent in organizing the corps to move in separate columns by division, each with its own supply train; for the information we got as to the condition of the roads made it wise to try any country roads which had not been used by the armies. It was arranged that Couch's division should march by the turnpike to Waynesborough, wind by a ridge road through the "barrens" north of the turnpike, and Ruger should follow me some distance, and then take an intermediate road through Laurel-Hill Factory, leaving an interval of a day's march between our columns. Couch's division was preceded by the engineer battalion of the corps, as pioneers to repair the turnpike. [Footnote: Id., pp. 475, 486.] Promptly at six o'clock on the 3d, my division marched from Mt. Pleasant, continuing for five miles on the Waynesborough turnpike, then turning to the right upon the Gordon road, we climbed by a steep and long hill to the barren ridge which is the watershed between the Duck River and Buffalo River. Five miles from the turnpike our way ran into the Beaverdam road, which we kept for five miles further to the fork of the Ashland road, turning to the left. Here we camped and waited for our trains, which had slow work in climbing the ridge, for it had rained all the morning, and the roads were slippery. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 362; pt. ii. p. 498.]

It was noon of the 4th before the trains overtook us, and I then ordered an issue of rations to lighten them, and we started again, with a citizen for a guide. We followed the Perryville road seven miles to the headwaters of Grinder's Creek, a tributary of Buffalo River, and down the creek three miles, the road being a mere track in its bed. We now turned to the right over a ridge and came down into Rockhouse Creek, the course of which we followed to the river. I had learned that we must ford the Buffalo, and from the wet weather it would be whole leg deep. It was getting late in the day, and Rockhouse Creek had to be crossed many times; so I passed the order along the line not to try to bridge, but to march straight through the creek and make the more important crossing of the river before going into camp. This seemed hard, in the month of January, when, as it had cleared and was cold, ice was forming in the still places of the stream; but I heard that open farm lands bordered the river on the other side, and if our wading was done all at once, we could make the men dry their clothes and shoes with less danger to health than if we began another day with a soaking. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 362.]

It grew dark several hours before we reached Buffalo River, the column plodding along in the wooded ravine. I had turned out from the road to wait for the brigades to pass, and have a word with the commanders in turn, and was picking my way to the head of column again, when I overheard one of those little colloquies between soldiers which give real pleasure to an officer. A fresh recruit was grumbling at marching in the darkness and in the water, and wondering what generals could mean by putting such hardships upon the soldiers, when a veteran by his side answered cheerily, "When you've been in this division as long as I have, you'll know there's some good reason for pushing us this way; so take it easy, and don't growl. The General knows what he's about." I turned further out into the darkness, with a feeling that it would cheapen the brave man's words to let him learn who had heard him, but the evidence of the trust which is the foundation of soldierly devotion gave a deep satisfaction. When the column reached the river, which was about seventy-five yards wide, fires were lit on both sides as guides to the ford, and though it was near nine o'clock, the men were not permitted to rest till they had thoroughly dried themselves around the great fires of fence-rails. They did not need orders to boil their coffee and cook a hot supper in their bivouac. The broad fields between the hills and the river were illuminated far and wide, and the stillness of the dark valley was transformed into the noisy activity of the armed host. All in the camp were "merry as grigs," and did not need to be told why the march had been prolonged into the night. But the fun of the soldier was the grief and dismay of the farmer.

The place belonged to an elderly man named Churchill. We had to make use of his house for headquarters, and while our boys were cooking our supper, a busy group of officers was seated about the crackling fire in an open fireplace, writing dispatches and orders, receiving reports, and sending messages, while in the shadows of the background the farmer and his wife were moving uneasily about, looking out of door or window, and wringing their hands at the vision of destruction which had suddenly descended upon them. The old man protested at the burning of his fences, naturally enough, and all we could say was that, in the end, if he could prove his loyalty, he would be indemnified for his loss; but this was small consolation, and we pitied him whilst we applied the pitiless code of military necessity to save the troops from worse mischiefs.

The ridge road we had followed had been so completely a wilderness that we saw but one inhabited house for fifteen miles. The hillsides were covered with a young forest, the original woods having been cut off and made into charcoal for the iron furnaces of the region. In good weather it would have been easy marching through the region, for the top of the ridge was fairly level, winding along in a general westerly direction; but as the road had never been "worked," and was a mere wagon track, it soon became muddy, and our wagons cut it so deeply as to spoil it for the use of any who were to follow us, and to make about fifteen miles a day the most we could ourselves accomplish.

Starting again on the 5th, we marched through Ashland, [Footnote: In the Atlas, pl. cxlix., Ashland is erroneously placed north of Buffalo river.] up the valley of Forty-eight-mile Creek and thence along a ridge to Waynesborough, encamping just beyond the town. Our road ran into the turnpike two miles east of the village, and we met Couch's division at the junction of the roads. We took the advance, which we kept during the next day's march to the Tennessee, reaching Clifton toward evening of the 6th, after a very hard day's work, the weather beginning with rain in the morning and turning to sleet and snow after noon. We pitched our tents in the snowstorm, locating the camp more than a mile from the landing-place, as the eligible ground nearer was occupied by Smith's corps, which was waiting for transports to take them up the river.

It was a desolate outlook. A few chimneys and two or three houses marked the site of what had once been a flourishing village, but which had been burned in the guerilla warfare of the last year. The landscape was bare, the trees having disappeared in the demand for camp-fires, as different bodies of troops had camped there from time to time. The bluff above the river was level and monotonous, and the great turbid stream rolling northward reflected only the heavy stormy skies. The only consolation we could gather was that Eastport, for which we supposed we were bound, was more desolate, more muddy, and a worse camping-ground.

The other divisions of the corps halted at Waynesborough for two or three days, till transports should take Smith's corps away and give us our turn at the landing. General Schofield joined me on the afternoon of the 7th, and on Sunday, the 8th, a fleet of transports came down the river, convoyed by three gunboats under Rear-Admiral Lee. They had taken part of Smith's troops to Eastport and had returned for the rest. A pleasant recollection of the time is the acquaintance then begun with the Admiral, which was afterwards renewed at Washington when I met him in the attractive circle of the Blair families, both the elder Francis P. Blair, and Montgomery, with whom Admiral Lee was connected by marriage. When the fleet was gone again, the rest of our corps gathered at Clifton, but we seemed shut off from all communication with the outer world. We had broken our connection with the country we had left, in the expectation of having our base on the lower Tennessee, and our supplies were getting short. An occasional steamboat would go by us, steaming up the river without stopping. Feeling the necessity of getting news from General Thomas below, General Schofield ordered me, on the 9th, to send a piece of artillery to the river bank and force up-bound boats to stop and report. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 557.] On the same day Schofield issued his order for the movement by transports up the river, giving the method of shipping the troops by divisions, each with its own artillery, baggage, and ordnance trains. Open barges were provided for the artillery and ordnance, and these were to be lashed alongside the steamboats on which the troops and the regimental baggage would be loaded. The method was arranged in consultation with Admiral Lee, to whom the division commander was ordered to report during the transit. [Footnote: Ibid.] The intent was to keep each division together as a military unit, with its baggage, guns, and trains, so that it could take care of itself when landed. [Footnote: Id., p. 557.]

Nearly a week passed, the only variation in the monotony being the changes of the weather, which went through the cycle of raining, snowing, clearing, thawing, and freezing which had been regularly marked during the season. The delays in reaching the up-river rendezvous, the complete absence of all news, the wearying effect of waiting, all told upon the troops in a depressing way. General Schofield evidently had little faith that much would be done before spring, and the fact that he had heard nothing from his letters to Grant and Sherman left him without the means of relieving the general tendency to apathy and discontent under which we were suffering. In my own case I had the further discomfort of physical ailing, for though the worst symptoms of my illness had been mitigated, I was far from my usual vigor. The undeniable result of this appeared in my home letters, and it would not be altogether honest to suppress the hearty bit of private grumbling which I indulged in.

Writing on the 13th, after noting the utter lack of stability in the weather and its effect on our operations, I broke out on the personal results of the winter campaigning. "I am getting ragged and barefoot," I said. "My boots are worn out, my coat is worn out, my waistcoats are worn out, my hat is worn out, and I am only whole and respectable when I am in my shirt and drawers. If I ever get near civilization again, I shall be obliged to lie abed somewhere till I can get some clothes made. I don't wonder the Washington people want to have the campaign go on, and if they would apply a little of the 'go ahead' to the army on the James, would appreciate it still better. Here we know to an absolute certainty that the army is stuck in the mud; but the administration would not believe General Thomas when he told them so, and force him to pretend to move, with the fear of being superseded hanging over him, whilst he knows that any effective movement is impossible. We can ruin our horses and mules, and put half our men in hospitals without getting twenty-five miles from the Tennessee unless the weather changes, and this is all we can do. Hood can laugh at us unless the Mobile and Ohio Railroad can be repaired as we go and be made to furnish us supplies. If this could be done, or if the season would permit us to chase the rebels right into the gulf, I would be perfectly content to stay, and in fact couldn't be coaxed to go home; but knowing what I know, I feel perfectly sure that I might as well be making a biennial visit to my family as not."

On the day after this letter was written General Thomas came up the river with a fleet of transports which we were ordered to take for a movement down instead of up the river. The word spread that we were going to join Sherman, and though this meant journeys by boat, by rail, and by ocean ships, two thousand miles or more, our camps leaped from apathy to enthusiasm, such creatures of circumstance we are! Looking back at the situation, I have to admit that Grant's plan of keeping everything moving was the right one, and that if hopeful energy and enterprise could have combined Canby's movements with ours, and we had all been told that this active co-operation was afoot and would soon take us southward where we would meet the coming spring while Tennessee was still shivering in the winter storms, we should all have caught the spirit of the opportunity and cheered our leaders on. But this impulse in an army must come from the head downward. The trudging columns perfectly know the fatigue, the cold, the mud. They very imperfectly catch the larger view which stimulates to great effort by the hope of great results. In a council of war the division commanders would probably advise delay in sympathy with the hardships of the troops, when the same officers would have sprung with ardor to the work under a brief and strong appeal from a confident leader, presenting the broader reasons for energetic persistent activity. It was this quality of leadership in Sherman which made Grant say to Stanton in December, "It is refreshing to see a commander, after a campaign of more than seven months' duration, ready for still further operations without wanting any outfit or rest." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 264.]

Thomas did not stop at Clifton except to send us his orders, and went on to Eastport, arriving there on the morning of the 15th. From that place he reported that Hood's infantry, much disorganized, was at Tupelo, West Point, and Columbus, Miss. Forrest's cavalry, in similar condition, was about Okolona. Roads were almost impracticable, but the high water in the river made it easy to get supplies to Eastport by the largest steamers. [Footnote: Id., pp. 586, 593. General Schofield does not remember seeing General Thomas in Tennessee after December 25th ("Forty-six Years," p. 276), and this accords with my impression that Thomas did not stop at Clifton long enough for us to visit him.] As to our new movement, Mr. Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, had been intrusted with the supervision of the transfer, and sent west Colonel L. B. Parsons of the Quartermaster's Department to collect a fleet of steam-boats at Louisville for the purpose. [Footnote: Id., pp. 560, 568, 586.] But meanwhile, under Thomas's orders, the fleet of transports had been collected and had come for us, and the troops were joined by Colonel Parsons when they reached the Ohio. He then took charge of the transportation by boat and by rail. [Footnote: Dana's Recollections, pp. 253, 254.] As the transfer would take ten days or more, Schofield arranged to go on in advance to close up business at Louisville and for consultations with Grant and Halleck by telegraph. I went with him to Cairo, where we took railway trains, and I was authorized to go to my home in Ohio to recuperate until he should telegraph me from Washington. The command of the corps en route was given to General Couch. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 588.] As we were leaving the Military Division of the Mississippi, Colonel Doolittle was obliged to give up the command of Reilly's brigade and return to his own regiment. Reilly rejoined the corps after we reached North Carolina. The convalescents of Sherman's army and his recruits were collected in a provisional division under General Thomas Francis Meagher, took steamboats at Nashville, and made part of the same general transfer to the East. There was an amusing coincidence when the brilliant Irish "patriot" telegraphed that his fleet had started, "the Saint Patrick leading the way." [Footnote: Id., pp. 564, 600, 613.] Colonel Wright, Sherman's efficient chief of railway construction, had been ordered, a little earlier, to proceed eastward with one division of the construction corps with the object of joining Sherman at Savannah. [Footnote: Id., p. 393.] Changing circumstances, however, brought him as well as Meagher's division into our column a little later, as will soon appear. In a similar way General S. P. Carter joined us by transfer from duties at Knoxville, [Footnote: Id., p. 620.] and General George S. Greene, of the Twentieth Corps, who had been serving on a court-martial at Washington, was also temporarily attached to our command till he was able to join his own organization, which was with Sherman. [Footnote: Id., p. 623.]

