Men and things I saw in civil war days

Preface

This volume embodies many of my observations and experiences in our great Civil War. My first thought was to put these into historic form and chronological order. But ultimately I concluded to give them rather as portraitures and pictures of our great commanders mainly — as here.

It was my good fortune to come into contact with nearly all of these, from McClellan to Grant; and hence these sketches. A part have appeared before, in The Christian Advocate, of New York, and elsewhere; but these chapters have all been revised, rewritten, enlarged, and otherwise improved, as I trust; and hence this volume as a whole may be considered new — much of it entirely new.

Chapter XV, I have hesitated about somewhat; but finally concluded to publish, as not without some historic value. This chapter consists of old Army letters, as written home in 1861 to 1865; and while of moderate interest to some, it is beheved nevertheless they will give realistic and vivid pictures of Army life to many — especially to our younger Americans. The illustrations are from photographs picked up during the war, or selected with care since then. Sherman's photograph is of special value ; as see page 106.

The basis of the whole volume is, ist, An excellent memory; 2d, A diary and journal kept during most of the war; 3d, The memoirs of Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheri-

Preface

dan, McClellan, Joe Johnston, and others; 4th, A History of the Civil War in Anicriw, by Comte de Paris, Swinton's Army of the Potomac, Badeau's Life of General Grant, and hke publications; and 5th, Our War Records, both Union and Confederate, published by authority of Congress.

Perhaps I should add just a word as to myself and my opportunities for such observations and experiences. Briefly, then, I was born April 14, 1834, at Washington, Warren County, N. J.; was graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., 1854; Professor at Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Pa., 1854-58; admitted to the bar of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 1857-59.

My Army record as follows :

Aug. 24, 1861, 1st Lt. and R. Q. M., 5th N. J. Vols. Infantry.

Nov. 30, 1 861, Act. Brigade Q. M., 26. N. J. Brigade.

June II, 1862, Capt. and A. Q. M. U. S. Vols., same Brigade.

Oct. 15, 1862, Division Q. M., 2d Div. 3d Corps.

May 2y, 1863, Lt. Col. and Corps Q. M., 3d Corps.

July 31, 1863, Inspector O. M. Dept. Army of the Potomac.

Dec. I, 1863, Chief Asst. Q. M. Department of the Cumberland.

April 29, 1865, Colonel and Inspector Q. M., Dept. United States.

Feb. 16, 1866, Brigadier General (Brevet) U. S. Vols.

Sept. 17, 1867, mustered out and resumed practice of Law.'

Preface

These various appointments were at Regimental, Brigade, Division, Corps, Army, Department, and General U. S. A. Headquarters, respectively, both in the East and in the West, at post and in the field; and (I beg pardon for saying) afforded facilities and opportunities that fell to the lot of but few officers, whether Regulars or Volunteers. How well (or ill) I profited by them appears in this volume, and is submitted with diffidence to the reader, as the observations and experiences of a Staff Officer of Volunteers, 1861-65. J. F. R.

Trenton, N. J., 1899.

He was promoted five times, from First Lieutenant, 1861, to Brigadier General (Bvt.), 1867, 0^ the recommendation of such officers as Generals Mott, McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Thomas, Sherman, and Grant, and participated in all the campaigns and battles of Army of the Potomac, 1861-63, and in many of Army of the Cumberland, 1863- 1865. He was present at battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Savage Station, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Manassas (second), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Rappahannock Station, Bristoe (all Virginia) ; Williamsport, Md. ; Chattanooga, Tenn. ; Atlanta, Ga. ; Nashville, Tenn. ; Hell Canon, Ariz., etc. — Ed.

PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD.

The old edition of General Rusling's Civil War Days was exhausted some time^o, but so many inquiries have been made for it of late, it is deemed advisable to print a new edition, as herewith. Not many changes have been made, and these appear mainly in the New Appendix, which will be found illuminating and instructive. So good a book ought not to be allowed to die out, and we appeal to the reading public for support accordingly. It is believed to be one of the best of our American books on the Civil War — able, honest, truthful, fair, and aiming to do justice to both North and South. It is no common book, but already an American classic. Its author knows how to "See clear and think straight." It deals only with big men and things, in a large way, and contains a mass of information invaluable to the general reader.

