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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1
+by Jacob Dolson Cox
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1
+
+Author: Jacob Dolson Cox
+
+Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #6961]
+[This file was first posted in etext 04 as 7mcw110.txt on February 17, 2003
+and updated in November, 2004 ]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team. This file was produced from images generously
+made available by the CWRU Preservation Department Digital Library.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+BY JACOB DOLSON COX, A.M., LL.D.
+
+_Formerly Major-General commanding Twenty-Third Army Corps_
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+APRIL 1861--NOVEMBER 1863
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+My aim in this book has been to reproduce my own experience in our
+Civil War in such a way as to help the reader understand just how
+the duties and the problems of that great conflict presented
+themselves successively to one man who had an active part in it from
+the beginning to the end. In my military service I was so conscious
+of the benefit it was to me to get the personal view of men who had
+served in our own or other wars, as distinguished from the general
+or formal history, that I formed the purpose, soon after peace was
+restored, to write such a narrative of my own army life. My
+relations to many prominent officers and civilians were such as to
+give opportunities for intimate knowledge of their personal
+qualities as well as their public conduct. It has seemed to me that
+it might be useful to share with others what I thus learned, and to
+throw what light I could upon the events and the men of that time.
+
+As I have written historical accounts of some campaigns separately,
+it may be proper to say that I have in this book avoided repetition,
+and have tried to make the personal narrative supplement and lend
+new interest to the more formal story. Some of the earlier chapters
+appeared in an abridged form in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil
+War," and the closing chapter was read before the Ohio Commandery of
+the Loyal Legion. By arrangements courteously made by the Century
+Company and the Commandery, these chapters, partly re-written, are
+here found in their proper connection.
+
+Though my private memoranda are full enough to give me reasonable
+confidence in the accuracy of these reminiscences, I have made it a
+duty to test my memory by constant reference to the original
+contemporaneous material so abundantly preserved in the government
+publication of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate
+Armies. Where the series of these records is not given, my
+references are to the First Series, with the abbreviation O. R., and
+I have preferred to adhere to the official designation of the
+volumes in parts, as each volume then includes the documents of a
+single campaign.
+
+J. D. C.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.--The manuscript of this work had been completed by General
+Cox, and placed in the hands of the publishers several weeks before
+his untimely death at Magnolia, Mass., August 4, 1900. He himself
+had read and revised some four hundred pages of the press-work. The
+work of reading and revising the remaining proofs and of preparing a
+general index for the work was undertaken by the undersigned from a
+deep sense of obligation to and loving regard for the author, which
+could not find a more fitting expression at this time. No material
+changes have been made in text or notes. Citations have been looked
+up and references verified with care, yet errors may have crept in,
+which his well-known accuracy would have excluded. For all such and
+for the imperfections of the index, the undersigned must accept
+responsibility, and beg the indulgence of the reader, who will find
+in the text itself enough of interest and profit to excuse many
+shortcomings.
+
+WILLIAM C. COCHRAN. CINCINNATI, October 1, 1900.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR
+
+Ohio Senate, April 12--Sumter bombarded--"Glory to God!"--The
+surrender--Effect on public sentiment--Call for troops--Politicians
+changing front--David Tod--Stephen A. Douglas--The insurrection must
+be crushed--Garfield on personal duty--Troops organized by the
+States--The militia--Unpreparedness--McClellan at Columbus--Meets
+Governor Dennison--Put in command--Our stock of munitions--Making
+estimates--McClellan's plan--Camp Jackson--Camp Dennison--Gathering
+of the volunteers--Garibaldi uniforms--Officering the troops--Off
+for Washington--Scenes in the State Capitol--Governor Dennison's
+labors--Young regulars--Scott's policy--Alex. McCook--Orlando
+Poe--Not allowed to take state commissions.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP DENNISON
+
+Laying out the camp--Rosecrans as engineer--A comfortless
+night--Waking to new duties--Floors or no floors for the
+huts--Hardee's Tactics--The watersupply--Colonel Tom
+Worthington--Joshua Sill--Brigades organized--Bates's
+brigade--Schleich's--My own--McClellan's purpose--Division
+organization--Garfield disappointed--Camp routine--Instruction and
+drill--Camp cookery--Measles--Hospital barn--Sisters of
+Charity--Ferment over re-enlistment--Musters by Gordon
+Granger--"Food for powder"--Brigade staff--De Villiers--"A Captain
+of Calvary"--The "Bloody Tinth"--Almost a row--Summoned to the
+field.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+McCLELLAN IN WEST VIRGINIA
+
+Political attitude of West Virginia--Rebels take the
+initiative--McClellan ordered to act--Ohio militia cross the
+river--The Philippi affair--Significant dates--The vote on
+secession--Virginia in the Confederacy--Lee in
+command--Topography--The mountain passes--Garnett's army--Rich
+Mountain position--McClellan in the field--His forces--Advances
+against Garnett--Rosecrans's proposal--His fight on the
+mountain--McClellan's inaction--Garnett's retreat--Affair at
+Carrick's Ford--Garnett killed--Hill's efforts to intercept--Pegram
+in the wilderness--He surrenders--Indirect results
+important--McClellan's military and personal traits.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE KANAWHA VALLEY
+
+Orders for the Kanawha expedition--The troops and their
+quality--Lack of artillery and cavalry--Assembling at
+Gallipolis--District of the Kanawha--Numbers of the opposing
+forces--Method of advance--Use of steamboats--Advance guards on
+river banks--Camp at Thirteen-mile Creek--Night alarm--The river
+chutes--Sunken obstructions--Pocotaligo--Affair at
+Barboursville--Affair at Scary Creek--Wise's position at Tyler
+Mountain--His precipitate retreat--Occupation of
+Charleston--Rosecrans succeeds McClellan--Advance toward Gauley
+Bridge--Insubordination--The Newspaper Correspondent--Occupation of
+Gauley Bridge.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+GAULEY BRIDGE
+
+The gate of the Kanawha valley--The wilderness beyond--West Virginia
+defences--A romantic post--Chaplain Brown--An adventurous
+mission--Chaplain Dubois--"The river path"--Gauley Mount--Colonel
+Tompkins's home--Bowie-knives--Truculent resolutions--The
+Engineers--Whittlesey, Benham, Wagner--Fortifications--Distant
+reconnoissances--Comparison of forces--Dangers to steamboat
+communications--Allotment of duties--The Summersville post--Seventh
+Ohio at Cross Lanes--Scares and rumors--Robert E. Lee at Valley
+Mountain--Floyd and Wise advance--Rosecrans's orders--The Cross
+Lanes affair--Major Casement's creditable retreat--Colonel Tyler's
+reports--Lieutenant-Colonel Creighton--Quarrels of Wise and
+Floyd--Ambushing rebel cavalry--Affair at Boone Court House--New
+attack at Gauley Bridge--An incipient mutiny--Sad result--A notable
+court-martial--Rosecrans marching toward us--Communications
+renewed--Advance toward Lewisburg--Camp Lookout--A private sorrow.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CARNIFEX FERRY--TO SEWELL MOUNTAIN AND BACK
+
+Rosecrans's march to join me--Reaches Cross Lanes--Advance against
+Floyd--Engagement at Carnifex Ferry--My advance to Sunday
+Road--Conference with Rosecrans--McCook's brigade joins me--Advance
+to Camp Lookout--Brigade commanders--Rosecrans's personal
+characteristics--Hartsuff--Floyd and Wise again--"Battle of
+Bontecou"--Sewell Mountain--The equinoctial--General Schenck
+arrives--Rough lodgings--Withdrawal from the mountain--Rear-guard
+duties--Major Slemmer of Fort Pickens fame--New positions covering
+Gauley Bridge--Floyd at Cotton Mountain--Rosecrans's methods with
+private soldiers--Progress in discipline.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COTTON MOUNTAIN
+
+Floyd cannonades Gauley Bridge--Effect on Rosecrans--Topography of
+Gauley Mount--De Villiers runs the gantlet--Movements of our
+forces--Explaining orders--A hard climb on the mountain--In the post
+at Gauley Bridge--Moving magazine and telegraph--A balky
+mule-team--Ammunition train under fire--Captain Fitch a model
+quartermaster--Plans to entrap Floyd--Moving supply trains at
+night--Method of working the ferry--Of making flatboats--The Cotton
+Mountain affair--Rosecrans dissatisfied with Benham--Vain plans to
+reach East Tennessee.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WINTER-QUARTERS
+
+An impracticable country--Movements suspended--Experienced troops
+ordered away--My orders from Washington--Rosecrans objects--A
+disappointment--Winter organization of the Department--Sifting our
+material--Courts-martial--Regimental schools--Drill and picket
+duty--A military execution--Effect upon the army--Political
+sentiments of the people--Rules of conduct toward them--Case of Mr.
+Parks--Mr. Summers--Mr. Patrick--Mr. Lewis Ruffner--Mr.
+Doddridge--Mr. B. F. Smith--A house divided against itself--Major
+Smith's journal--The contrabands--A fugitive-slave
+case--Embarrassments as to military jurisdiction.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS
+
+High quality of first volunteers--Discipline milder than that of the
+regulars--Reasons for the difference--Practical efficiency of the
+men--Necessity for sifting the officers--Analysis of their
+defects--What is military aptitude?--Diminution of number in
+ascending scale--Effect of age--Of former life and
+occupation--Embarrassments of a new business--Quick progress of the
+right class of young men--Political appointments--Professional
+men--Political leaders naturally prominent in a civil war--"Cutting
+and trying"--Dishonest methods--An excellent army at the end of a
+year--The regulars in 1861--Entrance examinations for West
+Point--The curriculum there--Drill and experience--Its
+limitations--Problems peculiar to the vast increase of the
+army--Ultra-conservatism--Attitude toward the Lincoln
+administration--"Point de zele"--Lack of initiative--Civil work of
+army engineers--What is military art?--Opinions of experts--Military
+history--European armies in the Crimean War--True
+generalship--Anomaly of a double army organization.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT--SPRING CAMPAIGN
+
+Rosecrans's plan of campaign--Approved by McClellan with
+modifications--Wagons or pack-mules--Final form of plan--Changes in
+commands--McClellan limited to Army of the Potomac--Halleck's
+Department of the Mississippi--Fremont's Mountain
+Department--Rosecrans superseded--Preparations in the Kanawha
+District--Batteaux to supplement steamboats--Light wagons for
+mountain work--Fremont's plan--East Tennessee as an objective--The
+supply question--Banks in the Shenandoah valley--Milroy's
+advance--Combat at McDowell--Banks defeated--Fremont's plans
+deranged--Operations in the Kanawha valley--Organization of
+brigades--Brigade commanders--Advance to Narrows of New River--The
+field telegraph--Concentration of the enemy--Affair at
+Princeton--Position at Flat-top Mountain.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+POPE IN COMMAND--TRANSFER TO WASHINGTON
+
+A key position--Crook's engagement at Lewisburg--Watching and
+scouting--Mountain work--Pope in command--Consolidation of
+Departments--Suggestions of our transfer to the East--Pope's Order
+No. 11 and Address to the Army--Orders to march across the
+mountains--Discussion of them--Changed to route by water and
+rail--Ninety-mile march--Logistics--Arriving in Washington--Two
+regiments reach Pope--Two sent to Manassas--Jackson captures
+Manassas--Railway broken--McClellan at Alexandria--Engagement at
+Bull Run Bridge--Ordered to Upton's Hill--Covering
+Washington--Listening to the Bull Run battle--Ill news travels fast.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RETREAT WITHIN THE LINES--REORGANIZATION--HALLECK AND HIS
+SUBORDINATES
+
+McClellan's visits to my position--Riding the lines--Discussing the
+past campaign--The withdrawal from the James--Prophecy--McClellan
+and the soldiers--He is in command of the defences--Intricacy of
+official relations--Reorganization begun--Pope's army marches
+through our works--Meeting of McClellan and Pope--Pope's
+characteristics--Undue depreciation of him--The situation when
+Halleck was made General-in-Chief--Pope's part in it--Reasons for
+dislike on the part of the Potomac Army--McClellan's secret
+service--Deceptive information of the enemy's force--Information
+from prisoners and citizens--Effects of McClellan's illusion as to
+Lee's strength--Halleck's previous career--Did he intend to take
+command in the field?--His abdication of the field command--The
+necessity for a union of forces in Virginia--McClellan's inaction
+was Lee's opportunity--Slow transfer of the Army of the
+Potomac--Halleck burdened with subordinate's work--Burnside twice
+declines the command--It is given to McClellan--Pope relieved--Other
+changes in organization--Consolidation--New campaign begun.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SOUTH MOUNTAIN
+
+March through Washington--Reporting to Burnside--The Ninth
+Corps--Burnside's personal qualities--To Leesboro--Straggling--Lee's
+army at Frederick--Our deliberate advance--Reno at New Market--The
+march past--Reno and Hayes--Camp gossip--Occupation of
+Frederick--Affair with Hampton's cavalry--Crossing Catoctin
+Mountain--The valley and South Mountain--Lee's order found--Division
+of his army--Jackson at Harper's Ferry--Supporting Pleasonton's
+reconnoissance--Meeting Colonel Moor--An involuntary
+warning--Kanawha Division's advance--Opening of the battle--Carrying
+the mountain crest--The morning fight--Lull at noon--Arrival of
+supports--Battle renewed--Final success--Death of Reno--Hooker's
+battle on the right--His report--Burnside's comments--Franklin's
+engagement at Crampton's Gap.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ANTIETAM: PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS
+
+Lee's plan of invasion--Changed by McClellan's advance--The position
+at Sharpsburg--Our routes of march--At the Antietam--McClellan
+reconnoitring--Lee striving to concentrate--Our delays--Tuesday's
+quiet--Hooker's evening march--The Ninth Corps command--Changing our
+positions--McClellan's plan of battle--Hooker's evening
+skirmish--Mansfield goes to support Hooker--Confederate
+positions--Jackson arrives--McLaws and Walker reach the field--Their
+places.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE RIGHT
+
+Hooker astir early--The field near the Dunker Church--Artillery
+combat--Positions of Hooker's divisions--Rocky ledges in the
+woods--Advance of Doubleday through Miller's orchard and
+garden--Enemy's fire from West Wood--They rush for Gibbon's
+battery--Repulse--Advance of Patrick's brigade--Fierce fighting
+along the turnpike--Ricketts's division in the East Wood--Fresh
+effort of Meade's division in the centre--A lull in the
+battle--Mansfield's corps reaches the field--Conflicting opinions as
+to the hour--Mansfield killed--Command devolves on Williams--Advance
+through East Wood--Hooker wounded--Meade in command of the corps--It
+withdraws--Greene's division reaches the Dunker Church--Crawford's
+in the East Wood--Terrible effects on the Confederates--Sumner's
+corps coming up--Its formation--It moves on the Dunker Church from
+the east--Divergence of the divisions--Sedgwick's passes to right of
+Greene--Attacked in flank and broken--Rallying at the Poffenberger
+hill--Twelfth Corps hanging on near the church--Advance of French's
+division--Richardson follows later--Bloody Lane reached--The Piper
+house--Franklin's corps arrives--Charge of Irwin's brigade.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE LEFT
+
+Ninth Corps positions near Antietam Creek--Rodman's division at
+lower ford--Sturgis's at the bridge--Burnside's headquarters on the
+field--View from his place of the battle on the right--French's
+fight--An exploding caisson--Our orders to attack--The hour--Crisis
+of the battle--Discussion of the sequence of events--The Burnside
+bridge--Exposed approach--Enfiladed by enemy's
+artillery--Disposition of enemy's troops--His position very
+strong--Importance of Rodman's movement by the ford--The fight at
+the bridge--Repulse--Fresh efforts--Tactics of the
+assault--Success--Formation on further bank--Bringing up
+ammunition--Willcox relieves Sturgis--The latter now in
+support--Advance against Sharpsburg--Fierce combat--Edge of the town
+reached--Rodman's advance on the left--A. P. Hill's Confederate
+division arrives from Harper's Ferry--Attacks Rodman's flank--A raw
+regiment breaks--The line retires--Sturgis comes into the
+gap--Defensive position taken and held--Enemy's assaults
+repulsed--Troops sleeping on their arms--McClellan's reserve--Other
+troops not used--McClellan's idea of Lee's force and plans--Lee's
+retreat--The terrible casualty lists.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+McCLELLAN AND POLITICS--HIS REMOVAL AND ITS CAUSE
+
+Meeting Colonel Key--His changes of opinion--His relations to
+McClellan--Governor Dennison's influence--McClellan's attitude
+toward Lincoln--Burnside's position--The Harrison Landing
+letter--Compared with Lincoln's views--Probable intent of the
+letter--Incident at McClellan's headquarters--John W.
+Garrett--Emancipation Proclamation--An after-dinner discussion of
+it--Contrary influences--Frank advice--Burnside and John
+Cochrane--General Order 163--Lincoln's visit to camp--Riding the
+field--A review--Lincoln's desire for continuing the
+campaign--McClellan's hesitation--His tactics of discussion--His
+exaggeration of difficulties--Effect on his army--Disillusion a slow
+process--Lee's army not better than Johnston's--Work done by our
+Western army--Difference in morale--An army rarely bolder than its
+leader--Correspondence between Halleck and McClellan--Lincoln's
+remarkable letter on the campaign--The army moves on November 2--Lee
+regains the line covering Richmond--McClellan relieved--Burnside in
+command.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PERSONAL RELATIONS OF McCLELLAN, BURNSIDE, AND PORTER
+
+Intimacy of McClellan and Burnside--Private letters in the official
+files--Burnside's mediation--His self-forgetful devotion--The
+movement to join Pope--Burnside forwards Porter's dispatches--His
+double refusal of the command--McClellan suspends the organization
+of wings--His relations to Porter--Lincoln's letter on the
+subject--Fault-finding with Burnside--Whose work?--Burnside's
+appearance and bearing in the field.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+RETURN TO WEST VIRGINIA
+
+Ordered to the Kanawha valley again--An unwelcome surprise--Reasons
+for the order--Reporting to Halleck at Washington--Affairs in the
+Kanawha in September--Lightburn's positions--Enemy under Loring
+advances--Affair at Fayette C. H.--Lightburn retreats--Gauley Bridge
+abandoned--Charleston evacuated--Disorderly flight to the
+Ohio--Enemy's cavalry raid under Jenkins--General retreat in
+Tennessee and Kentucky--West Virginia not in any Department--Now
+annexed to that of Ohio--Morgan's retreat from Cumberland
+Gap--Ordered to join the Kanawha forces--Milroy's brigade also--My
+interviews with Halleck and Stanton--Promotion--My task--My division
+sent with me--District of West Virginia--Colonel Crook
+promoted--Journey westward--Governor Peirpoint--Governor
+Tod--General Wright--Destitution of Morgan's column--Refitting at
+Portland, Ohio--Night drive to Gallipolis--An amusing
+accident--Inspection at Point Pleasant--Milroy ordered to
+Parkersburg--Milroy's qualities--Interruptions to movement of
+troops--No wagons--Supplies delayed--Confederate retreat--Loring
+relieved--Echols in command--Our march up the valley--Echols
+retreats--We occupy Charleston and Gauley Bridge--Further advance
+stopped--Our forces reduced--Distribution of remaining
+troops--Alarms and minor movements--Case of Mr. Summers--His
+treatment by the Confederates.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WINTER QUARTERS, 1862-63--PROMOTIONS AND POLITICS
+
+Central position of Marietta, Ohio--Connection with all parts of
+West Virginia--Drill and instruction of troops--Guerilla
+warfare--Partisan Rangers--Confederate laws--Disposal of
+plunder--Mosby's Rangers as a type--Opinions of Lee, Stuart, and
+Rosser--Effect on other troops--Rangers finally abolished--Rival
+home-guards and militia--Horrors of neighborhood war--Staff and
+staff duties--Reduction of forces--General Cluseret--Later
+connection with the Paris Commune--His relations with Milroy--He
+resigns--Political situation--Congressmen distrust Lincoln--Cutler's
+diary--Resolutions regarding appointments of general officers--The
+number authorized by law--Stanton's report--Effect of Act of July,
+1862--An excess of nine major-generals--The legal questions
+involved--Congressional patronage and local distribution--Ready for
+a "deal"--Bill to increase the number of generals--A "slate" made up
+to exhaust the number--Senate and House
+disagree--Conference--Agreement in last hours of the session--The
+new list--A few vacancies by resignation, etc.--List of those
+dropped--My own case--Faults of the method--Lincoln's humorous
+comments--Curious case of General Turchin--Congestion in the highest
+grades--Effects--Confederate grades of general and
+lieutenant-general--Superiority of our system--Cotemporaneous
+reports and criticisms--New regiments instead of recruiting old
+ones--Sherman's trenchant opinion.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FAREWELL TO WEST VIRGINIA--BURNSIDE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO
+
+Desire for field service--Changes in the Army of the
+Potomac--Judgment of McClellan at that time--Our defective
+knowledge--Changes in West Virginia--Errors in new
+organization--Embarrassments resulting--Visit to General
+Schenck--New orders from Washington--Sent to Ohio to administer the
+draft--Burnside at head of the department--District of
+Ohio--Headquarters at Cincinnati--Cordial relations of Governor Tod
+with the military authorities--System of enrolment and
+draft--Administration by Colonel Fry--Decay of the veteran
+regiments--Bounty-jumping--Effects on political parties--Soldiers
+voting--Burnside's military plans--East Tennessee--Rosecrans aiming
+at Chattanooga--Burnside's business habits--His frankness--Stories
+about him--His personal characteristics--Cincinnati as a border
+city--Rebel sympathizers--Order No. 38--Challenged by
+Vallandigham--The order not a new departure--Lincoln's
+proclamation--General Wright's circular.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE VALLANDIGHAM CASE--THE HOLMES COUNTY WAR
+
+Clement L. Vallandigham--His opposition to the war--His theory of
+reconstruction--His Mount Vernon speech--His arrest--Sent before the
+military commission--General Potter its president--Counsel for the
+prisoner--The line of defence--The judgment--Habeas Corpus
+proceedings--Circuit Court of the United States--Judge Leavitt
+denies the release--Commutation by the President--Sent beyond the
+lines--Conduct of Confederate authorities--Vallandigham in
+Canada--Candidate for Governor--Political results--Martial
+law--Principles underlying it--Practical application--The intent to
+aid the public enemy--The intent to defeat the draft--Armed
+resistance to arrest of deserters, Noble County--To the enrolment in
+Holmes County--A real insurrection--Connection of these with
+Vallandigham's speeches--The Supreme Court refuses to
+interfere--Action in the Milligan case after the war--Judge Davis's
+personal views--Knights of the Golden Circle--The Holmes County
+outbreak--Its suppression--Letter to Judge Welker.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BURNSIDE AND ROSECRANS--THE SUMMER'S DELAYS
+
+Condition of Kentucky and Tennessee--Halleck's instructions to
+Burnside--Blockhouses at bridges--Relief of East
+Tennessee--Conditions of the problem--Vast wagon-train
+required--Scheme of a railroad--Surveys begun--Burnside's efforts to
+arrange co-operation with Rosecrans--Bragg sending troops to
+Johnston--Halleck urges Rosecrans to activity--Continued
+inactivity--Burnside ordered to send troops to Grant--Rosecrans's
+correspondence with Halleck--Lincoln's dispatch--Rosecrans collects
+his subordinates' opinions--Councils of war--The situation
+considered--Sheridan and Thomas--Computation of
+effectives--Garfield's summing up--Review of the situation when
+Rosecrans succeeded Buell--After Stone's River--Relative
+forces--Disastrous detached expeditions--Appeal to ambition--The
+major-generalship in regular army--Views of the President
+justified--Burnside's forces--Confederate forces in East
+Tennessee--Reasons for the double organization of the Union armies.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE MORGAN RAID
+
+Departure of the staff for the field--An amusingly quick
+return--Changes in my own duties--Expeditions to occupy the
+enemy--Sanders' raid into East Tennessee--His route--His success and
+return--The Confederate Morgan's raid--His instructions--His
+reputation as a soldier--Compared with Forrest--Morgan's start
+delayed--His appearance at Green River, Ky.--Foiled by Colonel
+Moore--Captures Lebanon--Reaches the Ohio at Brandenburg--General
+Hobson in pursuit--Morgan crosses into Indiana--Was this his
+original purpose?--His route out of Indiana into Ohio--He approaches
+Cincinnati--Hot chase by Hobson--Gunboats co-operating on the
+river--Efforts to block his way--He avoids garrisoned posts and
+cities--Our troops moved in transports by water--Condition of
+Morgan's jaded column--Approaching the Ohio at
+Buffington's--Gunboats near the ford--Hobson attacks--Part captured,
+the rest fly northward--Another capture--A long chase--Surrender of
+Morgan with the remnant--Summary of results--A burlesque
+capitulation.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE LIBERATION OF EAST TENNESSEE
+
+News of Grant's victory at Vicksburg--A thrilling scene at the
+opera--Burnside's Ninth Corps to return--Stanton urges Rosecrans to
+advance--The Tullahoma manoeuvres--Testy correspondence--Its real
+meaning--Urgency with Burnside--Ignorance concerning his
+situation--His disappointment as to Ninth Corps--Rapid concentration
+of other troops--Burnside's march into East Tennessee--Occupation of
+Knoxville--Invests Cumberland Gap--The garrison surrenders--Good
+news from Rosecrans--Distances between armies--Divergent lines--No
+railway communication--Burnside concentrates toward the Virginia
+line--Joy of the people--Their intense loyalty--Their faith in the
+future.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BURNSIDE IN EAST TENNESSEE
+
+Organizing and arming the loyalists--Burnside concentrates near
+Greeneville--His general plan--Rumors of Confederate
+reinforcements--Lack of accurate information--The Ninth Corps in
+Kentucky--Its depletion by malarial disease--Death of General Welsh
+from this cause--Preparing for further work--Situation on 16th
+September--Dispatch from Halleck--Its apparent purpose--Necessity to
+dispose of the enemy near Virginia border--Burnside personally at
+the front--His great activity--Ignorance of Rosecrans's
+peril--Impossibility of joining him by the 20th--Ruinous effects of
+abandoning East Tennessee--Efforts to aid Rosecrans without such
+abandonment--Enemy duped into burning Watauga bridge
+themselves--Ninth Corps arriving--Willcox's division garrisons
+Cumberland Gap--Reinforcements sent Rosecrans from all
+quarters--Chattanooga made safe from attack--The supply
+question--Meigs's description of the roads--Burnside halted near
+Loudon--Halleck's misconception of the geography--The people
+imploring the President not to remove the troops--How Longstreet got
+away from Virginia--Burnside's alternate plans--Minor operations in
+upper Holston valley--Wolford's affair on the lower Holston.
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF
+
+THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR
+
+
+Ohio Senate April 12--Sumter bombarded--"Glory to God!"--The
+surrender--Effect on public sentiment--Call for troops--Politicians
+changing front--David Tod--Stephen A. Douglas--The insurrection must
+be crushed--Garfield on personal duty--Troops organized by the
+States--The militia--Unpreparedness--McClellan at Columbus--Meets
+Governor Dennison--Put in command--Our stock of munitions--Making
+estimates--McClellan's plan--Camp Jackson--Camp Dennison--Gathering
+of the volunteers--Garibaldi uniforms--Officering the troops--Off
+for Washington--Scenes in the State Capitol--Governor Dennison's
+labors--Young regulars--Scott's policy--Alex. McCook--Orlando
+Poe--Not allowed to take state commissions.
+
+
+On Friday the twelfth day of April, 1861, the Senate of Ohio was in
+session, trying to go on in the ordinary routine of business, but
+with a sense of anxiety and strain which was caused by the troubled
+condition of national affairs. The passage of Ordinances of
+Secession by one after another of the Southern States, and even the
+assembling of a provisional Confederate government at Montgomery,
+had not wholly destroyed the hope that some peaceful way out of our
+troubles would be found; yet the gathering of an army on the sands
+opposite Fort Sumter was really war, and if a hostile gun were
+fired, we knew it would mean the end of all effort at arrangement.
+Hoping almost against hope that blood would not be shed, and that
+the pageant of military array and of a rebel government would pass
+by and soon be reckoned among the disused scenes and properties of a
+political drama that never pretended to be more than acting, we
+tried to give our thoughts to business; but there was no heart in
+it, and the morning hour lagged, for we could not work in earnest
+and we were unwilling to adjourn.
+
+Suddenly a senator came in from the lobby in an excited way, and
+catching the chairman's eye, exclaimed, "Mr. President, the
+telegraph announces that the secessionists are bombarding Fort
+Sumter!" There was a solemn and painful hush, but it was broken in a
+moment by a woman's shrill voice from the spectators' seats, crying,
+"Glory to God!" It startled every one, almost as if the enemy were
+in the midst. But it was the voice of a radical friend of the slave,
+who after a lifetime of public agitation believed that only through
+blood could freedom be won. Abby Kelly Foster had been attending the
+session of the Assembly, urging the passage of some measures
+enlarging the legal rights of married women, and, sitting beyond the
+railing when the news came in, shouted a fierce cry of joy that
+oppression had submitted its cause to the decision of the sword.
+With most of us, the gloomy thought that civil war had begun in our
+own land overshadowed everything, and seemed too great a price to
+pay for any good; a scourge to be borne only in preference to
+yielding the very groundwork of our republicanism,--the right to
+enforce a fair interpretation of the Constitution through the
+election of President and Congress.
+
+The next day we learned that Major Anderson had surrendered, and the
+telegraphic news from all the Northern States showed plain evidence
+of a popular outburst of loyalty to the Union, following a brief
+moment of dismay. Judge Thomas M. Key of Cincinnati, chairman of the
+Judiciary Committee, was the recognized leader of the Democratic
+party in the Senate, [Footnote: Afterward aide-de-camp and acting
+judge-advocate on McClellan's staff.] and at an early hour moved an
+adjournment to the following Tuesday, in order, as he said, that the
+senators might have the opportunity to go home and consult their
+constituents in the perilous crisis of public affairs. No objection
+was made to the adjournment, and the representatives took a similar
+recess. All were in a state of most anxious suspense,--the
+Republicans to know what initiative the Administration at Washington
+would take, and the Democrats to determine what course they should
+follow if the President should call for troops to put down the
+insurrection.
+
+Before we meet again, Mr. Lincoln's proclamation and call for
+seventy-five thousand militia for three months' service were out,
+and the great mass of the people of the North, forgetting all party
+distinctions, answered with an enthusiastic patriotism that swept
+politicians off their feet. When we met again on Tuesday morning,
+Judge Key, taking my arm and pacing the floor outside the railing in
+the Senate chamber, broke out impetuously, "Mr. Cox, the people have
+gone stark mad!" "I knew they would if a blow was struck against the
+flag," said I, reminding him of some previous conversations we had
+had on the subject. He, with most of the politicians of the day,
+partly by sympathy with the overwhelming current of public opinion,
+and partly by reaction of their own hearts against the false
+theories which had encouraged the secessionists, determined to
+support the war measures of the government, and to make no factious
+opposition to such state legislation as might be necessary to
+sustain the federal administration.
+
+The attitude of Mr. Key is only a type of many others, and makers
+one of the most striking features of the time. On the 8th of January
+the usual Democratic convention and celebration of the Battle of New
+Orleans had taken place, and a series of resolutions had been
+passed, which were drafted, as was understood, by Judge Thurman. In
+these, professing to speak in the name of "two hundred thousand
+Democrats of Ohio," the convention had very significantly intimated
+that this vast organization of men would be found in the way of any
+attempt to put down secession until the demands of the South in
+respect to slavery were complied with. A few days afterward I was
+returning to Columbus from my home in Trumbull County, and meeting
+upon the railway train with David Tod, then an active Democratic
+politician, but afterward one of our loyal "war governors," the
+conversation turned on the action of the convention which had just
+adjourned. Mr. Tod and I were personal friends and neighbors, and I
+freely expressed my surprise that the convention should have
+committed itself to what must be interpreted as a threat of
+insurrection in the North if the administration should, in opposing
+secession by force, follow the example of Andrew Jackson, in whose
+honor they had assembled. He rather vehemently reasserted the
+substance of the resolution, saying that we Republicans would find
+the two hundred thousand Ohio Democrats in front of us, if we
+attempted to cross the Ohio River. My answer was, "We will give up
+the contest if we cannot carry your two hundred thousand over the
+heads of your leaders."
+
+The result proved how hollow the party professions had been; or
+perhaps I should say how superficial was the hold of such party
+doctrines upon the mass of men in a great political organization. In
+the excitement of political campaigns they had cheered the
+extravagant language of party platforms with very little reflection,
+and the leaders had imagined that the people were really and
+earnestly indoctrinated into the political creed of Calhoun; but at
+the first shot from Beauregard's guns in Charleston harbor their
+latent patriotism sprang into vigorous life, and they crowded to the
+recruiting stations to enlist for the defence of the national flag
+and the national Union. It was a popular torrent which no leaders
+could resist; but many of these should be credited with the same
+patriotic impulse, and it made them nobly oblivious of party
+consistency. Stephen A. Douglas passed through Columbus on his way
+to Washington a few days after the surrender of Sumter, and in
+response to the calls of a spontaneous gathering of people, spoke to
+them from his bedroom window in the American House. There had been
+no thought for any of the common surroundings of a public meeting.
+There were no torches, no music. A dark crowd of men filled full the
+dim-lit street, and called for Douglas with an earnestness of tone
+wholly different from the enthusiasm of common political gatherings.
+He came half-dressed to his window, and without any light near him,
+spoke solemnly to the people upon the terrible crisis which had come
+upon the nation. Men of all parties were there: his own followers to
+get some light as to their duty; the Breckinridge Democrats ready,
+most of them, repentantly to follow a Northern leader, now that
+their recent candidate was in the rebellion; [Footnote: Breckinridge
+did not formally join the Confederacy till September, but his accord
+with the secessionists was well known.] the Republicans eagerly
+anxious to know whether so potent an influence was to be
+unreservedly on the side of the country. I remember well the serious
+solicitude with which I listened to his opening sentences as I
+leaned against the railing of the State House park, trying in vain
+to get more than a dim outline of the man as he stood at the
+unlighted window. His deep sonorous voice rolled down through the
+darkness from above us,--an earnest, measured voice, the more
+solemn, the more impressive, because we could not see the speaker,
+and it came to us literally as "a voice in the night,"--the night of
+our country's unspeakable trial. There was no uncertainty in his
+tone: the Union must be preserved and the insurrection must be
+crushed,--he pledged his hearty support to Mr. Lincoln's
+administration in doing this. Other questions must stand aside till
+the national authority should be everywhere recognized. I do not
+think we greatly cheered him,--it was rather a deep Amen that went
+up from the crowd. We went home breathing freer in the assurance we
+now felt that, for a time at least, no organized opposition to the
+federal government and its policy of coercion would be formidable in
+the North. We did not look for unanimity. Bitter and narrow men
+there were whose sympathies were with their country's enemies.
+Others equally narrow were still in the chains of the secession
+logic they had learned from the Calhounists; but the broader-minded
+men found themselves happy in being free from disloyal theories, and
+threw themselves sincerely and earnestly into the popular movement.
+There was no more doubt where Douglas or Tod or Key would be found,
+or any of the great class they represented.
+
+Yet the situation hung upon us like a nightmare. Garfield and I were
+lodging together at the time, our wives being kept at home by family
+cares, and when we reached our sitting-room, after an evening
+session of the Senate, we often found ourselves involuntarily
+groaning, "Civil war in _our_ land!" The shame, the outrage, the
+folly, seemed too great to believe, and we half hoped to wake from
+it as from a dream. Among the painful remembrances of those days is
+the ever-present weight at the heart which never left me till I
+found relief in the active duties of camp life at the close of the
+month. I went about my duties (and I am sure most of those I
+associated with did the same) with the half-choking sense of a grief
+I dared not think of: like one who is dragging himself to the
+ordinary labors of life from some terrible and recent bereavement.
+
+We talked of our personal duty, and though both Garfield and myself
+had young families, we were agreed that our activity in the
+organization and support of the Republican party made the duty of
+supporting the government by military service come peculiarly home
+to us. He was, for the moment, somewhat trammelled by his
+half-clerical position, but he very soon cut the knot. My own path
+seemed unmistakably clear. He, more careful for his friend than for
+himself, urged upon me his doubts whether my physical strength was
+equal to the strain that would be put upon it. "I," said he, "am big
+and strong, and if my relations to the church and the college can be
+broken, I shall have no excuse for not enlisting; but you are
+slender and will break down." It was true that I looked slender for
+a man six feet high (though it would hardly be suspected now that it
+was so), yet I had assured confidence in the elasticity of my
+constitution; and the result justified me, whilst it also showed how
+liable to mistake one is in such things. Garfield found that he had
+a tendency to weakness of the alimentary system which broke him down
+on every campaign in which he served and led to his retiring from
+the army much earlier than he had intended. My own health, on the
+other hand, was strengthened by out-door life and exposure, and I
+served to the end with growing physical vigor.
+
+When Mr. Lincoln issued his first call for troops, the existing laws
+made it necessary that these should be fully organized and officered
+by the several States. Then, the treasury was in no condition to
+bear the burden of war expenditures, and till Congress could
+assemble, the President was forced to rely on the States to furnish
+the means necessary for the equipment and transportation of their
+own troops. This threw upon the governors and legislatures of the
+loyal States responsibilities of a kind wholly unprecedented. A long
+period of profound peace had made every military organization seem
+almost farcical. A few independent military companies formed the
+merest shadow of an army; the state militia proper was only a
+nominal thing. It happened, however, that I held a commission as
+Brigadier in this state militia, and my intimacy with Governor
+Dennison led him to call upon me for such assistance as I could
+render in the first enrolment and organization of the Ohio quota.
+Arranging to be called to the Senate chamber when my vote might be
+needed upon important legislation, I gave my time chiefly to such
+military matters as the governor appointed. Although, as I have
+said, my military commission had been a nominal thing, and in fact I
+had never worn a uniform, I had not wholly neglected theoretic
+preparation for such work. For some years the possibility of a war
+of secession had been one of the things which would force itself
+upon the thoughts of reflecting people, and I had been led to give
+some careful study to such books of tactics and of strategy as were
+within easy reach. I had especially been led to read military
+history with critical care, and had carried away many valuable ideas
+from this most useful means of military education. I had therefore
+some notion of the work before us, and could approach its problems
+with less loss of time, at least, than if I had been wholly
+ignorant. [Footnote: I have treated this subject somewhat more fully
+in a paper in the "Atlantic Monthly" for March, 1892, "Why the Men
+of '61 fought for the Union."]
+
+My commission as Brigadier-General in the Ohio quota in national
+service was dated on the 23d of April, though it had been understood
+for several days that my tender of service in the field would be
+accepted. Just about the same time Captain George B. McClellan was
+requested by Governor Dennison to come to Columbus for consultation,
+and by the governor's request I met him at the railway station and
+took him to the State House. I think Mr. Larz Anderson (brother of
+Major Robert Anderson) and Mr. L'Hommedieu of Cincinnati were with
+him. The intimation had been given me that he would probably be made
+major-general and commandant of our Ohio contingent, and this,
+naturally, made me scan him closely. He was rather under the medium
+height, but muscularly formed, with broad shoulders and a
+well-poised head, active and graceful in motion. His whole
+appearance was quiet and modest, but when drawn out he showed no
+lack of confidence in himself. He was dressed in a plain travelling
+suit, with a narrow-rimmed soft felt hat. In short, he seemed what
+he was, a railway superintendent in his business clothes. At the
+time his name was a good deal associated with that of Beauregard;
+they were spoken of as young men of similar standing in the Engineer
+Corps of the Army, and great things were expected of them both
+because of their scientific knowledge of their profession, though
+McClellan had been in civil life for some years. His report on the
+Crimean War was one of the few important memoirs our old army had
+produced, and was valuable enough to give a just reputation for
+comprehensive understanding of military organization, and the
+promise of ability to conduct the operations of an army.
+
+I was present at the interview which the governor had with him. The
+destitution of the State of everything like military material and
+equipment was very plainly put, and the magnitude of the task of
+building up a small army out of nothing was not blinked. The
+governor spoke of the embarrassment he felt at every step from the
+lack of practical military experience in his staff, and of his
+desire to have some one on whom he could properly throw the details
+of military work. McClellan showed that he fully understood the
+difficulties there would be before him, and said that no man could
+wholly master them at once, although he had confidence that if a few
+weeks' time for preparation were given, he would be able to put the
+Ohio division into reasonable form for taking the field. The command
+was then formally tendered and accepted. All of us who were present
+felt that the selection was one full of promise and hope, and that
+the governor had done the wisest thing practicable at the time.
+
+The next morning McClellan requested me to accompany him to the
+State Arsenal, to see what arms and material might be there. We
+found a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued
+to militia companies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No
+belts, cartridge-boxes, or other accoutrements were with them. There
+were two or three smooth-bore brass fieldpieces, six-pounders, which
+had been honeycombed by firing salutes, and of which the vents had
+been worn out, bushed, and worn out again. In a heap in one corner
+lay a confused pile of mildewed harness, which had probably been
+once used for artillery horses, but was now not worth carrying away.
+There had for many years been no money appropriated to buy military
+material or even to protect the little the State had. The federal
+government had occasionally distributed some arms which were in the
+hands of the independent uniformed militia, and the arsenal was
+simply an empty storehouse. It did not take long to complete our
+inspection. At the door, as we were leaving the building, McClellan
+turned, and looking back into its emptiness, remarked, half
+humorously and half sadly, "A fine stock of munitions on which to
+begin a great war!" We went back to the State House, where a room in
+the Secretary of State's department was assigned us, and we sat down
+to work. The first task was to make out detailed schedules and
+estimates of what would be needed to equip ten thousand men for the
+field. This was a unit which could be used by the governor and
+legislature in estimating the appropriations needed then or
+subsequently. Intervals in this labor were used in discussing the
+general situation and plans of campaign. Before the close of the
+week McClellan drew up a paper embodying his own views, and
+forwarded it to Lieutenant-General Scott. He read it to me, and my
+recollection of it is that he suggested two principal lines of
+movement in the West,--one, to move eastward by the Kanawha valley
+with a heavy column to co-operate with an army in front of
+Washington; the other, to march directly southward and to open the
+valley of the Mississippi. Scott's answer was appreciative and
+flattering, without distinctly approving his plan; and I have never
+doubted that the paper prepared the way for his appointment in the
+regular army which followed at so early a day. [Footnote: I am not
+aware that McClellan's plan of campaign has been published. Scott's
+answer to it is given in General Townsend's "Anecdotes of the Civil
+War," p. 260. It was, with other communications from Governor
+Dennison, carried to Washington by Hon. A. F. Perry of Cincinnati,
+an intimate friend of the governor, who volunteered as special
+messenger, the mail service being unsafe. See a paper by Mr. Perry
+in "Sketches of War History" (Ohio Loyal Legion), _vol. iii._ p.
+345.]
+
+During this week McClellan was invited to take the command of the
+troops to be raised in Pennsylvania, his native State. Some things
+beside his natural attachment to Pennsylvania made the proposal an
+attractive one to him. It was already evident that the army which
+might be organized near Washington would be peculiarly in the public
+eye, and would give to its leading officers greater opportunities of
+prompt recognition and promotion than would be likely to occur in
+the West. The close association with the government would also be a
+source of power if he were successful, and the way to a chief
+command would be more open there than elsewhere. McClellan told me
+frankly that if the offer had come before he had assumed the Ohio
+command, he would have accepted it; but he promptly decided that he
+was honorably bound to serve under the commission he had already
+received and which, like my own, was dated April 23.
+
+My own first assignment to a military command was during the same
+week, on the completion of our estimates, when I was for a few days
+put in charge of Camp Jackson, the depot of recruits which Governor
+Dennison had established in the northern suburb of Columbus and had
+named in honor of the first squelcher of secessionism. McClellan
+soon determined, however, that a separate camp of instruction should
+be formed for the troops mustered into the United States service,
+and should be so placed as to be free from the temptations and
+inconveniences of too close neighborhood to a large city, whilst it
+should also be reasonably well placed for speedy defence of the
+southern frontier of the State. Other camps could be under state
+control and used only for the organization of regiments which could
+afterward be sent to the camp of instruction or elsewhere. Railway
+lines and connections indicated some point in the Little Miami
+valley as the proper place for such a camp; and Mr. Woodward, the
+chief engineer of the Little Miami Railroad, being taken into
+consultation, suggested a spot on the line of that railway about
+thirteen miles from Cincinnati, where a considerable bend of the
+Little Miami River encloses wide and level fields, backed on the
+west by gently rising hills. I was invited to accompany the general
+in making the inspection of the site, and I think we were
+accompanied by Captain Rosecrans, an officer who had resigned from
+the regular army to seek a career as civil engineer, and had lately
+been in charge of some coal mines in the Kanawha valley. Mr.
+Woodward was also of the party, and furnished a special train to
+enable us to stop at as many eligible points as it might be thought
+desirable to examine. There was no doubt that the point suggested
+was best adapted for our work, and although the owners of the land
+made rather hard terms, McClellan was authorized to close a contract
+for the use of the military camp, which, in honor of the governor,
+he named Camp Dennison.
+
+But in trying to give a connected idea of the first military
+organization of the State, I have outrun some incidents of those
+days which are worth recollection. From the hour the call for troops
+was published, enlistments began, and recruits were parading the
+streets continually. At the Capitol the restless impulse to be doing
+something military seized even upon the members of the legislature,
+and a large number of them assembled every evening upon the east
+terrace of the State House to be drilled in marching and facing, by
+one or two of their own number who had some knowledge of company
+tactics. Most of the uniformed independent companies in the cities
+of the State immediately tendered their services, and began to
+recruit their numbers to the hundred men required for acceptance.