The reduction of Thomas's forces could not have been altogether agreeable to him, though he no doubt preferred it to the continuance of a winter campaign under imperative orders from Washington. He had not ceased to believe that it was better to rest and refit his army till spring;[Footnote: Id., p. 621.] but Grant insisted that he "must make a campaign or spare his surplus troops," and though Thomas was a model of obedience to orders, his continued opposition of opinion, frankly expressed, naturally led to the detachment of our corps. The discussion of the subject between Grant and Halleck clearly stated the reasons which were conclusive. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 609, 610, 614; also vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 101, 859.] Thomas suffered mentally under the pressure and the criticisms of the whole campaign, and we may personally share his pain in sympathy with the noble man, whilst we admit that Grant's views were such as the situation demanded. Those who knew Thomas intimately knew that he was a man of quick feeling if of slow action; and his nature was truthfully described by his quartermaster, Colonel Donaldson (who was an old and intimate friend), in a letter to General Meigs, after a parting interview on the steamboat as Thomas left Nashville for Eastport. "He opened his heart to me," says Donaldson. "He feels very sore at the rumored intentions to relieve him, and the major-generalcy does not cicatrize the wound. You know Thomas is morbidly sensitive, and it cut him to the heart to think that it was contemplated to remove him. He does not blame the Secretary, for he said Mr. Stanton was a fair and just man." [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 561.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLVI. CAMPAIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA--CAPTURE OF WILMINGTON

Rendezvous at Washington--Capture of Fort Fisher--Schofield ordered to North Carolina--Grant and Schofield visit Terry--Department of North Carolina--Army of the Ohio in the field--Correspondence of Grant and Sherman--Sherman conscious of his risks but hopeful of great results--His plan of march from Savannah--Relation of Wilmington to New Berne--Our arrival at Washington--The Potomac frozen--Peace conference at Fort Monroe--Interview with Mr. Stanton--The thirteenth amendment of the Constitution--Political excitement at the capital--A little dinner-party--Garfield, H. W. Davis, and Schenck--Davis on Lincoln--Destination of our army--Embarkation--Steamship "Atlantic"--Visit to Fort Monroe--The sea-voyage--Cape Fear Inlet--General Terry's lines--Bragg the Confederate commander--Reconnoitring his lines--The colored troops--"Monitor" engaged with Fort Anderson--Alternate plans--Marching on Wilmington by the west bank of the river--My column opposite the town--Orders not applicable to the situation--Difficulty of communication--Use of discretion--Wilmington evacuated--A happy result.

On Thursday the 26th of January, 1865, I received a telegram from General Schofield directing me to join my command without delay, and I started from my home in northern Ohio the same evening. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 131.] I had spent a week in a delightful visit with my family after two years of absence from them, and had been rapidly improving in health. The growing faith that the campaign of the winter and spring would end in complete victory for the national arms created an ardent zeal to be about it and to have an active hand in the final scenes. Our orders had indicated Annapolis as our port of rendezvous, and our destination the Army of the Potomac in front of Petersburg. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 529, 586.] On reaching Annapolis Junction in the night of the 28th, I learned that my division was in Washington, and followed it, arriving there in the morning of the 29th. [Footnote: To get an adequate idea of the task of transporting an army corps so great a distance, one should look at Colonel Parsons's report, including 250 dispatches. Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 215-284.]

The change from Annapolis to Washington and Alexandria had been made by Grant upon a suggestion of General Halleck that there was no shelter at Annapolis for such a body of troops, whilst there was enough at the capital. As the winter weather was then severe, this thoughtfulness saved the command much suffering. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 596.] The military situation had also changed materially by the capture of Fort Fisher on the North Carolina coast, on the very day we embarked on the transports at Clifton (January 15th). This capture by the forces under General A. H. Terry was one step in the preparation of a new base for Sherman in his march northward through the Carolinas, and Grant was most anxious that it should be followed by the occupation of Wilmington. His desire to strengthen his own army was made secondary to his determination to make Sherman's movement an assured success. He wrote to Sherman on the 21st that he would send Schofield to Wilmington, if, as was rumored, the fall of that place had followed the capture of Fort Fisher. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 102.] On the 24th he had made up his mind to send Schofield there anyhow, and was going himself to inspect the fort and the situation at the mouth of Cape Fear River. He telegraphed for Schofield to join him on this visit to Terry, and the outline of the new campaign was then arranged. A new department of North Carolina was decided upon, Schofield was to command it, his army in the field to consist of two provisional corps besides the Twenty-third, of which Terry was to command one, and the other for a time fell to me. This field force was to retain our old title of the Army of the Ohio. On Schofield's recommendation the brevet rank of major-general was given to General Ruger, and that of brigadier to Colonel Henderson of the One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois, for services at Franklin. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 121, 179, 190, 201.] Sherman had heard of the fall of Fort Fisher before he broke his communications with Savannah, and was assured of a new base there, even if the line from New Berne to Goldsborough should not be opened.

The correspondence between Sherman and Grant at this time is very characteristic of both men, and throws a bright light on their unselfish friendship and their earnest purpose to bring the war to a successful end without rest or delay. In his letter of the 21st of January, after giving the latest details of his situation, Sherman adds: "I am told that Congress meditates a bill to make another lieutenant-general for me. I have written to John Sherman to stop it if it is designed for me. [Footnote: See Sherman Letters, p. 245.] It would be mischievous, for there are enough rascals who would try to sow differences between us, whereas you and I now are in perfect understanding. I would rather have you in command than anybody else, for you are fair, honest, and have at heart the same purpose that should animate all. I should emphatically decline any commission calculated to bring us into rivalry, and I ask you to advise all your friends in Congress to this effect, especially Mr. Washburne. I doubt if men in Congress fully realize that you and I are honest in our professions of want of ambition. I know that I feel none, and to-day will gladly surrender my position and influence to any other who is better able to wield the power. The flurry attending my recent success will soon blow over and give place to new developments." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 103. In the same letter Sherman referred to the farewell order General Butler had addressed to his troops on being relieved of command. "I am rejoiced that Terry took Fisher," Sherman said, "because it silences Butler, who was to you a dangerous man. His address to his troops on being relieved was a direct, mean, and malicious attack on you, and I admired the patience and skill by which you relieved yourself and the country of him." In the address referred to, Butler had said: "I have been chary of the precious charge confided to me. I have refused to order the useless sacrifice of the lives of such soldiers, and I am relieved from your command. The wasted blood of my men does not stain my garments." (O. R, vol. xlvi. pt. ii. p. 71.) Such a publication made its author liable to court-martial, but Grant took no public notice of it, except to oppose his further assignment to duty. Id., vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 537, 562. See also Sherman to Admiral Porter, Id., p. 104, and Grant to Sherman, Id., p. 859.]

Replying on the 1st of February, Grant said: "I have received your very kind letter, in which you say you would decline, or are opposed to, promotion. No one would be more pleased at your advancement than I, and if you should be placed in my position and I put subordinate, it would not change our relations in the least. I would make the same exertions to support you that you have ever done to support me, and I would do all in my power to make our cause win." [Footnote: Id., p. 193.]

That Sherman knew his campaign in the Carolinas would involve great risks, and had no blind confidence in his fortune, was shown by his reply to the well-known letter of congratulation which President Lincoln sent him upon the surrender of Savannah: [Footnote: Id., vol. xliv. p. 809, and Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 166.] "The motto 'Nothing venture, nothing win,' which you refer to, is most appropriate, and should I venture too much and happen to lose, I shall bespeak your charitable inference." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 18.]

In writing to Grant also, on the 29th of January, in a very full and interesting letter, he said: "I expect Davis will move Heaven and earth to catch me, for success to my column is fatal to his dream of empire. Richmond is not more vital to his cause than Columbia and the heart of South Carolina." [Footnote: Id., p. 155.]

The general plan which he adopted was to threaten both Charleston and Augusta with the wings of his army, keeping the enemy in doubt as to his purpose as long as possible, whilst he pushed his centre rapidly toward Columbia. He had no mind to waste time in serious operations against Charleston, for he knew that it must fall when his advance threatened to cut it off from communication with Richmond. From Columbia he planned to march on Raleigh by way of Goldsborough, the last-named place being connected by railroad with both Wilmington and New Berne, and being therefore the objective of General Schofield's movements from both seaports. Beaufort, the harbor of New Berne, was deeper than the mouth of Cape Fear River, and was therefore to be made the principal base of supply for Sherman when he should enter North Carolina; but Wilmington was so much further south that prudence required it to be first occupied and provisioned to give Sherman temporary supply, if any contingency should make it necessary to him before the railroad from New Berne to Goldsborough could be rebuilt. These subsidiary operations in North Carolina were to be our special task. [Footnote: For connected historical treatment of Sherman's march northward, and of the capture of Fort Fisher, see "March to the Sea," etc., chaps, viii.-xi.: Life of Sherman (Great Commanders' Series), chap. xii.]

On reaching Washington, I found that my troops were just arriving on trains from the West. They were temporarily placed in barracks in the city, till the fleet of transports should be ready. The unusual severity of the winter had frozen the Potomac, and Annapolis was also blocked with ice, so that the quartermaster's department had to wait two or three days for a change of weather, before fixing the point of departure. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 154.] The time passed pleasantly for me, since it gave me the opportunity of renewing old acquaintance with public men, and of observing for myself the spirit which animated political circles at the capital. Mr. Lincoln with Mr. Seward had gone to Fort Monroe to meet Mr. Stephens and others, commissioned by the Richmond government to confer informally as to the possibilities of peace. The Confederate officials were at Grant's headquarters on the 1st of February, "very desirous of going to Washington to see Mr. Lincoln," as the General-in-Chief wrote Sherman incidentally. From his interview with them, Grant was convinced that "the peace feeling within the rebel lines is gaining ground rapidly," but he added, "This, however, should not relax our energies in the least, but should stimulate us to greater activity." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 194.]

Going to pay my respects to Secretary Stanton at the War Department, I was met by him in an exceedingly cordial way, and in parting, after an interesting visit, he congratulated me on my promotion, saying I owed nobody any thanks for it, as it had been fully and fairly won. I owe it to him to mention this, for so much was current about the brusqueness of his intercourse with army officers, that he is entitled to the testimony that, on this as on all other occasions when I met him personally, nothing could be kinder or more considerate than his manner to me.

My visit to Washington happened to include the day on which the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery passed the House. Breakfasting with Chief-Justice Chase, I met also Henry Ward Beecher, and the great historical event was, of course, the central subject of conversation. The forecast by such men of the effect upon the country and upon the world made a blending of solid wisdom with brilliant eloquence not to be forgotten. My friend Governor Dennison was Postmaster-General, and in his house I had full opportunity to judge of the keen, almost feverish interest with which public men and leading citizens were following the rapid march of both military and civil affairs. Coming, as I was, out of the rough winter campaign of the West for a brief halt in the centre of political activity, before sailing to the swamp-lined shores of Carolina, there was something almost unreal, though fascinating, in the contrast of the excitement of the field with the totally different but scarcely less absorbing excitement which I saw in every face.