It reminds one of Homer and Plutarch, and their great heroes, as we read of Lincoln and Grant, Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Sherman and Longstreet, Meade and Thomas, Sheridan, etc., and no better Civil War book can be put in the hands of our American people. Its great chapter on President Lincoln especially has been quoted around the world, and fixes the "vexed question" of his religious faith forever, unless Lincoln was a hypocrite or a humbug, and that is unthinkable of Honest Old Abe. So, its chapter on Nashville is the best account extant of that great battle — General Rusling being an eye witness there, and writing much of it fresh from the field. So, his chapters on Grant and Lee, admitting the greatness of both, but demonstrating the superiority of Grant as a soldier, are unique but unanswerable. And his graphic Letters Home every Sunday during the war, fresh from the march and the battlefield, are vivid and inspiring.

Every collegian and high school boy should read this book, and profit by its great lessons of duty and patriotism. Buy and see! Pages, 420. Price, $1.50; by mail, $1.70. With 14 illustrations.

CHAPTER I. PAGE CHAPTER n

Andrew Johnson 19

CHAPTER HI.

George B. McClellan 24

CHAPTER IV.

Ambrose E. Burnside 41

CHAPTER V.

Joseph Hooker 52

CHAPTER VI.

George G. Meade 67

CHAPTER VII.

George H. Thomas 80

CHAPTER VIII.

William Tecumseh Sherman 106

CHAPTER IX.

Philip H. Sheridan 123

CHAPTER X.

Ulysses S. Grant 135

CHAPTER XI.

Robert E. Lee 149

CHAPTER XII.

Campaigning and Soldiering 159

CHAPTER XIII.

A Great Quartermaster 174

CHAPTER XIV.

The Angel of the Third Corps 190

CHAPTER XV.

Some Army Letters 195

APPENDIX 355

INDEX 3r 7

Abraham Lincoln, J 863.

MEN AND THINGS I SAW

IN CIVIL WAR DAYS

CHAPTER I Abraham Lincoln

My first knowledge of Mr. Lincoln was in 1857, when he dawned upon the nation as ''The Rail-splitter of Illinois." This was when he was nominated there for United States Senator, and conducted his great debate with Stephen A. Douglas, then widely known as "The Little Giant of IlHnois." Mr. Lincoln struck me then, in the progress of that debate, as a really great American: sagacious, far-seeing, and with a broad grasp of principles. And I was still more impressed with this in i860, \\d;jen he became the Republican nominee for Presidentyftnd won as "Honest Old Abe."

My first real sight of him w^as in February, 1861, when he came East, and halted at Trenton, N. J., en route to Washington, D. C, to be inaugurated. I was then residing in Trenton, a practicing lawyer, as now. I stood within a few feet of him, in our State House there, when he significantly said, in the course of his brief remarks, that while he meant peace and hoped for peace, "it might become necessary to put the foot down firmly [and he brought his great foot down with a stamp] ; and if it does, you will stand by me, won't you?" And he was answered by the people with wild applause, that shook the very dome of the Capitol.

On March 4th following, I was in Washington, D. C and stood directly in front of Mr. Lincoln, not fifty paces away, in the midst of fifty thousand people, when he delivered his first inaugural, from the east front of the Capitol; and declared it t(^e his duty and purpose to ''repossess and occupy our captured arsenals and forts;" and, with the vast multitude assembled there, cheered him to the echo. It was reputed he had weakened, under the menace of Secession, and that in his inaugural he would go back on his platform and record; but as he read on, with his spectacles far down upon his nose and glancing out occasionally over them, the real nature and fiber of his mind and heart more and more appeared, and before he concluded nobody could doubt where he stood as President. Not Washington could have been more patriotic and sagacious, nor Andrew Jackson more unyielding.

As Mr. Lincoln read on, Stephen A. Douglas stood near by, leaning against a pillar of the Capitol, with his hat off and long hair thrown back, gazing out over the vast assemblage like a lion in repose, and smiling his approval as the crowd cheered. That night I attended the inauguration ball, and shook hands with both Lincoln and Douglas. With the change of administrations, soon the nation breathed freer — now that Buchanan at last was out and Lincoln was in.