+There was no time to procure uniform, nor was it desirable; for
+these independent companies had chosen their own, and would have to
+change it for that of the United States as soon as this could be
+furnished. For some days companies could be seen marching and
+drilling, of which part would be uniformed in some gaudy style, such
+as is apt to prevail in holiday parades in time of peace, whilst
+another part would be dressed in the ordinary working garb of
+citizens of all degrees. The uniformed files would also be armed and
+accoutred; the others would be without arms or equipments, and as
+awkward a squad as could well be imagined. The material, however,
+was magnificent, and soon began to take shape. The fancy uniforms
+were left at home, and some approximation to a simple and useful
+costume was made. The recent popular outburst in Italy furnished a
+useful idea, and the "Garibaldi uniform" of a red flannel shirt with
+broad falling collar, with blue trousers held by a leathern
+waist-belt, and a soft felt hat for the head, was extensively
+copied, and served an excellent purpose. It could be made by the
+wives and sisters at home, and was all the more acceptable for that.
+The spring was opening, and a heavy coat would not be much needed,
+so that with some sort of overcoat and a good blanket in an
+improvised knapsack, the new company was not badly provided. The
+warm scarlet color, reflected from their enthusiastic faces as they
+stood in line, made a picture that never failed to impress the
+mustering officers with the splendid character of the men.
+
+The officering of these new troops was a difficult and delicate
+task, and so far as company officers were concerned, there seemed no
+better way at the beginning than to let the enlisted men elect their
+own, as was in fact done. In most cases where entirely new companies
+were raised, it had been by the enthusiastic efforts of some
+energetic volunteers who were naturally made the commissioned
+officers. But not always. There were numerous examples of
+self-denying patriotism which stayed in the ranks after expending
+much labor and money in recruiting, modestly refusing the honors,
+and giving way to some one supposed to have military knowledge or
+experience. The war in Mexico in 1847 was the latest conflict with a
+civilized people, and to have served in it was a sure passport to
+confidence. It had often been a service more in name than in fact;
+but the young volunteers felt so deeply their own ignorance that
+they were ready to yield to any pretence of superior knowledge, and
+generously to trust themselves to any one who would offer to lead
+them. Hosts of charlatans and incompetents were thus put into
+responsible places at the beginning, but the sifting work went on
+fast after the troops were once in the field. The election of field
+officers, however, ought not to have been allowed. Companies were
+necessarily regimented together, of which each could have but little
+personal knowledge of the officers of the others; intrigue and
+demagogy soon came into play, and almost fatal mistakes were made in
+selection. After a time the evil worked its own cure, but the ill
+effects of it were long visible.
+
+The immediate need of troops to protect Washington caused most of
+the uniformed companies to be united into the first two regiments,
+which were quickly despatched to the East. It was a curious study to
+watch the indications of character as the officers commanding
+companies reported to the governor, and were told that the pressing
+demand from Washington made it necessary to organize a regiment or
+two and forward them at once, without waiting to arm or equip the
+recruits. Some promptly recognized the necessity and took the
+undesirable features as part of the duty they had assumed. Others
+were querulous, wishing some one else to stand first in the breach,
+leaving them time for drill, equipment, and preparation. One figure
+impressed itself very strongly on my memory. A sturdy form, a head
+with more than ordinary marks of intelligence, but a bearing with
+more of swagger than of self-poised courage, yet evidently a man of
+some importance in his own community, stood before the seat of the
+governor, the bright lights of the chandelier over the table
+lighting strongly both their figures. The officer was wrapped in a
+heavy blanket or carriage lap-robe, spotted like a leopard skin,
+which gave him a brigandish air. He was disposed to protest. "If my
+men were hellions," said he, with strong emphasis on the word (a new
+one to me), "I wouldn't mind; but to send off the best young fellows
+of the county in such a way looks like murder." The governor,
+sitting with pale, delicate features, but resolute air, answered
+that the way to Washington was not supposed to be dangerous, and the
+men could be armed and equipped, he was assured, as soon as they
+reached there. It would be done at Harrisburg, if possible, and
+certainly if any hostility should be shown in Maryland. The
+President wanted the regiments at once, and Ohio's volunteers were
+quite as ready to go as any. He had no choice, therefore, but to
+order them off. The order was obeyed; but the obedience was with bad
+grace, and I felt misgivings as to the officer's fitness to
+command,--misgivings which about a year afterward were vividly
+recalled with the scene I have described.
+
+No sooner were these regiments off than companies began to stream in
+from all parts of the State. On their first arrival they were
+quartered wherever shelter could be had, as there were no tents or
+sheds to make a camp for them. Going to my evening work at the State
+House, as I crossed the rotunda, I saw a company marching in by the
+south door, and another disposing itself for the night upon the
+marble pavement near the east entrance; as I passed on to the north
+hall, I saw another, that had come a little earlier, holding a
+prayer-meeting, the stone arches echoing with the excited
+supplications of some one who was borne out of himself by the
+terrible pressure of events around him, whilst, mingling with his
+pathetic, beseeching tones as he prayed for his country, came the
+shrill notes of the fife, and the thundering din of the inevitable
+bass drum from the company marching in on the other side. In the
+Senate chamber a company was quartered, and the senators were there
+supplying them with paper and pens, with which the boys were writing
+their farewells to mothers and sweethearts whom they hardly dared
+hope they should see again. A similar scene was going on in the
+Representatives' hall, another in the Supreme Court room. In the
+executive office sat the governor, the unwonted noises, when the
+door was opened, breaking in on the quiet business-like air of the
+room,--he meanwhile dictating despatches, indicating answers to
+others, receiving committees of citizens, giving directions to
+officers of companies and regiments, accommodating himself to the
+wilful democracy of our institutions which insists upon seeing the
+man in chief command and will not take its answer from a
+subordinate, until in the small hours of the night the noises were
+hushed, and after a brief hour of effective, undisturbed work upon
+the matters of chief importance, he could leave the glare of his
+gas-lighted office, and seek a few hours' rest, only to renew the
+same wearing labors on the morrow.
+
+On the streets the excitement was of a rougher if not more intense
+character. A minority of unthinking partisans could not understand
+the strength and sweep of the great popular movement, and would
+sometimes venture to speak out their sympathy with the rebellion or
+their sneers at some party friend who had enlisted. In the boiling
+temper of the time the quick answer was a blow; and it was one of
+the common incidents of the day for those who came into the State
+House to tell of a knockdown that had occurred here or there, when
+this popular punishment had been administered to some indiscreet
+"rebel sympathizer."
+
+Various duties brought young army officers of the regular service to
+the state capital, and others sought a brief leave of absence to
+come and offer their services to the governor of their native State.
+General Scott, too much bound up in his experience of the Mexican
+War, and not foreseeing the totally different proportions which this
+must assume, planted himself firmly on the theory that the regular
+army must be the principal reliance for severe work, and that the
+volunteers could only be auxiliaries around this solid nucleus which
+would show them the way to perform their duty and take the brunt of
+every encounter. The young regulars who asked leave to accept
+commissions in state regiments were therefore refused, and were
+ordered to their own subaltern positions and posts. There can be no
+doubt that the true policy would have been to encourage the whole of
+this younger class to enter at once the volunteer service. They
+would have been the field officers of the new regiments, and would
+have impressed discipline and system upon the organization from the
+beginning. The Confederacy really profited by having no regular
+army. They gave to the officers who left our service, it is true,
+commissions in their so-called "provisional army," to encourage them
+in the assurance that they would have permanent military positions
+if the war should end in the independence of the South; but this was
+only a nominal organization, and their real army was made up (as
+ours turned out practically to be) from the regiments of state
+volunteers. Less than a year afterward we changed our policy, but it
+was then too late to induce many of the regular officers to take
+regimental positions in the volunteer troops. I hesitate to declare
+that this did not turn out for the best; for although the
+organization of our army would have been more rapidly perfected,
+there are other considerations which have much weight. The army
+would not have been the popular thing it was, its close
+identification with the people's movement would have been weakened,
+and it perhaps would not so readily have melted again into the mass
+of the nation at the close of the war.
+
+Among the first of the young regular officers who came to Columbus
+was Alexander McCook. He was ordered there as inspection and
+mustering officer, and one of my earliest duties was to accompany
+him to Camp Jackson to inspect the cooked rations which the
+contractors were furnishing the new troops. I warmed to his earnest,
+breezy way, and his business-like activity in performing his duty.
+As a makeshift, before camp equipage and cooking utensils could be
+issued to the troops, the contractors placed long trestle tables
+under an improvised shed, and the soldiers came to these and ate, as
+at a country picnic. It was not a bad arrangement to bridge over the
+interval between home life and regular soldiers' fare, and the
+outcry about it at the time was senseless, as all of us know who saw
+real service afterward. McCook bustled along from table to table,
+sticking a long skewer into a boiled ham, smelling of it to see if
+the interior of the meat was tainted; breaking open a loaf of bread
+and smelling of it to see if it was sour; examining the coffee
+before it was put into the kettles, and after it was made; passing
+his judgment on each, in prompt, peremptory manner as we went on.
+The food was, in the main, excellent, though, as a way of supporting
+an army, it was quite too costly to last long.
+
+While mustering in the recruits, McCook was elected colonel of the
+First Regiment Ohio Volunteers, which had, I believe, already gone
+to Washington. He was eager to accept, and telegraphed to Washington
+for permission. Adjutant-General Thomas replied that it was not the
+policy of the War Department to permit it. McCook cut the knot in
+gallant style. He immediately tendered his resignation in the
+regular army, taking care to say that he did so, not to avoid his
+country's service or to aid her enemies, but because he believed he
+could serve her much more effectively by drilling and leading a
+regiment of Union volunteers. He notified the governor of his
+acceptance of the colonelcy, and his _coup-de-main_ was a success;
+for the department did not like to accept a resignation under such
+circumstances, and he had the exceptional luck to keep his regular
+commission and gain prestige as well, by his bold energy in the
+matter.
+
+Orlando Poe came about the same time, for all this was occurring in
+the last ten days of April. He was a lieutenant of topographical
+engineers, and was stationed with General (then Captain) Meade at
+Detroit, doing duty upon the coast survey of the lakes. He was in
+person the model for a young athlete, tall, dark, and strong, with
+frank, open countenance, looking fit to repeat his ancestor Adam
+Poe's adventurous conflicts with the Indians as told in the frontier
+traditions of Ohio. He too was eager for service; but the same rule
+was applied to him, and the argument that the engineers would be
+especially necessary to the army organization kept him for a time
+from insisting upon taking volunteer service, as McCook had done. He
+was indefatigable in his labors, assisting the governor in
+organizing the regiments, smoothing the difficulties constantly
+arising from lack of familiarity with the details of the
+administrative service of the army, and giving wise advice to the
+volunteer officers who made his acquaintance. I asked him, one day,
+in my pursuit of practical ideas from all who I thought could help
+me, what he would advise as the most useful means of becoming
+familiar with my duties. Study the Army Regulations, said he, as if
+it were your Bible! There was a world of wisdom in this: much more
+than I appreciated at the time, though it set me earnestly to work
+in a right direction. An officer in a responsible command, who had
+already a fair knowledge of tactics, might trust his common sense
+for guidance in an action on the field; but the administrative
+duties of the army as a machine must be thoroughly learned, if he
+would hope to make the management of its complicated organization an
+easy thing to him.
+
+Major Sidney Burbank came to take McCook's place as mustering
+officer: a grave, earnest man, of more age and more varied
+experience than the men I have named. Captain John Pope also visited
+the governor for consultation, and possibly others came also, though
+I saw them only in passing, and did not then get far in making their
+acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP DENNISON
+
+
+Laying out the camp--Rosecrans as engineer--A comfortless
+night--Waking to new duties--Floors or no floors for the
+huts--Hardee's Tactics--The water-supply--Colonel Tom.
+Worthington--Joshua Sill--Brigades organized--Bates's
+brigade--Schleich's--My own--McClellan's purpose--Division
+organization--Garfield disappointed--Camp routine--Instruction and
+drill--Camp cookery--Measles--Hospital barn--Sisters of
+Charity--Ferment over re-enlistment--Musters by Gordon
+Granger--"Food for powder"--Brigade staff--De Villiers--"A Captain
+of Calvary"--The "Bloody Tinth"--Almost a row--Summoned to the
+field.
+
+
+On the 29th of April I was ordered by McClellan to proceed next
+morning to Camp Dennison, with the Eleventh and half of the Third
+Ohio regiments. The day was a fair one, and when about noon our
+railway train reached the camping ground, it seemed an excellent
+place for our work. The drawback was that very little of the land
+was in meadow or pasture, part being in wheat and part in Indian
+corn, which was just coming up. Captain Rosecrans met us, as
+McClellan's engineer (later the well-known general), coming from
+Cincinnati with a train-load of lumber. He had with him his compass
+and chain, and by the help of a small detail of men soon laid off
+the ground for the two regimental camps, and the general lines of
+the whole encampment for a dozen regiments. It was McClellan's
+purpose to put in two brigades on the west side of the railway, and
+one on the east. My own brigade camp was assigned to the west side,
+and nearest to Cincinnati. The men of the two regiments shouldered
+their pine boards and carried them up to the line of the company
+streets, which were close to the hills skirting the valley, and
+which opened into the parade and drill ground along the railway.
+
+A general plan was given to the company officers by which the huts
+should be made uniform in size and shape. The huts of each company
+faced each other, three or four on each side, making the street
+between, in which the company assembled before marching to its place
+on the regimental color line. At the head of each street were the
+quarters of the company officers, and those of the "field and staff"
+still further in rear. The Regulations were followed in this plan as
+closely as the style of barracks and nature of the ground would
+permit. Vigorous work housed all the men before night, and it was
+well that it did so, for the weather changed in the evening, a cold
+rain came on, and the next morning was a chill and dreary one. My
+own headquarters were in a little brick schoolhouse of one story,
+which stood (and I think still stands) on the east side of the track
+close to the railway. My improvised camp equipage consisted of a
+common trestle cot and a pair of blankets, and I made my bed in the
+open space in front of the teacher's desk or pulpit. My only staff
+officer was an aide-de-camp, Captain Bascom (afterward of the
+regular army), who had graduated at an Eastern military school, and
+proved himself a faithful and efficient assistant. He slept on the
+floor in one of the little aisles between the pupils' seats. One
+lesson learned that night remained permanently fixed in my memory,
+and I had no need of a repetition of it. I found that, having no
+mattress on my cot, the cold was much more annoying below than above
+me, and that if one can't keep the under side warm, it doesn't
+matter how many blankets he may have atop. I procured later an army
+cot with low legs, the whole of which could be taken apart and
+packed in a very small parcel, and with this I carried a small
+quilted mattress of cotton batting. It would have been warmer to
+have made my bed on the ground with a heap of straw or leaves under
+me; but as my tent had to be used for office work whenever a tent
+could be pitched, I preferred the neater and more orderly interior
+which this arrangement permitted. This, however, is anticipating.
+The comfortless night passed without much refreshing sleep, the
+strange situation doing perhaps as much as the limbs aching from
+cold to keep me awake. The storm beat through broken window-panes,
+and the gale howled about us, but day at last began to break, and
+with its dawning light came our first reveille in camp. I shall
+never forget the peculiar plaintive sound of the fifes as they
+shrilled out on the damp air. The melody was destined to become very
+familiar, but to this day I can't help wondering how it happened
+that so melancholy a strain was chosen for the waking tune of the
+soldiers' camp. The bugle reveille is quite different; it is even
+cheery and inspiriting; but the regulation music for the drums and
+fifes is better fitted to waken longings for home and all the sadder
+emotions than to stir the host from sleep to the active duties of
+the day. I lay for a while listening to it, finding its notes
+suggesting many things and becoming a thread to string my reveries
+upon, as I thought of the past which was separated from me by a
+great gulf, the present with its serious duties, and the future
+likely to come to a sudden end in the shock of battle. We roused
+ourselves; a dash of cold water put an end to dreaming; we ate a
+breakfast from a box of cooked provisions we had brought with us,
+and resumed the duty of organizing and instructing the camp. The
+depression which had weighed upon me since the news of the opening
+guns at Sumter passed away, never to return. The consciousness of
+having important work to do, and the absorption in the work itself,
+proved the best of all mental tonics. The Rubicon was crossed, and
+from this time out, vigorous bodily action, our wild outdoor life,
+and the strenuous use of all the faculties, mental and physical, in
+meeting the daily exigencies, made up an existence which, in spite
+of all its hardships and all its discouragements, still seems a most
+exhilarating one as I look back on it across a long vista of years.
+
+The first of May proved, instead, a true April day, of the most
+fickle and changeable type. Gusts of rain and wind alternated with
+flashes of bright sunshine. The second battalion of the Third
+Regiment arrived, and the work of completing the cantonments went
+on. The huts which were half finished yesterday were now put in good
+order, and in building the new ones the men profited by the
+experience of their comrades. We were however suddenly thrown into
+one of those small tempests which it is so easy to get up in a new
+camp, and which for the moment always seems to have an importance
+out of all proportion to its real consequence. Captain Rosecrans, as
+engineer, was superintending the work of building, and finding that
+the companies were putting floors and bunks in their huts, he
+peremptorily ordered that these should be taken out, insisting that
+the huts were only intended to take the place of tents and give such
+shelter as tents could give. The company and regimental officers
+loudly protested, and the men were swelling with indignation and
+wrath. Soon both parties were before me; Rosecrans hot and
+impetuous, holding a high tone, and making use of General
+McClellan's name in demanding, as an officer of his staff, that the
+floors should be torn out, and the officers of the regiments held
+responsible for obedience to the order that no more should be made.
+He fairly bubbled with anger at the presumption of those who
+questioned his authority. As soon as a little quiet could be got, I
+asked Rosecrans if he had specific orders from the general that the
+huts should have no floors. No, he had not, but his staff position
+as engineer gave him sufficient control of the subject. I said I
+would examine the matter and submit it to General McClellan, and
+meanwhile the floors already built might remain, though no new ones
+should be made till the question was decided. I reported to the
+general that, in my judgment, the huts should have floors and bunks,
+because the ground was wet when they were built,--they could not be
+struck like tents to dry and air the earth, and they were meant to
+be permanent quarters for the rendezvous of troops for an indefinite
+time. The decision of McClellan was in accordance with the report.
+Rosecrans acquiesced, and indeed seemed rather to like me the better
+on finding that I was not carried away by the assumption of
+indefinite power by a staff officer.
+
+This little flurry over, the quarters were soon got in as
+comfortable shape as rough lumber could make them, and the work of
+drill and instruction was systematized. The men were not yet armed,
+so there was no temptation to begin too soon with the manual of the
+musket, and they were kept industriously employed in marching in
+single line, by file, in changing direction, in forming columns of
+fours from double line, etc., before their guns were put in their
+hands. Each regiment was treated as a separate camp, with its own
+chain of sentinels, and the officers of the guard were constantly
+busy teaching guard and picket duty theoretically to the reliefs off
+duty, and inspecting the sentinels on post. Schools were established
+in each regiment for field and staff and for the company officers,
+and Hardee's Tactics was in the hands of everybody who could procure
+a copy. It was one of our great inconveniences that the supply of
+the authorized Tactics was soon exhausted, and it was difficult to
+get the means of instruction in the company schools. An abridgment
+was made and published in a very few days by Thomas Worthington, a
+graduate of West Point in one of the earliest classes,--of 1827, I
+think,--a son of one of the first governors of Ohio. This eccentric
+officer had served in the regular army and in the Mexican War, and
+was full of ideas, but was of so irascible and impetuous a temper
+that he was always in collision with the powers that be, and spoiled
+his own usefulness. He was employed to furnish water to the camp by
+contract, and whilst he ruined himself in his efforts to do it well,
+he was in perpetual conflict with the troops, who capsized his
+carts, emptied his barrels, and made life a burden to him. The
+quarrel was based on his taking the water from the river just
+opposite the camp, though there was a slaughter-house some distance
+above. Worthington argued that the distance was such that the
+running water purified itself; but the men wouldn't listen to his
+science, vigorously enforced as it was by idiomatic expletives, and
+there was no safety for his water-carts till he yielded. He then
+made a reservoir on one of the hills, filled it by a steam-pump, and
+carried the water by pipes to the regimental camps at an expense
+beyond his means, and which, as it was claimed that the scheme was
+unauthorized, was never half paid for. His subsequent career as
+colonel of a regiment was no more happy, and talents that seemed fit
+for highest responsibilities were wasted in chafing against
+circumstances which made him and fate seem to be perpetually playing
+at cross purposes. [Footnote: He was later colonel of the
+Forty-sixth Ohio, and became involved in a famous controversy with
+Halleck and Sherman over his conduct in the Shiloh campaign and the
+question of fieldworks there. He left the service toward the close
+of 1862.]
+
+A very different character was Joshua W. Sill, who was sent to us as
+ordnance officer. He too had been a regular army officer, but of the
+younger class. Rather small and delicate in person, gentle and
+refined in manner, he had about him little that answered to the
+popular notion of a soldier. He had resigned from the army some
+years before, and was a professor in an important educational
+institution in Brooklyn, N. Y., when at the first act of hostility
+he offered his services to the governor of Ohio, his native State.
+After our day's work, we walked together along the railway,
+discussing the political and military situation, and especially the
+means of making most quickly an army out of the splendid but
+untutored material that was collecting about us. Under his modest
+and scholarly exterior I quickly discerned a fine temper in the
+metal, that made his after career no enigma to me, and his heroic
+death at the head of his division in the thickest of the strife at
+Stone's River no surprise.
+
+The two regiments which began the encampment were quickly followed
+by others, and the arriving regiments sometimes had their first
+taste of camp life under circumstances well calculated to dampen
+their ardor. The Fourth Ohio, under Colonel Lorin Andrews, President
+of Kenyon College, came just before a thunderstorm one evening, and
+the bivouac that night was as rough a one as his men were likely to
+experience for many a day. They made shelter by placing boards from
+the fence tops to the ground, but the fields were level and soon
+became a mire, so that they were a queer-looking lot when they
+crawled out next morning. The sun was then shining bright, however,
+and they had better cover for their heads by the next night. The
+Seventh Ohio, which was recruited in Cleveland and on the Western
+Reserve, sent a party in advance to build some of their huts, and
+though they too came in a rain-storm, they were less uncomfortable
+than some of the others. Three brigades were organized from the
+regiments of the Ohio contingent, exclusive of the two which had
+been hurried to Washington. The brigadiers, beside myself, were
+Generals Joshua H. Bates and Newton Schleich. General Bates, who was
+the senior, was a graduate of West Point, who had served some years
+in the regular army, but had resigned and adopted the profession of
+the law. He lived at Cincinnati, and organized his brigade in that
+city. They marched to Camp Dennison on the 20th of May, when, by
+virtue of his seniority, General Bates assumed command of the camp
+in McClellan's absence. His brigade consisted of the Fifth, Sixth,
+Ninth, and Tenth regiments, and encamped on the east side of the
+railroad in the bend of the river. General Schleich was a Democratic
+senator, who had been in the state militia, and was also one of the
+drill-masters of the legislative squad which had drilled upon the
+Capitol terrace. His brigade included the Third, Twelfth, and
+Thirteenth regiments, and, with mine, occupied the fields on the
+west side of the railroad close to the slopes of the hills. My own
+brigade was made up of the Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, and Eleventh
+regiments, and our position was the southernmost in the general
+camp. McClellan had intended to make his own headquarters in the
+camp; but the convenience of attending to official business in
+Cincinnati kept him in the city. His purpose was to make the brigade
+organizations permanent, and to take them as a division to the field
+when they were a little prepared for the work. Like many other good
+plans, it failed to be carried out. I was the only one of the
+brigadiers who remained in the service after the first enlistment
+for ninety days, and it was my fate to take the field with new
+regiments, only one of which had been in my brigade in camp.
+Schleich did not show adaptation to field work, and though taken
+into West Virginia with McClellan in June, he was relieved of active
+service in a few weeks. He afterward sought and obtained the
+colonelcy of the Sixty-first Ohio; but his service with it did not
+prove a success, and he resigned in September, 1862, under charges.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 308-310.] General
+Bates had some reason to expect an assignment to staff duty with
+McClellan, and therefore declined a colonelcy in the line at the end
+of the three months' service. He was disappointed in this
+expectation after waiting some time for it, and returned to civil
+life with the regrets of his comrades. There were some
+disappointments, also, in the choice of regimental officers who were
+elected in the regiments first organized, but were afterward
+appointed by the governor. The companies were organized and assigned
+to regiments before they came to camp, but the regimental elections
+were held after the companies were assembled. Garfield was a
+candidate for the colonelcy of the Seventh Regiment, but as he was
+still engaged in important public duties and was not connected with
+any company, he was at a disadvantage in the sort of competition
+which was then rife. He was defeated,--a greater disappointment to
+me than to him, for I had hoped that our close friendship would be
+made still closer by comradeship in the field. In a few weeks he was
+made colonel of the Forty-second Ohio, in the second levy.
+
+Up to the time that General Bates relieved me of the command of the
+camp, and indeed for two or three days longer, the little
+schoolhouse was my quarters as well as telegraph and express office.
+We had cleared out most of the desks and benches, but were still
+crowded together, day and night, in a way which was anything but
+comfortable or desirable. Sheds for quartermaster's and subsistence
+stores were of first necessity, and the building of a hut for myself
+and staff had to be postponed till these were up. On the arrival of
+General Bates with two or three staff officers, the necessity for
+more room could not be longer ignored, and my own hut was built on
+the slope of the hillside behind my brigade, close under the wooded
+ridge, and here for the next six weeks was my home. The morning
+brought its hour of business correspondence relating to the command;
+then came the drill, when the parade ground was full of marching
+companies and squads. Officers' drill followed, with sword exercise
+and pistol practice. The day closed with the inspection of the
+regiments in turn at dress parade, and the evening was allotted to
+schools of theoretic tactics, outpost duty, and the like. Besides
+their copies of the regulation tactics, officers supplied themselves
+with such manuals as Mahan's books on Field Fortifications and on
+Outpost Duty. I adopted at the beginning a rule to have some
+military work in course of reading, and kept it up even in the
+field, sending home one volume and getting another by mail. In this
+way I gradually went through all the leading books I could find both
+in English and in French, including the whole of Jomini's works, his
+histories as well as his "Napoleon" and his "Grandes Operations
+Militaires." I know of no intellectual stimulus so valuable to the
+soldier as the reading of military history narrated by an
+acknowledged master in the art of war. To see what others have done
+in important junctures, and to have both their merits and their
+mistakes analyzed by a competent critic, rouses one's mind to
+grapple with the problem before it, and begets a generous
+determination to try to rival in one's own sphere of action the
+brilliant deeds of soldiers who have made a name in other times.
+Then the example of the vigorous way in which history will at last
+deal with those who fail when the pinch comes, tends to keep a man
+up to his work and to make him avoid the rock on which so many have
+split, the disposition to take refuge in doing nothing when he finds
+it difficult to decide what should be done.
+
+The first fortnight in camp was the hardest for the troops. The
+ploughed fields became deep with mud, which nothing could remove but
+the good weather which should allow them to pack hard under the
+continued tramp of thousands of men. The organization of the camp
+kitchens had to be learned by the hardest also, and the men in each
+company who had some aptitude for cooking had to be found by a slow
+process of natural selection, during which many an unpalatable meal
+had to be eaten. A disagreeable bit of information came to us in the
+proof that more than half the men had never had the contagious
+diseases of infancy. The measles broke out, and we had to organize a
+camp hospital at once. A large barn near by was taken for this
+purpose, and the surgeons had their hands full of cases which,
+however trivial they might seem at home, were here aggravated into
+dangerous illness by the unwonted surroundings and the impossibility
+of securing the needed protection from exposure. As soon as the
+increase of sickness in the camp was known in Cincinnati, the good
+women of that city took promptly in hand the task of providing
+nurses for the sick, and proper diet and delicacies for hospital
+uses. The Sisters of Charity, under the lead of Sister Anthony, a
+noble woman, came out in force, and their black and white robes
+harmonized picturesquely with the military surroundings, as they
+flitted about under the rough timber framing of the old barn,
+carrying comfort and hope from one rude couch to another. As to
+supplies, hardly a man in a regiment knew how to make out a
+requisition for rations or for clothing, and easy as it is to rail
+at "red tape," the necessity of keeping a check upon embezzlement
+and wastefulness justified the staff bureaus at Washington in
+insisting upon regular vouchers to support the quartermaster's and
+commissary's accounts. But here, too, men were gradually found who
+had special talent for the work.
+
+The infallible newspapers had no lack of material for criticism.
+There were plenty of real blunders to invite it, but the severest
+blame was quite as likely to be visited upon men and things which
+did not deserve it. The governor was violently attacked for things
+which he had no responsibility for, or others in which he had done
+all that forethought and intelligence could do. When everybody had
+to learn a new business, it would have been miraculous if grave
+errors had not frequently occurred. Looking back at it, the wonder
+is that the blunders and mishaps had not been tenfold more numerous
+than they were. By the middle of May the confusion had given place
+to reasonable system, but we were now obliged to meet the
+embarrassments of reorganization for three years, under the
+President's second call for troops. We had more than ten thousand
+men who had begun to know something of their duties, and it was
+worth a serious effort to transfer them into the permanent service;
+but no one who did not go through the ordeal can imagine how trying
+it was. In every company some discontented spirits wanted to go
+home, shrinking from the perils to which they had committed
+themselves in a moment of enthusiasm. For a few to go back, however,
+would be a disgrace; and every dissatisfied man, to avoid the odium
+of going alone, became a mischief-maker, seeking to prevent the
+whole company from re-enlisting. The recruiting of a majority was
+naturally made the condition of allowing the company organization to
+be preserved, and a similar rule applied to the regiment. The
+growing discipline was relaxed or lost in the solicitations, the
+electioneering, the speech-making, and the other common arts of
+persuasion. After a majority had re-enlisted and an organization was
+secure, it would have been better to have discharged the remaining
+three months' men and to have sent them home at once; but authority
+for this could not be got, for the civil officers could not see, and
+did not know what a nuisance these men were. Dissatisfied with
+themselves for not going with their comrades, they became sulky,
+disobedient, complaining, trying to make the others as unhappy as
+themselves by arguing that faith was not kept with them, and doing
+all the mischief it was possible to do.
+
+In spite of all these discouragements, however, the daily drills and
+instruction went on with some approach to regularity, and our raw
+volunteers began to look more like soldiers. Captain Gordon Granger
+of the regular army came to muster the re-enlisted regiments into
+the three years' service, and as he stood at the right of the Fourth
+Ohio, looking down the line of a thousand stalwart men, all in their
+Garibaldi shirts (for we had not yet received our uniforms), he
+turned to me and exclaimed: "My God! that such men should be food
+for powder!" It certainly was a display of manliness and
+intelligence such as had hardly ever been seen in the ranks of an
+army. There were in camp at that time three if not four companies,
+in different regiments, that were wholly made up of undergraduates
+of colleges who had enlisted together, their officers being their
+tutors and professors; and where there was not so striking evidence
+as this of the enlistment of the best of our youth, every company
+could still show that it was largely recruited from the
+best-nurtured and most promising young men of the community.
+
+Granger had been in the Southwest when the secession movement began,
+had seen the formation of military companies everywhere, and the
+incessant drilling which had been going on all winter, whilst we, in
+a strange condition of political paralysis, had been doing nothing.
+His information was eagerly sought by us all, and he lost no
+opportunity of impressing upon us the fact that the South was nearly
+six months ahead of us in organization and preparation. He did not
+conceal his belief that we were likely to find the war a much longer
+and more serious piece of business than was commonly expected, and
+that unless we pushed hard our drilling and instruction we should
+find ourselves at a disadvantage in our earlier encounters. What he
+said had a good effect in making officers and men take more
+willingly to the laborious routine of the parade ground and the
+regimental school; for such opinions as his soon ran through the
+camp, and they were commented upon by the enlisted men quite as
+earnestly as among the officers. Still, hope kept the upper hand,
+and if the question had been put to vote, I believe that
+three-fourths of us still cherished the belief that a single
+campaign would end the war.
+
+In the organization of my own brigade I had the assistance of
+Captain McElroy, a young man who had nearly completed the course at
+West Point, and who was subsequently made major of the Twentieth
+Ohio. He was sent to the camp by the governor as a drill officer,
+and I assigned him to staff duty. For commissary, I detailed
+Lieutenant Gibbs, who accompanied one of the regiments from
+Cincinnati, and who had seen a good deal of service as clerk in one
+of the staff departments of the regular army. I had also for a time
+the services of one of the picturesque adventurers who turn up in
+such crises. In the Seventh Ohio was a company recruited in
+Cleveland, of which the nucleus was an organization of Zouaves,
+existing for some time before the war. It was made up of young men
+who had been stimulated by the popularity of Ellsworth's Zouaves in
+Chicago to form a similar body. They had had as their drill master a
+Frenchman named De Villiers. His profession was that of a teacher of
+fencing; but he had been an officer in Ellsworth's company, and was
+familiar with fancy manoeuvres for street parade, and with a special
+skirmish drill and bayonet exercise. Small, swarthy, with angular
+features, and a brusque, military manner, in a showy uniform and
+jaunty _kepi_ of scarlet cloth, covered with gold lace, he created
+quite a sensation among us. His assumption of knowledge and
+experience was accepted as true. He claimed to have been a surgeon
+in the French army in Algiers, though we afterward learned to doubt
+if his rank had been higher than that of a barber-surgeon of a
+cavalry troop. From the testimonials he brought with him, I thought
+I was doing a good thing in making him my brigade-major, as the
+officer was then called whom we afterward knew as inspector-general.
+He certainly was a most indefatigable fellow, and went at his work
+with an enthusiasm that made him very useful for a time. It was
+worth something to see a man who worked with a kind of dash,--with a
+prompt, staccato movement that infused spirit and energy into all
+around him. He would drill all day, and then spend half the night
+trying to catch sentinels and officers of the guard at fault in
+their duty. My first impression was that I had got hold of a most
+valuable man, and others were so much of the same mind that in the
+reorganization of regiments he was successively elected major of the
+Eighth, and then colonel of the Eleventh. We shall see more of him
+as we go on; but it turned out that his sharp discipline was not
+steady or just; his knowledge was only skin-deep, and he had neither
+the education nor the character for so responsible a situation as he
+was placed in. He nearly plagued the life out of the officers of his
+regiment before they got rid of him, and was a most brilliant
+example of the way we were imposed upon by military charlatans at
+the beginning. He was, however, good proof also of the speed with
+which real service weeds out the undesirable material which seemed
+so splendid in the days of common inexperience and at a distance
+from danger. We had visits from clerical adventurers, too, for the
+"pay and emoluments of a captain of cavalry" which the law gave to a
+chaplain induced some to seek the office who were not the best
+representatives of their profession. One young man who had spent a
+morning soliciting the appointment in one of the regiments, came to
+me in a shamefaced sort of way before leaving camp and said,
+"General, before I decide this matter, I wish you would tell me just
+what are the pay and emoluments of a _Captain of Calvary!_" Though
+most of our men were native Ohioans, General Bates's brigade had in
+it two regiments made up of quite contrasted nationalities. The
+Ninth Ohio was recruited from the Germans of Cincinnati, and was
+commanded by Colonel "Bob" McCook. In camp, the drilling of the
+regiment fell almost completely into the hands of the adjutant,
+Lieutenant Willich (afterward a general of division), and McCook,
+who humorously exaggerated his own lack of military knowledge, used
+to say that he was only "clerk for a thousand Dutchmen," so
+completely did the care of equipping and providing for his regiment
+engross his time and labor. The Tenth was an Irish regiment, and its
+men used to be proud of calling themselves the "Bloody Tinth." The
+brilliant Lytle was its commander, and his control over them, even
+in the beginning of their service and near the city of their home,
+showed that they had fallen into competent hands. It happened, of
+course, that the guard-house pretty frequently contained
+representatives of the Tenth who, on the short furloughs that were
+allowed them, took a parting glass too much with their friends in
+the city, and came to camp boisterously drunk. But the men of the
+regiment got it into their heads that the Thirteenth, which lay just
+opposite them across the railroad, took a malicious pleasure in
+filling the guard-house with the Irishmen. Some threats had been
+made that they would go over and "clean out" the Thirteenth, and one
+fine evening these came to a head. I suddenly got orders from
+General Bates to form my brigade, and march them at once between the
+Tenth and Thirteenth to prevent a collision which seemed imminent.
+My brigade was selected because it was the one to which neither of
+the angry regiments belonged, the others being ordered into their
+quarters. My little Frenchman, De Villiers, covered himself with
+glory. His horse flew, under the spur, to the regimental
+headquarters, the long roll was beaten as if the drummers realized
+the full importance of the first opportunity to sound that warlike
+signal, and the brigade-major's somewhat theatrical energy was so
+contagious that many of the companies were assembled and ready to
+file out of the company streets before the order reached them. We
+marched by the moonlight into the space between the belligerent
+regiments; but Lytle had already got his own men under control, and
+the less mercurial Thirteenth were not disposed to be aggressive, so
+that we were soon dismissed with a compliment for our promptness. I
+ordered the colonels to march the regiments back to the camps
+separately, and with my staff rode through that of the Thirteenth,
+to see how matters were there. All was quiet, the men being in their
+quarters; so, turning, I passed along near the railway, in rear of
+the quartermaster's sheds. In the shadow of the buildings I had
+nearly ridden over some one on foot, when he addressed me, and I
+recognized an officer of high rank in that brigade. He was in great
+agitation, and exclaimed, "Oh, General, what a horrible thing that
+brothers should be killing each other!" I assured him the danger of
+that was all over, and rode on, wondering a little at his presence
+in that place under the circumstances.
+
+The six weeks of our stay in Camp Dennison seem like months in the
+retrospect, so full were they crowded with new experiences. The
+change came in an unexpected way. The initiative taken by the
+Confederates in West Virginia had to be met by prompt action, and
+McClellan was forced to drop his own plans to meet the emergency.
+The organization and equipment of the regiments for the three years'
+service were still incomplete, and the brigades were broken up, to
+take across the Ohio the regiments best prepared to go. One by one
+my regiments were ordered away, till finally, when on the 3d of July
+I received orders to proceed to the Kanawha valley, I had but one of
+the four regiments to which I had been trying to give something of
+unity and brigade feeling, and that regiment (the Eleventh Ohio) was
+still incomplete. General Bates fared even worse; for he saw all his
+regiments ordered away, whilst he was left to organize new ones from
+freshly recruited companies that were sent to the camp. This was
+discouraging to a brigade commander, for even with veteran troops
+mutual acquaintance between the officer and his command is a
+necessary condition of confidence and a most important element of
+strength. My own assignment to the Great Kanawha district was one I
+had every reason to be content with, except that for several months
+I felt the disadvantage I suffered from assuming command of troops
+which I had never seen till we met in the field.
+
+The period of organization, brief as it was, had been valuable to
+the regiments, and it had been of the utmost importance to secure
+the re-enlistment of those which had received some instruction. It
+had been, in the condition of the statute law, from necessity and
+not from choice that the Administration had called out the state
+militia for ninety days. The new term of enrolment was for "three
+years or the war," and the forces were now designated as United
+States Volunteers. It would have been well if the period of
+apprenticeship could have been prolonged; but events would not wait.
+All recognized the necessity, and thankful as we should have been
+for a longer preparation and more thorough instruction, we were
+eager to be ordered away.
+
+McClellan had been made a major-general in the regular army, and a
+department had been placed under his command which included the
+States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to which was added a little
+later West Virginia north of the Great Kanawha. [Footnote:
+McClellan's Report and Campaigns (New York, 1864), p. 8. McClellan's
+Own Story, p. 44. Official Records, vol. ii. p. 633.] Rosecrans was
+also appointed a brigadier-general in the regulars, and there was
+much debate at the time whether the Administration had intended
+this. Many insisted that he was nominated for the volunteer service,
+and that the regular appointment was a clerical mistake in the
+bureaus at Washington. There was no solid foundation for this
+gossip. A considerable increase of the regular army was authorized
+by law, and corresponding appointments were made, from major-general
+downward. It was at this time that Sherman was made colonel of one
+of the new regiments of regulars. It would perhaps have been wiser
+to treat the regular commissions as prizes to be won only by
+conspicuous and successful service in the field, as was done later;
+but this policy was not then adopted, and the newly created offices
+were filled in all grades. They were, of course, given to men from
+whom great services could reasonably be expected; but when none had
+been tested in the great operations of war, every appointment was at
+the risk that the officer might not show the special talent for
+command which makes a general. It was something of a lottery, at
+best; but the system would have been improved if a method of
+retiring inefficient officers had been adopted at once. The
+ostensible reason for the different organization of volunteers and
+regulars was that the former, as a temporary force to meet an
+exigency, might be wholly disbanded when the war should end, without
+affecting the permanent army, which was measured in size by the
+needs of the country in its normal condition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MCCLELLAN IN WEST VIRGINIA.
+
+
+Political attitude of West Virginia--Rebels take the
+initiative--McClellan ordered to act--Ohio militia cross the
+river--The Philippi affair--Significant dates--The vote on
+secession--Virginia in the Confederacy--Lee in
+command--Topography--The mountain passes--Garnett's army--Rich
+mountain position--McClellan in the field--His forces--Advances
+against Garnett--Rosecrans's proposal--His fight on the
+mountain--McClellan's inaction--Garnett's retreat--Affair at
+Carrick's Ford--Garnett killed--Hill's efforts to intercept--Pegram
+in the wilderness--He surrenders--Indirect results
+important--McClellan's military and personal traits.
+
+
+The reasons which made it important to occupy West Virginia were
+twofold, political and military. The people were strongly attached
+to the Union, and had generally voted against the Ordinance of
+Secession which by the action of the Richmond Convention had been
+submitted to a popular vote on May 23d. Comparatively few slaves
+were owned by them, and their interests bound them more to Ohio and
+Pennsylvania than to eastern Virginia. Under the influence of Mr.
+Lincoln's administration, strongly backed and chiefly represented by
+Governor Dennison of Ohio, a movement was on foot to organize a
+loyal Virginia government, repudiating that of Governor Letcher and
+the state convention as self-destroyed by the act of secession.
+Governor Dennison, in close correspondence with the leading
+loyalists, had been urging McClellan to cross the Ohio to protect
+and encourage the loyal men, when on the 26th of May news came that
+the Secessionists had taken the initiative, and that some bridges
+had been burned on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad a little west of
+Grafton, the crossing of the Monongahela River where the two western
+branches of the road unite as they come from Wheeling and
+Parkersburg. The great line of communication between Washington and
+the West had thus been cut, and action on our part was necessary.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 44.]
+
+[Illustration: CAMPAIGNS IN WEST VIRGINIA 1861.]
+
+Governor Dennison had anticipated the need of more troops than the
+thirteen regiments which had been organized as Ohio's quota under
+the President's first call, and had enrolled nine other regiments,
+numbering them consecutively with the others. These last he had put
+in camps near the Ohio River, where at a moment's notice they could
+occupy Wheeling, Parkersburg, and the mouth of the Great Kanawha.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 46, 47.] Two Union regiments were also
+organizing in West Virginia itself, of which the first was commanded
+by Colonel B. F. Kelley of Wheeling. The left bank of the Ohio was
+in McClellan's department, and on the 24th General Scott, having
+heard that two Virginia companies had occupied Grafton, telegraphed
+the fact to McClellan, directing him to act promptly in
+counteracting the effect of this movement. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+648.]
+
+On the 27th Colonel Kelley was sent by rail from Wheeling to drive
+off the enemy, who withdrew at his approach, and the bridges were
+quickly rebuilt. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 46, 49, 655.] Several of the
+Ohio regiments were ordered across the river at the same time, and
+an Indiana brigade under General Thomas A. Morris of that State was
+hurried forward from Indianapolis. As the Ohio troops at Camp
+Dennison which had been mustered into national service were in
+process of reorganizing for the three years' term, McClellan
+preferred not to move them till this was completed. He also adhered
+to his plan of making his own principal movement in the Great
+Kanawha valley, and desired to use there the Ohio division at our
+camp. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 50, 656, 674.] The Ohio regiments first
+sent into West Virginia were not mustered in, and were known as
+State troops. General Morris reached Grafton on the 1st of June, and
+was intrusted with the command of all the troops in West Virginia.
+He found that Colonel Kelley had already planned an expedition
+against the enemy, who had retired southward to Philippi, about
+fifteen miles in a straight line, but some twenty-five by the
+crooked country roads. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 66.]
+Morris approved the plan, but enlarged it by sending another column,
+under Colonel E. Dumont of the Seventh Indiana, to co-operate with
+Kelley. Both columns were directed to make a night march, starting
+from points on the railroad about twelve miles apart and converging
+on Philippi, which they were to attack at daybreak on June 3d. Each
+column consisted of about fifteen hundred men, and Dumont had also
+two smooth six-pounder cannon. The Confederate force was commanded
+by Colonel G. A. Porterfield, and was something less than a thousand
+strong, one-fourth cavalry. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 70, 72.]