Garfield arranged a little dinner at which, besides himself, I met General Schenck and Henry Winter Davis, all of them playing leading roles in the House of Representatives. We four were alone, and it was a rare opportunity for me to hear unrestrained discussion of everything in public affairs. Nearly every phase of current political and military events was treated in brilliant and trenchant criticism, and the conversation turned at last upon the peace conference going on at Fort Monroe. Mr. Davis was a Marylander, who was second to none in uncompromising loyalty to the Union, and had an acknowledged pre-eminence in eloquent advocacy of the National cause. He, however, did not understand or appreciate Mr. Lincoln, and in the celebrated "Wade and Davis manifesto" of the previous year, had opposed the re-election of the President. He now let loose in a witty and scathing denunciation of Lincoln and all his works. The current epithets among the President's opponents, of which "baboon" was one of the mildest, were flung at him with a venom that, to me, was half shocking and half comical. The soldier habit of making the Hurrah for Lincoln our answering war-cry to the Hurrah for Davis of our enemies in the field, made a bewildering puzzle of such an outburst. The meeting with the Southern commissioners was denounced as a weak compromising of our cause. He saw no force in the argument that weak hearts among us would be strengthened when they saw that now as upon former overtures the Confederate authorities insisted upon independence as the necessary condition of peace, whilst Mr. Lincoln stood firmly for restoration of the Union and abolition of slavery as the essentials. The curious fact was that such a man, ably busied for four years in political co-operation with the President, living in the same city, in frequent personal contact with him, had utterly failed to measure his character and his intellect, or to get even a glimmering idea of what lay beneath that ungraceful exterior and that quaint and humorous speech. The elegant orator and polished man of the world felt no magnetism but that of repulsion; and his senses were so dulled by it that he never guessed the wisdom and the breadth, the subtle policy and the deep statesmanship, the luminous insight and the unfaltering purpose which now seem writ so plain in Lincoln's words and deeds.

General Schenck did not appear to differ greatly from Davis, but what he said was in short, trenchant sentences, interjected from time to time. Garfield treated the outburst as a sort of extravaganza, and in his position as host did not seriously debate, but rallied his friend with good-humored persiflage, met his outbursts with jovial laughter and prodded him to fresh explosions by shafts of wit. It was a strange and not altogether exhilarating experience for me; but I had afterward to learn that the belittling view of Lincoln was the common one among public men in Washington. The people at a distance got a juster perspective, and knowing him by his written papers and his public acts, divined him better and gave him a loyal support hardly to be distinguished from their devotion to the cause of the country itself. We may fairly conclude that the failure of so many men near the President to understand him is not creditable to their sagacity; but we must also admit that a first impression and a superficial view would in his case be almost surely misleading, and that to correct it would take better opportunities for an intimate study of the man than most public men would have, and most would not care to seek them. The belittling view of men in power fits best our self-esteem.

As soon as General Schofield got back from his trip to Fort Fisher with Grant, he had issued his orders for our movement which was to take place as soon as the ice would permit our transports to enter or leave the harbors on Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac. My own division was to take the lead and sail to Cape Fear River. Couch's would come next and land at Beaufort for operations on the New Berne line. Ruger's (the new troops) would sail last, and find orders at Fort Monroe in going down the bay, deciding whether its destination should be Wilmington or Beaufort. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 135.] Meagher's provisional division of detachments belonging to Sherman's army was temporarily attached to us, for it was too late to join Sherman by way of Savannah. Meagher had ordered it to rendezvous at New York, but Grant changed its destination to Washington with the purpose just stated. Its commander had gone on to New York in advance without any understanding with army headquarters, and the convivial and unsystematic Irishman thereby fell into trouble. [Footnote: Id., pp. 116, 119, 126, 204, 293.]

On Thursday the 2d of February, General Schofield was able to issue his final orders for embarkation. Only vessels enough for two brigades of my division had been able to reach Alexandria, and Casement's brigade was sent by rail to Annapolis to take ship there and to be followed immediately by Meagher's provisional command. [Footnote: Id., p. 213.] Friday was spent in getting troops on board the ships at Annapolis and systematizing their accommodation for the voyage. One of our transports was the "Atlantic," Captain Gray, which, as the crack ship of the Collins Line of New York and Liverpool packets, had led the van of the ocean greyhounds in the days of wooden hulls and side-wheels. General Schofield and myself made our headquarters on this ship. On each of the other vessels the senior officer was made responsible for all the troops on board, and was confidentially authorized, after it should enter Chesapeake Bay, to instruct the master of the ship to make the best of his way to Cape Fear Inlet as the rendezvous for the division. [Footnote: Id., p. 293.] General Grant had asked the War Department to arrange for a patrol of the coast by the navy during the transit of Schofield's little army. [Footnote: Id., p. 284.]

On Saturday the 4th we had expected to start at daybreak, but a heavy fog delayed us. When it lifted, we made our way slowly down the Potomac, the drifting ice obstructing the passage so that we could only go at a snail's pace, backing and filling to keep in the ice openings and to save injury to the vessel. Starting at ten o'clock, we only reached the head of Kettlebottom Shoals by nightfall of the short winter day, making less than twenty miles. The passage of the shoals was too dangerous for so large a vessel in the dark, and we dropped anchor for the night. I had made it my first task on Friday evening to have a complete understanding with Captain Gray, and to get his suggestions as to the orders I desired to issue for the conduct and discipline of the troops while on board ship for which I was responsible. He was a gentleman of ability and large experience in his profession, and co-operated with me so cordially that our week on board the "Atlantic" was a most comfortable one, full of interest and enjoyment, though we met rough weather outside the capes. My order was issued on Saturday and rigidly enforced during the voyage. By Captain Gray's invitation I made my office in his chart-room on the upper deck, enforcing regular tours of duty for officers and men of the division, of whom nearly 2000 were on board. In the intervals, when the captain was not himself on the bridge, we exchanged stories of our very different experiences, and I found his conversation both interesting and instructive. We had besides, of course, the large circle of comrades and old friends in the cabin, and for those who escaped sea-sickness the hours never hung heavy. [Footnote: As the Records do not seem to contain many orders for the conduct of troops on transport ships, I insert that which I made for this voyage. It was, of course, supplemental to the Army Regulations of 1863, chap, xxxvii.

"Special Orders

No. 9.

HEADQUARTERS, THIRD DIV., 23D ARMY CORPS, Steamship Atlantic, February 4, 1865.

The following regulations will be strictly observed by the officers and men of this command during the present voyage:

1. No open lights will be allowed in any part of the ship occupied by troops. The ship's lanterns will be arranged by the officers of the vessel in such a way as to light the decks during the night, and will not be opened or interfered with by the men.

2. No smoking will be allowed in any part of the vessel used for sleeping except the open decks. The men may smoke in the open air upon the upper decks, and the brigade commander will provide for giving proper airing, and opportunity to smoke, to the men quartered below. Officers will smoke, either upon deck or in the smoking-room near the water-closets.

3. The division and brigade commissaries will make arrangements with the steward of the ship for cooking the men's coffee and doing other necessary cooking for the command, and for serving the same out at regular hours.

4. The canteens of the men may be filled with drinking water once each day, the men being marched by companies under their proper officers to the pump in the fore part of the ship for that purpose.

5. The brigade commander, in consultation with the commander of the ship, will arrange for the perfect policing of the quarters, sinks, etc.

6. The starboard side of the upper and main decks abaft of the engine, will be kept clear of men and reserved for the use of officers, both of the command and of the ship, during the day; and such portion of this space as may necessarily be occupied by the men for sleeping at night, will have a passage kept entirely clear for the use of the officers and crew of the vessel in working her at night. No men will at any time be allowed to go upon the roofs of the houses on the upper deck.

7. Proper roll-calls will be established, and the line officers will be strictly required to attend them, and to make close personal inspections daily of the condition of their men, and to be personally in command of them when marched out for water, or coffee, or when on duty.

8. An officer of the day will be daily appointed by the brigade commander, and shall have full charge of the execution of this order, and supervision of all the police arrangements of the command. Proper line officers will be detailed on guard duty, and sentries will be regularly posted at the bulkhead of the ship storeroom on the forward lower deck, at the sinks, over the lights at night, and on the middle line of the decks reserved under paragraph six.

9. The officer of the day, after reporting at brigade headquarters each day, will report to the captain of the ship, in order that the ship's officers may know to whom to apply for any enforcement of these regulations.

By command of Major-General Cox.

(Signed) THEO. Cox, Capt. and Ass't Adj't-General."

Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 303.]

Weighing anchor at daybreak on Sunday morning, we passed Kettle Bottom Shoals safely, and found much more open water in the lower river. The day was mild and calm, and we made good progress to Fort Monroe, where we stopped in the evening to take on board a supply of ammunition. While this work was going on, I took advantage of the opportunity to land in a small boat and pass through the place by moonlight. As one of the largest and most important of the fortresses of the old style, with heavy walls of masonry, casemated, and with regular moat, it was an interesting study to a soldier, and all the more so as we were then in the full heat of the discussion of the relative value of such formal works compared with mere earthworks, of which Fort Fisher, to which we were bound, was a very striking example. It was admitted that modern ordnance could soon knock the walls into a rubbish-heap, but Fort Sumter had raised the supplementary debate, whether the rubbish-heap did not begin a new chapter in the defence, longer and more important than the first period of attack.

As soon as the ammunition was on board and properly stowed, our voyage was resumed, and at daybreak we had passed out of Chesapeake Bay, joining our consorts of the transport fleet near Cape Henry, and were running down the coast along the even line of keys which lie as a breastwork against the Atlantic Ocean outside of the much indented coast proper of North Carolina. The wind was moderate and off shore, so that Captain Gray laid his course straight for Cape Hatteras, with only offing enough to keep in a good depth of water,--say fifteen or twenty miles. At intervals during the day we could see isolated clumps of pine-trees rising out of the water, like low-lying, blue clouds, so that we could hardly say that we were wholly out of sight of land. We passed Cape Hatteras late in the afternoon, about sunset, and as the coast now trends much more to the westward, with concave lines from Hatteras to Cape Lookout (near Beaufort), and from Lookout to Cape Fear, our course took us farther out to sea. I woke on Tuesday morning to find the ship pitching heavily and heavy rain sounding loud on the deck over my head, driven by gusts of wind. Doubts as to the reliability of my "sea legs" made me prudently keep my berth till about ten o'clock, when I went on deck to find a [Illustration: [map of south-central North Carolina at the South Carolina border]] dense fog and a high running sea. The rain had ceased, but the succeeding fog was a worse obstacle to navigation. We were nearly at our destination, and were feeling our way slowly along. My "doubts" vanished in the fresh air, and the bit of real seafaring was exhilarating. Most of the cabin passengers, however, failed to show themselves on deck, and the soldiers and officers whom duty kept there did not all enjoy it greatly. The recruiting regulations, just then, allowed transfers to the gunboat service of soldiers who had any experience even in inland navigation, and the impulse to change had made the subject a "burning question," even while we were in the West The inveterate practical jokers now had their opportunity, and a man leaning uneasily over the lee rail was sure to be offered the chance to enlist in the navy, with glowing eulogies of its superior comfort compared with marching in the mud. In the middle of the afternoon we dropped anchor in nine fathoms, but toward evening the fog lifted, and we ran further in, anchoring in seven fathoms, about a mile off the shore. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 927.] Fort Fisher was abreast of us, on Federal Point, its big parapet looking like a long, low hill, with knobs upon it, rising from the beach of glittering white sand against a background of the pine forest. Admiral Porter's fleet lay at their moorings all around us, a few of the lighter vessels having crossed the bar and run into the mouth of Cape Fear River behind the fort, where the river channel was nearly parallel to the sea beach and less than a mile from it. We were at New Inlet, between Federal Point and Smith Island, or rather the long, narrow key which runs northward from the island. Cape Fear is the sharp southern point of Smith Island, some seven miles south of where we lay, and the old entrance was south and west of the cape, between the island and the mainland. [Footnote: See official Atlas, pl. cxxxix.]