Then came the firing on Fort Sumter, Mr. Lincoln's first call for troops, and the great uprising of the North (April, 1861); but I still lingered in my office. Then came Bull Run, and other calls for troops; and soon afterward I closed my office and found myself in camp at Washington, D. C. (August, 1861).

It was not long before Mr. Lincoln visited our camp (5th Regt. N. J. Vols., 2d N. J. Brigade), as he was in the habit of riding or driving daily among the camps; and I seldom rode into Washington that I did not see him about the White House, or the War or Treasury Departments. Here he was always unattended, and generally alone, and walked along with the serious air of a country lawyer intent on business. His face had become graver,' and his look more determined. But he was still chatty and cheery, when meeting an acquamtance (a member of Congress or a brigadier general) ; and cracked many a joke or told '^a little story," as best smted to the

occasion. , , j ^.i.

In December, 1861, our brigade was ordered down the Potomac, on the Maryland side, opposite Cockpit Point, Va., to a place significantly called "Rum Pomt — though we found no ''rum" there. It was not a village even, but onlv a projecting point of land. Here we joined the other two brigades of General Joseph Hooker, and with them constituted the famous "Hooker's Division" of the Army of the Potomac, and subsequently (in the spring and summer of 1862) made the Peninsula and second Bull Run campaigns under 'Tighting Joe."

I saw no more of President Lincoln, until after the bloody blunder of Fredericksburg (December, 1862). Then Hooker was given command of the Army of the Potomac, and soon afterward (I think along toward spring) Mr. Lincoln came down from Washington and attended one of our grand reviews. It was a great day for General Hooker— Major General commanding the Army— and he was equal to it. I suppose fully sixty thousand men were in line or more— infantry, cavalry, artillery, wagon trains, etc. But as the artillery saluted the President, the mule trains took fright, and in spite of quartermasters, wagonmasters, and teamsters, went thundering down upon our well-ordered lines pell-mell— almost as bad as a Confederate cavalry charge. How the panic-stricken mules did "whee-haw" and the army wagons "rattlety-bang" that day over the Stafford plains!^ It was like another battle of Fredericksburg, on a minor

II scale! Mr. Lincoln was on horseback, of course, by the side of General Hooker, ^ith Hooker's brilHant staff trailing after them like the tail of a comet, and apparently enjoyed our comical discomfiture and skedaddle to the full.

On this occasion, as on all similar occasions, when visiting the Army, Mr. Lincoln was dressed in citizens* black, with tall silk hat, long frock coat, and high top boots with spurs, and, though not a bad rider,

*' With his gaunt, gnarled hands,

His unkempt, bristling hair.

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, And lack of all we prize as debonair,"

was yet anything but a handsome horseman in the midst of our brigadier generals, colonels, captains, lieutenants, etc., well mounted as a rule and resplendent in gold lace and brass buttons on review, however plainly attired on the march or in battle.

The next time I saw Mr. Lincoln was on Sunday, July 5, 1863 — the Sunday after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg — and it happened on this wise: Gettysburg was fought on July i, 2, and 3, 1863. In the great conflict of Thursday, July 2 — (held by many to have been the real battle of Gettysburg, because of the heavy fighting and tremendous Confederate losses, which sapped the life of Lee's army) — General Daniel E. Sickles, of N. Y., commanding the Third Corps, had lost his right leg, and on the Sunday following (July 5) arrived in Washington, D. C, with his leg amputated above the knee. He was taken to a private dwelling on F Street, nearly opposite the Ebbitt House; and here I found him in a front room on the first floor, resting on a hospital stretcher, when I called to see him, about 3 p. m. I was then a Lieutenant Colonel on his staff, and naturally anxious to see my chief.