+
+The night was dark and stormy, and Porterfield's raw troops had not
+learned picket duty. The concerted movement against them was more
+successful than such marches commonly are, and Porterfield's first
+notice of danger was the opening of the artillery upon his sleeping
+troops. It had been expected that the two columns would enclose the
+enemy's camp and capture the whole; but, though in disorderly rout,
+Porterfield succeeded, by personal coolness and courage, in getting
+them off with but few casualties and the loss of a few arms. The
+camp equipage and supplies were, of course, captured. Colonel Kelley
+was wounded in the breast by a pistol-shot which was at first
+supposed to be fatal, though it did not turn out so, and this was
+the only casualty reported on the National side. [Footnote: Colonel
+Kelley was a man already of middle age, and a leading citizen of
+northwestern Virginia. His whole military career was in that region,
+where his services were very valuable throughout the war. He was
+promoted to brigadier-general among the first, and was
+brevet-major-general when mustered out in 1865.] No prisoners were
+taken, nor did any dead or wounded fall into our hands. Porterfield
+retreated to Beverly, some thirty miles further to the southeast,
+and the National forces occupied Philippi. The telegraphic reports
+had put the Confederate force at 2000, and their loss at 15 killed.
+This implied a considerable list of wounded and prisoners, and the
+newspapers gave it the air of a considerable victory. The campaign
+thus opened with apparent _eclat_ for McClellan (who was personally
+at Cincinnati), and the "Philippi races," as they were locally
+called, greatly encouraged the Union men of West Virginia and
+correspondingly depressed the Secessionists. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. ii. pp. 64-74.]
+
+Nearly a month elapsed, when, having received reports that large
+forces of the enemy were gathered at Beverly, McClellan determined
+to proceed in person to that region with his best prepared troops,
+postponing his Kanawha campaign till northwestern Virginia should be
+cleared of the enemy.
+
+Military affairs in West Virginia had been complicated by the
+political situation, and it is necessary to recollect the dates of
+the swift following steps in Virginia's progress into the
+Confederacy. Sumter surrendered on Saturday, the 13th of April, and
+on Monday the 15th President Lincoln issued his first call for
+troops. On Wednesday the 17th the Virginia Convention passed the
+Ordinance of Secession in secret session. On Friday the 19th it was
+known in Washington, and on Saturday Lee and Johnston resigned their
+commissions in the United States Army, sorrowfully "going with their
+State." [Footnote: Johnston's Narrative, p. 10. Townsend's Anecdotes
+of the Civil War, p. 31. Long's Memoirs of Lee, pp. 94, 96.] On the
+following Tuesday (23d) the chairman of the Virginia Convention
+presented to Lee his commission as Major-General and Commander of
+the Virginia Forces. On the same day Governor Dennison handed to
+McClellan his commission to command the Ohio forces in the service
+of the Union. Although the Confederate Congress at Montgomery
+admitted Virginia to the Confederacy early in May, this was not
+formally accepted in Virginia till after the popular vote on
+secession (May 23d) and the canvassing of the returns of that
+election. Governor Letcher issued on June 8th his proclamation
+announcing the result, and transferring the command of the Virginia
+troops to the Confederate Government. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. ii. p. 911.] During the whole of May, therefore, Virginia's
+position was unsettled. Her governor, by the authority of the
+convention, regarded her as independent of the United States, but by
+an inchoate act of secession which would not become final till
+ratified by the popular vote. The Virginia troops were arrayed near
+the Potomac to resist the advance of national forces; but
+Confederate troops had been welcomed in eastern Virginia as early as
+the 10th of May, and President Davis had authorized Lee, as
+Commander of the Virginia forces, to assume control of them.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 827.]
+
+It was well known that the prevailing sentiment in West Virginia was
+loyal to the Union, and each party avoided conflict there for fear
+of prejudicing its cause in the election. Hence it was that as soon
+as the vote was cast, the aggressive was taken by the Virginia
+government in the burning of the bridges near Grafton. The fire of
+war was thus lighted. The crossing of the Ohio was with a full
+understanding with Colonel Kelley, who recognized McClellan at once
+as his military commander. [Footnote: I treated the relations of Lee
+and Virginia to the Confederacy in a paper in "The Nation," Dec. 23,
+1897, entitled "Lee, Johnston, and Davis."] The affair at Philippi
+was, in form, the last appearance of Virginia in the role of an
+independent nation, for in a very few days Lee announced by a
+published order that the absorption of the Virginia troops into the
+Confederate Army was complete. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii.
+p. 912.] It will be well to understand the topography of the
+Virginia mountains and their western slope, if we would reach the
+reasons which determined the lines of advance chosen by the
+Confederates and the counter moves of McClellan. The Alleghany range
+passing out of Pennsylvania and running southwest through the whole
+length of Virginia, consists of several parallel lines of mountains
+enclosing narrow valleys. The Potomac River breaks through at the
+common boundary of Virginia and Maryland, and along its valley runs
+the National Road as well as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The
+Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also follows this natural highway, which
+is thus indicated as the most important line of communication
+between Washington and the Ohio valley, though a high mountain
+summit must be passed, even by this route, before the tributaries of
+the Ohio can be reached. Half-way across the State to the southward,
+is a high watershed connecting the mountain ridges and separating
+the streams tributary to the Potomac on the north from those falling
+into the James and New rivers on the south. The Staunton and
+Parkersburg turnpike follows the line of this high "divide" looking
+down from among the clouds into the long and nearly straight defiles
+on either hand, which separate the Alleghany Mountains proper from
+the Blue Ridge on the east and from Cheat Mountain and other ranges
+on the west. Still further to the southwest the James River and the
+New River interlace their headwaters among the mountains, and break
+out on east and west, making the third natural pass through which
+the James River and Kanawha turnpike and canal find their way. These
+three routes across the mountains were the only ones on which
+military operations were at all feasible. The northern one was
+usually in the hands of the National forces, and the other two were
+those by which the Confederates attempted the invasion of West
+Virginia. Beverly, a hundred miles from Staunton, was near the gate
+through which the Staunton road passes on its way northwestward to
+Parkersburg and Wheeling, whilst Gauley Bridge was the key-point of
+the Kanawha route on the westerly slope of the mountains.
+
+General Lee determined to send columns upon both these lines.
+General Henry A. Wise (formerly Governor of Virginia) took the
+Kanawha route, and General Robert S. Garnett (lately Lee's own
+adjutant-general) marched to Beverly. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. ii. pp. 908, 915.] Upon Porterfield's retreat to Beverly,
+Garnett, who had also been an officer in the United States Army, was
+ordered to assume command there and to stimulate the recruiting and
+organization of regiments from the secession element of the
+population. Some Virginia regiments raised on the eastern slope of
+the mountains were sent with him, and to these was soon added the
+First Georgia. On the 1st of July he reported his force as 4500 men,
+but declared that his efforts to recruit had proven a complete
+failure, only 23 having joined. The West Virginians, he says, "are
+thoroughly imbued with an ignorant and bigoted Union sentiment."
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 239.] Other reinforcements were promised
+Garnett, but none reached him except the Forty-fourth Virginia
+Regiment, which arrived at Beverly the very day of his engagement
+with McClellan's troops, but did not take part in the fighting.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 240, 274.]
+
+Tygart's valley, in which Beverly lies, is between Cheat Mountain on
+the east, and Rich Mountain on the west. The river, of the same name
+as the valley, flows northward about fifteen miles, then turns
+westward, breaking through the ridge, and by junction with the
+Buckhannon River forms the Monongahela, which passes by Philippi and
+afterward crosses the railroad at Grafton. The Staunton and
+Parkersburg turnpike divides at Beverly, the Parkersburg route
+passing over a saddle in Rich Mountain, and the Wheeling route
+following the river to Philippi. The ridge north of the river at the
+gap is known as Laurel Mountain, and the road passes over a spur of
+it. Garnett regarded the two positions at Rich Mountain and Laurel
+Mountain as the gates to all the region beyond and to the West. A
+rough mountain road, barely passable, connected the Laurel Mountain
+position with Cheat River on the east, and it was possible to go by
+this way northward through St. George to the Northwestern turnpike,
+turning the mountain ranges.
+
+[Illustration: COMBAT AT RICH MOUNTAIN.]
+
+Garnett thought the pass over Rich Mountain much the stronger and
+more easily held, and he therefore intrenched there about 1300 of
+his men and four cannon, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Pegram.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 268.] The position chosen
+was on a spur of the mountain near its western base, and it was
+rudely fortified with breastworks of logs covered with an abatis of
+slashed timber along its front. The remainder of his force he placed
+in a similar fortified position on the road at Laurel Mountain,
+where he also had four guns, of which one was rifled. Here he
+commanded in person. His depot of supplies was at Beverly, which was
+sixteen miles from the Laurel Mountain position and five from that
+at Rich Mountain. He was pretty accurately informed of McClellan's
+forces and movements, and his preparations had barely been completed
+by the 9th of July, when the Union general appeared in his front.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 241, 248.]
+
+McClellan entered West Virginia in person on the 21st of June, and
+on the 23d issued from Grafton a proclamation to the inhabitants.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 194, 196.] He had gradually collected his
+forces along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and these, at the time
+of the affair at Rich Mountain, consisted of sixteen Ohio regiments,
+nine from Indiana, and two from West Virginia; in all, twenty-seven
+regiments with four batteries of artillery of six guns each, two
+troops of cavalry, and an independent company of riflemen. Of his
+batteries, one was of the regular army, and another, a company of
+regulars (Company I, Fourth U. S. Artillery), was with him awaiting
+mountain howitzers, which arrived a little later. [Footnote: As part
+of the troops were State troops not mustered into the United States
+service, no report of them is found in the War Department; but the
+following are the numbers of the regiments found named as present in
+the correspondence and reports,--viz., 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th,
+9th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and 22d
+Ohio; 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th Indiana, and
+1st and 2nd Virginia; also Howe's United States Battery, Barnett's
+Ohio Battery, Loomis's Michigan Battery, and Daum's Virginia
+Battery; the cavalry were Burdsal's Ohio Dragoons and Barker's
+Illinois Cavalry. VOL. I.--4] The regiments varied somewhat in
+strength, but all were recently organized, and must have averaged at
+least 700 men each, making the whole force about 20,000. Of these,
+about 5000 were guarding the railroad and its bridges for some two
+hundred miles, under the command of Brigadier-General C. W. Hill, of
+the Ohio Militia; a strong brigade under Brigadier-General Morris of
+Indiana, was at Philippi, and the rest were in three brigades
+forming the immediate command of McClellan, the brigadiers being
+General W. S. Rosecrans, U. S. A., General Newton Schleich of Ohio,
+and Colonel Robert L. McCook of Ohio. On the date of his
+proclamation McClellan intended, as he informed General Scott, to
+move his principal column to Buckhannon on June 25th, and thence at
+once upon Beverly; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 195.]
+but delays occurred, and it was not till July 2nd that he reached
+Buckhannon, which is twenty-four miles west of Beverly, on the
+Parkersburg branch of the turnpike. Before leaving Grafton the
+rumors he heard had made him estimate Garnett's force at 6000 or
+7000 men, of which the larger part were at Laurel Mountain in front
+of General Morris. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 205.] On the 7th of July he
+moved McCook with two regiments to Middle Fork bridge, about
+half-way to Beverly, and on the same day ordered Morris to march
+with his brigade from Philippi to a position one and a half miles in
+front of Garnett's principal camp, which was promptly done.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 200.] Three days later, McClellan concentrated
+the three brigades of his own column at Roaring Creek, about two
+miles from Colonel Pegram's position at the base of Rich Mountain.
+The advance on both lines had been made with only a skirmishing
+resistance, the Confederates being aware of McClellan's great
+superiority in numbers, and choosing to await his attack in their
+fortified positions. The National commander was now convinced that
+his opponent was 10,000 strong, of which about 2000 were before him
+at Rich Mountain. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 203, 204.] A reconnoissance
+made on the 10th showed that Pegram's position would be difficult to
+assail in front, but preparations were made to attack the next day,
+while Morris was directed to hold firmly his position before
+Garnett, watching for the effect of the attack at Rich Mountain. In
+the evening Rosecrans took to McClellan a young man named Hart,
+whose father lived on the top of the mountain two miles in rear of
+Pegram, and who thought he could guide a column of infantry to his
+father's farm by a circuit around Pegram's left flank south of the
+turnpike. The paths were so difficult that cannon could not go by
+them, but Rosecrans offered to lead a column of infantry and seize
+the road at the Hart farm. After some discussion McClellan adopted
+the suggestion, and it was arranged that Rosecrans should march at
+daybreak of the 11th with about 2000 men, including a troop of
+horse, and that upon the sound of his engagement in the rear of
+Pegram McClellan would attack in force in front. By a blunder in one
+of the regimental camps, the reveille and assembly were sounded at
+midnight, and Pegram was put on the _qui vive_. He, however,
+believed that the attempt to turn his position would be by a path or
+country road passing round his right, between him and Garnett (of
+which the latter had warned him), and his attention was diverted
+from Rosecrans's actual route, which he thought impracticable.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 215, 256, 260. Conduct of
+the War, vol. vi. (Rosecrans), pp. 2,3.] The alert which had
+occurred at midnight made Rosecrans think it best to make a longer
+circuit than he at first intended, and it took ten hours of severe
+marching and mountain climbing to reach the Hart farm. The turning
+movement was made, but he found an enemy opposing him. Pegram had
+detached about 350 men from the 1300 which he had, and had ordered
+them to guard the road at the mountain summit. He sent with them a
+single cannon from the four which constituted his only battery, and
+they threw together a breastwork of logs. The turnpike at Hart's
+runs in a depression of the summit, and as Rosecrans, early in the
+afternoon, came out upon the road, he was warmly received by both
+musketry and cannon. The ground was rough, the men were for the
+first time under fire, and the skirmishing combat varied through two
+or three hours, when a charge by part of Rosecrans's line, aided by
+a few heavy volleys from another portion of his forces which had
+secured a good position, broke the enemy's line. Reinforcements from
+Pegram were nearly at hand, with another cannon; but they did not
+come into action, and the runaway team of the caisson on the
+hill-top, dashing into the gun that was coming up, capsized it down
+the mountain-side where the descending road was scarped diagonally
+along it. Both guns fell into Rosecrans's hands, and he was in
+possession of the field. The march and the assault had been made in
+rain and storm. Nothing was heard from McClellan; and the enemy,
+rallying on their reinforcements, made such show of resistance on
+the crest a little further on, that Rosecrans directed his men to
+rest upon their arms till next morning. When day broke on the 12th,
+the enemy had disappeared from the mountain-top, and Rosecrans,
+feeling his way down to the rear of Pegram's position, found it also
+abandoned, the two remaining cannon being spiked, and a few sick and
+wounded being left in charge of a surgeon. Still nothing was seen of
+McClellan, and Rosecrans sent word to him, in his camp beyond
+Roaring Creek, that he was in possession of the enemy's position.
+Rosecrans's loss had been 12 killed and 49 wounded. The Confederates
+left 20 wounded on the field, and 63 were surrendered at the lower
+camp, including the sick. No trustworthy report of their dead was
+made. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii pp. 215, 260, 265. C. W.,
+vol. vi. (Rosecrans) pp. 3-5.]
+
+The noise of the engagement had been heard in McClellan's camp, and
+he formed his troops for attack, but the long continuance of the
+cannonade and some signs of exultation in Pegram's camp seem to have
+made him think Rosecrans had been repulsed. The failure to attack in
+accordance with the plan has never been explained. [Footnote: C. W.,
+vol. vi. p. 6. McClellan seems to have expected Rosecrans to reach
+the rear of Pegram's advanced work before his own attack should be
+made; but the reconnoissance of Lieutenant Poe, his engineer, shows
+that this work could be turned by a much shorter route than the long
+and difficult one by which Rosecrans went to the mountain ridge. See
+Poe's Report, Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 14.] Rosecrans's
+messengers had failed to reach McClellan during the 11th, but the
+sound of the battle was sufficient notice that he had gained the
+summit and was engaged; and he was, in fact, left to win his own
+battle or to get out of his embarrassment as he could. Toward
+evening McClellan began to cut a road for artillery to a neighboring
+height, from which he hoped his twelve guns would make Pegram's
+position untenable; but his lines were withdrawn again beyond
+Roaring Creek at nightfall, and all further action postponed to the
+next day.
+
+About half of Pegram's men had succeeded in passing around
+Rosecrans's right flank during the night and had gained Beverly.
+These, with the newly arrived Confederate regiment, fled southward
+on the Staunton road. Garnett had learned in the evening, by
+messenger from Beverly, that Rich Mountain summit was carried, and
+evacuated his camp in front of Morris about midnight. He first
+marched toward Beverly, and was within five miles of that place when
+he received information (false at the time) that the National forces
+already occupied it. He then retraced his steps nearly to his camp,
+and, leaving the turnpike at Leadsville, he turned off upon a
+country road over Cheat Mountain into Cheat River valley, following
+the stream northward toward St. George and West Union, in the
+forlorn hope of turning the mountains at the north end of the
+ridges, and regaining his communications by a very long detour. He
+might have continued southward through Beverly almost at leisure,
+for McClellan did not enter the town till past noon on the 12th.
+
+Morris learned of Garnett's retreat at dawn, and started in pursuit
+as soon as rations could be issued. He marched first to Leadsville,
+where he halted to communicate with McClellan at Beverly and get
+further orders. These reached him in the night, and at daybreak of
+the 13th he resumed the pursuit. His advance-guard of three
+regiments, accompanied by Captain H. W. Benham of the Engineers,
+overtook the rear of the Confederate column about noon and continued
+a skirmishing pursuit for some two hours. Garnett himself handled
+his rear-guard with skill, and at Carrick's Ford a lively encounter
+was had. A mile or two further, at another ford and when the
+skirmishing was very slight, he was killed while withdrawing his
+skirmishers from behind a pile of driftwood which he had used as a
+barricade. One of his cannon had become stalled in the ford, and
+with about forty wagons fell into Morris's hands. The direct pursuit
+was here discontinued, but McClellan had sent a dispatch to General
+Hill at Grafton, to collect the garrisons along the railroad and
+block the way of the Confederates where they must pass around the
+northern spurs of the mountains. [Footnote: Reports of Morris and
+Benham, Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 220, 222.]
+
+His military telegraph terminated at the Roaring Creek camp, and the
+dispatch written in the evening of the 12th was not forwarded to
+Hill till near noon of the 13th. This officer immediately ordered
+the collection of the greater part of his detachments at Oakland,
+and called upon the railway officials for special trains to hurry
+them to the rendezvous. About 1000 men under Colonel James Irvine of
+the Sixteenth Ohio were at West Union, where the St. George road
+reaches the Northwestern Turnpike, and Hill's information was that a
+detachment of these held Red House, a crossing several miles in
+advance, by which the retreating enemy might go. Irvine was directed
+to hold his positions at all hazards till he could be reinforced.
+Hill himself hastened with the first train from Grafton to Oakland
+with about 500 men and three cannon, reached his destination at
+nightfall, and hurried his detachment forward by a night march to
+Irvine, ten or twelve miles over rough roads. It turned out that
+Irvine did not occupy Red House, and the prevalent belief that the
+enemy was about 8000 in number, with the uncertainty of the road he
+would take, made it proper to keep the little force concentrated
+till reinforcements should come. The first of these reached Irvine
+about six o'clock on the morning of the 14th, raising his command to
+1500; but a few moments after their arrival he learned that the
+enemy had passed Red House soon after daylight. He gave chase, but
+did not overtake them.
+
+Meanwhile General Hill had spent the night in trying to hasten
+forward the railway trains, but none were able to reach Oakland till
+morning, and Garnett's forces had now more than twenty miles the
+start, and were on fairly good roads, moving southward on the
+eastern side of the mountains. McClellan still telegraphed that Hill
+had the one opportunity of a lifetime to capture the fleeing army,
+and that officer hastened in pursuit, though unprovided with wagons
+or extra rations. When however the Union commander learned that the
+enemy had fairly turned the mountains, he ordered the pursuit
+stopped. Hill had used both intelligence and energy in his attempt
+to concentrate his troops, but it proved simply impossible for the
+railroad to carry them to Oakland before the enemy had passed the
+turning-point, twenty miles to the southward. [Footnote: Report of
+Hill, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 224.]
+
+During the 12th Pegram's situation and movements were unknown. He
+had intended, when he evacuated his camp, to follow the line of
+retreat taken by the detachment already near the mountain-top, but,
+in the darkness of the night and in the tangled woods and thickets
+of the mountain-side, his column got divided, and, with the rear
+portion of it, he wandered all day of the 12th, seeking to make his
+way to Garnett. He halted at evening at the Tygart Valley River, six
+miles north of Beverly, and learned from some country people of
+Garnett's retreat. It was still possible to reach the mountains east
+of the valley, but beyond lay a hundred miles of wilderness and half
+a dozen mountain ridges on which little, if any, food could be found
+for his men. He called a council of war, and, by advice of his
+officers, sent to McClellan, at Beverly, an offer of surrender. This
+was received on the 13th, and Pegram brought in 30 officers and 525
+men. [Footnote: Report of Pegram, Official Records, vol. ii. pp.
+265, 266.] McClellan then moved southward himself, following the
+Staunton road, by which the remnant of Pegram's little force had
+escaped, and on the 14th occupied Huttonsville. Two regiments of
+Confederate troops were hastening from Staunton to reinforce
+Garnett. These were halted at Monterey, east of the principal ridge
+of the Alleghanies, and upon them the retreating forces rallied.
+Brigadier-General H. R. Jackson was assigned to command in Garnett's
+place, and both Governor Letcher and General Lee made strenuous
+efforts to increase this army to a force sufficient to resume
+aggressive operations. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 247, 254.] On
+McClellan's part nothing further was attempted till on the 22d he
+was summoned to Washington to assume command of the army which had
+retreated to the capital after the panic of the first Bull Run
+battle.
+
+The affair at Rich Mountain and the subsequent movements were among
+the minor events of a great war, and would not warrant a detailed
+description, were it not for the momentous effect they had upon the
+conduct of the war, by being the occasion of McClellan's promotion
+to the command of the Potomac army. The narrative which has been
+given contains the "unvarnished tale," as nearly as official records
+of both sides can give it, and it is a curious task to compare it
+with the picture of the campaign and its results which was then
+given to the world in the series of proclamations and dispatches of
+the young general, beginning with his first occupation of the
+country and ending with his congratulations to his troops, in which
+he announced that they had "annihilated two armies, commanded by
+educated and experienced soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastnesses
+fortified at their leisure." The country was eager for good news,
+and took it as literally true. McClellan was the hero of the moment,
+and when, but a week later, his success was followed by the disaster
+to McDowell at Bull Run, he seemed pointed out by Providence as the
+ideal chieftain who could repair the misfortune and lead our armies
+to certain victory. His personal intercourse with those about him
+was so kindly, and his bearing so modest, that his dispatches,
+proclamations, and correspondence are a psychological study, more
+puzzling to those who knew him well than to strangers. Their turgid
+rhetoric and exaggerated pretence did not seem natural to him. In
+them he seemed to be composing for stage effect something to be
+spoken in character by a quite different person from the sensible
+and genial man we knew in daily life and conversation. The career of
+the great Napoleon had been the study and the absorbing admiration
+of young American soldiers, and it was perhaps not strange that when
+real war came they should copy his bulletins and even his personal
+bearing. It was, for the moment, the bent of the people to be
+pleased with McClellan's rendering of the role; they dubbed him the
+young Napoleon, and the photographers got him to stand with folded
+arms, in the historic pose. For two or three weeks his dispatches
+and letters were all on fire with enthusiastic energy. He appeared
+to be in a morbid condition of mental exaltation. When he came out
+of it, he was as genial as ever. The assumed dash and energy of his
+first campaign made the disappointment and the reaction more painful
+when the excessive caution of his conduct in command of the Army of
+the Potomac was seen. But the Rich Mountain affair, when analyzed,
+shows the same characteristics which became well known later. There
+was the same over-estimate of the enemy, the same tendency to
+interpret unfavorably the sights and sounds in front, the same
+hesitancy to throw in his whole force when he knew that his
+subordinate was engaged. If Garnett had been as strong as McClellan
+believed him, he had abundant time and means to overwhelm Morris,
+who lay four days in easy striking distance, while the National
+commander delayed attacking Pegram; and had Morris been beaten,
+Garnett would have been as near Clarksburg as his opponent, and
+there would have been a race for the railroad. But, happily, Garnett
+was less strong and less enterprising than he was credited with
+being. Pegram was dislodged, and the Confederates made a precipitate
+retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE KANAWHA VALLEY
+
+
+Orders for the Kanawha expedition--The troops and their
+quality--Lack of artillery and cavalry--Assembling at
+Gallipolis--District of the Kanawha--Numbers of the opposing
+forces--Method of advance--Use of steamboats--Advance guards on
+river banks--Camp at Thirteen-mile Creek--Night alarm--The river
+chutes--Sunken obstructions--Pocotaligo--Affair at
+Barboursville--Affair at Scary Creek--Wise's position at Tyler
+Mountain--His precipitate retreat--Occupation of
+Charleston--Rosecrans succeeds McClellan--Advance toward Gauley
+Bridge--Insubordination--The Newspaper Correspondent--Occupation of
+Gauley Bridge.
+
+
+When McClellan reached Buckhannon, on the 2d of July, the rumors he
+heard of Garnett's strength, and the news of the presence of General
+Wise with a considerable force in the Great Kanawha valley, made him
+conclude to order a brigade to that region for the purpose of
+holding the lower part of the valley defensively till he might try
+to cut off Wise's army after Garnett should be disposed of. This
+duty was assigned to me. On the 22d of June I had received my
+appointment as Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers, superseding my
+state commission. I had seen the regiments of my brigade going one
+by one, as fast as they were reorganized for the three years'
+service, and I had hoped to be ordered to follow them to McClellan's
+own column. The only one left in camp was the Eleventh Ohio, of
+which only five companies were present, though two more companies
+were soon added.
+
+McClellan's letter directed me to assume command of the First and
+Second Kentucky regiments with the Twelfth Ohio, and to call upon
+the governor for a troop of cavalry and a six-gun battery: to
+expedite the equipment of the whole and move them to Gallipolis
+_via_ Hampden and Portland, stations on the Marietta Railroad, from
+which a march of twenty-five miles by country roads would take us to
+our destination. At Gallipolis was the Twenty-first Ohio, which I
+should add to my command and proceed at once with two regiments to
+Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Kanawha, five miles above. When
+all were assembled, one regiment was to be left at Point Pleasant,
+two were to be advanced up the valley to Ten-mile Creek, and the
+other placed at an intermediate position. "Until further orders,"
+the letter continued, "remain on the defensive and endeavor to
+induce the rebels to remain at Charleston until I can cut off their
+retreat by a movement from Beverly." Captain W. J. Kountz, an
+experienced steamboat captain, was in charge of
+water-transportation, and would furnish light-draught steamboats for
+my use. [Footnote: What purports to be McClellan's letter to me is
+found in the Records (Official Records, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 197), but
+it seems to be only an abstract of it, made to accompany his
+dispatch to Washington (_Id_., p. 198), and by a clerical error
+given the form of the complete letter. It does not contain the
+quotation given above, which was reiterated before the letter was
+closed, in these words: "Remember that my present plan is to cut
+them off by a rapid march from Beverly after driving those in front
+of me across the mountains, and do all you can to favor that by
+avoiding offensive movements."
+
+After the printing of the earlier volumes of the Records, covering
+the years 1861-1862, I learned that the books and papers of the
+Department of the Ohio had not been sent to Washington at the close
+of the war, but were still in Cincinnati. I brought this fact to the
+attention of the Adjutant-General, and at the request of that
+officer obtained and forwarded them to the Archives office. With
+them were my letter books and the original files of my
+correspondence with McClellan and Rosecrans in 1861 and 1862.
+Colonel Robert N. Scott, who was then in charge of the publication,
+informed me that the whole would be prepared for printing and would
+appear in the supplemental volumes, after the completion of the rest
+of the First Series. Owing to changes in the Board of Publication in
+the course of twenty years, there were errors in the arrangement of
+the matter for the printer, and a considerable part of the
+correspondence between the generals named and myself was
+accidentally omitted from the supplemental volume (Official Records,
+vol. li. pt. i.) in which it should have appeared. The originals are
+no doubt in the files of the Archives office, and for the benefit of
+investigators I give in Appendix A a list of the numbers missing
+from the printed volume, as shown by comparison with my retained
+copies.]
+
+Governor Dennison seconded our wishes with his usual earnestness,
+and ordered the battery of artillery and company of cavalry to meet
+me at Gallipolis; but the guns for the battery were not to be had,
+and a section of two bronze guns (six-pounder smooth-bores rifled)
+was the only artillery, whilst the cavalry was less than half a
+troop of raw recruits, useful only as messengers. I succeeded in
+getting the Eleventh Ohio sent with me, the lacking companies to be
+recruited and sent later. The Twelfth Ohio was an excellent regiment
+which had been somewhat delayed in its reorganization and had not
+gone with the rest of its brigade to McClellan. The Twenty-first was
+one of the regiments enlisted for the State in excess of the first
+quota, and was now brought into the national service under the
+President's second call. The two Kentucky regiments had been
+organized in Cincinnati, and were made up chiefly of steamboat crews
+and "longshoremen" thrown out of employment by the stoppage of
+commerce on the river. There were in them some companies of other
+material, but these gave the distinctive character to the regiments.
+The colonels and part of the field officers were Kentuckians, but
+the organizations were Ohio regiments in nearly everything but the
+name. The men were mostly of a rough and reckless class, and gave a
+good deal of trouble by insubordination; but they did not lack
+courage, and after they had been under discipline for a while,
+became good fighting regiments. The difficulty of getting
+transportation from the railway company delayed our departure. It
+was not till the 6th of July that a regiment could be sent, and
+another followed in two or three days. The two Kentucky regiments
+were not yet armed and equipped, but after a day or two were ready
+and were ordered up the river by steamboats. I myself left Camp
+Dennison on the evening of Sunday the 7th with the Eleventh Ohio
+(seven companies) and reached Gallipolis in the evening of the 9th.
+The three Ohio regiments were united on the 10th and carried by
+steamers to Point Pleasant, and we entered the theatre of war.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 416: my report to
+McClellan.]
+
+My movement had been made upon a telegram from General McClellan,
+and I found at Gallipolis his letter of instructions of the 2d, and
+another of the 6th which enlarged the scope of my command. A
+territorial district was assigned to me, including the southwestern
+part of Virginia below Parkersburg on the Ohio, and north of the
+Great Kanawha, reaching back into the country as I should occupy it.
+[Footnote: The territorial boundary of McClellan's Department had
+been placed at the Great Kanawha and the Ohio rivers, probably with
+some political idea of avoiding the appearance of aggression upon
+regions of doubtful loyalty.] The directions to restrict myself to a
+defensive occupation of the Lower Kanawha valley were changed to
+instructions to march on Charleston and Gauley Bridge, and, with a
+view to his resumption of the plan to make this his main line of
+advance, to "obtain all possible information in regard to the roads
+leading toward Wytheville and the adjacent region." I was also
+ordered to place a regiment at Ripley, on the road from Parkersburg
+to Charleston, and advised "to beat up Barbonsville, Guyandotte,
+etc, so that the entire course of the Ohio may be secured to us."
+Communication with Ripley was by Letart's Falls on the Ohio, some
+thirty miles above Gallipolis, or by Ravenswood, twenty miles
+further. Guyandotte was a longer distance below Gallipolis, and
+Barboursville was inland some miles up the Gurandotte River. As to
+General Wise, McClellan wrote: "Drive Wise out and catch him if you
+can. If you do catch him, send him to Colombus penitentiary." A
+regiment at Parkersburg and another at Roane Court House on the
+northern border of my district were ordered to report to me, but I
+was not authorized to move them from the stations assigned them, and
+they were soon united to McClellan's own column.
+
+At Gallipolis I heard that a steamboat on the Ohio had been boarded
+by a rebel party near Guyandotte, and the news giving point to
+McClellan's suggestion to "beat up" that region, I dispatched a
+small steamboat down the river to meet the Kentucky regiments with
+orders for the leading one to land at Guyandotte and suppress any
+insurgents in that neighborhood. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+Ii. pt. i. p. 417.] It was hazardous to divide my little army into
+three columns on a base of a hundred miles, but it was thought wise
+to show some Union troops at various points on the border, and I
+purposed to unite my detachments by early convergent movements
+forward to the Kanawha valley as soon as I should reach Red House,
+thirty-two miles up the river, with my principal column.
+
+Before I reached Charleston I added to my artillery one iron and one
+brass cannon, smooth six-pounders, borrowed from the civil
+authorities at Gallipolis; but they were without caissons or any
+proper equipment, and were manned by volunteers from the infantry.
+[Footnote: Ibid.] My total force, when assembled, would be a little
+over 3000 men, the regiments having the same average strength as
+those with McClellan. The opposing force under General Wise was 4000
+by the time the campaign was fully opened, though somewhat less at
+the beginning. [Footnote: Wise reported his force on the 17th of
+July as 3500 "effective" men and ten cannon, and says he received
+"perhaps 300" in reinforcements on the 18th. When he abandoned the
+valley ten days later, he reported his force 4000 in round numbers.
+Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 290, 292; 1011.]
+
+The Great Kanawha River was navigable for small steamboats about
+seventy miles, to a point ten or twelve miles above Charleston, the
+only important town of the region, which was at the confluence of
+the Kanawha and Elk rivers. Steamboats were plenty, owing to the
+interruption of trade, and wagons were wholly lacking; so that my
+column was accompanied and partly carried by a fleet of stern-wheel
+steamers.
+
+On Thursday the 11th of July the movement from Point Pleasant began.
+An advance-guard was sent out on each side of the river, marching
+upon the roads which were near its banks. The few horsemen were
+divided and sent with them to carry messages, and the boats
+followed, steaming slowly along in rear of the marching men. Most of
+two regiments were carried on the steamers, to save fatigue to the
+men, who were as yet unused to their work, and many of whom were
+footsore from their first long march of twenty-five miles to
+Gallipolis from Hampden station, where they had been obliged to
+leave the railway. The arrangement was also a good one in a military
+point of view, for if an enemy were met on either bank of the
+stream, the boats could land in a moment and the troops disembark
+without delay.
+
+Our first day's sail was thirteen miles up the river, and it was the
+very romance of campaigning. I took my station on top of the
+pilot-house of the leading boat, so that I might see over the banks
+of the stream and across the bottom lands to the high hills which
+bounded the valley. The afternoon was a lovely one. Summer clouds
+lazily drifted across the sky, the boats were dressed in their
+colors and swarmed with the men like bees. The bands played national
+tunes, and as we passed the houses of Union citizens, the inmates
+would wave their handkerchiefs to us, and were answered by cheers
+from the troops. The scenery was picturesque, the gently winding
+river making beautiful reaches that opened new scenes upon us at
+every turn. On either side the advance-guard could be seen in the
+distance, the main body in the road, with skirmishers exploring the
+way in front, and flankers on the sides. Now and then a horseman
+would bring some message to the bank from the front, and a small
+boat would be sent to receive it, giving us the rumors with which
+the country was rife, and which gave just enough of excitement and
+of the spice of possible danger to make this our first day in an
+enemy's country key everybody to just such a pitch as apparently to
+double the vividness of every sensation. The landscape seemed more
+beautiful, the sunshine more bright, and the exhilaration of
+out-door life more joyous than any we had ever known.
+
+The halt for the night had been assigned at a little village on the
+right (northern) bank of the stream, which was nestled beneath a
+ridge which ran down from the hills toward the river, making an
+excellent position for defence against any force which might come
+against it from the upper valley. The sun was getting low behind us
+in the west, as we approached it, and the advance-guard had already
+halted. Captain Cotter's two bronze guns gleamed bright on the top
+of the ridge beyond the pretty little town, and before the sun went
+down, the new white tents had been carried up to the slope and
+pitched there. The steamers were moored to the shore, and the low
+slanting rays of the sunset fell upon as charming a picture as was
+ever painted. An outpost with pickets was set on the southern side
+of the river, both grand and camp guards were put out also on the
+side we occupied, and the men soon had their supper and went to
+rest. Late in the evening a panic-stricken countryman came in with
+the news that General Wise was moving down upon us with 4000 men.
+The man was evidently in earnest, and was a loyal one. He believed
+every word he said, but he had in fact seen only a few of the
+enemy's horsemen who were scouting toward us, and believed their
+statement that an army was at their back. It was our initiation into
+an experience of rumors that was to continue as long as the war. We
+were to get them daily and almost hourly; sometimes with a little
+foundation of fact, sometimes with none; rarely purposely deceptive,
+but always grossly exaggerated, making chimeras with which a
+commanding officer had to wage a more incessant warfare than with
+the substantial enemy in his front. I reasoned that Wise's troops
+were, like my own, too raw to venture a night attack with, and
+contented myself with sending a strong reconnoitring party out
+beyond my pickets, putting in command of it Major Hines of the
+Twelfth Ohio, an officer who subsequently became noted for his
+enterprise and activity in charge of scouting parties. The camp
+rested quietly, and toward morning Hines returned, reporting that a
+troop of the enemy's horse had come within a couple of miles of our
+position in search of information about us and our movement. They
+had indulged in loud bragging as to what Wise and his army would do
+with us, but this and nothing more was the basis of our honest
+friend's fright. The morning dawned bright and peaceful, the
+steamers were sent back for a regiment which was still at Point
+Pleasant, and the day was used in concentrating the little army and
+preparing for another advance.
+
+On July 13th we moved again, making about ten miles, and finding the
+navigation becoming difficult by reason of the low water. At several
+shoals in the stream rough wing-dams had been built from the sides
+to concentrate the water in the channel, and at Knob Shoals, in one
+of these "chutes" as they were called, a coal barge had sometime
+before been sunk. In trying to pass it our leading boat grounded,
+and, the current being swift, it was for a time doubtful if we
+should get her off. We finally succeeded, however, and the
+procession of boats slowly steamed up the rapids. We had hardly got
+beyond them when we heard a distant cannon-shot from our
+advance-guard which had opened a long distance between them and us
+during our delay. We steamed rapidly ahead. Soon we saw a man
+pulling off from the south bank in a skiff. Nearing the steamer, he
+stood up and excitedly shouted that a general engagement had begun.
+We laughingly told him it couldn't be very general till we got in,
+and we moved on, keeping a sharp outlook for our parties on either
+bank. When we came up to them, we learned that a party of horsemen
+had appeared on the southern side of the river and had opened a
+skirmishing fire, but had scampered off as if the Old Nick were
+after them when a shell from the rifled gun was sent over their
+heads. The shell, like a good many that were made in those days, did
+not explode, and the simple people of the vicinity who had heard its
+long-continued scream told our men some days after that they thought
+it was "going yet."
+
+From this time some show of resistance was made by the enemy, and
+the skirmishing somewhat retarded the movement. Still, about ten
+miles was made each day till the evening of the 16th, when we
+encamped at the mouth of the Pocotaligo, a large creek which enters
+the Kanawha from the north. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li.
+pt. i. p. 418.] The evening before, we had had one of those
+incidents, not unusual with new troops, which prove that nothing but
+habit can make men cool and confident in their duties. We had, as
+usual, moored our boats to the northern bank and made our camp
+there, placing an outpost on the left bank opposite us supporting a
+chain of sentinels, to prevent a surprise from that direction. A
+report of some force of the enemy in their front made me order
+another detachment to their support after nightfall. The detachment
+had been told off and ferried across in small boats. They were dimly
+seen marching in the starlight up the river after landing, when
+suddenly a shot was heard, and then an irregular volley was both
+seen and heard as the muskets flashed out in the darkness. A
+supporting force was quickly sent over, and, no further disturbance
+occurring, a search was made for an enemy, but none was found. A gun
+had accidentally gone off in the squad, and the rest of the men,
+surprised and bewildered, had fired, they neither knew why nor at
+what. Two men were killed, and several others were hurt. This and
+the chaffing the men got from their comrades was a lesson to the
+whole command. The soldiers were brave enough, and were thoroughly
+ashamed of themselves, but they were raw; that was all that could be
+said of it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 421.]
+
+We were here overtaken by the Second Kentucky, which had stopped at
+Guyandotte on its way up the river, and had marched across the
+country to join us after our progress had sufficiently covered that
+lower region. From Guyandotte a portion of the regiment, under
+command of Lieutenant-Colonel Neff, had gone to Barboursville and
+had attacked and dispersed an encampment of Confederates which was
+organizing there. It was a very creditable little action, in which
+officers and men conducted themselves well, and which made them for
+the time the envy of the rest of the command.
+
+The situation at "Poca," as it was called in the neighborhood, was
+one which made the further advance of the army require some
+consideration. Information which came to us from loyal men showed
+that some force of the enemy was in position above the mouth of
+Scary Creek on the south side of the Kanawha, and about three miles
+from us. We had for two days had constant light skirmishing with the
+advance-guard of Wise's forces on the north bank of the river, and
+supposed that the principal part of his command was on our side, and
+not far in front of us. It turned out in fact that this was so, and
+that Wise had placed his principal camp at Tyler Mountain, a bold
+spur which reaches the river on the northern side (on which is also
+the turnpike road), about twelve miles above my position, while he
+occupied the south side with a detachment. The Pocotaligo, which
+entered the river from the north at our camp, covered us against an
+attack on that side; but we could not take our steam-boats further
+unless both banks of the river were cleared. We had scarcely any
+wagons, for those which had been promised us could not yet be
+forwarded, and we must either continue to keep the steamboats with
+us, or organize wagon transportation and cut loose from the boats.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 420; dispatch of
+17th also.] My urgent dispatches were hurrying the wagons toward us,
+but meanwhile I hoped the opposition on the south bank of the river
+would prove trifling, for artillery in position at any point on the
+narrow river would at once stop navigation of our light and unarmed
+transports. On the morning of the 17th a reconnoitering party sent
+forward on the south side of the river under command of
+Lieutenant-Colonel White of the Twelfth Ohio, reported the enemy
+about five hundred strong intrenched on the further side of Scary
+Creek, which was not fordable at its mouth, but could be crossed a
+little way up the stream. Colonel Lowe of the Twelfth requested the
+privilege of driving off this party with his regiment accompanied by
+our two cannon. He was ordered to do so, whilst the enemy's
+skirmishers should be pushed back from the front of the main column,
+and it should be held ready to advance rapidly up the north bank of
+the river as soon as the hostile force at Scary Creek should be
+dislodged.
+
+The Twelfth and two companies of the Twenty-first Ohio were ferried
+over and moved out soon after noon. The first reports from them were
+encouraging and full of confidence, the enemy were retreating and
+they had dismounted one of his guns; but just before evening they
+returned, bringing the account of their repulse in the effort to
+cross at the mouth of the creek, and their failure to find the ford
+a little higher up. Their ammunition had run short, some casualties
+had occurred, and they had become discouraged and given it up. Their
+loss was 10 men killed and 35 wounded. If they had held on and asked
+for assistance, it would have been well enough; but, as was common
+with new troops, they passed from confidence to discouragement as
+soon as they were checked, and they retreated.
+
+The affair was accompanied by another humiliating incident which
+gave me no little chagrin. During the progress of the engagement
+Colonel Woodruff and Lieutenant-Colonel Neff of the Second Kentucky,
+with Colonel De Villiers of the Eleventh Ohio, rode out in front, on
+the north bank of the river, till they came opposite the enemy's
+position, the hostile party on our side of the stream having fallen
+back beyond this point. They were told by a negro that the rebels
+were in retreat, and they got the black man to ferry them over in a
+skiff, that they might be the first to congratulate their friends.
+To their amazement they were welcomed as prisoners by the
+Confederates, who greatly enjoyed their discomfiture. The negro had
+told the truth in saying that the enemy had been in retreat; for the
+fact was that both sides retreated, but the Confederates, being
+first informed of this, resumed their position and claimed a
+victory. The officers who were captured had gone out without
+permission, and, led on by the hare-brained De Villiers, had done
+what they knew was foolish and unmilitary, resulting for them in a
+severe experience in Libby Prison at Richmond, and for us in the
+momentary appearance of lack of discipline and order which could not
+fairly be charged upon the command. I reported the facts without
+disguise or apology, trusting to the future to remove the bad
+impression the affair must naturally make upon McClellan.
+
+The report of the strength of the position attacked and our
+knowledge of the increasing difficulty of the ground before us, led
+me to conclude that the wisest course would be to await the arrival
+of the wagons, now daily expected, and then, with supplies for
+several days in hand, move independent of the steamers, which became
+only an embarrassment when it was advisable to leave the river road
+for the purpose of turning a fortified position like that we had
+found before us. We therefore rested quietly in our strong camp for
+several days, holding both banks of the river and preparing to move
+the main column by a country road leading away from the stream on
+the north side, and returning to it at Tyler Mountain, where Wise's
+camp was reported to be. I ordered up the First Kentucky from
+Ravenswood and Ripley, but its colonel found obstacles in his way,
+and did not join us till we reached Charleston the following week.
+
+On the 23d of July I had succeeded in getting wagons and teams
+enough to supply the most necessary uses, and renewed the advance.
+We marched rapidly on the 24th by the circuitous route I have
+mentioned, leaving a regiment to protect the steamboats. The country
+was very broken and the roads very rough, but the enemy had no
+knowledge of our movement, and toward evening we again approached
+the river immediately in rear of their camp at Tyler Mountain. When
+we drove in their pickets, the force was panic-stricken and ran off,
+leaving their camp in confusion, and their supper which they were
+cooking but did not stop to eat. A little below the point where we
+reached the river, and on the other side, was the steamboat "Maffet"
+with a party of soldiers gathering the wheat which had been cut in
+the neighboring fields and was in the sheaf. I was for a moment
+doubtful whether it might not be one of our own boats which had
+ventured up the river under protection of the regiment left behind,
+and directed our skirmishers who were deployed along the edge of the
+water to hail the other side. "Who are you?" was shouted from both
+banks simultaneously. "United States troops," our men answered.