The landing of the troops was a difficult task, for the roughness of the sea made it impossible for another vessel to lie alongside the transports, and we had to resort to the slow and somewhat dangerous method of transferring the men from the ships to a light-draft steamer in the ship's small boats. A little wharf was on the inner side of Federal Point, but there the water was so shallow that even the light-draft propeller could not get to the wharf, and another transfer had to be made. Crossing the bar could only be done at high water or near it, and the time for work was consequently so much shortened that the whole of the 8th and 9th was used in landing the division. At sunset of the 9th the sea went down enough for the propeller to come alongside; the headquarters tents and baggage were transferred to her, and we took leave of the good ship "Atlantic." By the time this transfer was made, the tide was too low to let us pass in over the bar, and we had to pass the night on the dirty propeller, lying outside till eight o'clock of Friday the 10th, when we ran in at high tide, and after the second transfer resumed our character of land forces on the sandy shore of North Carolina. All the saddle horses of the command were, however, upon a freight ship that did not arrive for several days, and mounted officers who had lived in the saddle for years found it slow and tiresome work to wade on foot through the soft sands in the performance of military duty.

General Terry with his forces was holding a line across Federal Point about two miles above Fort Fisher, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 910.] and I directed my own troops to encamp a little in rear of Terry's line. My own quartermaster arranged with the chief of that department on the ground to send our headquarters tents and baggage with the division. Meanwhile, taking the little river steamboat which had made our final transfer to the shore, I visited General Schofield, who had his headquarters temporarily on the steamer "Spaulding," assigned to the medical department for hospital use, but which at the time had no sick or wounded on board. Like myself, he was for the nonce dismounted, and as he was contemplating movements up both sides of Cape Fear River, some means of ready communication with both banks was a necessity. With him I visited Admiral Porter on the flag-ship "Malvern," and a movement for next day, the 11th, was arranged. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 927.]

General Bragg was in command of the Confederate Department of North Carolina, to which he was assigned when General Lee, being made by law general-in-chief of the army, superseded him in the similar duties he had been performing by appointment of President Davis. Bragg's headquarters were at Wilmington. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1088, 1099.] Hoke's division was mostly in intrenchments across Federal Point about four miles above Fort Fisher, his right resting at Sugar-loaf Hill on the left bank of the river, and his left near the lower end of Myrtle Sound. Opposite Sugar-loaf, at Old Brunswick, was Fort Anderson, a strong earthwork with ten pieces of heavy ordnance, garrisoned by General Hagood with his brigade of two thousand men. [Footnote: Official Atlas, pl. cxxxii.; Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 911, 1077.] The channel of the river was obstructed by torpedoes and other defensive devices. The enemy's fortifications on Smith Island and near Smithville had been abandoned when Fort Fisher fell, opening the way into the river above them.

On board the "Malvern" it was arranged that a monitor and other vessels of the fleet which could cross the bar should ascend the river and engage Fort Anderson, whilst Terry's troops, supported by my division, should make a strong reconnoissance of Hoke's lines and, if they were found to be strongly held, establish counter lines near them, so that most of the forces could then be used for flanking operations. [Footnote: Id., p. 958.] Returning to my command, I found it encamped as had been ordered, and our headquarters tents in comfortable shape by the zealous labors of our servants aided by the headquarters guard. General Terry kindly sent over four horses as a mount for myself and my most necessary staff officers in the movement to begin in the morning. One of the first questions a soldier asks in regard to his camping-place is, Where is water to be got? One's first impression would be that on this flat tongue of sand covered only with a sparse growth of pines and scrub live-oak, with the ocean on one side and a tidal river on the other, fresh water would be scarce and brackish. But we were agreeably disappointed to find that near us, in the middle of the sands, was a juniper swamp and pond of which the water was sweet and wholesome, though from the juniper roots it had the bright brown color of coffee.

On the 11th the movement was made as planned. Hoke's outposts and pickets were driven from their rifle-pits, and his main line at Sugar-loaf well reconnoitred. Terry's new line was established within small-arm range of the enemy and intrenched so that Hoke might be obliged to hold his own position in force. In the advance I was much interested in observing the conduct of the colored troops in General Paine's division, for I had never before seen them in action. They were well disciplined and well led, and went forward with alacrity in capital form, showing that they were good soldiers. I rode well forward purposely to watch their skirmishers, and was greatly pleased to see the pace they took and the lively way in which they followed up the Confederate outposts when once these were started.

When the new position was taken up, I went to the river bank, and there, from a sand breastwork so white that it looked like a snow-drift, I watched with my field-glass a duel between the monitor "Montauk" and Fort Anderson. The monitor, which lay about a mile from the fort, was of the original single-turret form, armed with the large-calibre smooth-bores, which were fired with great deliberation and with surprising accuracy. I could not see how any rifled guns could have improved on their practice. The conical shot would, of course, have excelled in penetrating power and in range, but the big round shells seemed to be put just where the gunners wished. A group of men stood on the deck of the monitor behind the turret, and they frequently came out from its cover to watch the effect of the firing, having time to step back again, between the flash of the enemy's gun and the passing of the shot. The deck of the monitor, being almost awash, was no mark at all for the artillerists in the fort, and it would be the merest chance if a ricochet shot struck it. If it did, the very low angle of impact made it fly off without doing any harm. The turret was dented with some centre shots, as I saw when I visited the vessel later, but it was practically impregnable to the ordnance the Confederates used. On the other hand, the direct fire from the ship was limited in its effect to the displacement of earth on the parapet or the knocking away of the cheeks of the embrasures. The body of the garrison was kept out of range, and the artillerists were so close to the rampart that when shells exploded over them, the fragments flew beyond and there were few casualties.

General Terry was left to hold the new line established in face of Hoke with Paine's division and Abbott's brigade, whilst my division and Ames's (of Terry's command) were marched back to camp near Fort Fisher. Schofield's own idea had been to send me with my own and Ames's divisions across the river to operate against Fort Anderson by the west bank and, by taking it, force the enemy to evacuate the Sugar-loaf position opposite. By thus concentrating on the bank most weakly held, we would by a sort of see-saw work them back till they must give up Wilmington or fight for it in the open. I was directed to be ready to cross the river on the 12th, but the order was countermanded, and it was determined to try a plan which would avoid the necessity of dividing the forces on the two sides of a large river. Colonel Comstock of Grant's staff, who had accompanied Terry as engineer in the taking of Fort Fisher [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. ii. p. 30.] and who was still with us, had made a reconnoissance up the coast on the 11th, and found at Big Hill, three miles south of Masonboro Inlet, a position from which it seemed practicable to cover the collection and launching of enough pontoon boats to ferry a column of troops across Myrtle Sound. If this could be done with secrecy and speed till enough were over to make head against the enemy while the rest were crossing, Hoke's position would be turned and he would have to fall back upon more open country, where our whole force could be manoeuvred against him.

On Comstock's suggestion Schofield determined to try the plan, which was a promising one if winds and waves would permit. The navy was to tow the boats to the place of rendezvous with a body of engineer troops under Comstock's orders, whilst Schofield led Ames's and my divisions by the shore. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 403,404.] The movement was made after dark on the evening of the 12th, but the bad weather had hardened down into a regular northeaster, and it proved impossible to tow the pontoon boats through the heavy sea. After a night of severe exposure we returned to camp to find many of our tents flattened by the gale. After a day's rest the effort was renewed on the 14th, but as the admiral reported that the sea was too rough for even the smaller steamers to go outside, the plan was modified so as to try drawing the boats on their trucks, though the number of our draft animals was as yet very small. [Footnote: Id., pp. 426, 427.] What with the heavy surf on the beach and the deep, soft sand beyond it, the weak teams could not pull the trucks far, and gave out before we reached the chosen position. As we turned back after midnight the moon was just rising, and the scene was a wild one, with the flying clouds and the foaming waves silvered by the moonlight; but the rarest sight was, just as half the moon's great disk was above the horizon, a ship of war stood against it, exactly framed in the semicircle of light as if drawn in black on the silver surface. The plan was an interesting one and would probably have succeeded in favorable weather, but the winter storm forbade. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 437.]

Then came the resumption of the original purpose, and I was assigned to command the column advancing from Smithville up the other bank of the river. One brigade of Couch's division (Moore's) had arrived, and it was ordered to report to me. Ames's division was also in the column till Fort Anderson was evacuated in the night of the 18th, when it rejoined Terry and I moved on against the Confederate position at Town Creek. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 960; pt. ii. pp. 492, 493.] Ferrying the unfordable stream, Hagood's brigade was attacked and routed on the 20th, capturing two cannon and nearly 400 prisoners, including Colonel Simonton the commandant, Hagood himself having gone to Wilmington. [Footnote: Id., pp. 495, 509.] On the 21st we pressed on to Brunswick Ferry, and saved part of the pontoon bridge there which the enemy had not been able to destroy completely. An advance-guard was got over on Eagle Island, the large swampy island lying in front of Wilmington, where the remnant of Hagood's brigade held the narrow causeway. Bragg had been to Richmond on an official visit, but was back at Wilmington and saw that the time to evacuate had come. The naval stores were set on fare, and the dense black pillars of smoke from the warehouses of resin and turpentine told us the story. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1241-1245.]

My route from Town Creek around Mcllhenny's mill-pond to Brunswick Ferry had taken me some three miles back from the river, and the broad swamps and rice-fields intervening made communication with General Schofield on the "Spaulding," very slow and difficult. [Footnote: Official Atlas, pl. cxxxii.] The sequel well illustrates the importance of complete confidence on the part of a subordinate that his chief will sanction and heartily approve the use of full discretion in circumstances where quick and full intercourse is impossible. By long service with General Schofield, I knew that he was no martinet, snubbing any independence of action, but an officer of sound and calm judgment, fairly considering the reasons we might have for any departure from the letter of an order. General Terry's troops were facing the greater part of Hoke's division in a position nearly opposite the mouth of Town Creek, and were meeting with stubborn resistance. It was known that Hardee's command, having evacuated Charleston, was moving northward to unite with the Confederates in North Carolina, and it was supposed to aim at reaching Wilmington. There were rumors that he had already joined Bragg.

In these circumstances General Schofield had said to me, by a dispatch in the morning, "If you can destroy the bridge over Brunswick River or break the railroad to-day, do so, but be ready to cross the river early this evening near the mouth of Town Creek." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 520] Early in the afternoon I reported progress, saying: "My head of column reached this place [Brunswick Ferry] about one o'clock. The rebels had partially destroyed their pontoon bridge, but from the creek I got several boats, and have put a regiment over on the island. They got most of the way across, when the enemy opened with one gun, commanding the straight road. As the rest of the island seems impracticably swampy, this checked our reconnoissance; but there can be little doubt the rebels are evacuating. They have made immense fires, the smoke of which you must have seen, indicating that they are destroying turpentine, etc. A few skirmishers were on the opposite side of Brunswick River when we reached it, but they ran at once. The enemy has destroyed all flatboats within reach, but I may hunt some up. I am pushing a reconnoissance further up the river, by way of threatening to cross above the island, and so hasten their movements. I shall put my command in position covering the crossing and the Georgetown road, and watch the movements, in the town. The railroad bridge across Brunswick River is partially destroyed, and we hear the cars on the other side of the town from here. I cannot doubt that General Terry will have an open road in the morning, and think from the general indications that I am entirely secure here. I will face in all directions and get all the intelligence I can, while awaiting orders. There is no railroad or other bridge over Cape Fear River." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 521.]