We had not been talking long, when his orderly announced his excellency the President; and immediately afterward Mr. Lincoln walked into the room, accompanied by his son '*Tad," then a lad of perhaps ten or twelve years. He was staying out at the Soldiers* Home; but, having learned of General Sickles's arrival in Washington, rode in on horseback to call on him, with a squad of cavalry as escort. They shook hands cordially, but pathetically; and it was easy to see that they both held each other in high esteem. They were both bom politicians. They both loved the Union sincerely and heartily. And Sickles had already shown such high qualities, both as statesman and soldier, that Lincoln had been quick to perceive his weight and value in the great struggle then shaking the nation. Besides, Sickles was a War Democrat, astute and able; and Mr. Lincoln was too shrewd a Republican to pass any of these by in those perilous war days.

Greetings over, Mr. Lincoln dropped into a chair, and, crossing his prodigious arms and legs, soon fell to questioning Sickles, as to all the phases of the combat at Gettysburg. He asked first, of course, as to General Sickles's own ghastly wound; when and how it happened, and how he was getting on, and encouraged him; then passed next to our great casualties there, and how the wounded were being cared for; and finally came to the magnitude and significance of the victory there, and what General Meade proposed to do with it.

Sickles, recumbent on his stretcher, with a cigar between his fingers, pui^ng it leisurely, answered Mr. Lincoln in detail, but warily, as became so astute a man and soldier; and discussed the great battle and its probable consequences with a lucidity and ability remarkable in his condition then — enfeebled and exhausted as he was by the shock and danger of such a wound and amputation.

Occasionally he would wince with pain, and call sharply to his orderly to wet hi^^vered stump with water. But he never dropped his cigar, nor lost the thread of his narrative, nor missed the point of their discussion. His intellect certainly seemed as strong and astute as ever; and in an acquaintance with him of now over thirty-five years I never saw it work more accurately and keenly. He certainly got his side of the story of Gettysburg well into the President's mind and heart that Sunday afternoon; and this doubtless stood him in good stead afterward, when Meade proposed to court-martial him for fighting so magnificently, if unskillfully (which remains to be proved), on that bloody and historic July 2d.

"No," replied Honest Old Abe; ''no, we can't do that. General Sickles may have erred ; we are all liable to ! But at any rate he fought superbly! He gave his leg — his life almost — for the Union! And now there is glory enough to go around for all."

When Mr. Lincoln's inquiries seemed ended General Sickles, after a puf¥ or two of his cigar in silence, resumed the conversation substantially as follows:

"Well, Mr. President, I beg pardon, but what did you think about Gettysburg? What was your opinion of things while we were campaigning and fighting up there?"

"O," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I didn't think much about it. I was not much concerned about you!"

"You were not?" rejoined Sickles, as if amazed. "Why, we heard that you Washington folks were a good deal excited, and you certainly had good cause to be. For it was 'nip and tuck' with us a good deal of the time!"

^'Yes, I know that. And I suppose some of us were a little 'rattled.' Indeed, some of the Cabinet talked of Washington's being captured, and ordered a gunboat or

H two here, and even went so far as to send some government archives aboard, and wanted me to go, too, but I refused. Stanton and Welles, I believe, were both 'stampeded' somewhat, and Seward, 1 reckon, too. But I said: 'No, gentlemen, we are all right and we are going to win at Gettysburg;' and we did, right handsomely. No, General Sickles, 1 had no fears of Gettysburg!"

''Why not, Mr. President? How was that? Pretty much everybody down here, we heard, was more or less panicky."

"Yes, I expect, and a good many more than will own up now. But actually General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and if you really want to know I will tell you why. Of course, I don't want you and Colonel Rusling here to say anything about this — at least not now. People might laugh if it got out, you know. But the fact is, in the very pinch of the campaign there, I went to my room one day and got down on my knees, and prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His country, and the war was His war, but that we really couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And then and tliere I made a solemn vow with my Maker, that if He would stand by you boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.

"And after thus wrestling with the Almighty in prayer, I don't know how it was, and it is not for me to explain, but, somehow or other, a sweet comfort crept into my soul, that God Almighty had taken the whole business there into His own hands, and we were bound to win at Gettysburg! And He did stand by you boys at Gettysburg, and now I will stand by Him. No, General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and that is the ivhyT

Mr. Lincoln said all this with great solemnity and impressiveness, almost as Moses might have spoken when 3 IS he came down from Sinai. When he had concluded there was a pause in tha^onversation, that nobody seemed disposed to break. Mr. Lincoln especially seemed to be communing with the Infinite One again. The first to speak was General Sickles, who, between the puft's of his cigar, presently resumed, as follows:

''Well, Mr. President, what are you thinking about Vicksburg, nowadays? How are things getting along down there?"