+"Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" shouted the others, and a rattling fire
+opened on both sides. A shell was sent from our cannon into the
+steamer, and the party upon her were immediately seen jumping
+ashore, having first set fire to her to prevent her falling into our
+hands. The enemy then moved away on that side, under cover of the
+trees which lined the river bank. Night was now falling, and,
+sending forward an advance-guard to follow up the force whose camp
+we had surprised, we bivouacked on the mountain side.
+
+In the morning, as we were moving out at an early hour, we were met
+by the mayor and two or three prominent citizens of Charleston who
+came to surrender the town to us, Wise having hurriedly retreated
+during the night. He had done a very unnecessary piece of mischief
+before leaving, in partly cutting off the cables of a fine
+suspension bridge which spans the Elk River at Charleston. As this
+stream enters the Kanawha from the north and below the city, it may
+have seemed to him that it would delay our progress; but as a large
+number of empty coal barges were lying at the town, it took our
+company of mechanics, under Captain Lane of the Eleventh Ohio, but a
+little while to improvise a good floating bridge, and part of the
+command passed through the town and camped beyond it. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 425.] One day was now given to
+the establishment of a depot of supplies at Charleston and to the
+organization of regular communication by water with Gallipolis, and
+by wagons with such positions as we might occupy further up the
+river. Deputations of the townspeople were informed that it was not
+our policy to meddle with private persons who remained quietly at
+home, nor would we make any inquisition as to the personal opinions
+of those who attended strictly to their own business; but they were
+warned that any communication with the enemy would be remorselessly
+punished.
+
+We were now able to get more accurate information about Wise's
+forces than we could obtain before, and this accorded pretty well
+with the strength which he reported officially. [Footnote: _Ante_,
+p. 63 note.] His infantry was therefore more than equal to the
+column under my command in the valley, whilst in artillery and in
+cavalry he was greatly superior. Our continued advance in the face
+of such opposition is sufficient evidence that the Confederate force
+was not well handled, for as the valley contracted and the hills
+crowded in closer to the river, nearly every mile offered positions
+in which small numbers could hold at bay an army. Our success in
+reaching Charleston was therefore good ground for being content with
+our progress, though I had to blame myself for errors in the
+management of my part of the campaign at Pocataligo. I ought not to
+have assumed as confidently as I did that the enemy was only five
+hundred strong at Scary Creek and that a detachment could dispose of
+that obstacle whilst the rest of the column prepared to advance on
+our principal line. Wise's force at that point was in fact double
+the number supposed. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 1011.]
+It is true it was very inconvenient to ferry any considerable body
+of troops back and forth across the river; but I should nevertheless
+have taken the bulk of my command to the left bank, and by occupying
+the enemy's attention at the mouth of Scary Creek, covered the
+movement of a sufficient force upon his flank by means of the fords
+farther up that stream. This would have resulted in the complete
+routing of the detachment, and it is nearly certain that I could
+have pushed on to Charleston at once, and could have waited there
+for the organization of my wagon train with the prestige of victory,
+instead of doing so at 'Poca' with the appearance of a check.
+
+McClellan recognized the fact that he was asking me to face the
+enemy with no odds in my favor, and as soon as he heard that Wise
+was disposed to make a stand he directed me not to risk attacking
+him in front, but rather to await the result of his own movement
+toward the Upper Kanawha. [Footnote: Dispatches of July 16 and 20.]
+Rosecrans did the same when he assumed command; but I knew the hope
+had been that I would reach Gauley Bridge, and I was vexed that my
+movement should have the appearance of failing when I was conscious
+that we had not fairly measured our strength with my opponent. As
+soon, therefore, as the needful preparations could be made, I
+decided upon the turning movement which I have already described,
+and our resolute advance seems to have thrown Wise into a panic from
+which he did not recover till he got far beyond Gauley Bridge.
+
+At Charleston I learned of the Bull Run disaster, and that McClellan
+had been ordered to Washington, leaving Rosecrans in command of our
+department. The latter sent me orders which implied that to reach
+Charleston was the most he could expect of me, and directing me to
+remain on the defensive if I should succeed in getting so far,
+whilst he should take up anew McClellan's plan of reaching the rear
+of Wise's army. [Footnote: Dispatches of July 26 and 29.] His
+dispatches, fortunately, did not reach me till I was close to Gauley
+Bridge and was sure of my ability to take possession of that defile,
+some forty miles above Charleston. An additional reason for my
+prompt advance was that the Twenty-first Ohio was not yet
+re-enlisted for the war, was only a "three months" regiment whose
+time was about to expire, and Governor Dennison had telegraphed me
+to send it back to Ohio. I left this regiment as a post-garrison at
+Charleston till it could be relieved by another, or till my success
+in reaching Gauley Bridge should enable me to send back a detachment
+for that post, and, on the 26th July, pushed forward with the rest
+of my column, which, now that the First Kentucky had joined me,
+consisted of four regiments. Our first night's encampment was about
+eleven miles above Charleston in a lovely nook between spurs of the
+hills. Here I was treated to a little surprise on the part of three
+of my subordinates which was an unexpected enlargement of my
+military experience. The camp had got nicely arranged for the night
+and supper was over, when these gentlemen waited upon me at my tent.
+The one who had shown the least capacity as commander of a regiment
+was spokesman, and informed me that after consultation they had
+concluded that it was foolhardy to follow the Confederates into the
+gorge we were travelling, and that unless I could show them
+satisfactory reasons for changing their opinion they would not lead
+their commands further into it. I dryly asked if he was quite sure
+he understood the nature of his communication. There was something
+probably in the tone of my question which was not altogether
+expected, and his companions began to look a little uneasy. He then
+protested that none of them meant any disrespect, but that as their
+military experience was about as extensive as my own, they thought I
+ought to make no movements but on consultation with them and by
+their consent. The others seemed to be better pleased with this way
+of putting it, and signified assent. My answer was that their
+conduct very plainly showed their own lack both of military
+experience and elementary military knowledge, and that this
+ignorance was the only thing which could palliate their action.
+Whether they meant it or not, their action was mutinous. The
+responsibility for the movement of the army was with me, and whilst
+I should be inclined to confer very freely with my principal
+subordinates and explain my purposes, I should call no councils of
+war, and submit nothing to vote till I felt incompetent to decide
+for myself. If they apologized for their conduct and showed
+earnestness in military obedience to orders, what they had now said
+would be overlooked, but on any recurrence of cause for complaint I
+should enforce my power by the arrest of the offender at once. I
+dismissed them with this, and immediately sent out the formal orders
+through my adjutant-general to march early next morning. Before they
+slept one of the three had come to me with earnest apology for his
+part in the matter, and a short time made them all as subordinate as
+I could wish. The incident could not have occurred in the brigade
+which had been under my command at Camp Dennison, and was a not
+unnatural result of the sudden assembling of inexperienced men under
+a brigade commander of whom they knew nothing except that at the
+beginning of the war he was a civilian like themselves. These very
+men afterward became devoted followers, and some of them life-long
+friends. It was part of their military education as well as mine. If
+I had been noisy and blustering in my intercourse with them at the
+beginning, and had done what seemed to be regarded as the
+"regulation" amount of cursing and swearing, they would probably
+have given me credit for military aptitude at least; but a
+systematic adherence to a quiet and undemonstrative manner evidently
+told against me, at first, in their opinion. Through my army life I
+met more or less of the same conduct when assigned to a new command;
+but when men learned that discipline would be inevitably enforced,
+and that it was as necessary to obey a quiet order as one emphasized
+by expletives, and especially when they had been a little under
+fire, there was no more trouble. Indeed, I was impressed with the
+fact that after this acquaintance was once made, my chief
+embarrassment in discipline was that an intimation of
+dissatisfaction on my part would cause deeper chagrin and more
+evident pain than I intended or wished.
+
+The same march enabled me to make the acquaintance of another army
+"institution,"--the newspaper correspondent. We were joined at
+Charleston by two men representing influential Eastern journals, who
+wished to know on what terms they could accompany the column. The
+answer was that the quartermaster would furnish them with a tent and
+transportation, and that their letters should be submitted to one of
+the staff, to protect us from the publication of facts which might
+aid the enemy. This seemed unsatisfactory, and they intimated that
+they expected to be taken into my mess and to be announced as
+volunteer aides with military rank. They were told that military
+position or rank could only be given by authority much higher than
+mine, and that they could be more honestly independent if free from
+personal obligation and from temptation to repay favors with
+flattery. My only purpose was to put the matter upon the foundation
+of public right and of mutual self-respect. The day before we
+reached Gauley Bridge they opened the subject again to Captain
+McElroy, my adjutant-general, but were informed that I had decided
+it upon a principle by which I meant to abide. Their reply was,
+"Very well; General Cox thinks he can get along without us, and we
+will show him. We will write him down."
+
+They left the camp the same evening, and wrote letters to their
+papers describing the army as demoralized, drunken, and without
+discipline, in a state of insubordination, and the commander as
+totally incompetent. As to the troops, more baseless slander was
+never uttered. Their march had been orderly. No wilful injury had
+been done to private property, and no case of personal violence to
+any non-combatant, man or woman, had been even charged. Yet the
+printing of such communications in widely read journals was likely
+to be as damaging as if it all were true. My nomination as
+Brigadier-General of U. S. Volunteers was then before the Senate for
+confirmation, and "the pen" would probably have proved "mightier
+than the sword" but for McClellan's knowledge of the nature of the
+task we had accomplished, as he was then in the flood-tide of power
+at Washington, and expressed his satisfaction at the performance of
+our part of the campaign which he had planned. By good fortune also,
+the injurious letters were printed at the same time with the
+telegraphic news of our occupation of Gauley Bridge and the retreat
+of the enemy out of the valley. [Footnote: As one of these
+correspondents became a writer of history, it is made proper to say
+that he was Mr. William Swinton, of whom General Grant has occasion
+to speak in his "Personal Memoirs" (vol. ii. p. 144), and whose
+facility in changing his point of view in historical writing was
+shown in his "McClellan's Military Career Reviewed and Exposed,"
+which was published in 1864 by the Union Congressional Committee
+(first appearing in the "New York Times" of February, March, and
+April of that year), when compared with his "History of the Army of
+the Potomac" which appeared two years later. Burnside accused him of
+repeated instances of malicious libel of his command in June, 1864.
+Official Records, vol. xxxvi. pt. iii. p. 751.] I was, however,
+deeply convinced that my position was the right one, and never
+changed my rule of conduct in the matter. The relations of newspaper
+correspondents to general officers of the army became one of the
+crying scandals and notorious causes of intrigue and demoralization.
+It was a subject almost impossible to settle satisfactorily; but
+whoever gained or lost by cultivating this means of reputation, it
+is a satisfaction to have adhered throughout the war to the rule I
+first adopted and announced.
+
+Wise made no resolute effort to oppose my march after I left
+Charleston, and contented himself with delaying us by his
+rear-guard, which obstructed the road by felling trees into it and
+by skirmishing with my head of column. We however advanced at the
+rate of twelve or fifteen miles a day, reaching Gauley Bridge on the
+morning of the 29th of July. Here we captured some fifteen hundred
+stands of arms and a considerable store of munitions which the
+Confederate general had not been able to carry away or destroy. It
+is safe to say that in the wild defile which we had threaded for the
+last twenty miles there were as many positions as there were miles
+in which he could easily have delayed my advance a day or two,
+forcing me to turn his flank by the most difficult mountain
+climbing, and where indeed, with forces so nearly equal, my progress
+should have been permanently barred. At Gauley Bridge he burned the
+structure which gave name to the place, and which had been a series
+of substantial wooden trusses resting upon heavy stone piers. My
+orders definitively limited me to the point we had now reached in my
+advance, and I therefore sent forward only a detachment to follow
+the enemy and keep up his precipitate retreat. Wise did not stop
+till he reached Greenbrier and the White Sulphur Springs, and there
+was abundant evidence that he regarded his movement as a final
+abandonment of this part of West Virginia. [Footnote: Floyd's
+Dispatches, Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 208, 213.] A few
+weeks later General Lee came in person with reinforcements over the
+mountains and began a new campaign; but until the 20th of August we
+were undisturbed except by a petty guerilla warfare.
+
+McClellan telegraphed from Washington his congratulations,
+[Footnote: Dispatch of August 1.] and Rosecrans expressed his
+satisfaction also in terms which assured me that we had done more
+than had been expected of us. [Footnote: Dispatch of July 31.] The
+good effect upon the command was also very apparent; for our success
+not only justified the policy of a determined advance, but the
+officers who had been timid as to results were now glad to get their
+share of the credit, and to make amends for their insubordination by
+a hearty change in bearing and conduct. My term of service as a
+brigadier of the Ohio forces in the three months' enrolment had now
+ended, and until the Senate should confirm my appointment as a
+United States officer there was some doubt as to my right to
+continue in command. My embarrassment in this regard was very
+pleasantly removed by a dispatch from General Rosecrans in which he
+conveyed the request of Lieutenant-General Scott and of himself that
+I should remain in charge of the Kanawha column. It was only a week,
+however, before notice of the confirmation was received, and
+dropping all thoughts of returning home, I prepared my mind for
+continuous active duty till the war should end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+GAULEY BRIDGE
+
+
+The gate of the Kanawha valley--The wilderness beyond--West Virginia
+defences--A romantic post--Chaplain Brown--An adventurous
+mission--Chaplain Dubois--"The River Path"--Gauley Mount--Colonel
+Tompkins's home--Bowie-knives--Truculent resolutions--The
+Engineers--Whittlesey, Benham, Wagner--Fortifications--Distant
+reconnoissances--Comparison of forces--Dangers to steamboat
+communications--Allotment of duties--The Summersville post--Seventh
+Ohio at Cross Lanes--Scares and rumors--Robert E. Lee at Valley
+Mountain--Floyd and Wise advance--Rosecrans's orders--The Cross
+Lanes affair--Major Casement's creditable retreat--Colonel Tyler's
+reports--Lieutenant-Colonel Creighton--Quarrels of Wise and
+Floyd--Ambushing rebel cavalry--Affair at Boone Court House--New
+attack at Gauley Bridge--An incipient mutiny--Sad result--A notable
+court-martial--Rosecrans marching toward us--Communications
+renewed--Advance toward Lewisburg--Camp Lookout--A private sorrow.
+
+
+The position at Gauley Bridge was an important one from a military
+point of view. It was where the James River and Kanawha turnpike,
+after following the highlands along the course of New River as it
+comes from the east, drops into a defile with cliffs on one side and
+a swift and unfordable torrent upon the other, and then crosses the
+Gauley River, which is a stream of very similar character. The two
+rivers, meeting at a right angle, there unite to form the Great
+Kanawha, which plunges over a ledge of rocks a mile below and winds
+its way among the hills, some thirty miles, before it becomes a
+navigable stream even for the lightest class of steamboats. From
+Gauley Bridge a road runs up the Gauley River to Cross Lanes and
+Carnifex Ferry, something over twenty miles, and continuing
+northward reaches Summersville, Sutton, and Weston, making almost
+the only line of communication between the posts then occupied by
+our troops in northwestern Virginia and the head of the Kanawha
+valley. Southwestward the country was extremely wild and broken,
+with few and small settlements and no roads worthy the name. The
+crossing of the Gauley was therefore the gate through which all
+important movements from eastern into southwestern Virginia must
+necessarily come, and it formed an important link in any chain of
+posts designed to cover the Ohio valley from invasion. It was also
+the most advanced single post which could protect the Kanawha
+valley. Further to the southeast, on Flat-top Mountain, was another
+very strong position, where the principal road on the left bank of
+New River crosses a high and broad ridge; but a post could not be
+safely maintained there without still holding Gauley Bridge in
+considerable force, or establishing another post on the right bank
+of New River twenty miles further up. All these streams flow in
+rocky beds seamed and fissured to so great a degree that they had no
+practicable fords. You might go forty miles up New River and at
+least twenty up the Gauley before you could find a place where
+either could be passed by infantry or wagons. The little ferries
+which had been made in a few eddies of the rivers were destroyed in
+the first campaign, and the post at the Gauley became nearly
+impregnable in front, and could only be turned by long and difficult
+detours.
+
+An interval of about a hundred miles separated this mountain
+fastness from the similar passes which guarded eastern Virginia
+along the line of the Blue Ridge. This debatable ground was sparsely
+settled and very poor in agricultural resources, so that it could
+furnish nothing for subsistence of man or beast. The necessity of
+transporting forage as well as subsistence and ammunition through
+this mountainous belt forbade any extended or continuous operations
+there; for actual computation showed that the wagon trains could
+carry no more than the food for the mule teams on the double trip,
+going and returning, from Gauley Bridge to the narrows of New River
+where the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad crossed upon an important
+bridge which was several times made the objective point of an
+expedition. This alone proved the impracticability of the plan
+McClellan first conceived, of making the Kanawha valley the line of
+an important movement into eastern Virginia. It pointed very
+plainly, also, to the true theory of operations in that country.
+Gauley Bridge should have been held with a good brigade which could
+have had outposts several miles forward in three directions, and,
+assisted by a small body of horse to scour the country fifty miles
+or more to the front, the garrison could have protected all the
+country which we ever occupied permanently. A similar post at
+Huttonsville with detachments at the Cheat Mountain pass and
+Elkwater pass north of Huntersville would have covered the only
+other practicable routes through the mountains south of the line of
+the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. These would have been small
+intrenched camps, defensive in character, but keeping detachments
+constantly active in patrolling the front, going as far as could be
+done without wagons. All that ever was accomplished in that region
+of any value would thus have been attained at the smallest expense,
+and the resources that were for three years wasted in those
+mountains might have been applied to the legitimate lines of great
+operations from the valley of the Potomac southward.
+
+[Illustration: GAULEY BRIDGE & VICINITY.]
+
+Nothing could be more romantically beautiful than the situation of
+the post at Gauley Bridge. The hamlet had, before our arrival there,
+consisted of a cluster of two or three dwellings, a country store, a
+little tavern, and a church, irregularly scattered along the base of
+the mountain and facing the road which turns from the Gauley valley
+into that of the Kanawha. The lower slope of the hillside behind the
+houses was cultivated, and a hedgerow separated the lower fields
+from the upper pasturage. Above this gentler slope the wooded steeps
+rose more precipitately, the sandstone rock jutting out into crags
+and walls, the sharp ridge above having scarcely soil enough to
+nourish the chestnut-trees, here, like Mrs. Browning's woods of
+Vallombrosa, literally "clinging by their spurs to the precipices."
+In the angle between the Gauley and New rivers rose Gauley Mount,
+the base a perpendicular wall of rocks of varying height, with high
+wooded slopes above. There was barely room for the road between the
+wall of rocks and the water on the New River side, but after going
+some distance up the valley, the highway gradually ascended the
+hillside, reaching some rolling uplands at a distance of a couple of
+miles. Here was Gauley Mount, the country-house of Colonel C. Q.
+Tompkins, formerly of the Army of the United States, but now the
+commandant of a Confederate regiment raised in the Kanawha valley.
+Across New River the heavy masses of Cotton Mountain rose rough and
+almost inaccessible from the very water's edge. The western side of
+Cotton Mountain was less steep, and buttresses formed a bench about
+its base, so that in looking across the Kanawha a mile below the
+junction of the rivers, one saw some rounded foothills which had
+been cleared on the top and tilled, and a gap in the mountainous
+wall made room on that side for a small creek which descended to the
+Kanawha, and whose bed served for a rude country road leading to
+Fayette C. H. At the base of Cotton Mountain the Kanawha equals the
+united width of the two tributaries, and flows foaming over broken
+rocks with treacherous channels between, till it dashes over the
+horseshoe ledge below, known far and wide as the Kanawha Falls. On
+either bank near the falls a small mill had been built, that on the
+right bank a saw-mill and the one on the left for grinding grain.
+
+Our encampment necessarily included the saw-mill below the falls,
+where the First Kentucky Regiment was placed to guard the road
+coming from Fayette C. H. Two regiments were encamped at the bridge
+upon the hillside above the hedgerow, having an advanced post of
+half a regiment on the Lewisburg road beyond the Tompkins farm, and
+scouting the country to Sewell Mountain. Smaller outposts were
+stationed some distance up the valley of the Gauley. My headquarters
+tents were pitched in the door-yard of a dwelling-house facing the
+Gauley River, and I occupied an unfurnished room in the house for
+office purposes. A week was spent, without molestation, exploring
+the country in all directions and studying its topography. A ferry
+guided by a cable stretching along the piers of the burnt bridge
+communicated with the outposts up the New River, and a smaller ferry
+below the Kanawha Falls connected with the Fayette road. Systematic
+discipline and instruction in outpost duty were enforced, and the
+regiments rapidly became expert mountaineers and scouts. The
+population was nearly all loyal below Gauley Bridge, but above they
+were mostly Secessionists, a small minority of the wealthier
+slaveholders being the nucleus of all aggressive secession
+movements. These, by their wealth and social leadership, overawed or
+controlled a great many who did not at heart sympathize with them,
+and between parties thus formed a guerilla warfare became chronic.
+In our scouting expeditions we found little farms in secluded nooks
+among the mountains, where grown men assured us that they had never
+before seen the American flag, and whole families had never been
+further from home than a church and country store a few miles away.
+From these mountain people several regiments of Union troops were
+recruited in West Virginia, two of them being organized in rear of
+my own lines, and becoming part of the garrison of the district in
+the following season.
+
+I had been joined before reaching Gauley Bridge by Chaplain Brown of
+the Seventh Ohio, who had obtained permission to make an adventurous
+journey across the country from Sutton to bring me information as to
+the position and character of the outposts that were stretching from
+the railway southward toward our line of operations. Disguised as a
+mountaineer in homespun clothing, his fine features shaded by a
+slouched felt hat, he reported himself to me in anything but a
+clerical garb. Full of enterprise as a partisan leader of scouts
+could be, he was yet a man of high attainments in his profession, of
+noble character and real learning. When he reached me, I had as my
+guest another chaplain who had accepted a commission at my
+suggestion, the Rev. Mr. Dubois, son-in-law of Bishop McIlvaine of
+Ohio, who had been leader of the good people at Chillicothe in
+providing a supper for the Eleventh Ohio as we were on our way from
+Camp Dennison to Gallipolis. He had burned to have some part in the
+country's struggle, and became a model chaplain till his labors and
+exposure broke his health and forced him to resign. The presence of
+two such men gave some hours of refined social life in the intervals
+of rough work. One evening walk along the Kanawha has ever since
+remained in my memory associated with Whittier's poem "The River
+Path," as a wilder and more brilliant type of the scene he pictured.
+We had walked out beyond the camp, leaving its noise and its warlike
+associations behind us, for a turn of the road around a jutting
+cliff shut it all out as completely as if we had been transported to
+another land, except that the distant figure of a sentinel on post
+reminded us of the limit of safe sauntering for pleasure. My
+Presbyterian and Episcopalian friends forgot their differences of
+dogma, and as the sun dropped behind the mountain tops, making an
+early twilight in the valley, we talked of home, of patriotism, of
+the relation of our struggle to the world's progress, and other high
+themes, when
+
+   "Sudden our pathway turned from night,
+   The hills swung open to the light;
+   Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
+   A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
+   Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
+   It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
+   And borne on piers of mist, allied
+   The shadowy with the sunlit side!"
+
+The surroundings, the things of which we talked, our own sentiments,
+all combined to make the scene stir deep emotions for which the
+poet's succeeding lines seem the only fit expression, and to link
+the poem indissolubly with the scene as if it had its birth there.
+
+When Wise had retreated from the valley, Colonel Tompkins had been
+unable to remove his family, and had left a letter commending them
+to our courteous treatment. Mrs. Tompkins was a lady of refinement,
+and her position within our outposts was far from being a
+comfortable one. She, however, put a cheerful face upon her
+situation, showed great tact in avoiding controversy with the
+soldiers and in conciliating the good-will of the officers, and
+remained with her children and servants in her picturesque home on
+the mountain. So long as there was no fighting in the near vicinity,
+it was comparatively easy to save her from annoyance; but when a
+little later in the autumn Floyd occupied Cotton Mountain, and
+General Rosecrans was with us with larger forces, such a household
+became an object of suspicion and ill-will, which made it necessary
+to send her through the lines to her husband. The men fancied they
+saw signals conveyed from the house to the enemy, and believed that
+secret messages were sent, giving information of our numbers and
+movements. All this was highly improbable, for the lady knew that
+her safety depended upon her good faith and prudence; but such camp
+rumor becomes a power, and Rosecrans found himself compelled to end
+it by sending her away. He could no longer be answerable for her
+complete protection. This, however, was not till November, and in
+August it was only a pleasant variation, in going the rounds, to
+call at the pretty house on Gauley Mount, inquire after the welfare
+of the family, and have a moment's polite chat with the mistress of
+the mansion.
+
+For ten days after we occupied Gauley Bridge, all our information
+showed that General Wise was not likely to attempt the reconquest of
+the Kanawha valley voluntarily. His rapid retrograde march ended at
+White Sulphur Springs and he went into camp there. His destruction
+of bridges and abandonment of stores and munitions of war showed
+that he intended to take final leave of our region. [Footnote: My
+report to Rosecrans, Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 40. Wise
+to Lee, _Id_., vol. ii. p. 1012; vol. v. p. 769.] The contrast
+between promise and performance in his case had been ludicrous. When
+we entered the valley, we heard of his proclamations and orders,
+which breathed the spirit of desperate hand-to-hand conflict. His
+soldiers had been told to despise long-range fire-arms, and to trust
+to bowie-knives, which our invading hordes would never dare to face.
+We found some of these knives among the arms we captured at the
+Gauley,--ferocious-looking weapons, made of broad files ground to a
+double edge, fitted with rough handles, and still bearing the
+cross-marking of the file on the flat sides. Such arms pointed many
+a sarcasm among our soldiers, who had found it hard in the latter
+part of our advance to get within even the longest musket-range of
+the enemy's column. It was not strange that ignorant men should
+think they might find use for weapons less serviceable than the
+ancient Roman short-sword; but that, in the existing condition of
+military science, officers could be found to share and to encourage
+the delusion was amusing enough! With the muskets we captured, we
+armed a regiment of loyal Virginians, and turned over the rest to
+Governor Peirpoint for similar use. [Footnote: In some documents
+which fell into our hands we found a series of resolutions passed at
+a meeting in the spring at which one of the companies now with Wise
+was organized. It shows the melodramatic truculence which was echoed
+in the exhortations of the general and of other men who should have
+had more judgment. The resolutions were these:--
+
+"_Resolved:_ 1. That this company was formed for the defence of this
+Commonwealth against her enemies of the North, and for no other
+purpose.
+
+_Resolved:_ 2. That the so-called President of the United States by
+his war policy has deliberately insulted the people of this
+Commonwealth, and if blood he wants, blood he can have.
+
+_Resolved:_ 3. That we are ready to respond to the call of the
+Governor of this Commonwealth for resisting Abraham Lincoln and the
+New York stock-jobbers, and all who sympathize with them.
+
+_Resolved:_ 4. That we have not forgotten Harper's Ferry and John
+Brown."]
+
+On the 5th of August Lieutenant Wagner of the Engineers arrived at
+Gauley Bridge with instructions from General Rosecrans to
+superintend the construction of such fortifications as might be
+proper for a post of three regiments. I had already with me Colonel
+Whittlesey, Governor Dennison's chief engineer, an old West Point
+graduate, who had for some years been devoting himself to scientific
+pursuits, especially to geology. In a few days these were joined by
+Captain Benham, who was authorized to determine definitely the plans
+of our defences. I was thus stronger in engineering skill than in
+any other department of staff assistants, though in truth there was
+little fortifying to be done beyond what the contour of the ground
+indicated to the most ordinary comprehension. [Footnote: The cause
+of this visit of the Engineers is found in a dispatch sent by
+McClellan to Rosecrans, warning him that Lee and Johnston were both
+actually in march to crush our forces in West Virginia, and
+directing that Huttonsville and Gauley Bridge be strongly fortified.
+Official Records, vol. v. p. 555; _Id_., vol. ii. pt.. 445, 446.]
+
+Benham stayed but two or three days, modified Wagner's plans enough
+to feel that he had made them his own, and then went back to
+Rosecrans's headquarters, where he was met with an appointment as
+brigadier-general, and was relieved of staff duty. He was a stout
+red-faced man, with a blustering air, dictatorial and assuming, an
+army engineer of twenty-five years' standing. He was no doubt well
+skilled in the routine of his profession, but broke down when
+burdened with the responsibility of conducting the movement of
+troops in the field. Wagner was a recent graduate of the Military
+Academy, a genial, modest, intelligent young man of great promise.
+He fell at the siege of Yorktown in the next year. Whittlesey was a
+veteran whose varied experience in and out of the army had all been
+turned to good account. He was already growing old, but was
+indefatigable, pushing about in a rather prim, precise way, advising
+wisely, criticising dryly but in a kindly spirit, and helping bring
+every department into better form. I soon lost both him and McElroy,
+my adjutant-general, for their three months' service was up, and
+they were made, the one colonel, and the other major of the
+Twentieth Ohio Regiment, of which my friend General Force was the
+lieutenant-colonel.
+
+We fortified the post by an epaulement or two for cannon, high up on
+the hillside covering the ferry and the road up New River. An
+infantry trench, with parapet of barrels filled with earth, was run
+along the margin of Gauley River till it reached a creek coming down
+from the hills on the left. There a redoubt for a gun or two was
+made, commanding a stretch of road above, and the infantry trench
+followed the line of the creek up to a gorge in the hill. On the
+side of Gauley Mount facing our post, we slashed the timber from the
+edge of the precipice nearly to the top of the mountain, making an
+entanglement through which it was impossible that any body of troops
+should move. Down the Kanawha, below the falls, we strengthened the
+saw-mill with logs, till it became a block-house loopholed for
+musketry, commanding the road to Charleston, the ferry, and the
+opening of the road to Fayette C. H. A single cannon was here put in
+position also.
+
+All this took time, for so small a force as ours could not make very
+heavy details of working parties, especially as our outpost and
+reconnoitring duty was also very laborious. This duty was done by
+infantry, for cavalry I had none, except the squad of mounted
+messengers, who kept carefully out of harm's way, more to save their
+horses than themselves, for they had been enlisted under an old law
+which paid them for the risk of their own horses, which risk they
+naturally tried to make as small as possible. My reconnoitring
+parties reached Big Sewell Mountain, thirty-five miles up New River,
+Summersville, twenty miles up the Gauley, and made excursions into
+the counties on the left bank of the Kanawha, thirty or forty miles
+away. These were not exceptional marches, but were kept up with an
+industry that gave the enemy an exaggerated idea of our strength as
+well as of our activity.
+
+About the 10th of August we began to get rumors from the country
+that General Robert E. Lee had arrived at Lewisburg to assume
+direction of the Confederate movements into West Virginia. We heard
+also that Floyd with a strong brigade had joined that of Wise, whose
+"legion" had been reinforced, and that this division, reported to be
+10,000 or 12,000 strong, would immediately operate against me at
+Gauley Bridge. We learned also of a general stir among the
+Secessionists in Fayette, Mercer, and Raleigh counties, and of the
+militia being ordered out under General Chapman to support the
+Confederate movement by operating upon my line of communications,
+whilst Floyd and Wise should attack in front.
+
+The reported aggregate of the enemy's troops was, as usual,
+exaggerated, but we now know that it amounted to about 8000 men, a
+force so greatly superior to anything I could assemble to oppose it,
+that the situation became at once a very grave one for me.
+[Footnote: On the 14th of August Wise reported to General Lee that
+he had 2000 men ready to move, and could have 2500 ready in five
+days; that 550 of his cavalry were with Floyd, besides a detachment
+of 50 artillerists. This makes his total force 3100. At that time he
+gives Floyd's force at 1200 with two strong regiments coming up,
+besides 2000 militia under General Chapman. The aggregate force
+operating on the Kanawha line he gives as 7800. (Official Records
+vol. v. p. 787.)] To resist this advance, I could keep but two
+regiments at Gauley Bridge, an advance-guard of eight companies
+vigorously skirmishing toward Sewell Mountain, a regiment
+distributed on the Kanawha to cover steamboat communications, and
+some companies of West Virginia recruits organizing at the mouth of
+the Kanawha. By extreme activity these were able to baffle the
+enemy, and impose upon him the belief that our numbers were more
+than double our actual force.
+
+Small hostile parties began to creep in toward the navigable part of
+the Kanawha, and to fire upon the steamboats, which were our sole
+dependence for supplying our depots at Charleston and at the head of
+navigation. General Rosecrans informed me of his purpose to march a
+sufficiently strong column to meet that under Lee as soon as the
+purpose of the latter should be developed, and encouraged me to hold
+fast to my position. I resolved, therefore, to stand a siege if need
+be, and pushed my means of transportation to the utmost, to
+accumulate a store of supplies at Gauley Bridge. I succeeded in
+getting up rations sufficient to last a fortnight, but found it much
+harder to get ammunition, especially for my ill-assorted little
+battery of cannon.
+
+The Twenty-sixth Ohio came into the Kanawha valley on the 8th
+through a mistake in their orders, and their arrival supplied for a
+few days the loss of the Twenty-first, which had gone home to be
+mustered out and reorganized. Some companies of the newly forming
+Fourth Virginia were those who protected the village of Point
+Pleasant at the mouth of the river, and part of the Twelfth and
+Twenty-sixth Ohio were in detachments from Charleston toward Gauley
+Bridge, furnishing guards for the steamboats and assisting in the
+landing and forwarding of supplies. The Eleventh Ohio, under
+Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell, which still had only eight companies,
+had the task of covering and reconnoitring our immediate front, and
+was the advance-guard already mentioned. Part of the Twelfth under
+Major Hines did similar work on the road to Summersville, where
+Rosecrans had an advanced post, consisting of the Seventh Ohio
+(Colonel E. B. Tyler), the Thirteenth (Colonel Wm. Sooy Smith), and
+the Twenty-third (Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley Matthews). On the 13th
+of August the Seventh Ohio, by orders from Rosecrans, marched to
+Cross Lanes, the intersection of the read from Summersville to
+Gauley Bridge, with one from Carnifex Ferry, which is on the Gauley
+near the mouth of Meadow River. A road called the Sunday Road is in
+the Meadow River valley, and joins the Lewisburg turnpike about
+fifteen miles in front of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: See Official
+Atlas, Plate IX. 3, and map, p. 106, _post_] To give warning against
+any movement of the enemy to turn my position by this route or to
+intervene between me and Rosecrans's posts at Summersville and
+beyond, was Tyler's task. He was ordered to picket all crossings of
+the river near his position, and to join my command if he were
+driven away. I was authorized to call him to me in an emergency.
+
+On the 15th Tyler was joined at Cross Lanes by the Thirteenth and
+Twenty-third Ohio, in consequence of rumors that the enemy was
+advancing upon Summersville in force from Lewisburg. I would have
+been glad of such an addition to my forces, but knowing that
+Rosecrans had stationed them as his own outpost covering the Sutton
+and Weston road, I ordered Tyler to maintain his own position, and
+urged the others to return at once to Summersville. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 449, 453, 454.] The road by
+which they had expected the enemy was the Wilderness road, which
+crossed the Gauley at Hughes' Ferry, six miles above Carnifex. If
+attacked from that direction, they should retire northward toward
+Rosecrans, if possible.
+
+Rosecrans gave orders to the same effect as soon as he heard of the
+movement, saying that his intention had been to station Smith and
+Matthews at Sutton, where their retreat toward him in case of
+necessity would be assured. [Footnote: Dispatch of August 16.] His
+orders for Tyler were that he should scout far toward the enemy,
+"striking him wherever he can," and "hold his position at the
+ferries as long as he can safely do it, and then fall back, as
+directed," toward Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: Dispatch of August 17.]
+The incident throws important light upon the situation a week later,
+when Tyler was attacked by Floyd.
+
+Floyd and Wise were now really in motion, though General Lee
+remained at Valley Mountain near Huntersville, whence he directed
+their movements. On the 17th they had passed Sewell Mountain, but
+made slow progress in the face of the opposition of the Eleventh
+Ohio, which kept up a constant skirmish with them. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. v. pp. 792, 799; _Id_., vol. li. pt. i. pp.
+450-453.] On the 19th Floyd's advance-guard passed the mouth of the
+Sunday Road on the turnpike, and on the 20th made so determined a
+push at my advance-guard that I believed it a serious effort of the
+whole Confederate column. I strengthened my own advance-guard by
+part of the Twelfth Ohio, which was at hand, and placed them at Pig
+Creek, a mile beyond the Tompkins place, where the turnpike crossed
+a gorge making a strongly defensible position. The advance-guard was
+able to withstand the enemy alone, and drove back those who
+assaulted them with considerable loss. It has since appeared that
+this movement of the enemy was by Wise's command making a direct
+attack upon my position, whilst Floyd was moving by the diagonal
+road to Dogwood Gap on the Sunday Road where it crosses the old
+State Road. There he encamped for the night, and next day continued
+his march to the mouth of Meadow River near Carnifex Ferry.
+[Footnote: _Id_., vol. v. p.800.] It was an affair of advance-guards
+in which Wise was satisfied as soon as he found serious resistance,
+and he retired during the night. On the first evidence of the
+enemy's presence in force, I called Tyler from Cross Lanes to
+Twenty-mile Creek, about six miles from Gauley Bridge, where it was
+important to guard a road passing to my rear, and to meet any
+attempt to turn my flank if the attack should be determinedly made
+by the whole force of the enemy. [Footnote: Dispatch of August 20.]
+As soon as the attack was repulsed, Tyler was ordered to return to
+Cross Lanes and resume his watch of the roads and river crossings
+there. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. li. pt. i. p. 454.] He was delayed by
+the issue of shoes and clothing to his men, and when he approached
+his former position on the 24th, he found that Floyd was reported to
+have crossed the Gauley at Carnifex Ferry. Without waiting to
+reconnoitre the enemy at all, Tyler retreated to Peters Creek,
+several miles. Floyd had in fact succeeded in raising two small
+flatboats which Tyler had sunk but had not entirely destroyed. With
+these for a ferry, he had crossed and was intrenching himself where
+he was afterward attacked by Rosecrans.
+
+In the hope that only a small force had made the crossing, I ordered
+Tyler to "make a dash at them, taking care to keep your force well
+in hand so as to keep your retreat safe." [Footnote: Dispatch of
+August 24.] I added: "It is important to give them such a check as
+to stop their crossing." Meanwhile my advance-guard up New River was
+ordered to demonstrate actively in front and upon the Sunday Road,
+so as to disquiet any force which had gone towards Tyler, and I also
+sent forward half a regiment to Peters Creek (six miles from Cross
+Lanes) to hold the pass there and secure his retreat in case of
+need. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 457.]
+
+But Tyler was new to responsibility, and seemed paralyzed into
+complete inefficiency. He took nearly the whole of the 25th to move
+slowly to Cross Lanes, though he met no opposition. He did nothing
+that evening or night, and his disposal of his troops was so
+improper and outpost duty so completely neglected that on the
+morning of the 26th, whilst his regiment was at breakfast, it was
+attacked by Floyd on both flanks at once, and was routed before it
+could be formed for action. Some companies managed to make a show of
+fighting, but it was wholly in vain, and they broke in confusion.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 458, 459, 461.] About 15 were killed and 50
+wounded, the latter with some 30 others falling into the enemy's
+hands. Tyler, with his lieutenant-colonel, Creighton, came into
+Gauley Bridge with a few stragglers from the regiment. Others
+followed until about 200 were present. His train had reached the
+detachment I had sent to Peters Creek, and this covered its retreat
+to camp, so that all his wagons came in safely. He reported all his
+command cut to pieces and captured except the few that were with
+him, and wrote an official report of the engagement, giving that
+result.
+
+On the 28th, however, we heard that Major Casement had carried 400
+of the regiment safely into Charleston. He had rallied them on the
+hills immediately after the rout, and finding the direct road to
+Gauley Bridge intercepted, had led them by mountain paths over the
+ridges to the valley of Elk River, and had then followed that stream
+down to Charleston without being pursued. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 462.] This put a new face on the
+business, and Tyler in much confusion asked the return of his report
+that he might re-write it. I looked upon his situation as the not
+unnatural result of inexperience, and contented myself with
+informing General Rosecrans of the truth as to the affair. Tyler was
+allowed to substitute a new report, and his unfortunate affair was
+treated as a lesson from which it was expected he would profit.
+[Footnote: Rosecrans's dispatch, _Id_., p. 460.] It made trouble in
+the regiment, however, where the line officers did not conceal their
+opinion that he had failed in his duty as a commander, and he was
+never afterward quite comfortable among them.
+
+The lieutenant-colonel, Creighton, was for a time in the abyss of
+self-reproach. The very day they reached Gauley Bridge in their
+unceremonious retreat, he came to me, crying with shame, and said,
+"General, I have behaved like a miserable coward, I ought to be
+cashiered," and repeated many such expressions of remorse. I
+comforted him by saying that the intensity of his own feeling was
+the best proof that he had only yielded to a surprise and that it
+was clear he was no coward. He died afterward at the head of his
+regiment in the desperate charge up the hills at Ringgold, Georgia,
+in the campaign following that of Chickamauga in the autumn of 1863,
+having had the command for two years after Tyler became a brigadier.
+During those two years the Seventh had been in numberless
+engagements, and its list of casualties in battle, made good by
+recruiting, was said to have reached a thousand. Better soldiers
+there were none, and Creighton proved himself a lion in every fight.
+
+Casement, who rallied and led the most of the regiment from Cross
+Lanes over the mountains to Charleston, became afterward colonel of
+the One Hundred and Third Ohio. He came again under my command in
+East Tennessee in the winter of 1863, and continued one of my
+brigade commanders to the close of the war. He was a railway builder
+by profession, had a natural aptitude for controlling bodies of men,
+was rough of speech but generous of heart, running over with fun
+which no dolefulness of circumstance could repress, as jolly a
+comrade and as loyal a subordinate as the army could show.
+
+After the Cross Lanes affair I fully expected that the Confederate
+forces would follow the route which Casement had taken to
+Charleston. Floyd's inactivity puzzled me, for he did no more than
+make an intrenched camp at Carnifex Ferry, with outposts at Peters
+Mountain and toward Summersville. The publication of the Confederate
+Archives has partly solved the mystery. Floyd called on Wise to
+reinforce him; but the latter demurred, insistent that the duty
+assigned him of attacking my position in front needed all the men he
+had. Both appealed to Lee, and Lee decided that Floyd was the senior
+and entitled to command the joint forces. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. v. pp. 155-165, 800, 802-813.] The letters of Wise
+show a capacity for keeping a command in hot water which was unique.
+If he had been half as troublesome to me as he was to Floyd, I
+should indeed have had a hot time of it. But he did me royal service
+by preventing anything approaching to co-operation between the two
+Confederate columns. I kept my advance-guards constantly feeling of
+both, and got through the period till Rosecrans joined me with
+nothing more serious than some sharp affairs of detachments.
+
+I was not without anxiety, however, and was constantly kept on the
+alert. Rosecrans withdrew the Twelfth Ohio from my command,
+excepting two companies under Major Hines, on the 19th of August,
+[Footnote: My dispatch to Rosecrans of August 19; also Official
+Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 454.] and the imperative need of
+detachments to protect the river below me was such that from this
+time till the middle of September my garrison at Gauley Bridge,
+including advance-guards and outposts, was never more than two and a
+half regiments or 1800 men. My artillerists were also ordered back
+to Ohio to reorganize, leaving the guns in the hands of such
+infantry details as I could improvise. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 462.] I
+was lucky enough, however, to get a very good troop of horse under
+command of Captain Pfau in place of the irregular squad I had
+before. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 464.]
+
+On the 25th my advance-guard under Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell very
+cleverly succeeded in drawing into an ambuscade a body of Floyd's
+cavalry under Colonel A. G. Jenkins. The principal body of our men
+lined a defile near the Hawk's Nest, and the skirmishers, retreating
+before the enemy, led them into the trap. Our men began firing
+before the enemy was quite surrounded, and putting their horses upon
+the run, they dashed back, running the gantlet of the fire. Wise
+reported that he met men with their subordinate officers flying at
+four miles' distance from the place of the action, and so
+panic-stricken that they could not be rallied or led back.
+[Footnote: _Id_., vol. v. p. 816; _Id_., vol. li. pt. i. p. 457.]
+Jenkins was hurt by the fall of his horse, but he succeeded in
+getting away; for, as we had no horsemen to pursue with, even the
+wounded, except one, could not be overtaken. Hats, clothing, arms,
+and saddles were left scattered along the road in as complete a
+breakneck race for life as was ever seen. The result, if not great
+in the list of casualties, which were only reported at 10 or 15 by
+the enemy, was so demoralizing in its influence upon the hostile
+cavalry that they never again showed any enterprise in harassing our
+outposts, whilst our men gained proportionally in confidence.
+
+About the 30th of August we heard of an encampment of Confederate
+militia at Boone C. H. which was so situated, southwest of the
+Kanawha River, as to menace our communications with the Ohio. I sent
+Lieutenant-Colonel Enyart with half of the First Kentucky Regiment
+to beat up this encampment, and he did so on the 2d of September,
+completely routing the enemy, who left 25 dead upon the field.