Whilst this report was on the road to Schofield, a messenger who left the general about noon was slowly working his way to me, bearing this message: "My last report from General Terry indicates that he will not be able to force the enemy back from the position held by him last evening. General Terry thinks Hoke has his whole force in his front. It will therefore be necessary to transfer your troops to the east bank of the river to-night. The men will be put across in small boats near the mouth of Town Creek, unless Terry succeeds in effecting a lodgment higher up. In the latter event I will signal you. Otherwise move your troops to the mouth of Town Creek without further orders. Let your artillery and animals go down to Fort Anderson. I will have them sent from that place by steamers to Federal Point this evening. If you can destroy the bridges over Brunswick River to-day, do so; but in any event be ready to commence crossing the river by dusk or earlier, if practicable. You might perhaps send back a brigade or two while the others are doing the work." [Footnote: Ibid.]

At six o'clock, in the dusk of the evening, this letter reached me, and I instantly replied: "Your dispatch directing movement is only just received, the messenger having lost his way. As I am eight miles from the mouth of Town Creek, and it is already dark, your directions cannot be literally followed, and the circumstances impress me so strongly with the belief that the enemy are about to evacuate Wilmington to-night that I venture to send one brigade now and wait further orders before withdrawing all. It will take all night to get the whole command to Town Creek, and it seems impossible to cross them all, beginning at an hour so much later than you anticipated when sending the dispatch. Some engineers on the railroad who have come into my lines, several other citizens, and a number of slaves, all agree in reporting the intention of evacuating immediately. The destruction of immense quantities of property since I came up this evening looks the same way. I have collected and repaired nearly all of the pontoons and materials of the bridge, and had begun relaying them when your dispatch came. I cannot retire my own force now without it appearing a retreat. I would be entirely willing to stay here with one brigade, and should feel quite confident that I could at any time bring it off safely, if we remained here several days even. Thinking you would not desire more troops at Town Creek than you can cross to-night, I ... think it right to send the one brigade, and if more can cross, I can still send them, so as to be not much behind the others if the messenger makes reasonable haste. I believe I mentioned in a former dispatch that the rebels themselves destroyed the Brunswick River railroad bridge." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 522.]

The orderly who reached me had been landed from a small boat and made his way to me on foot, and as he had eight or nine miles to walk by a wretched road, it was not strange that he was late in reaching me. Giving him his supper whilst I wrote my dispatch, I then mounted him on a horse, and sent with him another mounted man to bring the return message. My first messenger had tried to reach the river through the swamps at several points, but had not succeeded in getting within hailing distance of any vessels in the stream. He happened, however, to fall in with the second messengers in his wanderings, and was now taken to the place where a small boat was to be sent, and so it happened that both my dispatches reached Schofield together, but not till about half-past ten. Meanwhile, the general having heard nothing whatever from me, and getting unfavorable reports from Terry, wrote me again at a quarter-past seven.

He said: "My orderlies and your signal officer seem to have got lost, and I have heard nothing from you since 10.30 A. M. I sent an order to you by an orderly on foot about noon, but do not feel at all certain that it has reached you. I want you to move back abreast of the fleet, just above the mouth of Town Creek, to-night, and be ready to cross the river at dawn of day in the morning. Send all your wagons and horses to Fort Anderson. The men will cross in small boats. Better send a regiment with your wagons, horses, and artillery. Should the enemy be in force in your front, it might be necessary to cross Town Creek before crossing the river. About this, act according to your judgment. I intended you to cross the river to-night, but it is now too late." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 522.]

But whilst this last orderly was on his dark and weary way to me, my two dispatches finally got through, and at 10.20 Schofield wrote me from the cabin of the "Spaulding" as follows: "Your dispatch of 6 P.M. is just received, and is highly satisfactory. The one of an earlier date, but the hour not given, came at the same time. About seven o'clock I sent another to you directing you to come back. I hope this will reach you in time to take its place. My orders were based on General Terry's report of an increase of the force in his front, and that of prisoners that Hardee's forces had arrived from Charleston. I think you would certainly have learned it if the latter were true That you have sent one brigade back is well. You may send another as soon as you get this dispatch. Keep the other two where you are until daylight in the morning. Then, if the rebels have gone, you can enter the town, taking care to hold the river crossings. If the enemy has not gone, or you are not positive that he is going, then move back and cross the river as before directed." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvit. pt. ii. p. 522.]

Immediately after this, Schofield wrote me another dispatch, briefer, but of the same general purport. [Footnote: Id., p. 523.] It was probably sent by way of precaution, in case any accident happened to the bearer of the other. Arrangements had been made to get over some horsemen so as to speed these dispatches, and they came through to me by midnight. But meanwhile my perplexity as to my duty was intensified. I had put over the Sixteenth Kentucky upon Eagle Island, and made them throw up a breastwork across the cause-way facing that of the enemy, which was near the main channel of Cape Fear River. They were exploring the swamps, seeking information and preparing to force the position in the morning. My confidence in my forecast was such that I did not cease work on the repair of the pontoons, and had the crossing ready for use late in the evening, but awaited further orders with great anxiety. At 11.45, however, came the order dated at 7.15, reiterating the direction to withdraw. Moore's brigade had gone under the first order, Henderson's was waiting ready to march, and I started it for Town Creek. [Footnote: Id., p. 524.] Reilly's (Colonel Sterl in command) began to follow. The march in a dark night made it proper to leave reasonable intervals between the brigades, and I was still waiting with Casement's brigade, and had not destroyed the pontoon bridge, when, at midnight, I got Schofield's dispatch of 10.20, which had come through in less than half the time other messages had taken, under his eager orders to force the horses through at speed. I at once recalled Sterl, and with great satisfaction wrote to the General, "Your dispatch of 10.20 received in time to stop two brigades. Henderson's and Moore's have gone forward and will report at the river above Town Creek. I will inform you of any changes in the morning. The railroad employes who came in to me informed me positively that Hardee's troops had not come here." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 523.] My outpost on the island was replaced, and before day dawned we knew that the last of the enemy had disappeared from our immediate front and that Wilmington was evacuated. Bragg had carefully removed all boats from our side of the channel, but citizens anxious to prevent us from firing on the town came over in skiffs, and we learned that the Confederate forces had marched away toward Goldsborough, leaving the way open for Terry's march into the city, which took place in the early morning of the 22d, which we were happy to recall was Washington's Birthday.

It has seemed worth while to give the correspondence at such length, because it well illustrates the difficulties under which officers must labor in war, and the necessity for a good deal of freedom of action and of discretion in deciding upon his course, when the commander of a detached column finds his communication with headquarters obstructed and retarded by accidental circumstances. Had General Schofield's methods been rigid in requiring literal obedience, my command would have abandoned the advantages we had gained, and the campaign might have taken quite another turn. My complete confidence in the liberality of his judgment when the facts should be all known, encouraged me to a course which would otherwise have been impossible. [Footnote: In 1870 Moltke had adopted the wise rule of leaving to subordinates of the higher grades very large discretion, and to avoid trammelling them by detailed orders or by prematurely communicated plans. "The very lack of instructions gave them liberty and imposed on them the duty of acting on their own responsibility, in case unforeseen events should require such prompt action that orders from the Supreme Commander could not be waited for." (Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Strategy, vol. i. p. 324.) It was even looked upon as "an unwarranted censure" on the subordinate "if anything was enjoined unnecessarily," or which was within the proper knowledge and discretion of the officer. Id., vol. ii. p. 39.] There was with me a very efficient squad of the Signal Corps, under Lieutenant Ketchum, which had kept up flag communication with the "Spaulding" and across the river in our advance from Smithville to Town Creek, but when we advanced to Brunswick Ferry, Mr. Ketchum found it impossible, on account of the course of Brunswick River and the dense woods upon the banks, to establish any station from which he could communicate with any of the vessels in the river below, or with General Terry on the east bank of the Cape Fear. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 915, 916.] This threw us unexpectedly upon messengers as the only go-betweens, and led to the embarrassments which have been described.

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Chapter XLVII

THE CONFEDERACY IN STRAITS--JOHNSTON COMMANDS IN THE CAROLINAS--OUR OPERATIONS FROM NEW BERNE--BATTLE OF KINSTON

The Confederates lose Charleston and Columbia--Facing a crisis--Hopeless apathy of Southern people--Mr. Davis's perplexity--Beauregard startles him--Lee calls Johnston to command--Personal relations of leading officers--Dwindling armies--The cavalry--Assignments of generals--The Beaufort and New Berne line--Am ordered to New Berne--Provisional corps--Advance to cover railway building--Dover and Gum swamps--Bragg concentrates to oppose us--Position near Kinston--Bragg's plan of attack--Our own movements--Condition of railroad and river--Our advance to Wise's Forks and Southwest Creek--Precautions--Conference with Schofield--Battle of Kinston--Enemy attack our left front--Rout of Upham's brigade--Main line firm--Ruger's division reaches the field--Enemy repulsed--End of first day's fight--Extending our trenches on the left--Sharp skirmishing of the 9th--Bragg's reinforcements--His attack of the both--Final repulse and retreat of the enemy.

Upon our occupation of Wilmington, Bragg retreated northward along the line of the railroad toward Goldsborough, which was the crossing of the Wilmington and Weldon Railway with that from New Berne to Raleigh. Sherman had captured the capital of South Carolina, and in his movement northward his left wing had followed the railroad from Columbia toward Charlotte, N. C, as far as Winnsborough, forty miles, for the purpose of making a permanent break in that line of communication before turning his columns eastward toward Cheraw and Fayetteville on his way to Goldsborough, the rendezvous he had fixed for his junction with Schofield's army. Beauregard, whose command now included South Carolina, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1202, 1204.] had moved with the forces under his immediate command from Augusta, through Columbia to Charlotte, and was calling to him all the Confederate troops operating against Sherman. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1193, 1202, 1217, 1238.] On the 14th of February he had ordered Hardee to evacuate Charleston, and the unwelcome proof that South Carolina was lost so alarmed Mr. Davis that he urged Hardee to hold on as long as possible. But both Lee and Beauregard became uneasy lest Hardee should be caught before he could join the rest, and despite Mr. Davis's bitter disappointment, the evacuation was made in the night of the 17th, Hardee being sick abed for a few days, and turning over the command to General McLaws. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1177, 1181, 1195, 1201-1202, 1204, 1223, 1258.]

The loss of Charleston, the original cradle of secession, seemed a portent to the people of the South, and well-nigh destroyed all hope. Governor Magrath of South Carolina had written Mr. Davis, a month before, that the fate of the Confederacy was involved in the early movements of Sherman's march from Savannah, and that he was in earnest correspondence with the Governors of North Carolina and Georgia, urging extraordinary efforts. "Richmond will surely fall when Charleston is lost," he said, adding emphatically, "To retain Richmond until Charleston is lost is to sacrifice both." [Footnote: Id., p. 1035.] Davis was not blind to the consequences, or to the nature of the crisis. A week before Magrath's letter was written, the Confederate President had sent a dispatch to Governor Brown of Georgia, declaring the absolute necessity of making Hardee strong enough to stop Sherman on the line of the Combahee, which he rightly said was stronger than any position that could be occupied further north. He ended with the appeal, "We must look forward, and leave discussions of the past to a more convenient season." [Footnote: Id., p. 1016.] Governor Vance of North Carolina issued a proclamation powerfully appealing to his people for a final rally, using the failure of the recent peace conference at Fort Monroe as proof that there was only subjugation offered us, the mere details of which they [Lincoln and Seward] proposed to settle. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1189.] But the whole South was already in apathetic despair under the conviction of their helplessness to check the triumphant march of Sherman's 60,000 veterans or prevent his junction with Schofield's 30,000. Instead of growing by an enthusiastic rally of the old men and the boys, the Southern army was dwindling by steady small streams of deserters, no longer able to repress the impulse to go to their helpless families within the Union lines. [Footnote: Lee to Vance, Id., p. 1270.] The appeals of the governors produced no result, or only called out responses in the press, never ventured before, saying the desperate efforts had already been made, the physical power of the States was exhausted, it was vain to talk of independence, it was time to make real overtures for peace. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1250-1255.]