'*0," answered Mr. Lincoln, very gravely, 'T don't quite know. Grant is still pegging away down there. As we used to say out in Illinois, I think he 'will make a spoon or spoil a horn' before he gets through. Some of our folks think him slow and want me to remove him. But, to tell the truth, I kind of Hke U. S. Grant. He doesn't worry and bother me. He isn't shrieking for reinforcements all the time. He takes what troops we can safely give him, considering our big job all around — and we have a pretty big job in this war — and does the best he can with what he has got, and doesn't grumble and scold all the while. Yes, I confess, I like General Grant — U. S. Grant — 'L^ncle Sam Grant!' [dwelling humorously on this last name.] There is a great deal to him, first and last. And, Heaven helping me, unless something happens more than I see now, I mean to stand by Grant a good w^hile yet."

"So, then, you have no fears about Vicksburg either, Mr. President?" added General Sickles.

"Well, no; T can't say that I have," replied Mr. Lincoln, very soberly; "the fact is — but don't say anything about this either just now — I have been praying to Almighty God for Vicksburg also. I have wrestled with Him, and told Him how much we need the Mississippi, and how it ought to flow unvexed to the sea, and how that great valley ought to be forever free, and I reckon

i6

He understands the whole business down there, 'from A to Izzard.' I have done the very best I could to help General Grant along, and all the rest of our generals, though some of them don't think so, and now it is kind of borne in on me that somehow or other we are going to win at Vicksburg too. I can't tell how soon. But I believe we will. For this will save the Mississippi and bisect the Confederacy; and be in line with God's laws besides. And if Grant only does this thing down there — I don't care much how, so he does it right — why, Grant is my man and I am his the rest of this war!"

Of course, Mr. Lincoln did not then know that Vicksburg had already fallen, on July 4, and that a United States gunboat was then speeding its way up the Mississippi to Cairo with the glorious news that was soon to thrill the country and the civilized world through and through. Gettysburg and Vicksburg! Our great twin Union victories ! What were they not to us in that fateful summer of 1863? And what would have happened to the American Republic had both gone the other way? Of course, I do not pretend to say that Abraham Lincoln's faith and prayers saved Gettysburg and Vicksburg. But they certainly did not do the Union any harm. And to him his serene confidence in victory there, because of these, was a comfort and a joy most beautiful to behold, on that memorable July 5, 1863.

J never saw Mr. Lincoln again. In November, 1863, while serving at General Meade's headquarters (Army of the Potomac), I was suddenly ordered West to Tennessee (Department of the Cumberland) by Secretary Stanton; and I was still there in 1865, when Mr. Lincoln was assassinated. But this conversation made a deep impression upon me, and seems worthy to be recorded here. Clearly it settles the questio vexata of his religious faith forever. Perhaps it should be added that I made notes of it shortly afterward, and have often told it since, and now give it here as li^ally as possible — much of it ipsissima verba}

The talk afterward took a wide range, but Mr. Lincoln said nothing conflicting with the above, and left the profound impression upon both General Sickles and myself that in these two great national emergencies he walked and talked with Jehovah — or at least believed he did. Did he not take like counsel on other occasions, as before Antietam and Chattanooga and Appomattox? For W'hatever he may have been in earlier years and under narrower conditions, it seems certain that our great conflict as it proceeded — involving a whole continent and a vast people, with world-wide and timelong results — sobered and steadied him, and anchored him on God as the Supreme Ruler of nations (as a like experience sobered and anchored William of Orange and Cromwell and Washington); and in the end Abraham Lincoln became a ruler worthy to rank with even these.

Of all the great figures of our Civil War, Abraham Lincoln alone looms up loftier and grander as the years roll on; and his place in the pantheon of history is secure forever. As was well sung of a true knight of old :

"His good sword is rust;

His bones are dust;

His soul is with the saints, we trust."