+Enyart's march and attack had been rapid and vigorous, and the
+terror of the blow kept that part of the district quiet for some
+time afterward. [Footnote: C. R., vol. li. pt. i. pp. 465, 468,
+472.]
+
+We had heard for some days the news of the assembling of a
+considerable force of Confederate militia at Fayette C. H. under
+General Chapman and Colonel Beckley. They were reported at 2500,
+which was a fair estimate of the numbers which answered to the call.
+On the 3d of September a pretty well combined attack was made by
+Wise and this force; Wise pushing in sharply upon the turnpike,
+whilst Chapman, assisted by part of Wise's cavalry, drove back our
+small outpost on the Fayette road. Wise was met at Pig Creek as in
+his former attack, the eight companies of the Eleventh Ohio being
+strengthened by half of the Twenty-sixth Ohio, which was brought
+from below for this purpose. The effort was somewhat more persistent
+than before, and Wise indulged in considerable noisy cannonading;
+but the pickets retreated to the creek without loss, and the whole
+advance-guard, keeping under good cover there, repelled the attack
+with less than half a dozen casualties on our side, none being
+fatal. Wise retreated again beyond Hawk's Nest. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 468, 470. Wise's Report, _Id_., vol. v.
+p. 124.] The irregular troops on the Fayette road were more boldly
+led, and as there was no defensible position near the river for our
+outposts, these fell slowly back after a very warm skirmish,
+inflicting a loss, as reported by prisoners, of 6 killed among the
+enemy. I expected Floyd to move at the same time, and was obliged to
+continue upon the defensive by reason of his threatening position up
+the Gauley River; I, however, sent Major Hines with his two
+companies in that direction, and Floyd appeared to be impressed with
+the idea that my whole force was moving to attack him and attempted
+nothing aggressive. As at this time Wise, in his letters to General
+Lee, puts Floyd's force at 5600, and his own at 2200, [Footnote:
+_Id_., vol. v. p. 840.] I had good reason, therefore, to feel
+satisfied with being able to keep them all at bay.
+
+In the midst of the alarms from every side, my camp itself was
+greatly excited by an incident which would have been occasion for
+regret at any time, but which at such a juncture threatened for a
+moment quite serious consequences. The work of intrenching the
+position was going on under the direction of Lieutenant Wagner as
+rapidly as the small working parties available could perform it. All
+were overworked, but it was the rule that men should not be detailed
+for fatigue duty who had been on picket the preceding night. On
+August 28th, a detail had been called for from the Second Kentucky,
+which lay above the hedge behind my headquarters, and they had
+reported without arms under a sergeant named Joyce. A supply of
+intrenching tools was stacked by the gate leading into the yard
+where my staff tents were pitched, and my aide, Lieutenant Conine,
+directed the sergeant to have his men take the tools and report to
+Mr. Wagner, the engineer, on the line. The men began to demur in a
+half-mutinous way, saying they had been on picket the night before.
+Conine, who was a soldierly man, informed them that that should be
+immediately looked into, and if so, they would be soon relieved, but
+that they could not argue the matter there, as their company
+commander was responsible for the detail. He therefore repeated his
+order. The sergeant then became excited and said his men should not
+obey. Lieutenant Gibbs, the district commissary, was standing by,
+and drawing his pistol, said to Joyce, "That's mutiny; order your
+men to take the tools or I'll shoot you." The man retorted with a
+curse, "Shoot!" Gibbs fired, and Joyce fell dead. When the sergeant
+first refused to obey, Conine coolly called out, "Corporal of the
+guard, turn out the guard!" intending very properly to put the man
+in arrest, but the shot followed too quick for the guard to arrive.
+I was sitting within the house at my camp desk, busy, when the first
+thing which attracted my attention was the call for the guard and
+the shot. I ran out, not stopping for arms, and saw some of the men
+running off shouting, "Go for your guns, kill him, kill him!" I
+stopped part of the men, ordered them to take the sergeant quickly
+to the hospital, thinking he might not be dead. I then ordered Gibbs
+in arrest till an investigation should be made, and ran at speed to
+a gap in the hedge which opened into the regimental camp. It was not
+a moment too soon. The men with their muskets were already
+clustering in the path, threatening vengeance on Mr. Gibbs. I
+ordered them to halt and return to their quarters. Carried away by
+excitement, they levelled their muskets at me and bade me get out of
+their way or they would shoot me. I managed to keep cool, said the
+affair would be investigated, that Gibbs was already under arrest,
+but they must go back to their quarters. The parley lasted long
+enough to bring some of their officers near. I ordered them to come
+to my side, and then to take command of the men and march them away.
+The real danger was over as soon as the first impulse was checked.
+[Footnote: Dispatch to Rosecrans, August 29.] The men then began to
+feel some of their natural respect for their commander, and yielded
+probably the more readily because they noticed that I was unarmed. I
+thought it wise to be content with quelling the disturbance, and did
+not seek out for punishment the men who had met me at the gap. Their
+excitement had been natural under the circumstances, which were
+reported with exaggeration as a wilful murder. If I had been in
+command of a larger force, it would have been easy to turn out
+another regiment to enforce order and arrest any mutineers; but the
+Second Kentucky was itself the only regiment on the spot. The First
+Kentucky was a mile below, and the Eleventh Ohio was the
+advance-guard up New River. Surrounded as we were by so superior a
+force of the enemy with which we were constantly skirmishing, I
+could not do otherwise than meet the difficulty instantly without
+regard to personal risk.
+
+The sequel of the affair was not reached till some weeks later when
+General Rosecrans assembled a court-martial at my request.
+Lieutenant Gibbs was tried and acquitted on the plain evidence that
+the man killed was in the act of mutiny at the time. The court was a
+notable one, as its judge advocate was Major R. B. Hayes of the
+Twenty-third Ohio, afterwards President of the United States, and
+one of its members was Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley Matthews of the
+same regiment, afterwards one of the Justices of the Supreme Court.
+[Footnote: Some twenty years later a bill passed the House of
+Representatives pensioning the mother of the man killed, under the
+law giving pensions to dependent relatives of those who died in the
+line of duty! It could only have been smuggled through by
+concealment and falsification of facts, and was stopped in the
+Senate.]
+
+The constant skirmishing with the enemy on all sides continued till
+the 10th of September, when General Rosecrans with his column
+reached Cross Lanes and had the action at Carnifex Ferry which I
+shall describe in the next chapter. I had sent forward half a
+regiment from my little command to open communication with him as
+soon as possible. On September 9th a party from this detachment had
+reached Cross Lanes and learned that Floyd was keeping close within
+his lines on the cliffs of Gauley above Carnifex Ferry. They,
+however, heard nothing of Rosecrans, and the principal body of their
+troops heard no sound of the engagement on the 10th, though within a
+very few miles. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p.
+478.] On the 12th communication was opened, and I learned of Floyd's
+retreat across the Gauley. I immediately moved forward the Eleventh
+and Twenty-sixth Ohio to attack Wise, who retreated from Hawk's Nest
+to the mouth of the Sunday Road, and upon my closer approach retired
+to Sewell Mountain. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 479, 481.] At the Sunday
+Road I was stopped by orders from Rosecrans, who thought it unwise
+to advance further till he had made a ferry at the Gauley and
+succeeded in getting his command over; for Floyd had again sunk the
+flatboats within reach, and these had to be a second time raised and
+repaired. At his request I visited the General at Carnifex Ferry,
+and then got permission to move my column forward a few miles to
+Alderson's, or Camp Lookout as we dubbed it, where a commanding
+position controlled the country to the base of Sewell Mountain.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 482.] I was now able to concentrate the Seventh
+Ohio at Gauley Bridge, and ordered forward the Second Kentucky to
+join me in the new camp.
+
+The period of my separate responsibility and of struggle against
+great odds was not to close without a private grief which was the
+more poignant because the condition of the campaign forbade my
+leaving the post of duty. On the day I visited General Rosecrans at
+Carnifex Ferry I got news of the critical illness of my youngest
+child, a babe of eight months old, whom I had seen but a single day
+after his birth, for I had been ordered into camp from the
+legislature without time to make another visit to my family. The
+warning dispatch was quickly followed by another announcing the end,
+and I had to swallow my sorrows as well as I could and face the
+public enemy before us, leaving my wife uncomforted in her
+bereavement and all the more burdened with care because she knew we
+were resuming active operations in the field.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CARNIFEX FERRY--TO SEWELL MOUNTAIN AND BACK
+
+
+Rosecrans's march to join me--Reaches Cross Lanes--Advance against
+Floyd--Engagement at Carnifex Ferry--My advance to Sunday
+Road--Conference with Rosecrans--McCook's brigade joins me--Advance
+to Camp Lookout--Brigade commanders--Rosecrans's personal
+characteristics--Hartsuff--Floyd and Wise again--"Battle of
+Bontecou"--Sewell Mountain--The equinoctial--General Schenck
+arrives--Rough lodgings--Withdrawal from the mountain--Rear-guard
+duties--Major Slemmer of Fort Pickens fame--New positions covering
+Gauley Bridge--Floyd at Cotton Mountain--Rosecrans's methods with
+private soldiers--Progress in discipline.
+
+
+General Rosecrans had succeeded McClellan as ranking officer in West
+Virginia, but it was not until the latter part of September that the
+region was made a department and he was regularly assigned to
+command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 604, 616, 647.]
+Meanwhile the three months' enlistments were expiring, many
+regiments were sent home, new ones were received, and a complete
+reorganization of his forces took place. Besides holding the
+railroad, he fortified the Cheat Mountain pass looking toward
+Staunton, and the pass at Elkwater on the mountain summit between
+Huttonsville and Huntersville. My own fortifications at Gauley
+Bridge were part of the system of defensive works he had ordered. By
+the middle of August he had established a chain of posts, with a
+regiment or two at each, on a line upon which he afterwards marched,
+from Weston by way of Bulltown, Sutton, and Summersville to Gauley
+Bridge.
+
+[Illustration Map--Affair At Carnifex Ferry]
+
+As soon as he received the news of Floyd's attack upon Tyler at
+Cross Lanes, he hastened his preparations and began his march
+southward from Clarksburg with three brigades, having left the Upper
+Potomac line in command of General Kelley, and the Cheat Mountain
+region in command of General J. J. Reynolds. His route (already
+indicated) was a rough one, and the portion of it between Sutton and
+Summersville, over Birch Mountain, was very wild and difficult. He
+crossed the mountain on the 9th, and left his bivouac on the morning
+of the 10th of September, before daybreak. Marching through
+Summersville, he reached Cross Lanes about two o'clock in the
+afternoon. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 129.] Floyd's
+position was now about two miles distant, and, waiting only for his
+column to close up, he again pressed forward. General Benham's
+brigade was in front, and soon met the enemy's pickets. Getting the
+impression that Floyd was in retreat, Benham pressed forward rather
+rashly, deploying to the left and coming under a sharp fire from the
+right of the enemy's works. Floyd had intrenched a line across a
+bend of the Gauley River, where the road from Cross Lanes to
+Lewisburg finds its way down the cliffs to Carnifex Ferry. His
+flanks rested upon precipices rising abruptly from the water's edge,
+and he also intrenched some rising ground in front of his principal
+line. Benham's line advanced through dense and tangled woods,
+ignorant of the enemy's position till it was checked by the fire
+from his breastworks. It was too late for a proper reconnoissance,
+and Rosecrans could only hasten the advance and deployment of the
+other brigades under Colonels McCook and Scammon. [Footnote: For
+organization of Rosecrans's forces, see Id., vol. li. pt. i. p.
+471.] Benham had sent a howitzer battery and two rifled cannon with
+his head of column at the left, and these soon got a position from
+which, in fact, they enfiladed part of Floyd's line, though it was
+impossible to see much of the situation. Charges were made by
+portions of Benham's and McCook's brigades as they came up, but they
+lacked unity, and Rosecrans was dissatisfied that his head of column
+should be engaged before he had time to plan an attack. Colonel Lowe
+of the Twelfth Ohio had been killed at the head of his regiment, and
+Colonel Lytle of the Tenth had been wounded; darkness was rapidly
+coming on, and Rosecrans ordered the troops withdrawn from fire till
+positions could be rectified, and the attack renewed in the morning.
+Seventeen had been killed, and 141 had been wounded in the sharp but
+irregular combat. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 146.]
+Floyd, however, had learned that his position could be subjected to
+destructive cannonade; he was himself slightly wounded, and his
+officers and men were discouraged. He therefore retreated across the
+Gauley in the night, having great difficulty in carrying his
+artillery down the cliffs by a wretched road in the darkness. He had
+built a slight foot-bridge for infantry in the bit of smooth water
+known as the Ferry, though both above and below the stream is an
+impassable mountain torrent. The artillery crossed in the flatboats.
+Once over, the bridge was broken up and the ferry-boats were sunk.
+He reported but twenty casualties, and threw much of the
+responsibility upon Wise, who had not obeyed orders to reinforce
+him. His hospital, containing the wounded prisoners taken from
+Tyler, fell into Rosecrans's hands. [Footnote: A very graphic
+description of this engagement and of Floyd's retreat fell into my
+hands soon afterward. It was a journal of the campaign written by
+Major Isaac Smith of the Twenty-second Virginia Regiment, which he
+tried to send through our lines to his family in Charleston, W. Va.,
+but which was intercepted. A copy is on file in the War Archives.
+See also Floyd's report, _Id._, vol. v. pp. 146-148.]
+
+General Rosecrans found the country so difficult a one that he was
+in no little doubt as to the plan of campaign it was now best to
+follow. It was out of the question to supply his column by wagon
+trains over the mountainous roads from Clarksburg, and the Kanawha
+River must therefore be made the line of communication with his
+base, which had to be transferred to Gallipolis. In anticipation of
+this, I had accumulated supplies and ordnance stores at Gauley
+Bridge as much as possible with my small wagon trains, and had
+arranged for a larger depot at the head of steamboat navigation. I
+was ready therefore to turn over the control of my supply lines to
+Rosecrans's officers of the quartermaster and commissary departments
+as soon as his wagon trains could be transferred. It was to consult
+in regard to these matters, as was as in regard to the future
+conduct of the campaign, that the general directed me to visit his
+headquarters at Carnifex Ferry. I rode over from my camp at the
+Sunday Road junction on the morning of the 15th, found that one of
+the little flatboats had been again raised and repaired at Carnifex,
+and passing through the field of the recent combat, reached the
+general's headquarters near Cross Lanes. I was able from personal
+observation to assure him that it was easy for his command to follow
+the line of the march on which Floyd had retreated, if better means
+of crossing the Gauley were provided; but when they should join me
+on the Lewisburg turnpike, that highway would be the proper line of
+supply, making Gauley Bridge his depot. He hesitated to commit
+himself to either line for decisive operations until the Gauley
+should be bridged, but on my description of the commodious ferry I
+had made at Gauley Bridge by means of a very large flatboat running
+along a hawser stretched from bank to bank, he determined to
+advance, and to have a bridge of boats made in place of my ferry.
+McCook's brigade was ordered to report to me as soon as it could be
+put over the river, and I was authorized to advance some six miles
+toward the enemy, to Alberson's or Spy Rock, already mentioned
+beyond which Big Sewell Mountain is fourteen miles further to the
+southwest. [Footnote: Official Records vol. v. p. 602.]
+
+At Cross Lanes I met the commanders of the other brigades who were
+called in by General Rosecrans of an informal consultation based
+upon my knowledge of the country and the enemy. I naturally scanned
+them with some interest, and tried to make the most of the
+opportunity to become acquainted with them. General Benham I knew
+already, from his visit to me at Gauley Bridge in his capacity of
+engineer officer. I had met Colonel Robert McCook at Camp Dennison,
+and now that it was intimated that he would be for some days under
+my command, I recalled a scene I had witnessed there which left many
+doubts in my mind whether he would prove an agreeable subordinate. I
+had gone, one morning, to General Bates's office, and as I entered
+found McCook expressing himself with more vigor than elegance in
+regard to some order which had been issued respecting his regiment.
+My presence did not seem to interfere with the fluency of his
+remarks or the force of his expletives, but after a moment or two he
+seemed to notice a look of surprise in my face, and his own
+broadened humorously as his manner changed from vehemence to
+geniality. General Bates and he were familiar acquaintances at the
+bar in Cincinnati, and McCook had evidently presumed upon this as a
+warrant for speaking his mind as he pleased. When he reported to me
+at this later period, I found a hearty and loyal character under his
+bluff exterior and rough speech, with real courage, a quick eye for
+topography, and no lack of earnest subordination when work was to be
+done. Although our service together was short, I learned to have
+real respect for him, and sincerely mourned his loss when, later in
+the war, he met his tragic death. The other brigade commander was
+_Colonel E. P. Scammon_ of the Twenty-third Ohio. He had graduated
+from West Point in 1837, and had served in the Topographical
+Engineers of the regular army and as instructor in the Military
+Academy. In the Mexican War he had been aide-de-camp to General
+Scott. He had been out of the army for some years before the
+rebellion, and was acting as professor of mathematics in St.
+Xavier's College, Cincinnati, when he was appointed to the colonelcy
+of the Twenty-third Ohio upon Rosecrans's promotion. Like Rosecrans,
+he was a Roman Catholic, though himself of Puritan descent. It seems
+that at the time of the Puseyite movement in England and in this
+country there had been a good many conversions to Romanism among the
+students and teachers at West Point, under the influence of the
+chaplain of the post, and Scammon, among a number of young men who
+subsequently became distinguished officers, was in this number. It
+need hardly be said that Scammon was well instructed in his
+profession. He was perhaps too much wedded to the routine of the
+service, and was looked upon by his subordinates as a martinet who
+had not patience enough with the inexperience of volunteer soldiers.
+He was one of the older men of our army, somewhat under the average
+height and weight, with a precise politeness of manner which
+reminded one of a Frenchman, and the resemblance was increased by
+his free use of his snuff-box. His nervous irritability was the
+cause of considerable chafing in his command, but this left him
+under fire, and those who had been with him in action learned to
+admire his courage and conduct. He was with me subsequently at South
+Mountain and Antietam, and still later had the misfortune to be one
+of those prisoners in the Confederates' hands who were exposed to
+the fire of our batteries in front of Charleston, S. C.
+
+But being a subordinate, I was most interested in the
+characteristics of our commander. Our Camp Dennison acquaintance had
+been a pleasant one, and he greeted me with a cordiality that was
+reassuring. His general appearance was attractive. He was tall but
+not heavy, with the rather long head and countenance that is
+sometimes called Norman. His aquiline nose and bright eyes gave him
+an incisive expression, increased by rapid utterance in his speech,
+which was apt to grow hurried, almost to stammering, when he was
+excited. His impulsiveness was plain to all who approached him; his
+irritation quickly flashed out in words when he was crossed, and his
+social geniality would show itself in smiles and in almost caressing
+gestures when he was pleased. In discussing military questions he
+made free use of his theoretic knowledge, often quoted authorities
+and cited maxims of war, and compared the problem before him to
+analogous cases in military history. This did not go far enough to
+be pedantic, and was full of a lively intelligence; yet it did not
+impress me as that highest form of military insight and knowledge
+which solves the question before it upon its own merits and without
+conscious comparison with historical examples, through a power of
+judgment and perception ripened and broadened by the mastery of
+principles which have ruled the great campaigns of the world. He was
+fond of conviviality, loved to banter good-humoredly his staff
+officers and intimates, and was altogether an attractive and
+companionable man, with intellectual activity enough to make his
+society stimulating and full of lively discussion. I could easily
+understand Garfield's saying, in his letter to Secretary Chase which
+afterward became the subject of much debate, that he "loved every
+bone in his body." [Footnote: An anecdote told at my table in 1890
+by the Rev. Dr. Morris, long Professor in Lane Theological Seminary,
+Cincinnati, is so characteristic of Rosecrans that it is worth
+repeating. After the battle of Stone's River (January, 1863) Dr.
+Morris, who was then minister of a Presbyterian church in Columbus,
+was made by Governor Tod a member of a commission sent to look after
+the wounded soldiers. He called on General Rosecrans at his
+headquarters in Murfreesboro, and among others met there Father
+Tracy, the general's chaplain, a Roman Catholic priest. During the
+visit Rosecrans was called aside (but in the same room) by a staff
+officer to receive information about a spy who had been caught
+within the lines. The general got quite excited over the
+information, talked loudly and hurriedly in giving directions
+concerning the matter, using some profane language. It seemed
+suddenly to occur to him that the clergymen were present, and from
+the opposite side of the room he turned toward them, exclaiming
+apologetically, "Gentlemen, I sometimes _swear_, but I never
+_blaspheme!_"]
+
+Rosecrans's adjutant-general was Captain George L. Hartsuff, an
+officer of the regular army, who was well qualified to supplement in
+many ways the abilities and deficiencies of his chief. [Footnote:
+Hartsuff was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers in the next
+year and was severely wounded at Antietam, after which he was made
+major-general and commanded the Twenty-third Army Corps in
+Burnside's campaign of East Tennessee.] He was a large man, of heavy
+frame; his face was broad, and his bald head, tapering high, gave a
+peculiar pyramidal appearance to his figure. He was systematic and
+accurate in administrative work, patient and insistent in bringing
+the young volunteer officers in his department into habits of order
+and good military form. His coolness tempered the impulsiveness of
+his chief, and as they were of similar age and had about the same
+standing in the army before the war, the familiarity between them
+was that of comrades and equals more than of commander and
+subordinate.
+
+My intercourse with these officers on the occasion of my visit to
+Cross Lanes was only the beginning of the acquaintance on which I
+based the estimate of them which I have given; but it was a good
+beginning, for the cordial freedom of thought and speech in the
+conference was such as to bring out the characteristics of the men.
+I rode back to my camp in the evening, feeling a sense of relief at
+the transfer of responsibility to other shoulders. The command of my
+brigade under the orders of Rosecrans seemed an easy task compared
+with the anxieties and the difficulties of the preceding three
+months. And so it was. The difference between chief responsibility
+in military movements and the leadership even of the largest
+subordinate organizations of an army is heaven-wide; and I believe
+that no one who has tried both will hesitate to say that the
+subordinate knows little or nothing of the strain upon the will and
+the moral faculties which the chief has to bear.
+
+McCook's brigade joined me on the 16th, and we immediately marched
+to Alderson's, where we made a camp afterward known as Camp Lookout.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 481.] I was able to
+bring up the Second Kentucky Regiment from Gauley Bridge, giving me
+in hand three regiments of my own brigade. I sent forward Major
+Hines with five companies as an advance-guard, and with these he
+scouted the country as far as the top of Big Sewell Mountain, and
+was able to give us definite information that Floyd had retreated as
+far as Meadow Bluff, where the Wilderness road joins the turnpike.
+Wise halted at Big Sewell Mountain and persisted in keeping his
+command separate from Floyd, who ordered him to join the rest of the
+column at Meadow Bluff. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp.
+854,855,862.] On the 20th September my advance-guard occupied the
+crest of the mountain, whilst Wise withdrew to a parallel ridge a
+mile beyond, and loudly insisted that Floyd should join him there
+instead of concentrating the Confederate force at Meadow Bluff.
+General Lee reached the latter place in person on the 21st, but
+found Wise's headstrong and captious spirit hardly more amenable to
+his discipline than to Floyd's. He shared Floyd's opinion that it
+was better to await Rosecrans's advance at Meadow Bluff, throwing
+upon the National forces the burden of transportation over the
+extended line, whilst guarding against a possible turning movement
+by the Wilderness road. But Wise was so noisy in his assertions that
+his was the only position in which to fight, that Lee hesitated to
+order him back peremptorily, and finally yielded to his clamor and
+directed Floyd to advance to Wise's position. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.
+868,874,878,879.] The scandal of the quarrel between the two
+officers had, however, become so notorious that the Richmond
+government had authorized Lee to send Wise elsewhere, and, probably
+on his advice, the Confederate War Department ordered Wise to report
+at Richmond in person. The last scene in the comedy was decidedly
+amusing. Wise appealed passionately to Lee to say whether his
+military honor did not require that he should disobey the order till
+the expected battle should be fought, and Lee, no doubt in dismay
+lest he should still fail to get rid of so intractable a
+subordinate, gravely advised him that both honor and duty would be
+safe in obeying promptly the order. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. v. p. 879.]
+
+Whilst waiting at Camp Lookout for authority to move forward, an
+incident occurred which gave us a little excitement and amusement,
+and which shows, better than much explanation could do, the
+difficult and intricate character of the country in which we were
+operating. A wagon-master from our camp had gone out hunting for
+forage, which was very scarce. He soon came back in excitement,
+reporting that he had come upon an encampment of a regiment of the
+enemy between our camp and New River and somewhat in our rear. His
+report was very circumstantial, but was so improbable that I was
+confident there was some mistake about it. He was, however, so
+earnest in his assertions that he could not be mistaken, that
+McCook, in whose brigade he was, sent out an officer with some men,
+guided by the wagon-master, to verify the report. The story was
+confirmed, and the matter was brought to me for action. Puzzled but
+not convinced, and thinking that as McCook's command was new to the
+country, it would be better to send some one who was used to
+scouting in the mountains, I ordered a lieutenant named Bontecou, of
+the Second Kentucky Regiment, to take a small party and examine the
+case anew. Bontecou had done a good deal of successful work in this
+line, and was regarded as a good woodsman and an enterprising scout.
+He too came back at nightfall, saying that there could be no mistake
+about it. He had crept close to the sentinels of the camp, had
+counted the tents, and being challenged by the guard, had made a run
+for it through the thicket, losing his hat. The position of the
+enemy was, by all the reports, about three miles from us, diagonally
+in rear of our right flank. It now seemed that it must be true that
+some detachment had been delayed in joining the retreating column,
+and had found itself thus partly cut off by our advance. I therefore
+ordered McCook to start at earliest peep of day, upon the
+Chestnutburg road (on which the wagon-master had been foraging), and
+passing beyond the hostile detachment, attack from the other side,
+it being agreed by all the scouting parties that this would drive
+the enemy toward our camp. My own brigade would be disposed of to
+intercept the enemy and prevent escape. McCook moved out as ordered,
+and following his guides came by many devious turns to a fork in the
+road, following which, they told him, a few minutes would bring him
+upon the enemy. He halted the column, and with a small skirmishing
+party went carefully forward. The guides pointed to a thicket from
+which the Confederates could be seen. His instinct for topography
+had made him suspect the truth, as he had noted the courses in
+advancing, and crawling through the thicket, he looked out from the
+other side upon what he at once recognized as the rear of his own
+camp, and the tents of the very regiment from which he had sent an
+officer to test the wagon-master's report. All the scouts had been
+so deceived by the tangle of wooded hills and circling roads that
+they fully believed they were still miles from our position; and,
+bewildered in the labyrinth, they were sure the tents they saw were
+the enemy's and not ours. The march had been through rain and mist,
+through dripping thickets and on muddy roads, and the first impulse
+was wrath at the erring scouts; but the ludicrous side soon
+prevailed, and officers and men joined in hearty laughter over their
+wild-goose chase. They dubbed the expedition the "Battle of
+Bontecou," and it was long before the lieutenant heard the last of
+the chaffing at his talents as a scout. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. li. pt. i. pp. 484, 485.]
+
+Major Hines's reports of the strength of the position on Sewell
+Mountain which the enemy had occupied, and my own reconnoissance of
+the intervening country, satisfied me that if we meant to advance on
+this line, we ought not to give the enemy time to reconsider and to
+reoccupy the mountain top from which he had retreated. On
+representing this to General Rosecrans, he authorized me to advance
+twelve miles to the Confederate camp on Big Sewell, directing me,
+however, to remain upon the defensive when there, and to avoid
+bringing on any engagement till he could bring up the rest of the
+column. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 484, 486.]
+His means of crossing at Carnifex Ferry were so poor that what he
+had thought would be done in two or three days from the time McCook
+joined me, took a full fortnight to accomplish.
+
+I marched with my own and McCook's brigades on the 23d September,
+but when I reached the Confederate camp where Hines with the
+advance-guard awaited me, it was evident at a glance that we must go
+further. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 487.] The position was a very strong
+one for resisting an approach from our direction, but was commanded
+by higher ground beyond. The true crest of the mountain was two
+miles further on, and there alone could we successfully bar the way
+against a superior force coming from the east. I therefore marched
+rapidly forward and occupied the crest in force. It was impossible
+to hide the whole of our camp from view and properly hold the
+position, but we made use of such cover as we could find, and
+prepared to defend the pass against all comers, since it was vain to
+attempt to mystify the enemy as to our advance in force.
+
+On the 24th we had a lively skirmish with Wise's legion in front,
+and forced it to retire to a ridge out of range of our artillery. We
+dismounted one of his howitzers in the engagement, but contented
+ourselves with making him yield the ground which would interfere
+with our easy holding of our own position and the spurs of the
+mountain directly connected with it. Wise had learned that Rosecrans
+was not with my column, and on the supposition that the advance was
+made by my brigade only, Lee concluded to order Floyd to Wise's
+camp, being now satisfied that no movement of our troops had been
+made by way of the Wilderness road. It was at this time that Wise
+was relieved of command and ordered to Richmond, and Lee found it
+advisable to unite his forces and take command in person.
+
+The relations of these three distinguished Virginians had not begun
+with this campaign, but dated back to the capture of John Brown at
+Harper's Ferry. Wise was then the governor of his State, and
+received from Lee the prisoner whose execution at Charlestown was to
+become an historical event. Floyd, who himself had once been
+governor of Virginia, was then Buchanan's Secretary of War, and
+ordered Lee with the detachment of marines to Harper's Ferry, where
+they stormed the engine-house which Brown had made his fort. Dealing
+with such men as his subordinates, and with such a history behind
+them, it can easily be understood that Lee would feel no ordinary
+delicacy in asserting his authority, and no common embarrassment at
+their quarrels.
+
+Rosecrans was at first disturbed at my going further than had been
+expected; [Footnote: Rosecrans's Dispatches, Official Records, vol.
+li. pt. i. pp. 486, 487.] but he was soon satisfied that nothing
+better could have been done. It is true that I was thirty-five miles
+from the supports in the rear, whether at Carnifex Ferry or Gauley
+Bridge; but the position was almost impregnable in front, and by
+watchfulness I should know of any attempt to turn it in time to make
+safe my retreat to Camp Lookout. On the 26th Scammon's brigade came
+within easy supporting distance, and General Rosecrans came in
+person to my camp. He had not been able to bring up his headquarters
+train, and was my guest for two or three days, sharing my tent with
+me. Cold autumnal rains set in on the very day the general came to
+the front, and continued almost without intermission. In the hope of
+still having some favorable weather for campaigning, the other
+brigades were brought forward, and the whole force was concentrated
+at the mountain except the necessary garrisons for the posts in the
+rear. Brigadier-General Robert C, Schenck reported for duty in the
+evening of a fearfully stormy day whilst Rosecrans was still my
+tent-mate. He had heard rumors of fighting at the front, and had
+hurried forward with a couple of staff officers, but without
+baggage. My staff officers were sharing their shelter with the
+gentlemen who had accompanied Rosecrans, but the new-comers were
+made heartily welcome to what we had. In my own tent General
+Rosecrans occupied my camp cot; I had improvised a rough bunk for
+myself on the other side of the tent, but as General Schenck got in
+too late for the construction of any better resting-place, he was
+obliged to content himself with a bed made of three or four
+camp-stools set in a row. Anything was better than lying on the damp
+ground in such a storm; but Schenck long remembered the aching
+weariness of that night, as he balanced upon the narrow and unstable
+supports which threatened to tumble him upon the ground at the least
+effort to change the position of stiffened body and limbs. One could
+not desire better companionship than we had during our waking hours,
+for both my guests had had varied and interesting experience and
+knew how to make it the means of delightful social intercourse and
+discussion. The chilly temperature of the tent was pleasantly
+modified by a furnace which was the successful invention of the
+private soldiers. A square trench was dug from the middle of the
+tent leading out behind it; this was capped with flat stones three
+or four inches thick, which were abundant on the mountain. At the
+end of it, on the outside, a chimney of stones plastered with mud
+was built up, and the whole topped out by an empty cracker-barrel by
+way of chimney-pot. The fire built in the furnace had good draught,
+and the thick stones held the heat well, making, on the whole, the
+best means of warming a tent which I ever tried. The objection to
+the little sheet-iron stoves furnished with the Sibley tent is that
+they are cold in a minute if the fire dies out.
+
+The rains, when once they began, continued with such violence that
+the streams were soon up, the common fords became impassable, and
+the roads became so muddy and slippery that it was with the utmost
+difficulty our little army was supplied. The four brigades were so
+reduced by sickness and by detachments that Rosecrans reported the
+whole as making only 5200 effective men. Every wagon was put to work
+hauling supplies and ammunition, even the headquarters baggage
+wagons and the regimental wagons of the troops, as well those
+stationed in the rear as those in front. We were sixty miles from
+the head of steamboat navigation, the wagon trains were too small
+for a condition of things where the teams could hardly haul half
+loads, and by the 1st of October we had demonstrated the fact that
+it was impossible to sustain our army any further from its base
+unless we could rely upon settled weather and good roads.
+
+Lee had directed an effort to be made by General Loring, his
+subordinate, on the Staunton line, to test the strength of the posts
+under Reynolds at Cheat Mountain and Elkwater, and lively combats
+had resulted on the 12th, and 14th of September. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. v. pp. 185-193.] Reynolds held firm, and as Rosecrans
+was not diverted from his plans and was pushing forward on the
+Lewisburg line, Lee ordered Loring to report to him with most of his
+command. Reynolds, in return, made a forced reconnoissance upon the
+Confederate position at Greenbrier River on October 2d, but found it
+too strong to be carried. The reinforcement by Loring gave Lee a
+very positive advantage in numbers, but the storms and foundering
+roads paralyzed both armies, which lay opposite each other upon the
+crests of Big Sewell separated by a deep gorge. On the 5th of
+October the condition of the Kanawha valley had become such that
+Rosecrans felt compelled to withdraw his forces to the vicinity of
+Gauley Bridge. The freshet had been an extraordinary one. At
+Charleston the Kanawha River usually flows in a bed forty or fifty
+feet below the plateau on which the town is built; but the waters
+now rose above these high banks and flooded the town itself, being
+four or five feet deep in the first story of dwelling-houses built
+in what was considered a neighborhood safe from floods. The
+inundation almost stopped communication, though our quartermasters
+tried to remedy part of the mischief by forcing light steamers up as
+near to the Kanawha Falls as possible. But it was very difficult to
+protect the supplies landed upon a muddy bank where were no
+warehouses, and no protection but canvas covers stretched over the
+piles of barrels and boxes of bread and sacks of grain. There was
+enormous waste and loss, but we managed to keep our men in rations,
+and were better off than the Confederates, in regard to whom Floyd
+afterward reported to his government that the eleven days of cold
+storms at Sewell Mountain had "cost more men, sick and dead, than
+the battle of Manassas Plains."
+
+It has been asserted by Confederate writers that Lee was executing a
+movement to turn Rosecrans's left flank when the latter marched back
+from Sewell Mountain. If so, it certainly had not gone far enough to
+attract our attention, and from my own knowledge of the situation, I
+do not believe it had passed beyond the form of discussion of a
+possible movement when the weather should become settled. Such plans
+were discussed on both sides, but the physical condition of the
+country was an imperative veto upon aggressive action.
+
+During the 5th of October our sick and spare baggage were sent back
+to Camp Lookout. Tents were struck at ten o'clock in the evening,
+and the trains sent on their way under escort at eleven. The column
+moved as soon as the trains were out of the way, except my own
+brigade, to which was assigned the duty of rear-guard. We remained
+upon the crest of the hill till half-past one, the men being formed
+in line of battle and directed to lie down till the time for them to
+march. Our sentinels had been posted with extra precaution, so that
+they might be withdrawn an hour or two after the brigade should
+move. Extra reserves were assigned to them, and Major Hines put in
+command of the whole detachment, with orders to keep in
+communication with me at the extreme rear of the marching column. It
+was interesting to observe the effect of this night movement upon
+the men. Their imagination was excited by the novelty of the
+situation, and they furnished abundant evidence that the unknown is
+always, in such cases, the wonderful. The night had cleared off and
+the stars were out. The Confederate position was eastward from us,
+and as a bright star rose above the ridge on which the enemy was, we
+could hear soldiers saying in a low tone to each other, "There goes
+a fire balloon--it must be a signal--they must have discovered what
+we are doing!" The exaggerated parallax at the horizon made the
+rising star seem to move rapidly for the first few minutes, and men,
+ignorant of this, naturally mistook its character. In a similar way
+an occasional shot on the picket line would be the cause of a
+subdued excitement. I doubt if soldiers ever make a night movement
+in an enemy's presence without being under a nervous strain which
+exaggerates the importance of everything they see and hear, and this
+gives uncertainty and increases the difficulty of such duty. It is
+no small part of the duty of officers, in such cases, to allay this
+tendency to excitement, to explain the situation, and by a wise
+mixture of information and discipline to keep the men intelligently
+cool and in full command of their faculties.
+
+General Rosecrans had gone with the head of the column, and had left
+with me Major Slemmer, his inspector-general, to bring him word when
+the rear of the column should be in march. Slemmer was the officer
+who, as a lieutenant, had distinguished himself by holding Fort
+Pickens in Pensacola harbor at the outbreak of the rebellion. He was
+a man of marked character, and in view of his experience it may
+easily be understood that we had no lack of interesting matter for
+conversation as we paced in rear of the reclining men during the
+midnight hours. His failing health prevented his taking the
+prominent part in the war that his abilities warranted, but I have
+retained, from that evening's work together, a pleasing impression
+of his character and a respect for his military knowledge and
+talents. In impressing on me the fact that my position was the one
+of special honor in this movement, he expressed the wish that
+Rosecrans had himself remained there; but the result showed that
+hardly less than the commanding general's own authority and energy
+could have got the column forward in the mud and darkness. The
+troops had marched but a mile or two when they overtook part of the
+wagon train toiling slowly over the steep and slippery hills. Here
+and there a team would be "stalled" in the mud, and it looked as if
+daylight would overtake us before even a tolerably defensive
+position would be reached. Rosecrans now gave his personal
+supervision to the moving of the wagons and
+artillery,--wagon-master's work, it maybe said, but it was work
+which had to be done if the little army was not to be found in the
+morning strung out and exposed to the blows of the enemy if he
+should prove enterprising.
+
+We who were at the rear did not know of the difficulty the column
+was having, and when my messenger reported the rear of the preceding
+brigade a mile or more from the camp, I gave the order to march, and
+my men filed into the road. Slemmer went forward to inform the
+general that we were in movement, and I remained with Major Hines
+till all was quiet, when he was directed to call in his pickets and
+sentinels and follow. I had gone hardly a mile when we were brought
+to a halt by the head of the brigade overtaking those who had
+preceded us. Word was brought back that the artillery was finding
+great difficulty in getting over the first considerable hill west of
+the mountain. We ourselves were upon the downward road from the
+mountain crest, but our way led along the side of a spur of the
+mountain which towered above us on our left. We were in a dense wood
+that shut out the stars, and in darkness that could almost be felt.
+I rode back a little to meet Hines and to keep some distance between
+the column and his little rear-guard. We sent a chain of sentinels
+over the hill commanding the road, and waited, listening for any
+evidence that the enemy had discovered our movement and followed. An
+hour passed in this way, and the column moved on a short distance.
+Again there was a halt, and again a deployment of our sentries. When
+at last day broke, we were only three or four miles from our camp of
+the evening before; but we had reached a position which was easily
+defensible, and where I could halt the brigade and wait for the
+others to get entirely out of our way. The men boiled their coffee,
+cooked their breakfast, and rested. Early in the forenoon a small
+body of the enemy's cavalry followed us, but were contented with
+very slight skirmishing, and we marched leisurely to Camp Lookout
+before evening. Such night marches from the presence of an enemy are
+among the most wearing and trying in the soldier's experience, yet,
+in spite of the temptation to invest them with extraordinary peril,
+they are rarely interfered with. It is the uncertainty, the
+darkness, and the effect of these upon men and officers that make
+the duty a delicate one. The risk is more from panic than from the
+foe, and the loss is more likely to be in baggage and in wagons than
+in men. I have several times been in command of rear-guards on such
+occasions, and I believe that I would generally prefer an open
+withdrawal by day. It is not hard to hold even a bold enemy at bay
+by a determined brigade or division, and a whole army may be saved
+from the exhaustion and exposure which rapidly fill the hospitals,
+and may cost more than several combats between rear and advance
+guards.
+
+My brigade remained two or three days at Camp Lookout, where we were
+put upon the alert on the 7th by a reported advance of the enemy,
+but it amounted to nothing more than a lively skirmish of some
+cavalry with our outposts. Lee was glad to move back to Meadow Bluff
+to be nearer his supplies, and Rosecrans encamped his troops between
+Hawk's Nest and the Tompkins farm, all of them being now within a
+few miles of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p.
+253. See also Official Atlas, pl. ix.] Part of my brigade garrisoned
+the post at the bridge, but by Rosecrans's direction my own
+headquarters tents were pitched near his own upon the Tompkins farm.
+Both parties now remained in observation till near the end of
+October. Floyd, more enterprising in plans than resolute or skilful
+in carrying them out, had obtained Lee's consent to make an attempt
+to render our position untenable by operations on the opposite side
+of New River. Lee had intended to co-operate by moving against us
+with the rest of his force, but on the 20th of October the reports
+from the Staunton region were so threatening that he determined to
+send Loring back there, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 908.] and this, of
+course, settled it that Lewisburg would be covered in front only by
+Wise's Legion, commanded by Colonel Davis. Although Floyd complained
+of this change of plan, he did not abandon his purpose, but ordering
+the militia on that side of the river to reassemble, he marched to
+Fayette C. H. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 286.]
+
+Rosecrans had distributed his brigades in _echelon_ along the
+turnpike,--Schenck's, the most advanced, being ten miles from Gauley
+Bridge; McCook's eight miles, where the road from Fayette C. H. by
+way of Miller's Ferry comes in across New River; Benham's six miles,
+whilst of my own one regiment at the Tompkins farm guarded
+headquarters, and the rest were at Gauley Bridge and lower posts
+where they could protect the navigation of the Kanawha. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 253.] McCook by Rosecrans's direction marched to Fayette
+C. H. about the 20th of October, and on his return reported that
+only guerilla parties were abroad in that vicinity. Rosecrans seems
+to have expected that at least a foothold would be kept on the other
+side of New River at Miller's Ferry, but McCook left nothing there,
+and when he tried to place a detachment on that side about the 25th,
+the shore and cliffs were found to be held by a force of
+sharpshooters. This marked the advance of Floyd, who established his
+camp in front of Fayette C. H. at the forking of the roads to
+Miller's Ferry and to Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 285.] For
+a few days he made no serious demonstration, and Rosecrans hastened
+forward the work of clothing and paying his men, recruiting his
+teams and bringing back to the ranks the soldiers whom exposure had
+sent to the hospital. He had heard in a trustworthy way of Lee's
+intention to move against us by the turnpike whilst Floyd advanced
+on the other side of the river, but Tie had not yet learned of the
+withdrawal of Lee with Loring's troops. He therefore remained quiet
+and expectant, awaiting the definite development of events.
+
+As this had been my first service in the field as part of a larger
+command, I was keenly alive to the opportunity of comparing the
+progress we had made in discipline and instruction with that of
+other brigades, so that I might cure defects in my own methods and
+improve the soldierly character as well as the administration of my
+own command. I was gratified to see in my troops evidence of a pride
+in their own organization and a wholesome emulation, which made them
+take kindly to the drill and discipline which were necessary to
+improvement. I was particularly interested in observing Rosecrans's
+methods with the men. His standard of soldierly excellence was high,
+and he was earnest in insisting that his brigadiers and his staff
+officers should co-operate vigorously in trying to attain it. His
+impulsiveness, however, led him sometimes into personal efforts at
+discipline where the results were at least doubtful. He would
+sometimes go out through the camps in the evening, and if he saw a
+tent lighted after "taps," or heard men singing or talking, he would
+strike loudly on the canvas with the flat of his sword and command
+silence or the extinguishment of the light. The men, in good-humored
+mischief, would try different ways of "getting even" with him. One
+that gave much amusement to the camp was this: the men in a tent
+thus attacked pretended to believe that their regimental
+wagon-master was playing a practical joke on them, and shouted back
+to him all sorts of rough camp chaff. When the exasperated general
+appeared at the door of the tent, they were, of course, overwhelmed
+with the most innocent astonishment, and explained that that
+wagon-master was in the habit of annoying them, and that they really
+had not heard the "taps." I have been with the general in
+approaching a picket, when he would hotly lecture a sentinel who
+showed ignorance of some of his duties or inattention to them. I
+thought I could see in all such cases that it would have been wiser
+to avoid any unnecessary collision with the privates, but to take
+the responsible officer aside and make him privately understand that
+he must answer for such lack of instruction or of discipline among
+his men. An impulsive man is too apt to meddle with details, and so
+to weaken the sense of responsibility in the intermediate officers,
+who hate to be ignored or belittled before the soldiers. But if
+Rosecrans's method was not an ideal one, it was at least vigorous,
+and every week showed that the little army was improving in
+discipline and in knowledge of duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COTTON MOUNTAIN
+
+
+Floyd cannonades Gauley Bridge--Effect on Rosecrans--Topography of
+Gauley Mount--De Villiers runs the gantlet--Movements of our
+forces--Explaining orders--A hard climb on the mountain--In the post
+at Gauley Bridge--Moving magazine and telegraph--A balky
+mule-team--Ammunition train under fire--Captain Fitch a model
+quartermaster--Plans to entrap Floyd--Moving supply trains at
+night--Method of working the ferry--of making flatboats--The Cotton
+Mountain affair--Rosecrans dissatisfied with Benham--Vain plans to
+reach East Tennessee.