The military outlook for the South was certainly gloomy enough. Distrusting Beauregard's ability to deal with his perplexing problem, Mr. Davis had asked Lee (on the 19th) whether it was possible for him to get away from Petersburg long enough to go to Beauregard and advise him after a personal conference. [Footnote: Id., p. 1222.] But Lee could not leave his post for a moment with any confidence that Grant's iron grip would not crush the defences of Petersburg and bring the final struggle. Davis became still more troubled when, on the 21st, Beauregard sent him a dispatch indicating his belief that Lee must join him at Salisbury with part of his forces, say 20,000 men, give Sherman battle there," crush him, then to concentrate all forces against Grant, and then to march on Washington to dictate a peace." Beauregard's evident opinion that he was wholly unable to cope with Sherman was much more depressing than his light-hearted suggestion of marching on Washington to dictate a peace was inspiring. Davis sent it to Lee, saying it was "of a startling character," and urged that the General-in-Chief should direct the concentration of the forces in the Carolinas. He sent also General Gilmer, his chief of engineers, to Beauregard to examine the situation, to advise with him and report. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1229, 1237, 1238.]

In this condition of affairs, Beauregard's retreat into North Carolina, where Bragg commanded and was senior in rank, made a new complication; whilst the fall of Wilmington and the danger of Hardee's being cut off before he could unite with the Confederate forces trying to resist Sherman, made a climax of embarrassments which imperatively required the appointment of some one to command in chief in the Carolinas. The same current of opinion in the Confederate Congress which had resulted in Lee's assignment by law (February 9th) [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 1.] to command all the Confederate armies, indicated General Johnston for the post second in importance. Indeed, the knowledge of Mr. Davis's determination not to intrust Johnston with another army in the field entered into the motives for taking the military command out of the President's hands, for it was understood that Lee believed Johnston to be the man best fitted for the second place. Action could be no longer delayed, and the very day of our occupation of Wilmington, Lee telegraphed to Johnston to assume command, concentrate all available forces, and drive back Sherman. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 1247.] For the moment Bragg was not directed to report to Johnston, but consideration for the unpleasant personal relations between them since the Atlanta campaign could not stand long in the way. Beauregard accepted loyally his subordination to Johnston, and, his health not being very strong, was assigned at his own request to administrative duties at Raleigh, including the collection and forwarding of troops, their supply in the field and the management of the relations to the civil authorities of North Carolina, with nominal position of second in command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1248, 1399.]

Johnston had been at Lincolnton, N. C., when notified of his appointment, and in accepting the call to duty, gave his opinion that it was too late to concentrate troops enough to drive back Sherman. He promised, however, to learn from Beauregard the actual situation, and to do all in his power to collect the army and resist Sherman's advance. [Footnote: Id., p. 1047.] He met Beauregard at Charlotte, and on the 25th of February assumed command. As to his means of resistance, the returns show a significant dwindling in each of his corps. Hardee had reported, on January 20th, 25,290 present for duty in his department. [Footnote: Id., p. 1032.] Hood's army at Tupelo, at the same date, returned 18,708 infantry and artillery, which were soon nearly all in motion for the Carolinas. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 664. General Taylor volunteered to send the whole to Beauregard except French's division, which he said was very weak. Some Mississippi troops were given a short furlough, others took "French leave" (Id., vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1059, 1174, 1194), and delays in transportation occurred, so that it is very hard to say how many of the Army of Tennessee were actually in the final combats in North Carolina. They all seem to have gathered there before the final surrender at Greensborough.] Bragg's return for his command in North Carolina on February 10th was 11,206. [Footnote: Id., p. 1154.] Besides these, there were some militia from Georgia and South Carolina estimated at 1450, [Footnote: Id., p. 1084.] and Butler's division of cavalry, more than 3000 strong, had been sent from Lee's army in Virginia. [Footnote: Ibid.] Here were, then, between 55,000 and 60,000 men apparently available to oppose Sherman, and making a larger army than the Confederate generals attributed to him when he started from Savannah. [Footnote: When Beauregard took command of the forces in South Carolina, etc., on February 16th, he reckoned them at "about 20,000 effective infantry and artillery, more or less demoralized," and said of Sherman's army that it numbered "nearly double our force." (Dispatch to Lee, Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1202.) This would make Sherman about 40,000 strong. Beauregard's underestimate of his own force is in accordance with the common habit of officers who are somewhat discouraged and wish to be reinforced.] It was not strange, therefore, that when, at a conference of Beauregard with Hardee and others in Augusta on February 3d, the troops relied on for the campaign were estimated at 33,450, [Footnote: Id., p. 1084.] Mr. Davis noted by his indorsement on the paper that the previous returns showed a larger force present for duty. [Footnote: Id., p. 1086.] He however added that the language "relied on as effectives" might account for the difference. But when on the 21st Beauregard, in the dispatch proposing that Lee should send part of his army to Salisbury, N. C., said, "Hardee and myself can collect about 15,000 exclusive of Cheatham and Stewart, not likely to reach in time," [Footnote: Id., p. 1238.] the startling effect on the Confederate President was the most natural thing in the world. Armies seemed to vanish in thin air.

On taking command, Johnston had accepted his predecessor's estimates of both his own forces and those of Sherman. From Charlotte, N. C., he wrote Lee that his opponent now seemed to be moving eastward, aiming at Fayetteville. This place he thought he might make the point of concentration for Hardee's troops, coming from Charleston to Cheraw by railroad, and those with Beauregard, which were in the main the divisions of Hood's army, coming forward piecemeal, and now amounting to something over 9000 men. He suggested that Bragg should join him at Fayetteville also. [Footnote: Id., p. 1271. At the end of February, the portions of S. D. Lee's corps which had joined Beauregard had 2502 present for duty, Cheatham's 4697, Stewart's 1694, Engineers 185; total, 9078. (Id., pp. 1285, 1326.) The rest of the Army of Tennessee were still in Georgia on their way to the front.] The Confederate cavalry was now led by Wade Hampton, who was made lieutenant-general to outrank Wheeler, who was not regarded equal to the responsibility. The latter retained two divisions, and the rank of corps commander under Hampton. [Footnote: The complaints of marauding by Wheeler's cavalry had been loud and bitter, and inefficiency was charged. D. H. Hill to Hardee, Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1046; Do. to Iverson, pp. 1047, 1068; Beauregard to Lee, p. 1165; Davis to Hampton, 1207. For Wheeler's earnest defence, see Id., pp. 987, 1004.] As soon as it was evident that Sherman was likely to reach the North Carolina border, Johnston was authorized to control Bragg's operations also. [Footnote: Id., p. 1320.] This was, of course, a personal grief to the latter, who asked to be relieved; but in the critical condition of affairs personal feelings had to give way, and Bragg's request went unanswered. [Footnote: Id., p. 1328.] He did not insist upon it and gave loyal support to Johnston. General D. H. Hill had been sent from Virginia to report to Beauregard, and was commanding at Augusta, Ga., when Sherman's march eastward from Columbia relieved Augusta from danger, and Hill at his own request was ordered to join Beauregard. S. D. Lee was absent from his corps by reason of a wound he had received at Nashville, and Hill was assigned to its temporary command. [Footnote: Id., pp. 1002, 1003, 1272, 1317.] The growing decay of discipline and organization was shown by the irregularity of reports, and for the few weeks the war still went on, Johnston had to content himself with abbreviated returns, which contained only the numbers of effectives and aggregates present. [Footnote: Id., p. 1382.] Even these were not regularly sent up, and could not be made to agree with the lists of paroles when the surrender finally occurred. [Footnote: See chap. li. post.]

Upon our occupation of Wilmington, Schofield turned his attention at once to the opening, of the line from Beaufort and New Berne to Kinston and Goldsborough. Terry's troops were sent to follow Bragg northward. Couch's division of the Twenty-third Corps joined mine at Wilmington. Meagher's provisional command of detachments of Sherman's army had reached New Berne; but its commander had given such dissatisfaction by his failure to remain with it and conduct its shipment from Annapolis, that Grant directed that he should be relieved and sent home. Such had been the result of a spicy correspondence between Grant and Halleck which called up poor Meagher's notorious failings. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 305-306, 316-318, 501, 509, 561.] Schofield had asked for the assignment of Terry to a corps to comprise the troops in the department not belonging to the Twenty-third Corps, and of myself to the permanent command of the latter corps;[Footnote: Id., p. 559.] but, pending action on this, he determined to send me to New Berne to take command of the so-called District of Beaufort and the troops assembling there, which would constitute three divisions. [Footnote: Id., pp. 579, 580.] General Palmer, who had been there for a long time, coming in the small steamer "Escort" to visit Schofield and consult concerning the advance from that base, I went back with him, and was accompanied by General Carter, whose coming from Tennessee has already been mentioned and who was to supersede Meagher. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. pp. 930, 931.] As my assignment to this duty was intended to be temporary, I took only part of my staff with me, and assigned General Reilly, who had now joined us, to the temporary command of the division. General Couch was assigned to command the two divisions of our corps which were at Wilmington. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 581, 607, 620.] A storm delayed the departure of the "Escort" from Cape Fear Inlet, but we reached New Berne in the evening of the last day of February. Next day I formally assumed command and organized the forces, distributing the garrison troops and Meagher's men between the two divisions to be commanded by Palmer and Carter, but keeping Ruger's division of the Twenty-third Corps intact. This last had been sent direct to Beaufort and arrived there about the same time with myself. It had not been with us on the Cape Fear River. An immediate advance was ordered for the 2d of March, to cover the work of railroad building. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 607, 620, 637, 638.]

Colonel Wright, chief of railway construction, had joined Sherman at Savannah, and from thence had been sent to Schofield to rebuild the New Berne-Goldsborough road under his directions. [Footnote: Id., pp. 157, 356, 384.] Palmer's forces occupied a position at Batchelder's Creek, nine miles above New Berne on the road to Kinston, and the railroad building began there. Had we been well provided with wagon-trains, it would have been easy to march at once to Kinston, on the left bank of the Neuse, a little over thirty miles from Newberne, and hold that place whilst the railroad was built, obstructions removed from the river, and easy communications opened both by rail and by water. But we were almost destitute of wagons, having only ten to a division. This tied us close to the end of the rails, for after carrying our necessary baggage to the camping-place, it was the utmost the few wagons could do to bring rations and ammunition a very few miles from the nearest temporary station on the railroad. Dover and Gum swamps were practically continuous to within three miles of Kinston, and steady rains had put most of the road under water. [Footnote: Id., pp. 654, 683.] This necessarily slow progress gave the enemy time to arrange for concentrating upon us.

The importance of trying to check our columns advancing from the sea-coast was seen by General Johnston as soon as he learned the situation in North Carolina. On the 3d of March, when he supposed Schofield to be continuing his movements up Cape Fear River, he had inquired of Bragg whether it were not feasible to interpose between Schofield and Hardee. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1318, 1329.] As soon as it was known that Schofield was not marching against Hardee, Bragg sent Hoke with his division to Kinston, and on the 6th telegraphed to Johnston that my forces were advancing and were within nine miles of the town. He believed that the union with him of the troops near Goldsborough would "insure a victory." [Footnote: Id., pp. 1334.] Johnston immediately ordered all the forces he was moving towards Hardee to report to Bragg at Goldsborough for use in a quick effort to defeat us, with the purpose of uniting them with Hardee immediately afterward to strike at Sherman's advancing columns. [Footnote: Ibid..] It was boldly conceived, and was manifestly the best plan the circumstances admitted. All the detachments of the Army of Tennessee were hurried without change of cars toward Kinston. D. H. Hill had command of them as ranking officer present. It was not pleasant for him to report to Bragg, for a bitter quarrel begun in the Chickamauga campaign had never been appeased, and in giving him the order, Johnston added, "I beg you to forget the past for this emergency." [Footnote: Id., p. 1338.] From Davis downward, personal griefs had to be smothered in the crisis, and it is due to them all to remember that they did work together earnestly for their dying cause.