Among all his great contemporaries, he still stands and will forever stand, as Goldsmith well said :

"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread. Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

Andrew Johnson, J 864.

Andrew Johnson

CHAPTER II Andrew Johnson

My first chapter being on Abraham Lincoln, it seems fitting- to follow it with one on Andrew Johnson.

I became interested in Andrew Johnson before the war, as a senator from Tennessee, and an advocate of the Homestead bill, when all other Southern senators, I believe, were hostile to it. This bill proposed to divide our Western Territories into small farms of one hundred and sixty acres each, and to give them to actual settlers there, and therefore was in the interests of free labor, and, of course, the South opposed it because it was hostile to slave labo . Johnson, nevertheless, courageously supported it, Congress after Congress; but it never became a law unti the Southern statesmen seceded, and then the RepubUcan majority placed it on the statute book, and urxder its wise and beneficent provisions the great West soon became an empire of small farmers.

I always thought Andrew Johnson deserved credit for his manly advocacy of this bill, antagonistic as it was to his own section. Therefore, I was not surprised to see him take his stand by the Union in the dark winter of 1 860-6 T, when the whole South, as a rule, went drifting to treason and rebellion.

I saw him first in March, 1861, in the Senate Chamber at Washington, D. C. I think it was March 3. On the invitation of an old and valued friend from Trenton, N. J., now a millionaire several times over (Samuel K. Wilson, Esq., the best friend I ever had), I had gone down there to ''see Lincoln inaugurated," in common with many Republicans from the North, and on March 3 found myself and friend in the Senate gallery listening to the Southern senators as they made their farewell speeches. Among the rest was Wigfall, of Texas. He said, in substance, in his most bitter and eloquent style: "The Star of the West, flying your flag, swaggered into Charleston Harbor with supplies for Fort Sumter. South Carolina struck her between the eyes, and she staggered back; and now, what do you propose to do about it?" He sat down, and for a time nobody responded. It was a bitter taunt and defiance to the Union, and yet Seward and Sumner and Cameron and Chandler and Crittenden and all the rest sat silent, until the silence grew painful.

Then suddenly up rose Andrew Johnson, and in the midst of a stillness that could almost be felt he said, substantially: *'Mr. President, I will tell the senator from Texas what I would do about it. I speak only for myself. But if I were President, as James Buchanan today is, and as Abraham Lincoln tomorrow will be, I would arrest the senator and his friends on the charge of high treason; I would have them tried by a jury of their countrymen, and, if convicted, by the eternal God, I would hang them!" He sat down as if shot, and for a minute or so the silence was even profounder than before.

Then away up in one corner of the gallery an unknown man sprang to his feet and, waving his hat, shouted out: ''Three cheers for Andrew Johnson!" Three thousand Northerners crowded the galleries, but we rose as one man and gave three mighty cheers, such as the American Senate had never heard before. Of course, it was a "breach of the privileges of the Senate," and John C. Br ckenridge (a double-dyed traitor), who sat in the Vice President's chair, immediately ordered the galleries cleared. Again that unknown man called out:

Andrew Johnson

''And now three cheers for the Union!" and we gave these even mightier than before, amid the tossing of hats and waving of handkerchiefs; and then we filed out into the corridors of the Capitol, men shouting and hurrahing, and some even crying like children. This was my first personal experience of Andrew Johnson, and, I confess, greatly impressed me in his favor, ^^/^oon afterward he went home to Tennessee by way of Virginia, with his life threatened en route because he was a Union man • and I did not see him again until November, 1863, when I w^as ordered to Nashville, and found him there in office as military governor of Tennessee. He had his headquarters in the classic State Capitol there, which he had fortified and barricaded and filled with troops (loyal East Tennesseans) ; and stood ready for legislation or battle, as the day might bring forth.

From then on to February, 1865, when he left for Washington to be inaugurated as Vice President, I saw a great deal of him, and he always bore himself as a hero and a statesman. From early morning until late in the afternoon he was usually in the Executive Chamber, listening to the pathetic tales of the refugees and freedmen, who crowded to him. for counsel or relief from all parts of Tennessee; or else he was devising ways and means for their shelter and subsistence, or providing for their due enrollment in Union regiments and batteries.