+
+
+On the 1st of November the early morning was fair but misty, and a
+fog lay in the gorge of New River nearly a thousand feet below the
+little plateau at the Tompkins farm, on which the headquarters tents
+were pitched. General Rosecrans's tents were not more than a hundred
+yards above mine, between the turnpike and the steep descent to the
+river, though both our little camps were secluded by thickets of
+young trees and laurel bushes. Breakfast was over, the fog was
+lifting out of the valley, and I was attending to the usual morning
+routine of clerical work, when the report and echo of a cannon-shot,
+down the gorge in the direction of Gauley Bridge, was heard. It was
+unusual, enough so to set me thinking what it could mean, but the
+natural explanation suggested itself that it was one of our own
+guns, perhaps fired at a target. In a few moments an orderly came in
+some haste, saying the general desired to see me at his tent. As I
+walked over to his quarters, another shot was heard. As I
+approached, I saw him standing in front of his tent door, evidently
+much excited, and when I came up to him, he said in the rapid,
+half-stammering way peculiar to him at such times: "The enemy has
+got a battery on Cotton Mountain opposite our post, and is shelling
+it! What d' ye think of that?" The post at the bridge and his
+headquarters were connected by telegraph, and the operator below had
+reported the fact of the opening of the cannonade from the mountain
+side above him, and added that his office was so directly under fire
+that he must move out of it. Indeed he was gone and communication
+broken before orders could be sent to him or to the post. The fact
+of the cannonade did not disturb me so much as the way in which it
+affected Rosecrans. He had been expecting to be attacked by Lee in
+front, and knew that McCook was exchanging shots across the river
+with some force of the enemy at Miller's Ferry; but that the attack
+should come two miles or more in our rear, from a point where
+artillery had a plunging fire directly into our depot of supplies
+and commanded our only road for a half-mile where it ran on a narrow
+bench along New River under Gauley Mountain cliffs, had been so
+startling as to throw him decidedly off his balance. The error in
+not occupying Cotton Mountain himself was now not only made plain,
+but the consequences were not pleasant to contemplate. I saw that
+the best service I could render him for the moment was to help him
+back into a frame of mind in which cool reasoning on the situation
+would be possible. I have already stated the contrast between my own
+sense of care when in sole command and the comparative freedom from
+it when a senior officer came upon the field; and I now realized how
+much easier it was for a subordinate to take things coolly. I
+therefore purposely entered into a discussion of the probabilities
+of the situation, and drew it out at length enough to assist the
+general in recovering full control of himself and of his own
+faculties. We could not, from where we stood, see the post at Gauley
+Bridge nor even the place on Cotton Mountain where the enemy's
+battery was placed, and we walked a little way apart from our staff
+officers to a position from which we could see the occasional puffs
+of white smoke from the hostile guns. From our camp the road
+descended sharply along the shoulders of steep hills covered with
+wood for a mile and a half, till it reached the bottom of the New
+River gorge, and then it followed the open bench I have mentioned
+till it reached the crossing of the Gauley. On the opposite side of
+New River there was no road, the mass of Cotton Mountain crowding
+close upon the stream with its picturesque face of steep inclines
+and perpendicular walls of rock. The bridge of boats which Rosecrans
+had planned at Gauley Bridge had not been built, because it had been
+found impossible to collect or to construct boats enough to make it.
+We were therefore still dependent on the ferry. Whilst the general
+and I were talking, Colonel De Villiers galloped up, having crossed
+at the ferry and run the gantlet of skirmishers whom he reported as
+lining the other side of New River opposite the unsheltered part of
+our road. He had recently reported for duty, having, as he asserted,
+escaped in a wonderful way from captivity in Libby Prison at
+Richmond. [Footnote: The Confederates claimed that he had been
+allowed to act as hospital attendant on parole, and that he violated
+his obligation in escaping. We had no means of verifying the facts
+in the case.] His regiment was at the bridge and he was the senior
+officer there; but, in his characteristic light-headed way, instead
+of taking steps to protect his post and re-establish the telegraph
+communications, he had dashed off to report in person at
+headquarters. As he was willing to take the risks of the race back
+again, he was allowed to go, after being fully instructed to set up
+a new telegraph office in a ravine out of range of fire, to put the
+ferry-boat out of danger as soon as he should be over, and prepare
+the ordnance stores to be moved into the valley of Scrabble Creek at
+night. I begged the general to be allowed to go back with De
+Villiers, as the thing I most feared was some panic at the post
+which might result in the destruction of our stores in depot there.
+He, however, insisted on my staying at headquarters for a time at
+least.
+
+Information of the attack was sent to the brigades up the river, and
+Schenck, who was farthest up, was directed to push out scouting
+parties and learn if there was any advance of the enemy from Sewell
+Mountain. Benham, who was nearest, was ordered to send down part of
+his brigade to meet the efforts of the enemy to stop our
+communication with Gauley Bridge. The battery of mountain howitzers
+under Captain Mack of the regular army was also ordered to report at
+headquarters, with the intention of placing it high up on Gauley
+cliffs, where it could drop shells among the enemy's skirmishers on
+the opposite bank of the river. An hour or two passed and the
+detachment from Benham's brigade approached. It was the Thirteenth
+Ohio, led by one of its field officers, who halted the column and
+rode up to General Rosecrans for orders. The general's manner was
+still an excited one, and in the rapidity with which his directions
+were given the officer did not seem to get a clear idea of what was
+required of him. He made some effort to get the orders explained,
+but his failure to comprehend seemed to irritate Rosecrans, and he
+therefore bowed and rode back to his men with a blank look which did
+not promise well for intelligent action. Noticing this, I quietly
+walked aside among the bushes, and when out of sight hurried a
+little in advance and waited at the roadside for the column. I
+beckoned the officer to me, and said to him, "Colonel, I thought you
+looked as if you did not fully understand the general's wishes." He
+replied that he did not, but was unwilling to question him as it
+seemed to irritate him. I said that was a wrong principle to act on,
+as a commanding officer has the greatest possible interest in being
+clearly understood. I then explained at large what I knew to be
+Rosecrans's purposes. The officer thanked me cordially and rode
+away. I have ventured to give this incident with such fulness,
+because subsequent events in Rosecrans's career strengthened the
+impression I formed at the time, that the excitability of his
+temperament was such that an unexpected occurrence might upset his
+judgment so that it would be uncertain how he would act,--whether it
+would rouse him to a heroism of which he was quite capable, or make
+him for the time unfit for real leadership by suspending his
+self-command. [Footnote: See Crittenden's testimony in Buell Court
+of Inquiry, Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. i. p. 578. Cist's
+account of Chickamauga, Army of the Cumberland, p. 226, and chap,
+xxvii., _post_.]
+
+Soon after noon I obtained permission to go to Gauley Bridge and
+assume command there; but as the road along New River was now
+impracticable by reason of the increased fire of the enemy upon it,
+I took the route over the top of Gauley Mountain, intending to reach
+the Gauley River as near the post as practicable. I took with me
+only my aide, Captain Christie, and an orderly. We rode a little
+beyond the top of the mountain, and sending the orderly back with
+the horses, proceeded on foot down the northern slope. We soon came
+to the slashing which I had made in August to prevent the enemy's
+easy approach to the river near the post. The mist of the morning
+had changed to a drizzling rain. We had on our heavy horsemen's
+overcoats with large capes, cavalry boots and spurs, swords and
+pistols. This made it toilsome work for us. The trees had been
+felled so that they crossed each other in utmost confusion on the
+steep declivity. Many of them were very large, and we slid over the
+great wet trunks, climbed through and under branches, let ourselves
+down walls of natural rock, tripped and hampered by our
+accoutrements, till we came to the end of the entanglement at what
+we supposed was the edge of the river. To our dismay we found that
+we had not kept up stream far enough, and that at this point was a
+sheer precipice some thirty feet high. We could find no crevices to
+help us climb down it. We tried to work along the edge till we
+should reach a lower place, but this utterly failed. We were obliged
+to retrace our steps to the open wood above the slashing. But if the
+downward climbing had been hard, this attempt to pull ourselves up
+again,--
+
+"... superasque evadere ad auras,"--
+
+was labor indeed. We stopped several times from sheer exhaustion, so
+blown that it seemed almost impossible to get breath again. Our
+clothes were heavy from the rain on the outside and wet with
+perspiration on the inside. At last, however, we accomplished it,
+and resting for a while at the foot of a great tree till we gained a
+little strength, we followed the upper line of the slashing till we
+passed beyond it, and then turned toward the river, choosing to
+reach its banks high up above the camp rather than attempt again to
+climb through the fallen timber. Once at the water's edge we
+followed the stream down till we were opposite the guard post above
+the camp, when we hailed for a skiff and were ferried over.
+
+It was now almost dark, but the arrangements were soon made to have
+wagons ready at the building on the Kanawha front used as a
+magazine, and to move all our ammunition during the night to the
+place I had indicated in the ravine of Scrabble Creek, which runs
+into the Gauley. The telegraph station was moved there and
+connection of wires made. We also prepared to run the ferry
+industriously during the night and to put over the necessary
+trainloads of supplies for the troops above. A place was selected
+high up on the hill behind us, where I hoped to get up a couple of
+Parrott guns which might silence the cannon of the enemy on Cotton
+Mountain. I was naturally gratified at the expressions of relief and
+satisfaction of the officers of the post to have me in person among
+them. They had already found that the plunging fire from the heights
+across the river was not a formidable thing, and that little
+mischief would happen if the men were kept from assembling in bodies
+or large groups within range of the enemy's cannon.
+
+The fatigues of the day made sleep welcome as soon as the most
+pressing duties had been done, and I went early to rest, giving
+orders to the guard at my quarters to call me at peep of day. The
+weather cleared during the night, and when I went out in the morning
+to see what progress had been made in transferring the ammunition to
+a safe place, I was surprised to find the train of wagons stopped in
+the road along the Gauley in front of the camp. General Rosecrans's
+ordnance officer was of the regular army, but unfortunately was
+intemperate. He had neglected his duty during the night, leaving his
+sergeant to get on without guidance or direction. The result was
+that the ordnance stores had not been loaded upon the waiting wagons
+till nearly daylight, and soon after turning out of the Kanawha road
+into that of the Gauley, the mules of a team near the head of the
+train balked, and the whole had been brought to a standstill. There
+was a little rise in the road on the hither side of Scrabble Creek,
+where the track, cutting through the crest of a hillock, was only
+wide enough for a single team, and this rise was of course the place
+where the balky animals stopped. The line of the road was enfiladed
+by the enemy's cannon, the morning fog in the valley was beginning
+to lift under the influence of the rising sun, and as soon as the
+situation was discovered we might reckon upon receiving the fire of
+the Cotton Mountain battery. The wagon-drivers realized the danger
+of handling an ammunition train under such circumstances and began
+to be nervous, whilst the onlookers not connected with the duty made
+haste to get out of harm's way. My presence strengthened the
+authority of the quartermaster in charge, Captain E. P. Fitch,
+helped in steadying the men, and enabled him to enforce promptly his
+orders. He stopped the noisy efforts to make the refractory mules
+move, and sent in haste for a fresh team. As soon as it came, this
+was put in place of the balky animals, and at the word of command
+the train started quickly forward. The fog had thinned enough,
+however, to give the enemy an inkling of what was going on, and the
+rattling of the wagons on the road completed the exposure. Without
+warning, a ball struck in the road near us and bounded over the rear
+of the train, the report of the cannon following instantly. The
+drivers involuntarily crouched over their mules and cracked their
+whips. Another shot followed, but it was also short, and the last
+wagon turned the shoulder of the hill into the gorge of the creek as
+the ball bounded along up the Gauley valley. It was perhaps
+fortunate for us that solid shot instead of shrapnel were used, but
+it is not improbable that the need of haste in firing made the
+battery officer feel that he had no time to cut and adjust fuses to
+the estimated distance to our train; or it is possible that shells
+were used but did not explode. It was my first acquaintance with
+Captain Fitch, who had accompanied Rosecrans's column, and his cool
+efficiency was so marked that I applied for him as quartermaster
+upon my staff. He remained with me till I finally left West Virginia
+in 1863, and I never saw his superior in handling trains in the
+field. He was a West Virginian, volunteering from civil life, whose
+outfit was a good business education and an indomitable rough energy
+that nothing could tire.
+
+During the evening of the 1st of November General Benham's brigade
+came to the post at Gauley Bridge to strengthen the garrison, and
+was encamped on the Kanawha side near the falls, where the widening
+of the valley put them out of range of the enemy's fire. The ferry
+below the falls was called Montgomery's and was at the mouth of Big
+Falls Creek, up which ran the road to Fayette C. H. A detachment of
+the enemy had pushed back our outposts on this road, and had fired
+upon our lower camp with cannon, but the position was not a
+favorable one for them and they did not try to stay long. After a
+day or two we were able to keep pickets on that side with a flatboat
+and hawser to bring them back, covered by artillery on our side of
+the Kanawha.
+
+During November 2d Rosecrans matured a plan of operations against
+Floyd, who was now definitely found to be in command of the hostile
+force on Cotton Mountain. It was also learned through scouting
+parties and the country people that Lee had left the region, with
+most of the force that had been at Sewell Mountain. It seemed
+possible therefore to entrap Floyd, and this was what Rosecrans
+determined to attempt. Benham was ordered to take his brigade down
+the Kanawha and cross to the other side at the mouth of Loup Creek,
+five miles below. Schenck was ordered to prepare wagon bodies as
+temporary boats, to make such flatboats as he could, and get ready
+to cross the New River at Townsend's Ferry, about fifteen miles
+above Gauley Bridge. McCook was ordered to watch Miller's Ferry near
+his camp, and be prepared to make a dash on the short road to
+Fayette C. H. I was ordered to hold the post at Gauley Bridge,
+forward supplies by night, keep down the enemy's fire as far as
+possible, and watch for an opportunity to co-operate with Benham by
+way of Montgomery's Ferry. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p.
+254.] Benham's brigade was temporarily increased by 1500 picked men
+from the posts between Kanawha Falls and Charleston. He was expected
+to march up Loup Creek and cut off Floyd's retreat by way of Raleigh
+C. H., whilst Schenck should co-operate from Townsend's Ferry. On
+the 5th the preparations had been made, and Benham was ordered to
+cross the Kanawha. He did so on the night of the 6th, but except
+sending scouting parties up Loup Creek, he did nothing, as a sudden
+rise in New River made Rosecrans suspend the concerted movement, and
+matters remained as they were, awaiting the fall of the river, till
+the 10th.
+
+For a week after the 1st, Floyd's battery on Cotton Mountain fired
+on very slight provocation, and caution was necessary in riding or
+moving about the camp. The houses of the hamlet were not purposely
+injured, for Floyd would naturally be unwilling to destroy the
+property of West Virginians, and it was a safe presumption that we
+had removed the government property from buildings within range of
+fire, as we had in fact done. Our method of forwarding supplies was
+to assemble the wagon trains near my lower camp during the day, and
+push them forward to Gauley Mount and Tompkins farm during the
+night. The ferry-boat at Gauley Bridge was kept out of harm's way in
+the Gauley, behind the projection of Gauley Mount, but the hawser on
+which it ran was not removed. At nightfall the boat would be manned,
+dropped down to its place, made fast to the hawser by a
+snatch-block, and commence its regular trips, passing over the
+wagons. The ferries, both at the bridge and at Montgomery's, were
+under the management of Captain Lane of the Eleventh Ohio and his
+company of mechanics. [Footnote: Captain P. P. Lane of Cincinnati,
+later colonel of the regiment.] We had found at points along the
+Kanawha the gunwales of flatboats, gotten out by lumbermen in the
+woods and brought to the river bank ready to be put into boats for
+the coal trade, which had already much importance in the valley.
+These gunwales were single sticks of timber, sixty or eighty feet
+long, two or three feet wide, and say six inches thick. Each formed
+the side of a boat, which was built by tying two gunwales together
+with cross timbers, the whole being then planked. Such boats were
+three or four times as large as those used for the country ferries
+upon the Gauley and New rivers, and enabled us to make these larger
+ferries very commodious. Of course the enemy knew that we used them
+at night, and would fire an occasional random shot at them, but did
+us no harm.
+
+The enemy's guns on the mountain were so masked by the forest that
+we did not waste ammunition in firing at them, except as they
+opened, when our guns so quickly returned their fire that they never
+ventured upon continuous action, and after the first week we had
+only occasional shots from them. We had planted our sharpshooters
+also in protected spots along the narrower part of New River near
+the post, and made the enemy abandon the other margin of the stream,
+except with scattered sentinels. In a short time matters thus
+assumed a shape in which our work went on regularly, and the only
+advantage Floyd had attained was to make us move our supply trains
+at night. His presence on the mountain overlooking our post was an
+irritation under which we chafed, and from Rosecrans down, everybody
+was disgusted with the enforced delay of Benham at Loup Creek. Floyd
+kept his principal camp behind Cotton Mountain, in the position I
+have already indicated, in an inaction which seemed to invite
+enterprise on our part. His courage had oozed out when he had
+carried his little army into an exposed position, and here as at
+Carnifex Ferry he seemed to be waiting for his adversary to take the
+initiative.
+
+To prepare for my own part in the contemplated movement, I had
+ordered Captain Lane to build a couple of flatboats of a smaller
+size than our large ferry-boats, and to rig these with sweeps or
+large oars, so that they could be used to throw detachments across
+the New River to the base of Cotton Mountain, at a point selected a
+little way up the river, where the stream was not so swift and
+broken as in most places. Many of our men had become expert in
+managing such boats, and a careful computation showed that we could
+put over 500 men an hour with these small scows.
+
+From the 5th to the both Rosecrans had been waiting for the waters
+to subside, and pressing Benham to examine the roads up Loup Creek
+so thoroughly that he could plant himself in Floyd's rear as soon as
+orders should be given. Schenck would make the simultaneous movement
+when Benham was known to be in march, and McCook's and my own
+brigade would at least make demonstrations from our several
+positions. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 255, 261-265.]
+From my picket post at Montgomery's Ferry I had sent scouts up the
+Fayette road, and by the 9th had discovered such symptoms of
+weakness in the enemy that I thought the time had come to make an
+effort to dislodge the battery and get command of the crest of
+Cotton Mountain overlooking my camp. On the both I made a combined
+movement from both my upper and lower camps. Colonel De Villiers was
+ordered to take all of the Eleventh Ohio fit for duty (being only
+200 men), and crossing by the small boats, make a vigorous
+reconnoissance over the New River face of Cotton Mountain, reaching
+the crest if possible. Lieutenant-Colonel Enyart of the First
+Kentucky was directed to cross below the falls with a similar force,
+and push a reconnoissance out on the Fayette road, whilst he also
+should try to co-operate with De Villiers in clearing the enemy from
+the heights opposite Gauley Bridge. The place at which De Villiers
+crossed was out of sight and range from the enemy's battery. His
+first boat-load of forty men reached the opposite shore safely, and
+dividing into two parties, one pushed up the New River to a ravine
+making a somewhat easy ascent toward the crest, whilst the others
+skirmished up the almost perpendicular face of the rocks where they
+landed. The remainder of the men of the Eleventh were put over as
+fast as possible, and joined their colonel in the ravine mentioned,
+up which they marched to a little clearing high up the hill, known
+as Blake's farm, where the advanced party had found the enemy. The
+battery was withdrawn as soon as De Villiers' approach at the Blake
+farm was known, supports being sent to the outpost there to check
+our advance. The men of the Eleventh, led by Major Coleman, attacked
+sharply, drove back the enemy, and succeeded in extending their
+right to the crest above the recent position of the battery. They
+were of course stretched out into a mere skirmish line, and I
+directed them to hold the crest without advancing further till
+Enyart should be heard from. He also found the enemy indisposed to
+be stubborn, and skirmished up the opposite side of the mountain
+till he joined hands with De Villiers on the top. The enemy seemed
+to be increasing before them, and our men held their position as
+directed, having relieved us from the hostile occupation of ground
+commanding our camps. Enyart's reconnoitring party sent toward
+Fayette advanced a mile on that road and remained in observation,
+finding no enemy. I reported our success to Rosecrans, and doubtful
+whether he wished to press the enemy in front till Benham and
+Schenck should be in his rear, I asked for further instructions.
+General Rosecrans authorized me to take over the rest of my
+available force and press the enemy next day, as he was very
+confident that Benham would by that time be in position to attack
+him in rear. Accordingly I passed the Second Kentucky regiment over
+the river during the night and joined them in person on the crest at
+daybreak. The remainder of the First Kentucky, under Major Lieper,
+was ordered to cross at Montgomery's Ferry later in the day, and
+advance upon the Fayette road as far as possible. My climb to the
+crest of Cotton Mountain was a repetition of the exhausting sort of
+work I had tried on Gauley Mount on the 1st. I took the short route
+straight up the face of the hill, clambering over rocks, pulling
+myself up by clinging to the laurel bushes, and often literally
+lifting myself from one great rocky step to another. This work was
+harder upon officers who were usually mounted than upon the men in
+the line, as we were not used to it, and the labor of the whole day
+was thus increased, for of course we could take no horses. Resuming
+the advance along the mountain crest, the enemy made no serious
+resistance, but fell back skirmishing briskly, till we came to more
+open ground where the mountain breaks down toward some open farms
+where detachments of Floyd's forces had been encamped. Their baggage
+train was seen in the distance, moving off upon the Fayette
+turnpike. As we were now in the close neighborhood of the whole
+force of the enemy, and those in our presence were quite as numerous
+as we, I halted the command on the wooded heights commanding the
+open ground below, till we should hear some sound from Benham's
+column. Toward evening Major Lieper came up on our right to the
+place where the Fayette road passes over a long spur of the mountain
+which is known in the neighborhood as Cotton Hill. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. v. pp. 272-275, and map, p. 82, _ante_. The
+greater mass in the angle of the rivers was not uniformly called
+Cotton Mountain then, and in my report I spoke of passing along
+those crests toward Cotton Hill, meaning this elevation on the
+Fayette road.] Here he was halted, and nothing being heard from
+co-operating columns, the troops bivouacked for the night.
+
+Rosecrans had informed Benham of my advance and ordered him to push
+forward; but he spent the day in discussing the topography which he
+was supposed to have learned before, and did not move. [Footnote:
+_Id_., pp. 266-268.] Schenck had not been put across New River at
+Townsend's Ferry, because Rosecrans thought it hazardous to do this
+whilst Floyd was near that point in force, and he intended that when
+Floyd should be forced to attack Benham (whose command was now equal
+to two brigades), it would withdraw the enemy so far that Schenck
+would have room to operate after crossing. But as Benham had not
+advanced, toward evening of the 11th Rosecrans sent him orders to
+march immediately up the Kanawha to my position and follow Major
+Lieper on the road that officer had opened to the top of Cotton
+Hill, and as much further toward Fayette C. H. as possible, taking
+Lieper's detachment with him; meanwhile I was ordered to keep the
+remainder of my troops on the mountain in the position already
+occupied. Benham was expected to reach Lieper's position by ten
+o'clock that evening, but he did not reach there in fact till three
+o'clock in the following afternoon (12th). [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. v. pp. 256, 273.] After some skirmishing with an
+outpost of the enemy at Laurel Creek behind which Major Lieper had
+been posted, nothing more was done till the evening of the 13th.
+Floyd's report shows that he retired beyond Fayette C. H. on the
+12th, having conceived the mistaken idea that Benham's column was a
+new reinforcement of 5000 men from Ohio. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 287.]
+Abandoning the hope of using Schenck's brigade in a movement from
+Townsend's Ferry, Rosecrans now ordered him to march to Gauley
+Bridge on the 13th, and joining Benham by a night march, assume
+command of the moving column. Schenck did so, but Floyd was now
+retreating upon Raleigh C. H. and a slight affair with his
+rear-guard was the only result. Fayette C. H. was occupied and the
+campaign ended. It would appear from official documents that Floyd
+did not learn of Benham's presence at the mouth of Loup Creek till
+the 12th, when he began his retreat, and that at any time during the
+preceding week a single rapid march would have placed Benham's
+brigade without resistance upon the line of the enemy's
+communications. Rosecrans was indignant at the balking of his
+elaborate plans, and ordered Benham before a court-martial for
+misconduct; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 669.] but I
+believe that McClellan caused the proceedings to be quashed to avoid
+scandal, and Benham was transferred to another department. It is
+very improbable that Schenck's contemplated movement across New
+River at Townsend's Ferry could have been made successfully; for his
+boats were few and small, and the ferrying would have been slow and
+tedious. Floyd would pretty surely learn of it soon after it began,
+and would hasten his retreat instead of waiting to be surrounded. It
+would have been better to join Schenck to Benham by a forced march
+as soon as the latter was at the mouth of Loup Creek, and then to
+push the whole to the Fayette and Raleigh road, Rosecrans leading
+the column in person. As Floyd seems to have been ignorant of what
+was going on in Loup Creek valley, decisive results might have
+followed from anticipating him on his line of retreat. Capturing
+such a force, or, as the phrase then went, "bagging it," is easier
+talked of than done; but it is quite probable that it might have
+been so scattered and demoralized as to be of little further value
+as an army, and considerable parts of it might have been taken
+prisoners.
+
+Rosecrans had begun the campaign in August with the announced
+purpose of marching to Wytheville and Abingdon in the Holston
+valley, and thence into East Tennessee. McClellan had cherished the
+idea of making the Kanawha line the base of operations into the same
+region; still later Fremont, and after him Halleck did the same.
+Looking only at the map, it seemed an easy thing to do; but the
+almost wilderness character of the intervening country with its poor
+and sparsely scattered people, the weary miles of steep
+mountain-roads becoming impassable in rainy weather, and the total
+absence of forage for animals, were elements of the problem which
+they all ignored or greatly underestimated. It was easy, sitting at
+one's office table, to sweep the hand over a few inches of chart
+showing next to nothing of the topography, and to say, "We will
+march from here to here;" but when the march was undertaken, the
+natural obstacles began to assert themselves, and one general after
+another had to find apologies for failing to accomplish what ought
+never to have been undertaken. After a year or two, the military
+advisers of the War Department began to realize how closely the
+movements of great bodies of soldiers were tied to rivers and
+railways; but they seemed to learn it only as the merest civilian
+could learn it, by the experience of repeated failures of plans
+based on long lines of communication over forest-clad mountains,
+dependent upon wagons to carry everything for man and beast.
+
+Instead of reaching Wytheville or Abingdon, Rosecrans found that he
+could not supply his little army even at Big Sewell Mountain; and
+except for a few days, he occupied no part of the country in advance
+of my positions in August, then held by a single brigade in the
+presence of the same enemy. It was not Floyd's army, but the
+physical obstacles presented by the country that chained him to
+Gauley Bridge. I shall have occasion hereafter to note how the same
+ignoring of nature's laws came near starving Burnside's command in
+East Tennessee, where the attempt to supply it by wagon trains from
+Lexington in Kentucky or from Nashville failed so utterly as to
+disappear from the calculation of our problem of existence through
+the winter of 1863-64.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WINTER-QUARTERS
+
+
+An impracticable country--Movements suspended--Experienced troops
+ordered away--My orders from Washington--Rosecrans objects--A
+disappointment--Winter organization of the Department--Sifting our
+material--Courts-martial--Regimental schools--Drill and picket
+duty--A military execution--Effect upon the army--Political
+sentiments of the people--Rules of conduct toward them--Case of Mr.
+Parks--Mr. Summers--Mr. Patrick--Mr. Lewis Ruffner--Mr.
+Doddridge--Mr. B. F. Smith--A house divided against itself--Major
+Smith's journal--The contrabands--A fugitive-slave
+case--Embarrassments as to military jurisdiction.
+
+
+Floyd's retreat was continued to the vicinity of Newberne and Dublin
+Depot, where the Virginia and East Tennessee Railway crosses the
+upper waters of New River. He reported the country absolutely
+destitute of everything and the roads so broken up that he could not
+supply his troops at any distance from the railroad. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. v. pp. 287,288.] Rosecrans was of a similar
+opinion, and on the 19th of November signified to General McClellan
+[Footnote: _id_., p. 657.] his purpose to hold Gauley Bridge, Cheat
+Mountain, and Romney as the frontier of his department, and to
+devote the winter to the instruction and discipline of his troops,
+and the sifting out of incompetent officers. About the 1st of
+December he fixed his headquarters at Wheeling, [Footnote: _Id_.,
+pp. 669, 685. On January 21 I called attention to the anomaly of
+bounding the department by the Kanawha River on the south, and
+correction was at once made by General McClellan. _Id_., p. 706.]
+assigning the District of the Kanawha to my command, with
+headquarters at Charleston. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 670, 691.] This
+gave me substantially the same territorial jurisdiction I had in the
+summer, but with a larger body of troops.
+
+Before we left Gauley Bridge, however, I received orders direct from
+army headquarters at Washington to take my three oldest Ohio
+regiments and report to General Buell in Kentucky. This was exactly
+in accordance with my own strong desire to join a large army on one
+of the principal lines of operation. I therefore went joyfully to
+Rosecrans, supposing, of course, that he also had received orders to
+send me away. To my intense chagrin I found that he not only was
+without such orders, but that he was, naturally enough, disposed to
+take umbrage at the sending of orders direct to me. He protested
+against the irregularity, and insisted that if his forces were to be
+reduced, he should himself indicate those which were to go. He
+carried his point on the matter, and was directed to send eight
+regiments to Buell. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 671.] He
+insisted that I should stay, and whilst the reasons he gave were
+sufficiently complimentary, it was none the less a great
+disappointment to have to abandon the hope of service in a more
+important field. [Footnote: _Id._ pp. 259, 657.] There was nothing
+to be done but to summon philosophy to my aid, and to hope that all
+would turn out for the best. Before Rosecrans left Gauley Bridge
+four more regiments were added to the eight already ordered away,
+together with four batteries of artillery. Some new regiments had
+joined us, and the aggregate of troops remaining was perhaps not
+much below the number present when Rosecrans reached Carnifex Ferry
+in September; but most of them were freshly organized regiments,
+with whom the work of drill and discipline had to begin at first
+lessons. Three of the batteries taken away were regulars, and the
+other was Loomis's Michigan battery, one of the oldest and best
+instructed of our volunteer batteries. The places of these were not
+supplied. The good policy of these reductions is not to be
+questioned; for it was agreed that nothing aggressive could be done
+in the mountains during the winter, and it was wise to use part of
+the forces elsewhere.--Yet for those of us who had hoped to go with
+the troops, and now found ourselves condemned to the apparently
+insignificant duty of garrisoning West Virginia, the effect was, for
+the time, a very depressing one.
+
+General Schenck had left us on account of sickness, and did not
+return. His brigade was again commanded by Colonel Scammon, as it
+had been at Carnifex Ferry, and was stationed at Fayette C. H. One
+regiment was at Tompkins farm, another at Gauley Bridge, two others
+at intervals between that post and Charleston, where were three
+regiments out of what had been my own brigade. Three partially
+organized West Virginia regiments of infantry and one of cavalry
+were placed at recruiting stations in the rear, and one Ohio
+regiment was posted at Barboursville. The chain of posts which had
+been established in the summer between Weston and Cross Lanes was
+not kept up; but the Thirty-sixth Ohio, Colonel George Crook, was
+stationed at Cross Lanes, reporting to me, as did all the other
+troops enumerated above.
+
+The Cheat Mountain district continued in command of General Milroy,
+his principal posts being at Beverly and Huttonsville, with small
+garrisons holding the mountain passes. General Kelley remained also
+in command of the railroad district covering the communication with
+Washington by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. General J. J.
+Reynolds was assigned to command a new division organizing at
+Romney, but was soon transferred to another department.
+
+Such was the general organization of the department for the winter,
+and we soon settled down to regular work in fitting the troops for
+the next campaign. Courtsmartial were organized to try offenders of
+all grades, and under charges of conduct prejudicial to good order
+and military discipline, worthless officers were driven from the
+service and negligent ones disciplined. Regimental schools were
+opened, and strenuous efforts were made to increase the military
+knowledge and skill of the whole command. Careful drill was
+enforced, and picket and outpost duty systematically taught. Each
+post became a busy camp of instruction, and the regiments repeated
+under more favorable circumstances the work of the original camp in
+Ohio.
+
+The work of the military courts gave me one very unpleasant duty to
+perform, which, happily, was of rare occurrence and never again fell
+to my lot except on a single occasion in North Carolina near the
+close of the war. A soldier of the First Kentucky Volunteers was
+condemned to death for desertion, mutiny, and a murderous assault
+upon another soldier. The circumstances were a little peculiar, and
+gave rise to fears that his regiment might resist the execution. I
+have already mentioned the affair of Captain Gibbs [Footnote:
+Appointed Captain and Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, U. S.
+Vols., October 1.] who had shot down a mutinous man of the Second
+Kentucky at Gauley Bridge in the summer, and who had been acquitted
+by a court-martial. The camp is very like a city in which popular
+impressions and rumors have quick circulation and large influence.
+The two Kentucky regiments were so closely related as to be almost
+one, and were subject to the same influences. A bitter feeling
+toward Captain Gibbs prevailed in them both, and camp demagogues
+busied themselves in trying to make mischief by commenting on the
+fact that the officer was acquitted whilst the private was
+condemned. There was not a particle of justice in this, for the one
+had simply suppressed a mutiny, whereas the other was inciting one.
+But it is not necessary for complaints to be just among those who
+are very imperfectly informed in regard to the facts, and very
+unpleasant reports were received as to the condition of things in
+the regiment to which the condemned man belonged.
+
+It is the military custom, in executions by shooting, to select the
+firing party from the regiment to which the condemned man belongs.
+To have changed the rule would have looked like timidity, and I
+determined that it must not be done, but resolved upon an order of
+procedure which would provide, as far as possible, against the
+chances of interference. On such occasions the troops are usually
+paraded upon three sides of a hollow square, without arms, the place
+of execution being in the middle of the open side, where the
+prisoner kneels upon his coffin. The place chosen was in the meadows
+on the lower side of the Elk River, opposite Charleston, a short
+distance from the regimental camp. The camps of two other regiments
+at the post were half a mile from the place of execution. These
+regiments were, therefore, marched to the field with their arms.
+That to which the prisoner belonged was marched without arms to its
+position as the centre of the parade, and the others were formed on
+their right and left at right angles, thus forming the three sides
+of the enclosure. The arms of these last regiments were stacked
+immediately behind them where they could be seized in a moment, but
+the parade was formed without muskets. Captain Gibbs was on duty as
+commissary at my headquarters, and his appearance with the staff
+would have been unpleasant to himself as well as a possible cause of
+excitement in the Kentucky regiment. To solve the difficulty without
+making a significant exception, I ordered only the personal staff
+and the adjutant-general with the chief surgeon to accompany me,
+leaving out the administrative officers of both quartermaster's and
+commissary's departments.
+
+When the parade was formed, I took my place with my staff at the
+right of the line, and, as upon a review, rode slowly down the whole
+line, on the inside of the square. In going along the front of the
+First Kentucky, I took especial pains to meet the eyes of the men as
+they were turned to me in passing, desirous of impressing them with
+my own feeling that it was a solemn but inevitable duty. Immediately
+after we returned to our places, the music of the dead-march was
+heard, and an ambulance was seen approaching from the camp, escorted
+by the provost-marshal and the execution party with the music. The
+solemn strains, the slow funereal step of the soldiers, the closed
+ambulance, the statue-like stillness of the paraded troops made an
+impression deeper and more awful than a battle scene, because the
+excitement was hushed and repressed. The ambulance stopped, the man
+was helped out at the back, and led by the provost-marshal to his
+place upon the coffin, where he was blindfolded. The firing party
+silently took its place. The muskets were cocked and aimed, while
+the noise of the retiring ambulance covered the sound. The
+provost-marshal, with a merciful deception, told the prisoner he
+must wait a moment and he would return to him before the final
+order, but stepping quickly out of the range of the muskets, he gave
+the signal with his handkerchief, and the man fell dead at the
+volley, which sounded like a single discharge. The detail of
+soldiers for the firing had been carefully instructed that
+steadiness and accuracy made the most merciful way of doing their
+unwelcome duty. The surgeon made his official inspection of the
+body, which was placed in the coffin and removed in the ambulance.
+The drums and fifes broke the spell with quick marching music, the
+regiments took their arms, sharp words of command rattled along the
+lines, which broke by platoons into column and moved rapidly off the
+field.
+
+I confess it was a relief to have the painful task ended, and
+especially to have it ended in the most perfect order and
+discipline. The moral effect was very great, for our men were so
+intelligent that they fully appreciated the judicial character of
+the act, and the imposing solemnity of the parade and execution made
+the impression all the more profound. As it was accompanied and
+followed by a searching test of the capacity and character of their
+officers, of which they daily saw the effects in the retirement of
+some from the service and in the increased industry and studious
+devotion to duty of all, it gave a new tone to the whole command. I
+spared no effort to make the feeling pervade every regiment and
+company, that the cause of the country, their own success and honor,
+and even their own personal safety depended upon their entering the
+next campaign with such improved discipline and instruction as
+should make them always superior to an equal number of the enemy.
+Leaves of absence and furloughs were limited as closely as possible,
+and I set the example of remaining without interruption on duty,
+though there were many reasons why a visit home was very desirable.
+My wife made me a visit at Charleston in mid-winter, and this
+naturally brought me into more frequent social relations to the
+people, and led me to observe more closely their attitude to the
+government and its cause.
+
+Before the secession of Virginia a very large majority of the
+inhabitants of the Kanawha valley were Unionists; but the attachment
+to the state organization had become so exaggerated in all
+slave-holding communities, that most of the well-to-do people
+yielded to the plea that they must "go with their State." The same
+state pride led this class of people to oppose the division of
+Virginia and the forming of the new State on the west of the
+mountains. The better class of society in Charleston, therefore, as
+in other towns, was found to be disloyal, and in sympathy with the
+rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate
+army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to
+their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to
+avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and
+the men who had a stake in the country generally professed
+acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and
+a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The
+necessity of strict watch upon the communications sent through the
+lines brought to my notice a great deal of family history full of
+suffering and anxiety, and showed that that was indeed a fearful
+situation for a family when its young men were not only separated
+from them by military service in the field, but could only be heard
+from by the infrequent chances of communication under flags of
+truce, and with all the restrictions and reserves necessary to the
+method. The rule I adopted in dealing personally with non-combatants
+of either sex was to avoid all controversy or discussion, to state
+with perfect frankness but courteously my own attitude and sense of
+duty, and to apply all such stringent rules as a state of war
+compels with an evenness of temper and tone of dispassionate
+government which should make as little chafing as possible. Most
+intelligent people, when they are not excited, are disposed to
+recognize the obligations imposed upon a military officer in such
+circumstances, and it was rarely the case that any unpleasant
+collisions occurred.
+
+The following incident will illustrate some of the embarrassments
+likely to occur. When I reached Charleston in July previous, I was
+visited by the wife of a gentleman named Parks, who told me that her
+husband had left the valley with General Wise, but not in any
+military capacity, being fearful that he might suffer arrest at our
+hands on account of his sympathy with the Confederates. I told her,
+what I had told to a formal deputation of citizens, that I did not
+propose to meddle with non-combatants if they in good faith remained
+at home, minding their own business, and carefully abstaining from
+giving aid or information to the enemy. I had, on general
+principles, a dislike for test oaths, and preferred to make conduct
+the test, and to base my treatment of people on that, rather than on
+oaths which the most unscrupulous would be first to take. Had her
+husband known this, she said, he would not have left home, and
+begged that she might be allowed to send an open letter through the
+lines to him to bring him back. I allowed her to do so at the first
+proper opportunity, and Mr. Parks at once returned. In the latter
+part of September, however, Governor Peirpoint of West Virginia
+thought it necessary to arrest some prominent citizens, known as
+Secessionists, and hold them as hostages for Union men that the
+Confederate troops had seized and sent to Richmond. It happened that
+Mr. Parks was arrested as one of these hostages, without any
+knowledge on the part of the civil authorities of the circumstances
+under which he had returned home. I was ignorant of his arrest till
+I received a letter from the lady, complaining bitterly of what
+seemed to her a breach of faith. I was at Sewell Mountain at the
+time, but lost no time in writing her a careful explanation of the
+complete disconnection between his arrest by the civil authorities
+as a hostage, and a promise of non-interference with him on my part
+as an officer of the United States army. I also showed her that the
+arrest of non-combatant Union men by the Confederate forces was the
+real cause of her husband's unpleasant predicament. In view of the
+circumstances, however, I thought it right to request the Governor
+to substitute some other hostage for Mr. Parks, so that there might
+not be the least question whether the letter or the spirit of my
+military safeguard had been broken, and the result was that the
+gentleman was very soon at home again.
+
+The most prominent citizen of the valley was the Hon. George
+Summers, who had represented it in the Congress of the United
+States, and had opposed secession in the Virginia Convention with a
+vigor that had brought him into personal peril. When, however,
+secession was an accomplished fact, his ideas of allegiance to his
+State so far influenced him that he was unwilling to take active
+part in public affairs, and sought absolute retirement at his
+pleasant home a little below Charleston on the Kanawha. His house
+was on a hill overlooking the beautiful valley, broad enough at this
+point to give room for ample fields in the rich bottom lands. I had
+called upon him, as I passed with my troops when I went up the
+valley. He was a dignified and able man, just past middle life, but
+in full physical and mental force, and capable of exerting a very
+great influence if he could have thrown himself heartily into public
+activity. But he was utterly saddened and depressed by the outbreak
+of civil war, and deliberately chose the part of suffering in
+seclusion whatever it might bring, unable to rouse himself to a
+combative part. As a slave-holder, he was bitter against the
+anti-slavery movement, and as a Unionist he condemned the
+Secessionists. He was very glad to have the Kanawha valley in the
+possession of the National troops, now that Wise had made the effort
+to occupy it for the Confederacy; though he had tried to procure the
+adoption of a policy which should leave it neutral ground,--a policy
+as impossible here as in Kentucky. The result was that he was
+distrusted by both sides, for in civil war each acts upon the maxim
+that "he that is not for us is against us." I renewed my
+acquaintance with him in the winter, making his house the limit of
+an occasional ride for exercise. I appreciated his feelings, and
+respected his desire to set an example of obedient private
+citizenship with renunciation of all other or more active influence.
+
+There were other men of social prominence who had less hesitation in
+throwing themselves actively upon the National side. Mr. Patrick was
+an elderly man, of considerable wealth, whose home was a very
+similar one to Mr. Summers', a little nearer to Charleston upon the
+same road. His wife was of old Virginia stock, a relative of Chief
+Justice Marshall, and a pronounced Southern woman, though too good a
+wife to make her sympathies give annoyance to her husband or his
+guests. Lewis Ruffner was also a prominent Union man, and among the
+leaders of the movement to make West Virginia a separate State. Mr.
+Doddridge, long the cashier and manager of the Bank at Charleston,
+whose family was an old and well-known one, was an outspoken
+Unionist, and in the next year, when the war put an end for the time
+to banking in the valley, he became a paymaster in the National
+army. Colonel Benjamin F. Smith was a noteworthy character also. He
+was a leading lawyer, a man of vigorous and aggressive character,
+and of tough fibre both physically and mentally. He shared the wish
+of Summers to keep West Virginia out of the conflict if possible,
+but when we had driven Wise out of the valley, he took a pronounced
+position in favor of the new state movement. A little afterward he
+was appointed District Attorney for the United States. Although the
+loyal people had such competent leaders, the majority of the men of
+wealth and of the families recognized as socially eminent were
+avowed Secessionists. They were a small minority of the whole
+people, but in all slave-holding communities social rank is so
+powerful that their influence was out of proportion to their
+numbers. Even the leaders of the Unionists found their own "house
+divided against itself," for scarce one of them but had a son in
+Wise's legion, and the Twenty-second Virginia Regiment was largely
+composed of the young men of Charleston and the vicinity. I have
+already referred to the journal of Major Smith which fell into my
+hands as "captured rebel mail," and its pages are full of pathetic
+evidence of the conflicting emotions which such a situation excited.
+He was the son of B. F. Smith, whom I have just mentioned, and
+whilst in Floyd's camp in front of us at Sewell Mountain he wrote:
+"My source of constant trouble is that my father will be in danger.
+Wicked and unscrupulous men, with whom he has lived in friendship
+for years, absolutely thirst for his blood, as I truly believe. He
+and Summers, as one of their friends remarked to me to-day, are
+especial objects of hatred and aversion to men here. I am actually
+leading a set of men one of whose avowed objects is the arrest and
+the judicial or lynch murder of my father!" In the next month he
+heard "the startling news" that his father had fully identified
+himself with the new state movement, and writes: "Those with whom I
+was connected, call and curse him as a traitor,--and he knew it
+would be so! Why my dear father has chosen to place me in this
+terrible situation is beyond my comprehension. I have been shocked
+beyond description in contemplating the awful consequences to the
+peace, safety, and happiness of both of us!" The family distress and
+grief revealed by accident in this case is only an example of what
+was common in all the families of prominent Union men. In some
+cases, as in that of Major Smith, the young men resigned their
+commissions and made their way home, finding the mental and moral
+strain too great to bear; but in many more, pride and the influence
+of comrades kept them in the Confederate service with the enlisted
+men who could not resign, and with hearts sorely torn by conflicting
+duties, they fought it out to the end.