On the 7th of March, Hill reached Kinston with Lee's corps. Hoke's division had preceded him and advanced to Southwest Creek and occupied the lines of intrenchments earlier made along its left bank. This stream was a tributary of the Neuse River and was then unfordable. It described roughly a curve with a radius of about three miles around Kinston, and had for a long time been regarded as the principal defensive line against National troops advancing from New Berne. Several roads radiated from Kinston, crossing Southwest Creek. The Neuse road kept near the bank of the river, going east. Then came the railroad following a nearly straight line to New Berne. The Dover road forked from the Neuse road not far from the town, and took a devious way through the swamps in the same general direction. The upper Trent road ran more nearly south toward Trenton, and followed the course of the Trent River. The Wilmington road went southwesterly toward the city of that name. The several bridges over the creek were from a mile to two miles apart, but had been destroyed or dismantled, and earthworks for artillery had been prepared commanding them. The whole constituted a formidable line of fieldworks when held by an adequate force. Whitford's brigade and a detachment of cavalry had been the only Confederate force at Kinston at the beginning of our campaign, but Bragg had now assembled there Hagood's brigade, which had numbered 2000 in front of Wilmington, and a similar force of North Carolina militia under General Baker, besides Hill and Hoke. [Footnote: Hill's Report, Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 1086.] Johnston had also informed Bragg that Cheatham's corps and more than half of Stewart's were on the way by rail, under the same orders as Hill's. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 1339.] These constituted in fact all of Johnston's army except Hardee's column, which was still in South Carolina.

The necessity for haste was such, however, that upon Hill's arrival in the night of the 7th, Bragg determined to attack me at once, in the belief that he was strong enough to do so successfully. Hill's corps was accordingly marched to Southwest Creek before day, and relieved Hoke's division in the works extending from the Dover road crossing to the railroad, whilst Hoke, with Clayton's division of Lee's corps besides his own, marched to the upper Trent and Wilmington bridges with orders to sweep down and attack my lines in flank and rear. The plank had been relaid on the bridges which had been held by outposts, and a new bridge had been built of felled trees between the Dover road bridge and the railroad. At the sound of Hoke's attack, Hill was to cross by the last-mentioned bridges, and fall upon our front with all the rest of the Confederate forces. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 1087.]

On our side, Colonel Wright had found that some miles of the railroad had only been partially destroyed, and as iron for six miles had been received when I reached New Berne, he was able to put seven miles of track in passable condition by the evening of the 4th. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 654, 683.] On that day I had concentrated at Core Creek, twenty miles from New Berne by the wagon roads, and the head of the rails was only one or two miles behind. On the 6th Palmer's and Carter's divisions were advanced to Gum Swamp, seven miles further, taking four days' rations, and Ruger's was to follow on the 7th. On this march I found that for five miles beyond Core Creek the railway had only been capsized, ties and rails together, and was lying in the ditch by the roadside. [Footnote: Id., pp. 706-708.] Relying on the more rapid construction this would enable Colonel Wright to make, I ordered a still further advance for the 7th, hoping to reach Southwest Creek. There we must expect to halt for several days, for the total destruction of the railroad for the last ten or twelve miles from Kinston made it probable that a mile a day was the utmost the construction corps could rebuild, to say nothing of the bridging which would also be necessary.

For our own sake, as well as to provide for getting forward large quantities of supplies for Sherman's army when we should join him, it would be necessary to organize a line of river transportation to supplement the railroad. Heavy obstructions to navigation had been placed in the Neuse River, a little above New Berne, as a defence against an iron-clad ram the Confederates had built at Kinston. As, however, she could only come down the river on a freshet, owing to her great draft, I had, upon leaving New Berne, ordered that the obstructions be removed, and light-draft steamboats and flats procured to bring supplies to some point near our camp, or to ferry troops across if I found it advisable to shift my line of operations to the north bank of the river. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 707.]

On Tuesday, the 7th, the command was in motion, Palmer's division following the railroad, except Claassen's brigade, which had been sent the previous afternoon by the Dover road to Wise's Forks, where it crosses the lower Trent road, which ran diagonally across our front toward the Neuse River. In the skirmish at Wise's Forks, and from a deserter, it was learned that Hoke had joined the Kinston forces with his division, and there were rumors of other reinforcements arriving. Advancing along the railroad, Palmer reached the drier ground near Southwest Creek and came under artillery fire from guns intrenched on the other side of the creek. The country here was wooded, and was traversed by an old road, called the British road, running parallel to the creek from half a mile to a mile from it. The lower Trent road also crossed the railroad not far from the British road crossing. Palmer halted his line in front of the British road covering all the crossings, and advanced outposts and pickets to the creek. Boughton's brigade was on the left of the railroad, and Harland's on the right. The latter detached a regiment to the Neuse road to guard against any attempt by the enemy to cross the creek beyond our right. Major Dow of my staff was also sent with a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre the banks of the river, seeking for a place where steamboats might land supplies and communicate with us. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 723-725.] Ruger's division moved forward from Core Creek to Gum Swamp.

On my left, the Twelfth New York Cavalry, Colonel Savage, reconnoitred both Trent roads, under orders to reach out as far to the south as they could, covering Claassen's position at Wise's Forks and giving early notice of any hostile movement in the vicinity. Carter's division delayed its march till it could load up with rations and then followed the Dover road to Claassen's position. On reaching Wise's Forks we found that Claassen had most of his brigade at the crossing of the British road in front, with a detachment of 300 men at Jackson's Mills, where the Dover road crossed the creek. He had smaller detachments also upon the British road on both flanks. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. pp. 976, 981, 989.] I directed General Carter to relieve Claassen's brigade with one of his, that Claassen might rejoin Palmer and make the latter strong enough to spare a detachment to test the condition of the Neuse road crossing of the creek and the presence of the enemy there. Carter sent Upham's brigade to the British road crossing to relieve Claassen, and put the other two in line across the Dover road in front of Wise's Forks, Malloy's on the right of the road and Splaine's on the left with a recurved flank. Upham seems to have marched the whole of his brigade to Jackson's Mills and to have left only a picket post at the British road. He established a skirmish line in rifle-pits close to the creek, and placed a section of artillery which was with him where it would command the bridge site on the Dover road. His picket line connected with Palmer's division on the right, and with the outpost at the British road on the left. [Footnote: Id., pp. 993, 997.] Toward evening the cavalry reported that they had found a picket post of the enemy at the bridge on the upper Trent road, had driven it off, taken up the plank of the bridge and piled them on the hither side of the creek, and had established there a picket of their own. Their scouting parties reported no enemy at the Wilmington road crossing. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 976.] The division commanders were directed to have Southwest Creek in front carefully reconnoitred, to find narrow places where an infantry crossing might be made by an improvised bridge of felled trees. [Footnote: Ibid.]

My habit was to keep my own headquarters well at the front, and I had purposed moving them from Gum Swamp to Wise's Forks on the 7th, but during the day I received word that General Schofield had arrived at Beaufort from Wilmington, coming by sea. We arranged that he should come up for a consultation with me next morning, and to facilitate this, I left my headquarters with Ruger's division, and after a personal visit to Palmer and Carter, I rode back to Gum Swamp in the evening. General Schofield was to come up to the end of the track on the railroad in the morning, and I sent led horses to meet him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 722-724.] The telegraph was made to keep pace with the progress of the railway, and from its upper station we had the aid of flag signals along the railroad bed to Palmer's headquarters. [Footnote: Id., pt i. p. 918.] The information we had received of Hoke's presence made it all the more important that we should get out of the swamps, where we could only operate by head of column, to the drier region along Southwest Creek, where the lower Trent road and the British road would give us communication between our flanks and some chance to manoeuvre. These reasons had made me push forward on the 7th, though the movement put us ten miles above the head of the rails and made it sure that we should be short of supplies. As soon as the troops were in position the few wagons with them were unloaded and hurried back, first for ammunition and then for rations. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 734.] We then had no knowledge of the arrival of any part of Hood's army in North Carolina, and although my provisional corps was far short of being solidly organized, and the troops were either new or unused to field service, I felt no concern lest Hoke should take the offensive alone.

General Schofield had joined me at Gum Swamp about nine o'clock on the morning of the 8th, and after our conference we had mounted to ride to General Palmer's headquarters to see what prospect there might be for securing a crossing near the railroad which would permit preparation for rebuilding the railroad bridge. A note now came from General Carter at Wise's Forks telling of information received from a negro that a large body of the enemy had crossed Southwest Creek at the Wilmington road early in the morning. As the cavalry had a picket at the upper Trent bridge and were supposed to be patrolling beyond the Wilmington road, the information did not seem threatening, but I sent back directions to have the cavalry ordered to do their work thoroughly by instantly testing the truth of the information. Carter was also ordered to support the cavalry with a regiment of infantry. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 734.] The message from the front was followed almost instantly by another, saying that a heavy force of the enemy had penetrated between Upham's brigade and the rest of the division, almost simultaneously with a report from the cavalry that their picket had been driven from the bridge at the Trent road. As that picket was two miles in front of Upham's left on the British road, it was too evident that the duty of the horsemen had not been well done. Ruger was ordered to march his division at speed to the front, and we galloped to Wise's Forks. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. pp. 977, 994.]

The account I have before given of the enemy's dispositions for the day's work [Footnote: Ante, pp. 429, 430.] makes it easy to understand the situation as we found it. Hoke, with his own and Clayton's divisions, had turned northward on the British road after getting over Southwest Creek, and as he approached the Dover road, had deployed and advanced upon Upham's flank. The latter, upon the first intimation of an enemy's approach, had hurried the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts to the British road and placed it in line about a quarter of a mile south of the Dover road, which was, of course, his connection with the rest of the division. He also ordered to the same point the section of artillery, and directed the left battalion of his other regiment (Fifteenth Connecticut) to change front also to the south. These orders were judicious, but the odds were too great to make them successful. Far outflanked on either hand, the Massachusetts regiment was put to rout, all the horses of one of the guns were killed, and though the men cut the traces and tried to save the gun by hand, they had to abandon it, while the other retreated on the run toward the main position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 997-999.] General Hill had crossed the creek at the improvised bridge on hearing the sound of Hoke's engagement, but finding a swamp between him and Upham's right, had to make a circuit of it, driving back our pickets in the interval between Carter's and Palmer's divisions. Turning toward the noise of Hoke's firing, he intercepted the right battalion of Upham's Connecticut regiment, and took many of them prisoners. [Footnote: Id., p. 1087.] Most of the rest of the regiment finding Hoke's division partly surrounding them, and all other retreat cut off by Hill, surrendered to Hoke. Colonel Upham and most of the Massachusetts regiment succeeded in reaching our main lines, though in confusion. All this was not done, however, without fighting, which took time, and as the whole engagement was in forest or swamp, the enemy was a good deal delayed in his movements and in rectification of lines.

When we reached the field Carter had gone in person toward Upham's position, having first sent a regiment forward on the Dover road to try to reopen communication with him. Palmer was ordered to send his reserve brigade rapidly to extend his left and assist Carter. But as there was still an interval between them, the regiment of cavalry which had come in on the left was transferred to the centre and ordered to make a strong skirmishing fight till Ruger's division could arrive on the ground. Palmer at the same time was ordered to demonstrate strongly toward the creek. Riding forward on the Dover road, I found Carter with the regiment from his division, still energetically striving to reach Upham. As the sound of the battle showed that the enemy was also in front of our centre, it was evident that we must make a concentration of our forces till the divisions were in touch with each other. I therefore directed Carter to make his main line in front of Wise's Forks as solid as possible, concentrating his artillery near the Dover road, and to limit the activity of the advanced regiment to bold skirmishing, drawing it back to the main line as the enemy advanced in force.

Hoke had evidently supposed that Upham's detachment on the British road was the flank of our principal position, and was surprised at finding strong demonstrations from the direction of Wise's Forks, now partly in his own rear. This checked his progress and made him turn upon Carter. The advanced regiment retired as ordered, and when it was within the lines the enemy was saluted with such a fire of artillery and musketry as instantly checked him. Although he repeated his efforts to force the position at the Forks several times, they all were futile, and Carter had at no time the least difficulty in holding his main line firmly.

In Palmer's division, when Hill's advance across the creek drove back the pickets and threatened to pass the left flank of Boughton's brigade, this officer drew back his left to the British road and threw up a hasty barricade there. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 992.] Claassen's brigade was sent to prolong Boughton's line to the left, and Ruger's division having come up, the connection between Palmer and Carter was secured, the latter advancing his brigades so as to make a better continuous line. The attacks of Hoke and Hill extended across Ruger's front, but nothing heavier than brisk skirmishing occurred on Boughton's line. Claassen's brigade was sent forward toward Jackson's Mill, accompanied by my aide, Captain Tracy, in order to locate the left of the enemy's line, and determine the extent of his forces in front of our left and centre. No strong opposition was met till the Dover road came in sight, where the enemy were seen moving toward Hoke's position in front of Carter. Claassen was followed back in his orderly retirement to his position on Ruger's right, and was attacked there, but easily repulsed his assailants. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 982, 990.]

Palmer had reported sharp skirmishing across his front all the way to the Neuse road on his right, and had drawn his lines back a little, so as to keep them in front of the British road, contracting his right and extending his left, as the sound of the fighting showed that the heaviest attacks were falling upon Carter. By the middle of the afternoon a continuous line of breastworks had been made along the whole of Palmer's division in front of the British road. Ruger had extended it diagonally till it joined Carter's right, the latter continuing it across the Dover road in front of Wise's Forks to a difficult swamp on the extreme left. For our left, the lower Trent road served for our communication along the front, and for our right the British road was used in like manner.

Late in the day there were indications of an attempt to turn Palmer's right on the Neuse road, and this, which added to the complexity of the situation, seems to have grown out of an excentric movement of the Confederate left under Hill. In crossing Southwest Creek to make his attack, he tells us the plan had been that when Hoke should strike our flank on the Dover road, he should cut off any retreat on the British and Neuse roads. This would be best accomplished by pushing straight from his bridges for the British road. But having made a circuit about a swamp to the rear of Upham's right, he received a note from Bragg's headquarters saying that Hoke wished he would enter the British road from the Neuse road, which implied a long circuit to their left. As Hoke had himself made the bridge by which Hill had crossed, and knew the field better than the rest by his skirmishes of the previous day, it is evident that there was an error in interpreting his wish. But as Hill was on ground unknown to him, and Bragg's dispatch directed Hoke's suggestion to be carried out, Hill obeyed, and turned his troops down the right bank of Southwest Creek, feeling the way to the Neuse road through swamps and woods. Reaching the outlet of the British road at half-past four without seeing signs of our retreat that way, and the distant firing showing that Hoke was not advancing, Hill thought it too late to venture further, and marched back by the way he had come five miles to his bridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 1087.] His presence had been observed by our pickets and skirmishers, and was naturally interpreted by Palmer as the advance of a new column which had crossed the creek by the Neuse road. It, of course, gave an exaggerated impression of the enemy's strength, and as prisoners had been taken belonging to Lee's corps, who reported part of Hood's old army present with Bragg in command of the whole, we had to take into account the contingency of our having on our hands the formidable force thus indicated. Hill was met at his bridge by orders to cross to the left bank and join Hoke by recrossing at Jackson's Mills and following the Dover road. He effected the junction about midnight. [Footnote: Ibid.] Hoke had been keeping up a skirmishing fight in the latter part of the day, and at night intrenched himself across the Dover road just in front of the British road. Hill, after joining him, continued the line northward, parallel to ours, and therefore crossing the British road again, recurving toward the creek. Our breastworks were made stronger, and we kept our teams hard at work bringing up ammunition and supplies. General Schofield went back to New Berne to get into communication with the rest of his department, and try to hurry forward the two old divisions of the Twenty-third Corps, who were marching to join us. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 743-751.] My own orders were to remain on the watchful defensive whilst the construction of the railroad toward us went on energetically. On Thursday, the 9th, we husbanded our resources, for our ammunition was running short and the roads through the swamp were nearly impassable. We extended our works on Carter's left, recurving them so as to cross the lower Trent road, and, though we had no troops at the moment except one regiment of Ruger's to put into these intrenchments, they were ready for prompt occupation by any we might send there if another effort were made to turn that flank. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. pp. 978, 995.] With this in view, General Ruger was directed to put one of his brigades in reserve, extending the rest of his troops to fill the vacancy so made, and covering the front with abatis and slashed timber. Pickets were advanced and every effort made to obtain information and keep close watch of the enemy's movements. About ten o'clock General Palmer reported a force moving toward the Neuse road which, after demonstrating there for some time, marched back again. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 747, 749-750.] This seems to have been an effort to repeat the movement of Hill on the previous afternoon, but this time by Hoke's division. Finding Palmer's line in good earthworks, Hoke made no attack, and returned to his position, though Bragg's order declared that "success must be achieved." [Footnote: Id., p. 1359.] While this was going on, Hill advanced his line and drove in Carter's skirmishers; but these being reinforced, quickly retook their rifle-pits, and Hill retired to his own works. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 1087.] Bragg's delay in testing conclusions with us was due, in part no doubt, to the fact that Stewart's corps of the Army of Tennessee was en route to him, and the railway was being worked energetically to bring up these reinforcements. They arrived during the day, and the final attack upon us was arranged for Friday, the 10th. Stewart's men were under the command of General Walthall, the senior division commander present. [Footnote: Id., p. 1088.]

In the night of Thursday and the early morning of Friday, the active skirmishing of the enemy was so continuous as to remind us of the days in the Georgia campaign when the intrenched lines of the opposing armies faced each other in the narrow valley near New Hope Church. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 769.] Bragg ordered Hoke's troops to be relieved by Walthall's, and to make a considerable circuit to their right, seeking to reach the lower Trent road in our rear, and, advancing upon it, attack Carter's division in reverse. The sharp skirmishing had covered these changes of position. Upon hearing the sounds of Hoke's attack, Walthall and Hill were to assist him by strong demonstrations, but, as the latter says, in deference to his report that the men were very unwilling to attack earthworks, "their experience in the late campaign [in the west] not being favorable to such an undertaking," no actual assault was ordered, but doubled skirmish lines were to advance as far as possible. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 1088.]

On our side we were watchful and expectant, my orders to the divisions being that whenever one part of the line should be engaged, the rest should push forward strong skirmish lines to test the extent of the enemy's deployment, and gain the information on which I could act in reinforcing either wing from the other. General Greene, who was on his way to rejoin Sherman, volunteered for duty as a staff officer, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 979.] as did General Stiles of my own division of the Twenty-third Corps, who was likewise returning to his proper command. [Footnote: General George S. Greene, division commander in the Twentieth Corps, had commanded a division in the Twelfth Corps, before its consolidation into the other. He was the same who was distinguished at Antietam (ante, vol. i. pp. 321-331). He graduated at West Point in 1823, and was a descendant of General Greene of the Revolutionary War, a military stock well continued in F. V. Greene of the Engineers, a general officer in the late Spanish War.] The absence of most of my own staff made their help most acceptable.

General Schofield was on his way up from New Berne, and horses were awaiting him at the end of the railway when, about half-past eleven, Hoke's attack came with much more energy and resolution than the Confederates had shown before. Ruger's reserve brigade (McQuiston's) was ordered over to the left at once, a brigade he had loaned to Palmer (Thomas's) was ordered back, and Palmer was ordered to send another brigade if the enemy was quiet in his front. Hoke's attack lapped so far over the lower Trent road as to threaten the Dover road also, and lest General Schofield should be in danger of capture, I directed Palmer to signal down the railroad track for him to await further news from us before leaving the train. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. p. 772.]

The artillery of both Carter's and Ruger's divisions were concentrated upon Hoke, who was surprised to find our line so well prepared to meet him. For nearly an hour, however, the fighting was fierce; but it then began to flag a little, and I at once ordered McQuiston's brigade to charge, throwing the left forward upon Hoke's flank. This was decisive, and the enemy broke and fled. Walthall and Hill were now advancing against Carter's right and against Ruger, and as the line of the latter was very thin, I had to recall McQuiston in the full tide of pursuit and send him back to the centre double quick. He brought in nearly 300 prisoners, and our left was relieved of all danger. For a while my headquarters group was in a hot place. General Greene had his horse shot under him, one orderly had an arm taken off by a shell, two others were wounded, and several had horses killed.

The men of Stewart's and Lee's corps were to have co-operated with Hoke, but the difficulty of movement over such blind and wooded country caused delay which gave time for me to reinforce the centre. The artillery was hurried to the same position, and the Confederates were defeated easily, their unwillingness to assault breastworks being increased by the sight of Hoke's men in disordered flight. At half-past twelve I was able to send word to General Schofield that the road was no longer threatened by the enemy, and he joined us before the fighting at the centre was over. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 978; pt. ii. p. 772.] Bragg withdrew to the intrenchments he had occupied on the 9th. The certainty that two corps of the Army of Tennessee were represented in the attack besides the troops of Bragg's own department, added to the lack of supplies and munitions, made us quite willing to remain on the defensive and await the arrival of Couch, who was within a day's march of us with the two veteran divisions of the Twenty-third Corps. The construction of the railroad and the hurrying forward of ammunition were ordered with strenuous urgency, and messages to Couch made him force the marching to join us. [Footnote: The officer who was sent by Schofield to hasten Couch's march found my old division at the head of the column slowly filing over a rickety foot-bridge in the darkness, grumbling at the continued plodding in the mud. He shouted to them the news of our fighting and my possible need of help. The cry went up from the men, "If General Cox wants us, he can have us," and they dashed into the stream in solid column, forcing the pace till they reached the field.] Bragg retreated in the night of the 10th and was speeding back to Goldsborough by rail, for Johnston was now hastening to join Hardee, who was retreating before Sherman out of South Carolina.

The numbers which Hill and Walthall brought to Bragg were smaller than we inferred from our knowledge of the organizations present. We took prisoners belonging to four divisions of Hood's old army. Hoke's division and the brigades of Whitford, Hagood, and Baker had all been stronger in numbers than similar organizations of our own. We were necessarily wholly ignorant of the causes which had reduced the divisions coming from the West, and indeed learned of their presence in North Carolina only through the prisoners we took in the engagement and the deserters who came into our lines. As we have seen, [Footnote: Ante, p. 424.] the number of Hood's men in the State at the beginning of the month was over 9000, with other detachments on the way. Bragg's other forces were an equal number. After all the casualties of the campaign, the Army of Tennessee reported 11,442 present on April 7th, of which 8953 were "effectives." When they were paroled at Greenesborough on April 26th, 17,934 appeared and signed the papers. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 1059, 1066. In the table of the paroled, Cheatham's two divisions (his own and Brown's) are listed in Hardee's corps, and with those of Stewart's and Lee's corps, less Anderson's (late Talliaferro's) division, make the total given.] It is impossible to tell exactly what part of these were at Kinston. Hill's claim that he had but little over 1300 effectives in five brigades of Lee's corps is not credible. [Footnote: Id., p. 1088. For my criticism of his amusingly erroneous statements in regard to Antietam, see "The Nation," No. 1538, p. 462, and No. 1543, p. 71.] It is certain that Bragg knew I had three divisions and that he believed his force was the stronger. Our losses had been 1337, of which 900 were the "missing" in Upton's brigade and the cavalry. Bragg made no formal report of the campaign or of his losses in this part of it.

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