+
+The slavery question was the vexed one which troubled the relations
+of the army and the people in all the border States. My own position
+was that of the party which had elected Mr. Lincoln. We disclaimed
+any purpose of meddling with the institution in the States which
+remained loyal to the Union, whilst we held it to be within the war
+powers of the government to abolish it in the rebellious States. We
+also took satisfaction in enforcing the law which freed the
+"contrabands" who were employed by their masters in any service
+within the Confederate armies. These principles were generally
+understood and acquiesced in by the West Virginians; but it was
+impossible to come to any agreement in regard to fugitive slaves who
+took refuge in our camps. The soldiers and many of the officers
+would encourage the negroes to assert their freedom, and would
+resist attempts to recapture them. The owners, if Union men, would
+insist that the fugitives should be apprehended and restored to them
+by military authority. This was simply impossible, for the public
+sentiment of the army as a whole was so completely with the slaves
+that any such order would have been evaded and made a farcical dead
+letter. The commanders who made such orders uniformly suffered from
+doing it; for the temper of the volunteer army was such that the
+orders were looked upon as evidence of sympathy with the rebellion,
+and destroyed the usefulness of the general by creating an incurable
+distrust of him among his own men. Yet nearly all the department
+commanders felt obliged at first, by what they regarded as the
+letter of the law, to order that fugitive slaves claimed by loyal
+citizens should be arrested, if within the camps, and delivered up.
+
+Within the district of the Kanawha I tried to avoid the difficulty
+by stringent orders that slaves should be kept out of the camps; but
+I declined to order the troops to arrest and return them. I had two
+little controversies on the subject, and in both of them I had to
+come in collision with Colonel Benjamin Smith. After they were over
+we became good friends, but the facts are too important an
+illustration of the war-time and its troubles to be omitted.
+
+The first raised the question of "contraband." A negro man was
+brought into my camp by my advance-guard as we were following Floyd
+to Sewell Mountain in September. He was the body-servant of Major
+Smith, and had deserted the major, with the intention of getting
+back to his family at Charleston. In our camp he soon learned that
+he was free, under the Act of Congress, and he remained with us, the
+servants about headquarters giving him food. When I returned to
+Gauley Bridge, Mr. Smith appeared and demanded the return of the man
+to him, claiming him as his slave. He, however, admitted that he had
+been servant to Major Smith in the rebel army with his consent. The
+man refused to go with him, and I refused to use compulsion,
+informing Mr. Smith that the Act of Congress made him free. The
+claimant then went to General Rosecrans, and I was surprised by the
+receipt, shortly after, of a note from headquarters directing the
+giving up of the man. [Footnote: Letter of Major Darr, acting A. A.
+G., November 18.] On my stating the facts the matter was dropped,
+and I heard no more of it for a month, the man meanwhile
+disappearing. Soon after my headquarters were moved to Charleston,
+in December, I received another note from headquarters, again
+directing the delivery of the fugitive. [Footnote: Letter of Captain
+Hartsuff, A. A. G., December 13.] Again I gave a temperate and clear
+statement of the facts, adding that I had reason to believe the man
+had now taken advantage of his liberty to go to Ohio. Mr. Smith's
+case thus ended, but it left him with a good deal of irritation at
+what he thought a wrong done to him as well as insubordination on my
+part.
+
+In March following, another case arose, and I received a paper from
+headquarters containing an alleged statement of the facts, and
+referred to me in usual course for report. I had been absent from
+Charleston when the incidents occurred, but made careful inquiry
+satisfying myself of the truth, and perhaps cannot give an
+intelligent explanation better than by quoting the report itself,
+for its tone shows the sort of annoyance I felt, and it exhibits
+some of the conditions of an army command involving administrative
+duties that were far from pleasant.
+
+I said: "The document is in the handwriting of B. F. Smith, Esq., U.
+S. District Attorney, residing here, though signed only by John
+Slack, Jr., and William Kelly; the former an acting deputy U. S.
+marshal, the latter the jailer at the county jail. Its composition
+is so peculiar that it is difficult to tell what part of the
+statement is Slack's or Kelly's and what is Colonel Smith's, and
+therefore I do not know whom to hold responsible for the
+misstatements contained in it.
+
+"Mr. Slack is a respectable young man, who I believe would do his
+duty as far as he understands it, but who has not energy enough to
+keep him from being the tool of others. Mr. Kelly, the jailer, is
+sufficiently described when I state the fact that he has attempted
+to add to his profits as turnkey by selling bad whisky to soldiers
+put in his calaboose, at the rate of five dollars per pint bottle.
+Mr. Smith, the District Attorney, has lost no opportunity of being
+annoying to the military officers here, since the controversy about
+the negro man captured from his son, Major Isaac Smith of the rebel
+army. This reference to the parties concerned is necessary to enable
+the commanding general to understand the _animus_ of their
+complaints.
+
+"The facts are substantially as follows: Henry H. Hopkins is a
+notorious Secessionist living near Coal River, and a man of
+considerable property. Some time before his arrest he sent the negro
+man mentioned in the complaint _South_, in charge of some Logan
+County 'bushwhackers.' On his way and in McDowell County the man
+managed to escape and returned into Hopkins's neighborhood, near
+Boone C. H., where he took his wife and three children alleged to
+have been the property of a woman named Smoot, and brought them to
+this post. Upon his representation that he had escaped from armed
+rebels in McDowell County, and without further knowledge of the
+facts, the Post Quartermaster set him at work. About the 19th of
+February Hopkins came to town with Mrs. Smoot, and without notice to
+the quartermaster or any color of authority by any civil process,
+procured the aid of Kelly, the jailer, seized the negro and took him
+to Wright's hotel. The provost-marshal, knowing that Hopkins was an
+active Secessionist and that he had been personally engaged in the
+combat at Boone C. H. last fall, ordered his arrest. Shortly after,
+he was waited upon by B. F. Smith, Esq., U. S. District Attorney,
+who stated that he had known Mr. Hopkins for a good many years and
+was confident he was a good Union man, although in fact the
+deputy-marshal at the very time held a warrant for the arrest of
+Hopkins for treason and conspiracy, under an indictment found in the
+U. S. Court, of which, to say the least of it, it is very strange
+Mr. Smith should have been ignorant. At the request of the
+provost-marshal, the warrant was served on Hopkins, who was admitted
+to bail in the sum of $2000, which is most inadequate security for
+the appearance of a man of Hopkins's wealth and influence, accused
+of such a crime. After the arrest of Hopkins, the negro being left
+to himself returned to his quarters, but sometime during the night
+stole a skiff and attempted to escape with his family down the
+Kanawha River. The circumstances of his accident in the river, the
+drowning of his family and his subsequent capture, I have not been
+able to investigate fully.
+
+"The only matter of controversy now is in regard to the horse. The
+bar-keeper at the tavern denies that he has said it was taken by
+Wagon-master West (a man who has since been discharged by the Post
+Quartermaster), and I have been unable to trace it, although every
+effort has been made in perfect good faith to do so. The man West
+was put under arrest, to see if that would make him admit anything
+with regard to it, but without effect. I advised Slack to procure
+some one who knew the horse to pass through the government stables
+and teams, and if he recognized the animal to let me know at once,
+and I would give an order to him to obtain it. The statement that
+'Slack says he told Cox he could not find him, that a soldier or
+employee in his command got him, and if proper measures were taken
+he could be had,' is both impudent and false, and I respectfully
+submit that it is not, in matter or manner, such a complaint as the
+Commanding General should call upon me to reply to.
+
+"The statement of these civil officials at once gives me the
+opportunity and makes it my duty to state to the Commanding General
+that the only occasions on which these gentlemen show any vitality,
+is when some Secessionist's runaway negroes are to be caught. For
+any purpose of ordinary municipal magistracy they seem utterly
+incompetent. I have urged the organization of the county and of the
+town, but to no effect. Every street that is mended, every bridge
+that is repaired, or wharf that is put in order, must be done by the
+army at the expense of the U. S. government. They will not elect
+officers to look after the poor, but leave us to feed the starving
+near our camps. They will establish no police, and by force of
+public opinion keep suitors out of the courts ordered to be held by
+Governor Peirpoint. Yet a U. S. Commissioner, without any warrant or
+even pretended jurisdiction, will stop any vagrant negro, drive him
+through the streets in person, and say that he does it as a U. S.
+officer! Of course we simply look on and have had no controversy
+with them, unless driven to it by direct efforts on their part to
+interfere with our necessary regulations.
+
+"The simple fact is that a few men of property who are avowed
+Secessionists control the town and make its public sentiment. By
+this means they practically control these officers also. Many of the
+negroes employed at the salt-works, and under hire in other
+capacities in the vicinity, are the slaves of rebels who are either
+in the rebel army or fled with it from the valley. The great problem
+upon which the Secessionists remaining here are exercising their
+ingenuity is to find the means of using the U. S. Commissioner and
+Marshal to secure to them the services of these persons without cost
+or legitimate contract of hiring, for the present profit of these
+gentlemen here, and the future advantage of their compatriots across
+the lines.
+
+"Colonel Smith and Mr. Slack say that they made the statement at the
+express request of Major Darr of the Commanding General's staff. A
+simple inquiry by the Major would have saved me the necessity of
+writing this long letter."
+
+It is due to General Rosecrans to say that although he had been
+anything but an anti-slavery man before the war, he made no pressure
+upon me to violate my own sense of right in these or similar cases,
+and they ended with my reports of the facts and of my reasons for
+the course I pursued. The side lights thrown upon the situation by
+the letter last quoted will be more instructive than any analysis I
+could now give, and the spice of flavor which my evident annoyance
+gave it only helps to revive more perfectly the local color of the
+time. In the case of Mr. Smith's "negro boy Mike," I had the
+satisfaction of finding in the intercepted correspondence of his son
+the major, the express recognition of the man's right to liberty by
+reason of his use in the enemy's service, and could not deny myself
+the pleasure of calling attention to it in my letters to
+headquarters.
+
+My experience during the winter begot in me a rooted dislike for the
+military administration of the border districts, and strengthened my
+wish to be in the most active work at the front, where the problems
+were the strictly military ones of attack and defence in the
+presence of the armed enemy. [Footnote: I did not lack evidence that
+a steady rule, based on principles frankly avowed and easily
+understood, was rapidly bringing the people to be content to be in
+the Union, even those most inclined to secession. This result I am
+gratified to find attested by General Lee and General Floyd, who in
+dispatches very lately printed confessed the effect my
+administration had in quieting the valley during the first months of
+my occupation. Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 220, 225.] Not
+that the winter was without compensating pleasures, for we were
+recipients of much social attention of a very kindly and agreeable
+sort, and carried away cherished memories of refined family circles
+in which the collision of opinions and the chafing of official
+relations were forgotten in hearty efforts to please. With the
+unconditionally loyal people our sympathies were very deep, for we
+found them greatly torn and disturbed in the conflict of duties and
+divided affections, where scarce a single household stood as a unit
+in devotion to the cause, and where the triumph of either side must
+necessarily bring affliction to some of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS
+
+
+High quality of first volunteers--Discipline milder than that of the
+regulars--Reasons for the difference--Practical efficiency of the
+men--Necessity for sifting the officers--Analysis of their
+defects--What is military aptitude?--Diminution of number in
+ascending scale--Effect of age--Of former life and
+occupation--Embarrassments of a new business--Quick progress of the
+right class of young men--Political appointments--Professional
+men--Political leaders naturally prominent in a civil war--"Cutting
+and trying"--Dishonest methods--An excellent army at the end of a
+year--The regulars in 1861--Entrance examinations for West
+Point--The curriculum there--Drill and experience--Its
+limitations--Problems peculiar to the vast increase of the
+army--Ultra-conservatism--Attitude toward the Lincoln
+administration--"Point de zele"--Lack of initiative--Civil work of
+army engineers--What is military art?--Opinions of experts--Military
+history--European armies in the Crimean War--True
+generalship--Anomaly of a double army organization.
+
+
+The work of sifting the material for an army which went on through
+the winter of 1861-62, naturally suggests an analysis of the classes
+of men who composed both parts of the military force of the
+nation,--the volunteers and the regulars. I need add nothing to what
+I have already said of the unexampled excellence of the rank and
+file in the regiments raised by the first volunteering. Later in the
+war, when "bounty jumping" and substitution for conscripts came into
+play, the character of the material, especially that recruited in
+the great cities and seaports, was much lower. I think, however,
+that the volunteers were always better men, man for man, than the
+average of those recruited for the regular army. The rigidity of
+discipline did not differ so much between good volunteer regiments
+and regulars, as the mode of enforcing it. There were plenty of
+volunteer regiments that could not be excelled in drill, in the
+performance of camp duty, or in the finish and exactness of all the
+forms of parades and of routine. But it was generally brought about
+by much milder methods of discipline. A captain of volunteers was
+usually followed by his neighbors and relatives. The patriotic zeal
+of the men of the company as well as their self-respect made them
+easily amenable to military rule so far as it tended to fit them
+better to do the noble work they had volunteered for, and on which
+their hearts were as fully set as the hearts of their colonels or
+generals. In the regular army, officers and men belonged to
+different castes, and a practically impassable barrier was between
+them. Most of the men who had enlisted in the long years of domestic
+peace were, for one cause or another, outcasts, to whom life had
+been a failure and who followed the recruiting sergeant as a last
+desperate resource when every other door to a livelihood was shut.
+[Footnote: Since inducements to enlist have been increased by
+offering the chance to win a commission, I believe the quality of
+the rank and file of the regulars has been much improved, and as a
+natural consequence the officers have found it easy to enforce
+discipline by less arbitrary methods.] The war made some change in
+this, but the habits and methods of the officers had been formed
+before that time and under the old surroundings. The rule was
+arbitrary, despotic, often tyrannical, and it was notorious that the
+official bearing and the language used toward the regular soldiers
+was out of the question in a volunteer organization. Exceptions
+could be found in both parts of the service, but there could be no
+doubt as to the custom and the rule. To know how to command
+volunteers was explicitly recognized by our leading generals as a
+quality not found in many regular officers, and worth noting when
+found. A volunteer regiment might have a "free and easy" look to the
+eye of a regular drill sergeant, but in every essential for good
+conduct and ready manoeuvre on the field of battle, or for heroic
+efforts in the crisis of a desperate engagement, it could not be
+excelled if its officers had been reasonably competent and faithful.
+There was inevitable loss of time in the organization and
+instruction of a new army of volunteers; but after the first year in
+the field, in every quality which tends to give victory in battle to
+a popular cause, the volunteer regiment was, in my judgment,
+unquestionably superior. It is necessary to say this, because there
+has been a fashion of speaking of regular regiments or brigades in
+the civil war as though they were capable of accomplishing more in
+proportion to their numbers or on some occasion of peculiar peril
+than the volunteers. I did not find it so.
+
+The material in the line, then, was as good as could be; the
+weakness was in the officers, and it was here that the sifting was
+necessary. Most of these officers had themselves enlisted as
+privates, and their patriotic zeal was not to be questioned. They
+had been chosen to be lieutenants, captains, and even colonels by
+their men because of faith in their ability to lead, or to recognize
+their influence in raising the troops. Yet a considerable part of
+them proved incompetent to command. The disqualifications were
+various. Some lacked physical strength and stamina. Some had or
+quickly developed intemperate habits. Some lacked the education and
+intelligence needful for official responsibility. Some were too
+indolent to apply themselves to the work of disciplining themselves
+or their men. Fitness for command is a very general term, yet it
+implies a set of qualities which intelligent people easily
+understand and attach to the phrase. Self-command is proverbially
+one of the chief. Courage and presence of mind are indispensable.
+Ability to decide and firmness to stick to a decision are necessary.
+Intelligence enough to understand the duties demanded of him and to
+instruct his subordinates in theirs is another requisite. But beside
+all these, there is a constitution of body and mind for which we can
+find no better name than military aptitude. For lack of it many
+estimable, intelligent, and brave men failed as officers. Again, not
+every good captain made a good colonel, and not every good brigade
+commander was fit for a division or a larger command. There was a
+constantly widening test of capacity, and a rapid thinning of the
+numbers found fit for great responsibilities until the command of
+great armies was reached, when two or three names are all that we
+can enumerate as having been proven during the four years of our
+civil strife to be fully equal to the task.
+
+Besides the indications of unfitness for the subordinate commands
+which I have mentioned, another classification may be made. In an
+agricultural community (and the greater part of our population was
+and is agricultural), a middle-aged farmer who had been thrifty in
+business and had been a country magistrate or a representative in
+the legislature, would be the natural leader in his town or county,
+and if his patriotism prompted him to set the example of enlisting,
+he would probably be chosen to a company office, and perhaps to a
+field office in the regiment. Absolutely ignorant of tactics, he
+would find that his habits of mind and body were too fixed, and that
+he could not learn the new business into which he had plunged. He
+would be abashed at the very thought of standing before a company
+and shouting the word of command. The tactical lessons conned in his
+tent would vanish in a sort of stage-fright when he tried to
+practise them in public. Some would overcome the difficulty by
+perseverance, others would give it up in despair and resign, still
+others would hold on from pride or shame, until some pressure from
+above or below would force them to retire. Some men of this stamp
+had personal fighting qualities which kept them in the service in
+spite of their tactical ignorance, like brave old Wolford of
+Kentucky, of whom it used to be jocosely said, that the command by
+which he rallied his cavalry regiment was "Huddle on the Hill,
+boys!"
+
+A man wholly without business training would always be in
+embarrassment, though his other qualifications for military life
+were good. Even a company has a good deal of administrative business
+to do. Accounts are to be kept, rations, clothing, arms,
+accoutrements, and ammunition are to be receipted and accounted for.
+Returns of various kinds are to be made, applications for furlough,
+musters, rolls, and the like make a good deal of clerical work, and
+though most of it may fall on the first sergeant, the captain and
+commissioned officers must know how it should be done and when it is
+well done, or they are sure to get into trouble. It was a very rare
+thing for a man of middle age to make a good company officer. A good
+many who tried it at the beginning had to be eliminated from the
+service in one way or another. In a less degree the same was found
+to hold true of the regimental field officers. Some men retain
+flexibility of mind and body longer than others, and could more
+easily adapt themselves to new circumstances and a new occupation.
+Of course such would succeed best. But it is also true that in the
+larger and broader commands solidity of judgment and weight of
+character were more essential than in the company, and the
+experience of older men was a more valuable quality. Such reasons
+will account for the fact that youth seemed to be an almost
+essential requisite for a company officer, whilst it was not so in
+the same degree in the higher positions.
+
+It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which well-educated and
+earnest young men progressed as officers. They were alert in both
+mind and body. They quickly grasped the principles of their new
+profession, and with very little instruction made themselves masters
+of tactics and of administrative routine. Add to this, bravery of
+the highest type and a burning zeal in the cause they were fighting
+for, and a campaign or two made them the peers of any officers of
+their grade in our own or any other army.
+
+Another class which cannot be omitted and which is yet very hard to
+define accurately, is that of the "political appointments."
+
+Of the learned professions, the lawyers were of course most strongly
+represented among officers of the line. The medical men were so
+greatly needed in their own professional department that it was hard
+to find a sufficient number of suitable age and proper skill to
+supply the regiments with surgeons and the hospitals with a proper
+staff. The clergy were non-combatants by profession, and a few only
+were found in other than chaplain's duty. Civil engineers, railroad
+contractors, architects, and manufacturers were well represented and
+were valuable men. Scarce any single qualification was more useful
+in organizing the army than that of using and handling considerable
+bodies of men such as mechanics and railway employees.
+
+The profession of the law is in our country so closely allied to
+political activity that the lawyers who put on the uniform were most
+likely to be classed among political appointments. The term was
+first applied to men like Banks, Butler, Baker, Logan, and Blair,
+most of whom left seats in Congress to serve in the army. If they
+had not done so, it would have been easy for critics to say that the
+prominent politicians took care to keep their own bodies out of
+harm's way. Most of them won hard-earned and well-deserved fame as
+able soldiers before the war was over. In an armed struggle which
+grew out of a great political contest, it was inevitable that eager
+political partisans should be among the most active in the new
+volunteer organizations. They called meetings, addressed the people
+to rouse their enthusiasm, urged enlistments, and often set the
+example by enrolling their own names first. It must be kept
+constantly in mind that we had no militia organization that bore any
+appreciable proportion to the greatness of the country's need, and
+that at any rate the policy of relying upon volunteering at the
+beginning was adopted by the government. It was a foregone
+conclusion that popular leaders of all grades must largely officer
+the new troops. Such men might be national leaders or leaders of
+country neighborhoods; but big or little, they were the necessity of
+the time. It was the application of the old Yankee story, "If the
+Lord _will_ have a church in Paxton, he must take _sech as ther' be_
+for deacons."
+
+I have, in a former chapter, given my opinion that the government
+made a mistake in following General Scott's advice to keep its
+regular army intact and forbid its officers from joining volunteer
+regiments; but good or bad, that advice was followed at the
+beginning, and the only possible thing to do next was to let popular
+selection and natural leadership of any sort determine the company
+organizations. The governors of States generally followed a similar
+rule in the choice of field officers, and selected the general
+officers from those in the state militia, or from former officers of
+the army retired to civil life. In one sense, therefore, the whole
+organization of the volunteer force might be said to be political,
+though we heard more of "political generals" than we did of
+political captains or lieutenants. When the organization of the
+United States Volunteers took the place of the state contingents
+which formed the "three months' service," the appointments by the
+President were usually selections from those acting already under
+state appointment. The National Government was more conservative
+than the Confederacy in this respect. Our service was always full of
+colonels doing duty as brigadiers and brigadiers doing duty as
+major-generals, whilst the Southern army usually had a brigadier for
+every brigade and a major-general for every division, with
+lieutenant-generals and generals for the highest commands. If some
+rigid method had been adopted for mustering out all officers whom
+the government, after a fair trial, was unwilling to trust with the
+command appropriate to their grade, there would have been little to
+complain of; but an evil which grew very great was that men in high
+rank were kept upon the roster after it was proven that they were
+incompetent, and when no army commander would willingly receive them
+as his subordinates. Nominal commands at the rear or of a merely
+administrative kind were multiplied, and still many passed no small
+part of the war "waiting orders." As the total number of general
+officers was limited by law, it followed, of course, that promotion
+had to be withheld from many who had won it by service in the field.
+This evil, however, was not peculiar to the class of appointments
+from civil life. The faults in the first appointments were such as
+were almost necessarily connected with the sudden creation of a vast
+army. The failure to provide for a thorough test and sifting of the
+material was a governmental error. It was palliated by the necessity
+of conciliating influential men, and of avoiding antagonisms when
+the fate of the nation trembled in the balance; but this was a
+political motive, and the evil was probably endured in spite of its
+well-known tendency to weaken the military service.
+
+A few months' campaigning in the field got us rid of most of the
+"town-meeting style" of conducting military affairs in the army
+itself, though nothing could cure the practice on the part of
+unscrupulous men of seeking reputation with the general public by
+dishonest means. The newspapers were used to give fictitious credit
+to some and to injure others. If the regular correspondents of the
+press had been excluded from the camps, there would no doubt have
+been surreptitious correspondence which would have found its way
+into print through private and roundabout channels. But this again
+was not a vice peculiar to officers appointed from civil life. It
+should be always remembered that honorable conduct and devoted
+patriotism was the rule, and self-seeking vanity and ambition the
+exception; yet a few exceptions would be enough to disturb the
+comfort of a large command. To sum up, the only fair way to estimate
+the volunteer army is by its work and its fitness for work after the
+formative period was passed, and when the inevitable mistakes and
+the necessary faults of its first organization had been measurably
+cured. My settled judgment is that it took the field in the spring
+of 1862 as well fitted for its work as any army in the world, its
+superior excellences in the most essential points fully balancing
+the defects which were incident to its composition.
+
+This opinion is not the offspring of partiality toward the volunteer
+army on the part of one himself a volunteer. It was shared by the
+most active officers in the field who came from the regular service.
+In their testimony given in various ways during the war, in their
+Official Records, and in their practical conduct in the field which
+showed best of all where their reliance was placed, these officers
+showed their full faith in and admiration for the volunteer
+regiments. Such an opinion was called out by the Committee on the
+Conduct of the War in its examination of General Gibbon in regard to
+the Gettysburg campaign, and his judgment may fairly be taken as
+that of the better class of the regular officers. He declared of
+some of these regiments in his division, that they were as well
+disciplined as any men he ever wished to see; that their officers
+had shown practical military talent; that a young captain from civil
+life, whom he instanced, was worthy to be made a general. He named
+regiments of volunteers which he said were among the finest
+regiments that ever fought on any field, and in which every officer
+was appointed from civil life. [Footnote: Report of Committee on
+Conduct of the War, vol. iv. pp. 444-446.] He added the criticism
+which I have above made, that no proper method of getting rid of
+incompetent officers and of securing the promotion of the
+meritorious had been adopted; but this in no way diminishes the
+force of his testimony that every kind of military ability was
+abundantly found in our volunteer forces and needed only recognition
+and encouragement. It would be easy to multiply evidence on this
+subject. General Grant is a witness whose opinion alone may be
+treated as conclusive. In his Personal Memoirs [Footnote: Personal
+Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. i. p. 573.] he explicitly and
+unqualifiedly says that at the close of the Vicksburg campaign his
+troops fulfilled every requirement of an army, and his volunteer
+officers were equal to any duty, some of them being in his judgment
+competent to command an independent army in the field. Sherman fully
+shared this opinion. [Footnote: Letter to Halleck, Official Records,
+vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 413.]
+
+In trying to form a just estimate of the officers of the regular
+army in 1861, we have to consider not only their education, but the
+character of their military life and experience up to that time. It
+is, on the whole, a salutary popular notion that "professionals" in
+any department of work are more likely to succeed than amateurs. At
+the beginning of the Civil War our only professional soldiers were
+the officers of our little regular army, nearly all of whom were
+graduates of the West Point Military Academy. Since the Mexican War
+of 1848, petty conflicts with Indians on the frontier had been their
+only warlike experience. The army was hardly larger than a single
+division, and its posts along the front of the advancing wave of
+civilization from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the Canada border
+were so numerous that it was a rare thing to see more than two or
+three companies of soldiers together. To most of the officers their
+parade of the battalion of cadets at West Point was the largest
+military assemblage they had ever seen. Promotion had been so slow
+that the field officers were generally superannuated, and very few
+who had a rank higher than that of captain at the close of 1860 did
+any active field work on either side during the Civil War. The total
+number of captains and lieutenants of the line would hardly have
+furnished colonels for the volunteer regiments of the single State
+of New York as they were finally mustered into the National service
+during the war; and they would have fallen far short of it when
+their own numbers were divided by the rebellion itself.
+
+Our available professional soldiers, then, were captains and
+subalterns whose experience was confined to company duty at frontier
+posts hundreds of miles from civilization, except in the case of the
+engineers, the staff corps, and some of the artillery in sea-coast
+forts. With the same exceptions, the opportunities for enlarging
+their theoretic knowledge had been small. It was before the days of
+post libraries, and books of any sort were a rarity at the
+garrisons. In the first year of the war, I expressed to General
+Gordon Granger my surprise at finding how little most line officers
+had added to the theoretic reading they got at the academy. "What
+could you expect," he said in his sweeping way, "of men who have had
+to spend their lives at a two-company post, where there was nothing
+to do when off duty but play draw-poker and drink whiskey at the
+sutler's shop?" This was, of course, meant to be picturesquely
+extravagant, but it hit the nail on the head, after all. Some of the
+officers of the old regime did not conceal their contempt for books.
+It was a stock story in the army that when the Utah expedition was
+fitting out in 1856, General Henry Hunt, chief of artillery of the
+army of the Potomac, then a young artillery officer, applied to
+General Twiggs, from whose command part of the expedition was making
+up, for leave to take a little box of military books. "No, sir," was
+the peremptory response; "no room in the train for such nonsense."
+Hunt retired chop-fallen; but soon after another officer came in,
+with "General, our mess has a keg of very nice whiskey we don't want
+to lose; won't you direct the quartermaster to let it go in the
+wagons?" "Oh yes, sir. Oh yes, anything in reason!" If not true, the
+story is good enough to be true, as its currency attests; but
+whether true or no, the "fable teaches" that post-graduate study in
+the old army was done under difficulties.
+
+The course of study at West Point had narrower limitations than most
+people think, and it would be easy to be unfair by demanding too
+much of the graduates of that military college. The course of study
+was of four years, but the law forbade any entrance examinations on
+subjects outside of the usual work done in the rural common schools.
+The biographies of Grant, of Sherman, of Sheridan, of Ormsby
+Mitchell, and of others show that they in fact had little or no
+other preparatory education than that of the common country school.
+[Footnote: Grant, in his Personal Memoirs (vol. i. p. 24), says of
+the school in his early Ohio home, that the highest branches taught
+there were "the three R's,--Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. I
+never saw," he says, "an algebra or other mathematical work higher
+than the arithmetic, in Georgetown, until after I was appointed to
+West Point. I then bought a work on algebra in Cincinnati, but
+having no teacher it was Greek to me."] The course of study and
+amount of education given must necessarily be limited, therefore, to
+what boys of average ability and such preparation could accomplish
+in the four years. They were no further advanced, on entering, than
+they would have to be to enter any ordinary fitting school for one
+of our first-class colleges, or the high schools in the graded
+systems of public schools in our cities. Three years of study would
+put them abreast of students entering college elsewhere, and four
+years would carry them about as far as the end of the Freshman year
+in Yale, Harvard, or Princeton. The corps of professors and teachers
+at West Point has always deservedly ranked high as instructors, but
+there is no "royal road" to knowledge, and it cannot be claimed that
+three or four years at the Military Academy would count for more, as
+general education, than the same period spent in any other good
+school. A very few men of high standing in the classes supplemented
+their education by obtaining appointments as temporary instructors
+in the academy after graduating, but most of them left their books
+behind them and began at once the subaltern's life at the distant
+frontier post.
+
+If we analyze the course of study they pursued, we find that it
+covered two years' work in mathematics, one in physics and
+chemistry, and one in construction of fortifications. This was the
+scientific part, and was the heaviest part of the curriculum. Then,
+besides a little English, mental philosophy, moral philosophy, and
+elementary law, there were two years' study of the French and one of
+Spanish. This was the only linguistic study, and began with the
+simplest elements. At the close of the war there was no instruction
+in strategy or grand tactics, in military history, or in what is
+called the Art of War. The little book by Mahan on Out-post Duty was
+the only text-book in Theory, outside the engineering proper. At an
+earlier day they had used Jomini's introduction to his "Grandes
+Operations Militaires," and I am unable to say when its use was
+dropped. It is not my wish to criticise the course of study; on the
+other hand, I doubt if it could be much improved for boys who had
+only the preparation required by the law. But since we are trying to
+estimate its completeness as professional education fitting men to
+command armies in the field, it is absolutely necessary to note the
+fact that it did not pretend to include the military art in that
+sense. Its scientific side was in the line of engineering and that
+only. Its prize-men became engineers, and success at the academy was
+gauged by the student's approach to that coveted result.
+
+That the French which was learned was not enough to open easily to
+the young lieutenant the military literature which was then found
+most abundantly in that language, would seem to be indicated by the
+following incident. In my first campaign I was talking with a
+regular officer doing staff duty though belonging in the line, and
+the conversation turned on his West Point studies. The little work
+of Jomini's mentioned above being casually referred to as having
+been in his course, I asked him if he had continued his reading into
+the History of the Seven Years' War of Frederick the Great, to which
+it was the introduction. He said no, and added frankly that he had
+not read even the Introduction in the French, which he had found
+unpleasantly hard reading, but in the English translation published
+under the title of the Art of War. This officer was a thoroughly
+estimable, modest, and intelligent man, and seemed in no way
+inferior to other line officers of his age and grade. It would of
+course be true that some men would build industriously upon the
+foundation laid at the academy, and perfect themselves in those
+things of which they had only acquired the elements; but the
+surroundings of frontier life at a post were so unfavorable that I
+believe few in fact did so. The officers of the engineer corps and
+the ordnance were specifically devoted to scientific careers, and
+could go steadily forward to expertness in their specialties. Those
+who were permanently attached to the staff corps or to bureaus at
+Washington had also opportunity to enlarge their professional
+knowledge by study if they were so inclined. But all these were
+exceptionally situated, and do not help us answer the question What
+kind and amount of military education was implied in the fact that a
+man had graduated at West Point and been sent to serve in the line?
+I have purposely omitted for the present to consider the physical
+training and the practical instruction in tactics by means of drill,
+because the question is in terms one of science, not of practice;
+that will come later. The conclusion is that the intellectual
+education at the Military Academy was essentially the same, as far
+as it went, as that of any polytechnic school, the peculiarly
+military part of it being in the line of engineering. In actual
+warfare, the laying out and construction of regular forts or the
+conduct of a regular siege is committed to professional engineers.
+For field work with an army, therefore, the mental furnishing of the
+West Point man was not superior to that of any other liberally
+educated man. In some of our volunteer regiments we had whole
+companies of private soldiers who would not have shunned a
+competitive examination with West Point classes on the studies of
+the Military Academy, excepting the technical engineering of
+fortifications. [Footnote: It must not be forgotten that my
+criticisms are strictly confined to the condition of military
+education in our Civil War period. Since that time some excellent
+work has been done in post-graduate schools for the different arms
+of the service, and field manoeuvres have been practised on a scale
+never known in our army prior to 1861. A good beginning has also
+been made, both here and in England, toward giving the young soldier
+a military library of English books.]
+
+Let us look now at the physical and practical training of the cadet.
+The whole period of his student life at West Point had more or less
+of this. He was taken as a raw recruit would be, taught the school
+of the soldier in marching, in the manual of arms, and in personal
+carriage. He passed on to the drill of the squad, the platoon, the
+company. The tactics of the battalion came last, and the cadet might
+become a corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, or captain in the corps if
+he showed aptitude for drill and tactics. It is noticeable, however,
+that Grant and Sheridan remained privates during their whole
+cadetship, and Sherman, though once he became sergeant, was put back
+in the ranks. The fair conclusion is that this part of the cadet
+discipline is not very closely connected with generalship, though it
+is important as preparation for the ready handling of a company or a
+battalion. Sherman tells us, in his Memoirs, that he studied
+evolutions of the line out of the books, as a new subject, when he
+was in camp in front of Washington, after the first battle of Bull
+Run. [Footnote: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 220.] The tactical education of
+the cadet stopped at the evolutions of the battalion, and for nearly
+all of them it was, even in that respect, the education of the
+soldier in the ranks and not of the officer, since a very small
+proportion became officers in the cadet corps.
+
+This practical drill was, of course, the same as that which was used
+in organized militia regiments, and the famous Ellsworth Zouaves of
+Chicago, the New York Seventh Regiment, with a number of other
+militia regiments in different States, were sufficient proof that
+this training could be made as exact outside of the cadet corps as
+in it. It certainly was enough for the practical handling of the
+company and the regiment under the simplified tactics which not only
+prevailed during the war itself, but, with Upton's Manual as a
+basis, has been authoritatively adopted as an improvement upon the
+older and more complicated methods. It must not be forgotten that
+although our militia system had fallen into scandalous neglect, the
+voluntary efforts of citizen soldiers had kept many good independent
+companies organized everywhere, as well as full regiments in most of
+the older States; so that there were in fact more well-drilled
+regiments in the militia than there were in the little regular army.
+It was the small ratio all these, of both classes, bore to the
+demands of the gigantic war that was upon us, which made the problem
+so troublesome. The officers of the organized militia regiments,
+before the end of the three months' service, did what I have said it
+was desirable that those of the regular regiments should have
+done,--they scattered from their original commands and were active
+in organizing the new volunteer regiments. General De Trobriand, who
+went out as Colonel of the Fifty-fifth New York, says that the New
+York Seventh Regiment furnished three hundred officers to volunteer
+regiments. [Footnote: De Trobriand, Four Years with Potomac Army, p.
+64.] In a similar way, though not to the same extent, the other
+organized and disciplined militia, in both Eastern and Western
+States, furnished the skeletons of numerous new regiments.
+
+The really distinguishing feature in the experience of the regular
+officers of the line was their life in garrison at their posts, and
+their active work in guarding the frontier. Here they had become
+familiar with duty of the limited kind which such posts would
+afford. This in time became a second nature to them, and to the
+extent it reached, was, as other men's employments are, their
+business. They necessarily had to learn pretty thoroughly the army
+regulations, with the methods and forms of making returns and
+conducting business with the adjutant-general's office, with the
+ordnance office, the quartermaster's and subsistence departments,
+etc. In this ready knowledge of the army organization and its
+methods their advantage over the new volunteer officers was more
+marked, as it seemed to me, than in any and all other things. The
+routine of army business and the routine of drill had to be learned
+by every army officer. The regular officer of some years' standing
+already knew, as a matter of course, what a new volunteer officer
+must spend some time in learning. There is something of value also
+in the habit of mind formed in actual service, even if the service
+is in subaltern grades and on a petty scale. Familiarity with danger
+and with the expectation of danger is acquired, both by the Indian
+wars of the frontier and by the hunting and field sports which fill
+more or less of the leisure of garrison life.
+
+But there were some drawbacks upon the value of the preparation for
+war which these officers possessed. There was a marked conservatism
+as to military methods and arms, and an almost slavish reverence for
+things which were sanctioned by European authority, especially that
+of the second French Empire. American invention was never more
+fruitful than when applied to military weapons. Repeating and
+magazine small arms, breach-loading cannon, and Gatling guns with
+other repeating artillery, were brought out or improved with
+wonderful variety of form and of demonstrable excellence. The
+regular army influence was generally against such innovations. Not
+once, but frequently, regular army officers argued to me that the
+old smooth-bore musket with "buck and ball" cartridge was the best
+weapon our troops could desire. We went through the war with a
+muzzle-loading musket, the utmost that any commander could do being
+to secure repeating rifles for two or three infantry regiments in a
+whole army. Even to the end the "regular" chiefs of artillery
+insisted that the Napoleon gun, a light smooth-bore twelve-pounder
+cannon, was our best field-piece, and at a time when a great
+campaign had reduced our forces so that a reduction of artillery was
+advisable, I received an order to send to the rear my three-inch
+rifled ordnance guns and retain my Napoleons. The order was issued
+by a regular officer of much experience, but I procured its
+suspension in my own command by a direct appeal to the army
+commander. There was no more doubt then than there is to-day of the
+superiority of rifled guns, either for long-range practice with
+shells or in close work with canister. They were so much lighter
+that we could jump them across a rough country where the teams could
+hardly move a Napoleon. We could subdue our adversaries' fire with
+them, when their smooth-bores could not reach us. Yet we were
+ordered to throw away our advantages and reduce ourselves to our
+enemy's condition upon the obstinate prejudice of a worthy man who
+had had all flexibility drilled out of him by routine. Models of
+automatic rapid-fire and repeating field-pieces were familiar
+objects "at the rear," but I saw none of them in action in any army
+in which I served. The conservatism of the old army must be held
+responsible for this.
+
+The question of zeal and devotion to the cause for which we fought
+cannot be ignored in such a war as ours was. It is notorious that
+comparatively few of the regular officers were political friends of
+Mr. Lincoln's administration at the beginning. Of those who did not
+"go with the South" but remained true to the National flag, some
+were full of earnest patriotism, like the young officers whom I have
+mentioned as volunteering to assist the governors of States in
+organizing their contingents and as seeking places in volunteer
+regiments. There were others who meant to do their duty, but began
+with little hopefulness or zeal. There were still others who did not
+hesitate to predict defeat and to avow that it was only for
+professional honor or advancement that they continued to serve under
+the National flag. These last were confessedly soldiers of fortune.
+The war was an education for all who were in it, and many a man
+began with reluctance and half-heartedness who was abundantly
+radical before the conflict was over. There was, however, a
+considerable class who practised on Talleyrand's diplomatic motto,
+"point de zele," and limited their efforts to the strict requirement
+of duty. Such men would see disaster occur for lack of a little
+spontaneity on their part, and yet be able to show that they
+literally obeyed every order received. I was once ordered to support
+with my command a movement to be made by another. It was an
+important juncture in a campaign. Wondering at delay, I rode forward
+and found the general officer I was to support. I told him I was
+ordered to support him in doing what we both saw was needing to be
+done; but he had no explicit orders to begin the movement. I said
+that my orders to support him were sufficient to authorize his
+action, and it was plain that it would be unfortunate if the thing
+were not done at once. He answered cynically, "If you had been in
+the army as long as I have, you would be content to do the things
+that are ordered, without hunting up others." The English regulars,
+also, have a saying, "Volunteering brings bad luck."
+
+There was altogether too much of this spirit in the army, and one
+who can read between the lines will see it in the history of many a
+campaign. It did not necessarily mean wavering loyalty. It was
+sometimes the mental indecision or timidity which shrinks from
+responsibility. It was sometimes also the result of education in an
+army on the peace establishment, where any spontaneity was snubbed
+as an impertinence or tyrannically crushed as a breach of
+discipline. I would not be understood to make more of these things
+than is necessary to a just estimate of the situation, but it seems
+to me an entirely fair conclusion that with us in 1861 as with the
+first French republic, the infusion of the patriotic enthusiasm of a
+volunteer organization was a necessity, and that this fully made up
+for lack of instruction at the start. This hasty analysis of what
+the actual preparation for war was in the case of the average line
+officer of the regular army will show, to some extent, the basis of
+my judgment that there was nothing in it which a new volunteer
+officer, having what I have called military aptitude, should not
+learn in his first campaign.
+
+How far the officers of the engineers and of the staff corps applied
+themselves to general military study, would depend upon their taste
+and their leisure. Their opportunities for doing so were much better
+than those of line officers, but there was also a tendency to
+immerse themselves in the studies of their special department of
+work. Very eminent officers of engineers have told me since the war
+that the pressure of their special professional work was such that
+they had found no time to read even the more noteworthy publications
+concerning the history of our own great struggle. The surveys of the
+great lakes and the coast, the engineering problems of our great
+rivers, etc., have both formerly and in recent years absorbed their
+time and their strength. The ordnance and the staff corps, also, had
+abundant special duties. Still it may reasonably be assumed that
+officers of the classes mentioned have usually made themselves
+somewhat familiar with the best writings on military art. If we had
+in the country in 1861 a class of men who could be called educated
+soldiers in the scientific sense, we certainly should find them in
+the several corps just referred to.
+
+Here, however, we have to meet the question What is military art as
+applied to the problem of winning battles or campaigns? We are
+obliged to answer that outside of the business administration and
+supply of an army, and apart from the technical knowledge of
+engineering and the construction of fire-arms and ammunition, it
+consists in the tactical handling of bodies of men in accordance
+with very few and very simple principles of strategy. The literature
+of the subject is found in the history of wars analyzed by competent
+men like Napoleon, Jomini, the Archduke Charles, Sir William Napier,
+Clausewitz, Moltke, Hamley, and others; but it may be broadly said
+that the principles of this criticism and analysis may be so briefly
+stated as to be printed on the back of a visiting-card. [Footnote:
+Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, in his admirable "Letters on
+Strategy," states them in five brief primary axioms. Letters on
+Strategy, vol. i. pp. 9, 10.] To trace the campaigns of great
+soldiers under the guidance of such a critic as Jomini is full of
+interest to any intelligent person, and there is nothing in the
+subject of the slightest difficulty of comprehension if full and
+authentic topographical maps are before the reader. To make much
+instructive use of military history in this way demands a good deal
+of voluminous reading and the command of charts and maps extensive
+enough to allow the presentation of the face of a country on a large
+scale. With these advantages all wars, both ancient and modern, are
+full of instructive examples of the application of the simple
+principles of strategy under innumerable varying circumstances and
+situations; and this union of simple theory in ever-changing
+practical application is what constitutes the theoretic knowledge of
+the general as distinguished from the tactical and administrative
+duties of the subordinate. [Footnote: Jomini expresses it thus:
+"J'en couclus que l'histoire militaire raisonnee de plusieurs
+campagnes, seront la meilleure Ecole pour apprendre et par
+consequent pour enseigner la grande guerre: _la science des
+generaux._" Grandes Operations Militaires, vol. i. p. 7.] It was the
+very simplicity of the principles that made many successful generals
+question whether there was any art in the matter, except to use
+courage and natural sagacity in the actual situation in which the
+commander found himself and the enemy. Marshal Saxe asserted in his
+"Reveries" that down to his time there had been no formulation of
+principles, and that if any had been recognized as such in the minds
+of commanders of armies, they had not made it known. [Footnote:
+Jomini, in the work already cited, quotes Marshal Saxe thus: "Que
+toutes les sciences avaient des principes, mais que la guerre seule
+n'en avait point encore; si ces principes ont existe dans la tete de
+quelques generaux, nulle part ils n'ont ete indiques ou developpes."
+The same idea has been put quite as trenchantly by one of the most
+recent writers of the English Army, Colonel J. F. Maurice, R. A.
+Professor in the Farnborough Staff College. In the able article on
+"War" in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he says,
+"it must be emphatically asserted that there does not exist, and
+never except by pedants of whom the most careful students of war are
+more impatient than other soldiers, has there ever been supposed to
+exist, an 'art of war' which was something other than the methodic
+study of military history."]
+
+It was precisely in this department of military history "raisonnee"
+that frontier garrison life shut the young army officer out from the
+opportunities of profiting by his leisure. The valuable books were
+all foreign publications in costly form with folio atlases, and were
+neither easy to procure nor easily carried about with the limited
+means and the rigid economy of transportation which marked army life
+in the far West. That this was true even in the artillery is
+indicated by General Gibbon before the Committee on the Conduct of
+the War when questioned in reference to the relative amount of
+artillery used at Gettysburg as compared with great European
+battles; that distinguished officer having himself been in the
+artillery when the Civil War began. [Footnote: "Question. You have
+studied the history of battles a great deal: Now, in the battles of
+Napoleon, had they at any time half as many artillery engaged as
+there were at Gettysburg? Answer. I am not sufficiently conversant
+with military history to tell you that. I think it very doubtful
+whether more guns were ever used in any one battle before. I do not
+believe Napoleon ever had a worse artillery fire." Testimony of
+General John Gibbon, Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. iv. p.
+444. At Gettysburg the whole number of cannon employed was about two
+hundred. Compare this with Leipzig, for instance, the "battle of the
+giants," where _two thousand_ were employed! Thiers says, "de
+Leipzig a Schoenfeld au nord, de Schoenfeld a Probstheyda a l'est, de
+Probstheyda a Connewitz au sud, une cannonade de deux mille bouches
+a feu termina cette bataille dit des geants, et jusqu'ici la plus
+grande, certainement, de tous les siecles." Thiers, Consulat et
+l'Empire, vol. xvi. p. 607.]
+
+If then the officers of the regular army, as a body, were not in
+fact deeply read in what, as we have seen, Jomini calls "the science
+of generals," their advantage over equally well-educated civilians
+is reduced to a practical knowledge of the duties of the company and
+the petty post, and in comparison with the officers of well-drilled
+militia companies it amounted to little more than a better knowledge
+of the army regulations and the administrative processes. It is no
+reproach to them that this was so, for it resulted from the
+operation of law in the course of education at the Military Academy
+and the insignificant size of our army in times of peace. It had
+been the peculiar blessing of our country that a great standing army
+was unnecessary, and it would be foolish to regret that our little
+army could not have the experience with great bodies of troops and
+the advantages of theoretical instruction which are part of the life
+of officers in the immense establishments of Continental Europe. My
+only purpose is to make an approximately true balance sheet of the
+actual advantages of the two parts of our National army in 1861.
+Whilst on the subject, however, I will go a little further and say
+that prior to our Civil War, the history of European conflicts
+proves that there also the theoretic preparation of military men had
+not, up to that time, saved them from the necessity of learning both
+generalship and army administration in the terrible school of
+experience, during their first year in the field when a new war
+broke out after a long interval of peace.
+
+The first volume of Kinglake's "Crimean War" appeared in 1863, and I
+immediately and eagerly devoured it for the purpose of learning the
+lesson it could teach. It was one of the memorable sensations of a
+lifetime, to find that the regular armies of England, of France, and
+of Russia had had to learn their lesson anew when they faced each
+other on the shore of the Euxine, and that, whether in matters of
+transportation, of subsistence, of the hospital, of grand tactics,
+or of generalship, they had no advantage over our army of volunteers
+fresh from their peaceful pursuits. The photographic fidelity to
+detail on the part of the historian, and his apparent
+unconsciousness of the sweeping conclusions to be drawn from his
+pictures, made the lesson all the more telling. I drew a long breath
+of relief, and nothing which happened to me in the whole war so
+encouraged me to hopeful confidence in the outcome of it, as the
+evidence I saw that our blunders at the beginning had been no
+greater than those of old standing armies, and that our capacity to
+learn was at least as quick as theirs. Their experience, like ours,
+showed that the personal qualities of a commanding officer counted
+for much more than his theoretic equipment, and that a bold heart, a
+cool head, and practical common-sense were of much more importance
+than anything taught at school. With these, a brief experience would
+enable an intelligent man to fill nearly any subordinate position
+with fair success; without them any responsibility of a warlike kind
+would prove too heavy for him. The supreme qualification of a
+general-in-chief is the power to estimate truly and grasp clearly
+the situation on a field of operations too large to be seen by the
+physical eye at once, [Footnote: Wellington said the great task of
+his military life was "trying to make out what was behind the
+hill."] and the undaunted temper of will which enables him to
+execute with persistent vigor the plan which his intellect approves.
+To act upon uncertainties as if they were sure, and to do it in the
+midst of carnage and death when immeasurable results hang upon
+it,--this is the supreme presence of mind which marks a great
+commander, and which is among the rarest gifts even of men who are
+physically brave. The problem itself is usually simple. It is the
+confusing and overwhelming situation under which it must be solved
+that causes timidity or dismay. It is the thought of the fearful
+consequences of the action that begets a nervous state of hesitation
+and mental timidity in most men, and paralyzes the will. No
+education will ensure this greatest and most essential quality. It
+is born in a man, not communicated. With it his acquired knowledge
+will be doubly useful, but without it an illiterate slave-trader
+like Forrest may far outshine him as a soldier. Nor does success as
+a subordinate give any certain assurance of fitness for supreme
+command. Napoleon's marshals generally failed when trusted with an
+independent command, as Hooker did with us; and I do not doubt that
+many men, like McClellan, who failed as generals-in-chief, would
+have made brave and good subordinates. The test of quality is
+different in kind, and, as I have said, the only proof of its
+possession is in the actual trial. It is safe to say that a timid
+subordinate will not be a good commander, but it cannot be affirmed
+that a bold one will, though there are more chances in his favor.
+
+The education of peril is so powerful in bringing out the qualities
+that can master it, and for any one who has true military courage
+the acquirement of skill in the more mechanical part of his duty in
+war is so rapid, that my experience has led me to reckon low, in the
+comparison, the value of the knowledge a soldier gains in times of
+peace. I say "in the comparison." Tactics are essential to the
+handling of large bodies of men, and must be learned. But the
+zealous young soldier with aptitude for his work will learn this
+part of his duty so fast that a single campaign will find him
+abreast of any. At the beginning of a great war and in the
+organization of a great army, the knowledge of routine and of
+details undoubtedly saves time and saves cost both of treasure and
+of life. I am therefore far from arguing that the knowledge which
+was found in the regular army should not be made the most of. I have
+already said that it should have been scattered through the whole
+volunteer organization. So I also say that it was quite right to
+look for the higher qualities for command in those who had the
+technical information and skill. But I reckon patriotic zeal and
+devotion so high that I have no hesitation in adding, that our army
+as a whole would have been improved if the distinction between
+regular and volunteer had been abolished, and, after the first
+beginnings, a freer competition for even the highest commands had
+been open to all. To keep up the regular army organization was
+practically to say that a captaincy in it was equivalent to a
+brigade command in the volunteers, and to be a brigadier in it was a
+reward which regular officers looked forward to as a result of the
+successful conduct of a great campaign as general-in-chief of an
+army. The actual command in war was thus ridiculously belittled in
+the official scale in comparison with grades of a petty peace
+establishment, and the climax of absurdity was reached when, at the
+close of hostilities, men who had worthily commanded divisions and
+corps found themselves reduced to subordinate places in regiments,
+whilst others who had vegetated without important activity in the
+great struggle were outranking them by virtue of seniority in the
+little army which had existed before the Rebellion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT--SPRING CAMPAIGN
+
+
+Rosecrans's plan of campaign--Approved by McClellan with
+modification--Wagons or pack-mules--Final form of plan--Changes in
+commands--McClellan limited to Army of the Potomac--Halleck's
+Department of the Mississippi--Fremont's Mountain
+Department--Rosecrans superseded--Preparations in the Kanawha
+District--Batteaux to supplement steamboats--Light wagons for
+mountain work--Fremont's plan--East Tennessee as an objective--The
+supply question--Banks in the Shenandoah valley--Milroy's
+advance--Combat at McDowell--Banks defeated--Fremont's plans
+deranged--Operations in the Kanawha valley--Organization of
+brigades--Brigade commanders--Advance to Narrows of New River--The
+field telegraph--Concentration of the enemy--Affair at
+Princeton--Position at Flat-top Mountain.
+
+
+As the spring of 1862 approached, the discussion of plans for the
+opening of a new campaign was resumed. Rosecrans had suggested,
+early in February, that he would prefer to attempt reaching the
+Virginia and East Tennessee Railroad by two columns moving
+simultaneously upon Abingdon in the Holston valley. One of these
+would start from Gauley Bridge and go by way of Fayette, Raleigh,
+and Princeton; the other would leave some point in the Big-Sandy
+valley on the common boundary of Kentucky and Virginia, and march by
+most direct route to Abingdon. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v.
+p. 721.] If this plan were approved, he asked that the west side of
+the Big-Sandy valley be added to his department. He proposed to
+depend largely upon pack-mule trains in place of wagons, to
+substitute the French shelter tent for the larger tents still in
+use, and to carry hand-mills by which the soldiers might grind into
+meal the Indian corn to be found in the country. McClellan, as
+general-in-chief, gave his approval, suggesting a modification in
+regard to the column to move from the Big-Sandy valley. His
+information led him to believe that the Big-Sandy River could be
+relied upon as navigable to Prestonburg, which was seventy miles
+from Abingdon by what was supposed to be a good road. He thought,
+therefore, that it would be easier to make Prestonburg the base and
+to use wagons. [Footnote: O, R., vol. v. p. 722.] On investigation
+Rosecrans reported that the most feasible route in that region was
+by steamboat transportation to Pikeville, twenty-five miles above
+Prestonburg, in the Big-Sandy valley, and thence up the Louisa Fork
+of the Big-Sandy by way of Pound Gap to the Holston valley; but
+there would still be eighty-eight miles of marching after leaving
+the steamboats, and navigation on the Big-Sandy was limited to brief
+and infrequent periods of high water.
+
+On the 12th of March he submitted his modified plan to the
+adjutant-general of the army. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 744.] It had
+grown more complex with the passage of time. The eastern line of the
+department had been moved forward so as to bring the South Branch of
+the Potomac and the Cow-pasture branch of the James River under
+Rosecrans's command. He now planned four separate columns. The first
+was to move up the south branch of the Potomac with a view to turn
+and to capture the enemy's position at Alleghany Summit or Monterey
+on the Staunton turnpike. The second and third were to be in my
+district, and to move toward the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad on
+the two sides of New River. The fourth should march from the
+Big-Sandy valley on the line indicated above. Rosecrans seems to
+have limited his plan to the occupation of the mountain valleys as
+far east as the Blue Ridge, and did not submit any scheme for
+uniting his columns for further work. He asked for reinforcements to
+the extent of six regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and two
+field batteries to enable him to perform his task. The use of pack
+trains was given up, as they required a greater number of animals
+than could be procured. In fact, it was never found to be an
+economical use of mule power, and important movements were always
+confined to lines upon which wheel vehicles could be used. A rapid
+cavalry raid could be thus supplied, but heavy columns of infantry
+and artillery demanded wagon trains.
+
+The weakness of Rosecrans's scheme is found in the wide separation
+of parallel columns, which could never have co-operated with
+success, and which had no common object had success been possible.
+To be sure, it was presumed that McClellan with the Army of the
+Potomac, and Banks in the Shenandoah valley, would be operating in
+eastern Virginia; but as McClellan was already bent on making
+Chesapeake Bay his base, and keeping as far as possible from the
+mountains, there was no real connection or correlation between his
+purposed campaign and that of the others. Indeed, had he succeeded
+in driving Lee from Richmond toward the west, as Grant did three
+years later, the feeble columns of National troops coming from West
+Virginia would necessarily have fallen back again before the enemy.
+If the general scheme had been planned by Lee himself, it could not
+have secured for him more perfectly the advantage of interior lines.
+Yet it was in substance that which was tried when the spring opened.
+
+When Rosecrans's letter, enclosing his final plan, reached
+Washington, McClellan had taken the field, and President Lincoln had
+made use of the occasion to relieve him from the direction of all
+other forces, so that he might give undivided attention to his
+campaign with the Potomac army. This was done by an executive order
+on March 11, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 54.] which
+assigned General Halleck to the command of everything west of a line
+drawn north and south through Knoxville, Tennessee, and formed the
+Mountain Department from the territory between Halleck and
+McClellan. This last department was put under the command of
+Major-General John C. Fremont. General Banks was commanding in the
+Shenandoah valley, but he was at this time subordinate to McClellan.
+These changes were unexpected to both McClellan and Rosecrans. The
+change in McClellan's relations to the whole army was the natural
+result of his inactivity during the autumn of 1861, and the
+consequent loss of confidence in him. The union of Buell's and
+Halleck's commands in the west was the natural counterpart to the
+concentration of Confederate armies under A. S. Johnston at Corinth,
+Miss., and was a step in the right direction. There was, however, a
+little too much sentiment and too little practical war in the
+construction of the Mountain Department out of five hundred miles of
+mountain ranges, and the appointment of the "path-finder" to command
+it was consistent with the romantic character of the whole. The
+mountains formed a natural and admirable barrier, at which
+comparatively small bodies of troops could cover and protect the
+Ohio valley behind them; but, for reasons which I have already
+pointed out, extensive military operations across and beyond the
+Alleghanies from west or east were impracticable, because a
+wilderness a hundred miles wide, crossed by few and most difficult
+roads, rendered it impossible to supply troops from depots on either
+side.
+
+Such assurances of other satisfactory employment seem to have been
+given Rosecrans that he acquiesced without open complaint, and
+prepared to turn over his command to Fremont when the latter should
+arrive in West Virginia. Political motives had, no doubt, much to do
+with Fremont's appointment. The President had lost faith in his
+military capacity as well as in his administrative ability, but the
+party which elected Mr. Lincoln had not. The Republicans of the
+Northern States had a warm side for the man they had nominated for
+the Presidency in 1856, and there was a general feeling among them
+that Fremont should have at least another opportunity to show what
+he could do in the field. I myself shared that feeling, and reported
+to him as my immediate superior with earnest cordiality. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 35.]
+
+In my own district, preparations had been made during the winter for
+the expected advance in the spring. I had visited Rosecrans at
+Wheeling, and he had conversed freely upon his plans for the new
+campaign. Under his directions the old piers of the turnpike bridge
+across the Gauley had been used for a new superstructure. This was a
+wire suspension bridge, hung from framed towers of timber built upon
+the piers. Instead of suspending the roadway from the wire cables by
+the ordinary connecting rods, and giving stiffness to it by a
+trussed railing, a latticed framing of wood hung directly from the
+cables, and the timbers of the roadway being fastened to this by
+stirrups, the wooden lattice served both to suspend and to stiffen
+the road. It was a serviceable and cheap structure, built in two
+weeks, and answered our purposes well till it was burned in the next
+autumn, when Colonel Lightburn retreated before a Confederate
+invasion. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 99.]
+
+The variable position of the head of steamboat navigation on the
+Kanawha made it impossible to fix a permanent depot as a terminus
+for our wagon trains in the upper valley. My own judgment was in
+favor of placing it at Kanawha Falls, a mile below Gauley Bridge,
+and within the limits of that post. To connect this with the
+steamboats wherever the shoaling water might force them to stop, I
+recommended the use of batteaux or keelboats, a craft which a
+natural evolution had brought into use in the changeable mountain
+rivers. They were a canoe-shaped open boat, sixty feet long by eight
+wide, and were pushed up the stream by quants or poles. They
+required a crew of five men,--four to do the poling, and a
+steersman. In the swiftest "chutes" they carried a line ashore and
+made fast to a tree, then warped the boat up to quieter water and
+resumed the poling. Each boat would carry eight tons, and, compared
+with teaming over roads of which the "bottom had dropped out," it
+proved a most economical mode of transport. The batteaux dropped
+alongside the steamer wherever she had to stop, the freight was
+transferred to them directly, covered with tarpaulins, and the boats
+pushed off. The number of hands was no greater than for teaming, and
+the whole cost of the teams and their forage was saved. I had built
+two of these early in the winter and they were in successful
+operation. Two more were partly done when Fremont assumed command,
+and I urgently recommended a fleet of fifteen or twenty as an
+auxiliary to our transportation when active operations should be
+resumed. By their use Gauley Bridge could be made the practical
+depot of supply, and from ten to twenty miles of wretched and costly
+wagoning be saved. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii.
+pp. 45-48.]
+
+I became satisfied, also, that the regulation army wagon was too
+heavy for the difficult mountain roads, and recommended a strong but
+much lighter farm wagon, in which four mules could draw nearly or
+quite as much as six usually drew in the heavier wagon. This became
+a matter of great consequence in a country where forage could not be
+found, and where the wagon had to be loaded with the food for the
+team as well as the rations and ordnance stores for the men.
+
+It had already been determined to substitute the shelter tent for
+other forms in the principal armies, and the change soon became
+general. We, however, had to wait our turn after more important
+columns were supplied, and our turn did not come till the campaign
+was over. Even our requisitions for ammunition were not filled, our
+artillery was not reduced to uniformity, and we could not secure
+muskets enough of any one calibre for a single regiment. We made the
+best of the situation, and whilst keeping "headquarters" informed of
+our lack, were ready to do our best with the means we had. No
+attention was paid, perhaps none could be paid, to our
+recommendations for any special supplies or means adapted to the
+peculiar character of our work. We received, in driblets, small
+supplies of the regulation wagons, some droves of unbroken mules,
+some ordnance stores, and a fair amount of clothing. Subsistence
+stores had never been lacking, and the energy of the district
+quartermaster and commissary kept our little army always well fed.
+
+The formal change in department commanders took place on the 29th of
+March, Fremont having reached Wheeling the day before. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. i. p. 4.] Mr. Lincoln's desire by
+some means to free the loyal people of East Tennessee from the
+oppressive sway of the Confederates showed itself in the
+instructions given to all the military officers in the West. He had
+been pressing the point from the beginning. It had entered into
+McClellan's and Rosecrans's plans of the last campaign. It had been
+the object of General George H. Thomas's organization of troops at
+Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky. For it General Ormsby Mitchell had
+labored to prepare a column at Cincinnati. It was not accomplished
+till the autumn of 1863, when Rosecrans occupied Chattanooga and
+Burnside reached Knoxville; but there had never been a day's
+cessation of the President's urgency to have it accomplished. It was
+prominent in his mind when he organized the Mountain Department, and
+Fremont was called upon to suggest a plan to this end as soon as he
+was appointed. His choice was to assemble the forces of his
+department in Kentucky at the southern terminus of the Central
+Kentucky Railroad, at Nicholasville, and to march southward directly
+to Knoxville, upon what was substantially the line taken by Burnside
+a year and a half later. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt.
+i. p. 7.] Fremont was mistaken, however, in saying that from
+Nicholasville to Knoxville supplies could be "transported over level
+and good roads." General Buell had, on the 1st of February,
+[Footnote: _Id_., vol. vii. p. 931.] reported that line to be some
+two hundred miles long from the end of the railway to Knoxville, the
+whole of it mountainous, and the roads bad. He estimated a train of
+a thousand wagons, constantly going and returning, as needful to
+supply ten thousand men at Knoxville after allowance was made for
+what could be gathered from the country. General Buell was
+unquestionably correct in his view of the matter, but the strong
+political reasons for liberating East Tennessee made the President
+unwilling to be convinced that it was then impracticable. He,
+however, could not furnish the transportation required for the
+movement proposed by Fremont, and hesitated to interfere further
+with the conduct of military affairs within Buell's territorial
+limits. Besides this, Rosecrans's plan had found such favor with the
+Secretary of War that it was laid before Fremont with official
+approval. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt, iii. p. 8.] The stripping
+of West Virginia of troops to make a column in Kentucky seemed too
+hazardous to the government, and Fremont changed his plan so as to
+adopt that of Rosecrans with some modifications.
+
+He proposed to leave General Kelley with sufficient troops to
+protect the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and with
+Blenker's division (which was taken from the Army of the Potomac and
+given to him) to advance from Romney in the valley of the South
+Branch of the Potomac, ascending this valley toward the south,
+picking up Schenck's and Milroy's brigades in turn, the latter
+joining the column at Monterey on the great watershed by way of the
+Cheat Mountain pass. From Monterey Fremont purposed to move upon
+Staunton, and thence, following the southwestern trend of the
+valleys, to the New River near Christiansburg. Here he would come
+into communication with me, whose task it would have been to advance
+from Gauley Bridge on two lines, the principal one by Fayette and
+Raleigh C. H. over Flat-top Mountain to Princeton and the Narrows of
+New River, and a subordinate one on the turnpike to Lewisburg. His
+plan looked to continuing the march with the whole column to the
+southwest, down the Holston valley, till Knoxville should be
+reached, the last additions to the force to be from the troops in
+the Big-Sandy valley. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. i.
+p. 7.]
+
+General Garfield (then colonel of the Forty-second Ohio) had already
+been sent by General Buell with a brigade into the Big-Sandy valley,
+and General George W. Morgan was soon to be sent with a division to
+Cumberland Gap. Although these were in Fremont's department, the War
+Department issued an order that they should continue under General
+Buell's command at least until Fremont should by his operations come
+into their vicinity and field of work. [Footnote: _Id_, vol. xii.
+pt. iii. pp. 14, 119.] They would, of course, co-operate with him
+actively if he should reach the Holston valley. When he should form
+his junction with me, he expected to supply the whole column from my
+depots in the Kanawha valley, and when he reached Knoxville he would
+make his base on the Ohio River, using the line of supply he first
+suggested, by way of central Kentucky.
+
+The plan was an improvement upon Rosecrans's in arranging for a
+progressive concentration of his forces into one column led by
+himself; but it would probably have failed, first, from the
+impossibility of supplying the army on the route, and second,
+because the railroads east of the mountains ran on routes specially
+well adapted to enable the enemy quickly to concentrate any needed
+force at Staunton, at Lynchburg, at Christiansburg, or at
+Wytheville, to overpower the column. The Union army would be
+committed to a whole season of marching in the mountains, while the
+Confederates could concentrate the needed force and quickly return
+it to Richmond when its work was done, making but a brief episode in
+a larger campaign. But the plan was not destined to be thoroughly
+tried. Stonewall Jackson, after his defeat by Kimball at Kernstown,
+March 23d, had retired to the Upper Shenandoah valley with his
+division, numbering about 10,000 men; Ewell, with his division, was
+waiting to co-operate with him at the gaps of the Blue Ridge on the
+east, and Edward Johnson was near Staunton with a similar force
+facing Milroy. In April General N. P. Banks, commanding the National
+forces in the Shenandoah valley, had ascended it as far as
+Harrisonburg, and Jackson observed him from Swift-Run Gap in the
+Blue Ridge, on the road from Harrisonburg to Gordonsville. Milroy
+also pushed eastward from Cheat Mountain summit, in which high
+region winter still lingered, and had made his way through snows and
+rains to McDowell, ten miles east of Monterey, at the crossing of
+Bull-Pasture River, where he threatened Staunton. But Banks was
+thought to be in too exposed a position, and was directed by the War
+Department to fall back to Strasburg. On the 5th of May he had
+retired in that direction as far as New-Market. Blenker's division
+had not yet reached Fremont, who was waiting for it in Hardy County
+at Petersburg. Jackson saw his opportunity and determined to join
+General Johnson by a rapid march to Staunton, to overwhelm Milroy
+first, and then return to his own operations in the Shenandoah.
+Moving with great celerity, he attacked Milroy at McDowell on the
+8th, the latter calling upon Fremont for help. Schenck was sent
+forward to support him, and reached McDowell after marching
+thirty-four miles in twenty-four hours. Jackson had not fully
+concentrated his forces, and the Union generals held their ground
+and delivered a sharp combat in which their casualties of all kinds
+numbered 256, while the Confederate loss was 498, General Johnson
+being among the wounded. Schenck, as senior, assumed the command,
+and on the 9th began his retreat to Franklin, abandoning the Cheat
+Mountain road. Franklin was reached on the 11th, but Jackson
+approached cautiously, and did not reach there till the 12th, when,
+finding that Fremont had united his forces, he did not attack, but
+returned to McDowell, whence he took the direct road to
+Harrisonburg, and then marched to attack Banks at Strasburg, Ewell
+meeting and joining him in this movement.
+
+Fremont resumed preparations for his original campaign, but Banks's
+defeat deranged all plans, and those of the Mountain Department were
+abandoned. A month passed in efforts to destroy Jackson by
+concentration of McDowell's, Banks's, and Fremont's troops; but it
+was too late to remedy the ill effects of the division of commands
+at the beginning of the campaign. On the 26th of June General John
+Pope was assigned to command all the troops in northern Virginia,
+Fremont was relieved at his own request, and the Mountain Department
+ceased to exist.
+
+My own operations in the Kanawha valley had kept pace with those in
+the northern portion of the department. The early days of April were
+spent by Fremont in obtaining reports of the condition of the
+several parts of his command. My report of the condition of affairs
+in the Kanawha valley was made on the 5th of April. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 45.] In it I called
+attention to the necessities of my troops and to the equipment
+necessary for any extended campaigning. Requisitions for supplies
+and transportation had been sent to the proper staff departments
+during the winter, but had not yet been filled. My forces consisted
+of eleven regiments of Ohio infantry, three new and incomplete
+regiments of West Virginia infantry, one regiment of cavalry (the
+Second West Virginia) with three separate cavalry troops from other
+commands, and, nominally, three batteries of artillery. One of the
+batteries was of mountain howitzers, and the other two of mixed
+smooth-bore and rifled guns of different calibres. My force at the
+opening of the campaign numbered 8500 present for duty. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 121. The regiments of the
+command were the 11th, 12th, 23d, 28th, 30th, 34th, 36th, 37th,
+44th, 47th Ohio, the 4th, 8th, 9th West Virginia, the 2d West
+Virginia Cavalry. Of these the 11th Ohio had only nine companies and
+did not get the tenth till the autumn following. The 8th West
+Virginia passed from the command before active operations. The
+batteries were McMullin's Ohio battery, Simmonds's Kentucky battery,
+and a battery of mountain howitzers at Gauley Mount, manned by a
+detachment of the 47th Ohio Infantry. Simmonds's company was
+originally of the 1st Kentucky Infantry assigned by me to man the
+guns I first took into the Kanawha valley, and subsequently
+transferred to the artillery service by the Secretary of War. The
+guns were two 20-pounder Parrott rifles, five 10-pounder Parrotts,
+two bronze 10-pounder rifles altered from 6-pounder smooth-bores,
+three bronze and one iron 6-pounder smooth-bores, and ten mountain
+howitzers to be packed on mules. Some of these guns were left in
+position at posts, and three small field batteries were organized
+for the marching columns. Besides the regiment of freshly recruited
+West Virginia cavalry, there were Schambeck's Independent troop of
+Illinois cavalry, and Smith's (originally Pfau's) Independent troop
+of Ohio cavalry, both German troops.] Detachments were at the mouth
+of the Big-Sandy River, at Guyandotte, at the mouth of the Kanawha
+on the Ohio River, at several points in the Kanawha valley below
+Gauley Bridge, at Summersville on the upper Gauley, at Gauley
+Bridge, at Gauley Mount or Tompkins farm on New River, and at
+Fayette C. H. The last-named post had the only brigade organization
+which had been retained in winter quarters, and was commanded by
+Colonel Scammon of the Twenty-third Ohio. The post at Summersville
+had been brought into my command for the winter, and was garrisoned
+by the Thirty-sixth Ohio under Colonel George Crook. At Gauley
+Bridge was the Twenty-eighth Ohio (a German regiment), under Colonel
+August Moor.
+
+When the decision of General Fremont to have my command advance on
+both sides of the New River was received, I immediately submitted my
+plan of organization to that end. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xii. pt. iii. p. 127.] I proposed to leave the West Virginia
+Infantry regiments with half the Second West Virginia Cavalry to
+guard the Kanawha valley and our depots of supply, with Colonel J.
+A. J. Lightburn of the Fourth West Virginia in command. The Ohio
+regiments were to be moved forward so that the Eleventh,
+Forty-fourth, and Forty-seventh could be quickly concentrated on the
+Lewisburg turnpike in front of Gauley Bridge, where Colonel Crook
+could join them with the Thirty-sixth by a diagonal road and take
+command of this column. I assigned to him a mixed battery of
+field-pieces and mountain howitzers. Colonel Scammon's brigade was
+to advance from Fayette C. H. to Flat-top Mountain as soon as the
+weather would permit, and thus secure the barrier covering our
+further movement southward. The brigade consisted of the Twelfth,
+Twenty-third, arid Thirtieth Ohio, with McMullin's battery, and one
+half the Second Virginia Cavalry. When Scammon advanced, the
+remaining Ohio regiments (Twenty-eighth, Thirty-fourth, and
+Thirty-seventh), with Simmonds's battery should concentrate at
+Fayette C. H. and form a new brigade under Colonel Moor. This
+organization was approved by Fremont, and the preliminary steps were
+quietly taken. By the 20th of April Scammon's brigade was at
+Raleigh, only awaiting the settling of the roads to advance to
+Flat-top. A week later he held the passes of the mountain, with a
+detachment on the New River at the mouth of the Blue-stone, where he
+communicated with the right of Crook's brigade. The front was thus
+covered from Summersville to Flat-top Mountain, and the regiments in
+rear were moving into their assigned positions.
+
+My brigade commanders were all men of marked character. Colonel Moor
+was a German of portly presence and grave demeanor, a gentleman of
+dignity of character as well as of bearing, and a brave, resolute
+man. He had been long a citizen of the United States, and had, as a
+young man, seen some military service, as was reported, in the
+Seminole War in Florida. He was a rigid disciplinarian, and his own
+regiment was a model of accuracy in drill and neatness in the
+performance of all camp duties. He was greatly respected by his
+brother officers, and his square head, with dark, smooth-shaven
+face, and rather stern expression, inspired his troops with
+something very like awe, insuring prompt obedience to his commands.
+At home, in Cincinnati, he was a man of influence among the German
+residents, and his daughter was the wife of General Godfrey Weitzel
+of the regular army. My association with him was every way agreeable
+and satisfactory.
+
+Colonel Crook was an officer of the regular army who had taken early
+advantage of the relaxation of the rule preventing such from
+accepting a volunteer appointment. A man of medium size, with light
+hair and sandy beard, his manner was rather diffident and shy, and
+his whole style quiet and reticent. His voice was light rather than
+heavy, and he was so laconic of speech that this, with his other
+characteristics, caused it to be commonly said of him that he had
+been so long fighting Indians on the frontier that he had acquired
+some of their traits and habits. His system of discipline was based
+on these peculiarities. He aimed at a stoical command of himself as
+the means of commanding others, and avoided noisy bluster of every
+sort, going, perhaps, to an excess in brevity of speech and in
+enforcing his orders by the consequences of any disobedience. His
+subordinates recognized his purpose to be just, and soon learned to
+have the greatest confidence in him as a military officer. Unless
+common fame did him injustice, he was one of those officers who had,
+at the beginning, no deep sympathy with the National cause, and had
+no personal objection to the success of the Rebellion. But he was a
+Northern man, and an ambitious professional soldier who did not mean
+to let political opinions stand in the way of military success.
+[Footnote: A romantic story is told of his experience a little
+later. He was in command on the Upper Potomac with headquarters at
+Cumberland, where he fell in love with the daughter of the
+proprietor of the hotel at which he had his headquarters, and whom
+he subsequently made his wife. The family was of secession
+proclivities, and the son of the house was in the Confederate army.
+This young man led a party of the enemy who were able, by his
+knowledge of the surroundings of his home, to capture General Crook
+in the night, and to carry him away a prisoner without any serious
+collision with the troops encamped about. Crook was soon exchanged,
+and in the latter part of the war served with distinction as
+division commander under Sheridan.] In his case, as in many others,
+I believe this attitude was modified by his service under the flag,
+and that in 1864 he voted for Mr. Lincoln's re-election; he, with
+General Sheridan, casting at the improvised army ballot-box, what
+was understood to be their first vote ever cast in a civil election.
+
+Colonel Lightburn was one of the loyal West Virginians whose
+standing and intelligence made him naturally prominent among his
+people. He was a worthy man and an honorable officer, whose
+knowledge of the country and of the people made him a fit selection
+to preserve the peace and protect our communications in the valley
+during our forward movement. As his duties thus separated him from
+the principal columns, I saw less of him than of the other brigade
+commanders. The two West Virginia regiments which remained in the
+district were freshly organized, and were distributed in camps where
+they could practise company drill and instruction whilst they kept
+the country in order. Of Colonel Scammon, my senior brigade
+commander, I have already spoken in a former chapter. [Footnote:
+_Ante_, pp. 110, 111.]
+
+Fremont limited our advance to the line of Flat-top Mountain until
+he should himself be ready to open the campaign in the north.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 89, 108.]
+Blenker's division had been given to him from the Potomac army when
+McClellan began his movement to the peninsula, but on the 12th of
+April it had only reached Salem, a station on the Manassas Gap
+Railway between the Bull-Run Mountains and the Blue Ridge.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 71.] The War Department now sent General
+Rosecrans to conduct the division with speed to Fremont, but
+extraordinary delays still occurred, and the command did not reach
+Fremont at Petersburg till the 11th of May, when he immediately
+moved forward with it to the support of Schenck and Milroy at
+Franklin. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 168, 177, pt. i. pp. 8, 9.] This
+delay was one of a series of misfortunes; for could Fremont have
+been at McDowell with this strong reinforcement added to Schenck's
+and Milroy's brigades, there can be no reasonable doubt that
+Jackson's attack, if delivered at all, would have proven a disaster
+for the Confederates. This, however, would not have ensured success
+for the general campaign, for Banks might still have been driven
+back in the Shenandoah valley, and Fremont's position would have
+been compromised. Nothing but a union of the two columns would have
+met the situation.
+
+At the beginning of May, the additional transportation necessary for
+my advance beyond Flat-top had not arrived, but we did not wait for
+it. [Footnote: ._Id_., pt. iii. pp. 108, 112, 114, 127.] The
+regiments were ordered to leave tents behind, and to bivouac without
+shelter except such as they could make with "brush," for the
+expected shelter tents also were lacking. The whole distance from
+the head of navigation to the railroad at Newberne was one hundred
+and forty miles. Flat-top Mountain and Lewisburg were, respectively,
+about halfway on the two routes assigned to us. Some two thousand of
+the enemy's militia were holding the mountain passes in front of us,
+and a concentration of the regular Confederate troops was going on
+behind them. These last consisted of two brigades under General
+Henry Heth, as well as J. S. Williams's and Marshall's brigades,
+under General Humphrey Marshall, with the Eighth Virginia Cavalry.
+General Marshall appears to have been senior when the commands were
+united. Looking south from Flat-top Mountain we see the basin of the
+Blue-stone River, which flows northeastward into New River. This
+basin, with that of the Greenbrier on the other side of New River,
+forms the broadest stretch of cultivated land found between the
+mountain ranges, though the whole country is rough and broken even
+here. The crest of Flat-top Mountain curves southward around the
+headwaters of the Blue-stone, and joins the more regular ranges in
+Tazewell County. The straight ridge of East-River Mountain forms a
+barrier on the southern side of the basin, more than thirty miles
+away from the summit of Flat-top where Scammon's camp was placed on
+the road from Raleigh C. H. to Princeton, the county-seat of Mercer.
+The Narrows of New River were where that stream breaks through the
+mountain barrier I have described, and the road from Princeton to
+Giles C. H. passes through the defile. Only one other outlet from
+the basin goes southward, and that is where the road from Princeton
+to Wytheville passes through Rocky Gap, a gorge of the wildest
+character, some thirty miles south-westward from the Narrows. These
+passes were held by Confederate forces, whilst their cavalry, under
+Colonel W. H. Jenifer, occupied Princeton and presented a
+skirmishing resistance to our advance-guard.
+
+On the 1st of May a small party of the Twenty-third Ohio met the
+enemy's horse at Camp Creek, a branch of the Blue-stone, six miles
+from the crest of Flat-top, and had a lively engagement, repulsing
+greatly superior numbers. On hearing of this, Lieutenant-Colonel R.
+B. Hayes marched with part of the Twenty-third Ohio and part of the
+West Virginia cavalry, and followed up the enemy with such vigor
+that Jenifer was driven through Princeton too rapidly to permit him
+to remove the stores collected there. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xii. pt. i. pp. 449, 450.] To avoid their falling into our
+hands, Jenifer set fire to the town. Hayes succeeded in saving six
+or eight houses, but the rest were destroyed. Jenifer retreated on
+the Wytheville road, expecting us to follow by that route; but
+Hayes, learning that the Narrows were not strongly held, and being
+now reinforced by the rest of his regiment (the Twenty-third),
+marched on the 6th to the Narrows which he held, [Footnote: _Id_.,
+pt. iii. p. 140.] whilst he sent Major Comly with a detachment into
+Pearisburg, the county-seat of Giles. [Footnote: James M. Comly,
+later Brevet Brigadier-General, and since the war at one time United
+States minister to the Sandwich Islands.] The affair at Camp Creek
+had cost Jenifer some twenty in killed and wounded, and an equal
+number were captured in the advance on Giles C. H. Our casualties
+were 1 killed and 20 wounded. Our line, however, was getting too
+extended, and the utmost exertions were needed to supply the troops
+in their present positions. Princeton, being at the forking of the
+roads to Pearisburg and Wytheville, was too important a point to be
+left unguarded, and I at once sent forward Colonel Scammon with the
+Thirtieth Ohio to hold it. [Footnote: _Id_., p 148.] On the 9th of
+May the Twelfth Ohio was put in march from Raleigh to join him, and
+Moor's brigade was approaching the last-named place where my
+headquarters were, that being the terminus, for the time, of the
+telegraph line which kept me in communication with Fremont.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p 157.] The same day
+the department commander informed me of the attack by Jackson on
+Milroy on the 7th, and ordered me to suspend movements in advance
+until my forces should be concentrated. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 158.]
+The weather was rainy, and the roads suffered badly from cutting up
+by the wagons, but I had hoped to push forward a strong advanced
+guard to the great railway bridge near Newberne, and destroy it
+before the enemy had time to concentrate there. This made it
+necessary to take some risk, for it was not possible to move the
+whole command till some supplies could be accumulated at Raleigh and
+at Flat-top Mountain.
+
+As fast as the supplies would permit, Moor went forward, taking no
+tents beyond Raleigh, and all of the troops on this line now faced
+the continuing rains without shelter. Guerilla parties were set
+actively at work by the Confederates in the region of the Guyandotte
+and at other points in our rear. Colonel Lightburn was directed to
+keep his forces actively moving to suppress these outbreaks, and the
+forward movement was pressed. On the 10th of May Heth's two brigades
+of the enemy attacked our advance-guard at Pearisburg, and these,
+after destroying the enemy's stores, which they had captured there,
+retired skirmishing, till they joined Scammon, who had advanced from
+Princeton to their support. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 176.] Scammon's
+brigade was now together, a mile below the Narrows of New River,
+with the East River in front of him, making a strong, defensible
+position. The telegraph reached Flat-top Mountain on the 13th,
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 184.] even this being delayed because wagons to
+carry the wire could not be spared from the task of supplying the
+troops with food. I moved my headquarters to Princeton on this day,
+and pressed forward Moor's brigade in the hope of being able to push
+again beyond the barrier at the Narrows of New River, where Heth's
+brigades had now taken position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xii. pt. iii. p. 188.] Neither Scammon nor Moor was able to take
+with him ammunition enough for more than a slight engagement, nor
+was any accumulation of food possible. We were living "from hand to
+mouth," no additional transportation had reached us, and every wagon
+and pack-mule was doing its best. As fast as Moor's regiments
+reached Princeton they were hurried forward to French's Mill, five
+miles in rear of Scammon, on the road running up East River, and
+intersecting the Wytheville road so as to form a triangle with the
+two going from Princeton. During the 14th and 15th Moor's regiments
+arrived, and were pushed on to their position, except one half
+regiment (detachments of the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-seventh Ohio),
+under Major F. E. Franklin, and one troop of cavalry, which were
+kept at Princeton as a guard against any effort on the enemy's part
+to interrupt our communications. Moor was ordered to send a
+detachment up the East River to the crossing of the Wytheville road,
+so as to give early warning of any attempt of the enemy to come in
+upon our flank from that direction. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p.
+505.] My purpose was to attack Heth with Scammon's and Moor's
+brigades, drive him away from the Narrows of New River, and prevent
+him, if possible, from uniting with Marshall's command, which was
+understood to be somewhere between Jeffersonville (Tazewell C. H.)
+and Wytheville. If we succeeded in beating Heth, we could then turn
+upon Marshall. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. pp. 197-199.]
+
+On the afternoon of the 15th Moor threw a detachment of two
+companies over East River Mountain as a reconnoissance to learn
+whether the roads in that direction were practicable for a movement
+to turn the left of Heth. It attacked and handsomely routed a post
+of the enemy on Wolf Creek. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii.
+pt. ii. p. 505.] The few wagons and pack-mules were hurrying forward
+some rations and ammunition; but the 17th would be the earliest
+possible moment at which I could lead a general advance. The
+telegraph wire would reach Princeton by the evening of that day, and
+I waited there for the purpose of exchanging messages with Fremont
+before pushing toward Newberne, the expected rendezvous with the
+other troops of the department. But all our efforts could not give
+us the needed time to anticipate the enemy. They had railway
+communication behind a mountain wall which had few and difficult
+passes. Marshall and Williams were already marching from Tazewell C.
+H. to strike our line of communications at Princeton, and were far
+on the way. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 199.]
+
+About noon of the 16th Colonel Moor reported that his detachment on
+the Wytheville road was attacked by a force of the enemy estimated
+at 1500. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 505, 509.] This seems to have
+been the command of Colonel Wharton, marching to join Marshall, who
+was coming from the west by a road down the head-waters of East
+River. Of this, however, we were ignorant. I ordered Moor to take
+the remainder of his command (leaving half a regiment only at
+French's) to drive off the force at the cross-roads, and if he were
+overpowered to retreat directly upon Princeton by the western side
+of the triangle of roads, of which each side was twelve or fifteen
+miles long. Colonel Scammon reported no change in Heth's positions
+or force in front of him. Patrols were sent out on all the roads
+west and south of Princeton, our little force of horsemen being
+limited to Smith's troop of Ohio cavalry which was acting as
+headquarters escort. About two o'clock the patrol on the Wyoming
+road, five miles out of Princeton, was fired upon by the enemy's
+cavalry, and came rapidly in with the report. The four companies of
+infantry under Majors Franklin and Ankele were moved out on that
+road, and soon developed the infantry of Marshall's command.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 506.] He and
+Williams had marched across from the Tazewell to the Wyoming road,
+and were coming in upon our flank and rear. I reconnoitred them
+personally with care, and satisfied myself of their overwhelming
+superiority to the little detachment I had in hand. Franklin and
+Ankele were ordered to deploy their whole force as skirmishers and
+to hold the enemy back as long as possible. Some of our troopers
+were shown on the flanks, and so imposing a show was made that
+Marshall advanced cautiously. Our men behaved beautifully, holding
+every tree and rock, delaying the enemy for more than three hours
+from reaching the crests of the hills looking down upon the town. I
+had sent orderlies to stop and turn back our wagon trains on the way
+from Flat-top, and had directed headquarters baggage and the few
+stores in Princeton to be loaded and sent on the road toward Moor
+and Scammon. Our only tents were three or four wall tents for
+headquarters (the adjutant-general's, quartermaster's, and
+commissary's offices), and these I ordered to be left standing to
+impose upon the enemy the idea that we did not mean to retire. As
+evening approached, the hostile force occupied the summits of
+surrounding hills, and directing the infantry slowly to fall back
+and follow me, I galloped with my staff to bring back Scammon and
+restore our broken communications. At French's, twelve miles from
+Princeton, I found that Moor had not had time to execute the orders
+of the afternoon, and that ten companies from the Twenty-eighth and
+Thirty-seventh Ohio were all that he had been able to send to
+Wytheville road crossing. These, we learned later in the night, had
+succeeded in re-occupying the cross-roads. They were ordered to hold
+fast till morning, and if the enemy still appeared to be mainly at
+Princeton, to march in that direction and attack them from the rear.
+Scammon was ordered to send half a regiment to occupy Moor's
+position at French's during the night, and to march his whole
+command at daybreak toward Princeton. There was but one and a half
+regiments now with Moor, and these were roused and ordered to
+accompany me at once on our return to Princeton. It was a dark and
+muddy march, and as we approached the town we deployed skirmishers
+in front, though they were obliged to move slowly in the darkness.
+Day was just breaking as we came out of the forest upon the
+clearing, line of battle was formed, and the troops went forward
+cheering. The enemy made no stubborn resistance, but retired
+gradually to a strong position on rough wooded hills about a mile
+from the village, where they covered both the Wytheville and the
+Wyoming road. They had artillery on both flanks, and could only be
+reached over open and exposed ground. We recovered our headquarters
+tents, standing as we had left them. We had captured a few prisoners
+and learned that Marshall and Williams were both before us. Whilst
+pushing them back, Lieutenant-Colonel Von Blessingh with the ten
+companies of Moor's brigade approached on the Wytheville road and
+attacked; but the enemy was aware of their approach and repulsed
+them, having placed a detachment in a very strong position to meet
+them. Von Blessingh withdrew his men, and later joined the command
+by a considerable detour. With less than two regiments in hand, and
+with the certainty of the enemy's great superiority, there was
+nothing for it but to take the best position we could and await
+Scammon's arrival. We made as strong a show of force as possible,
+and by skirmishing advances tempted the enemy to come down to
+attack; but he also was expecting reinforcements, and a little
+artillery firing was the only response we provoked. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 506, 507.] As some evidence
+of the physical exhaustion from the continuous exertions of the
+preceding day and night, I may mention the fact that during the
+artillery firing I threw myself for a little rest on the ground,
+close beside the guns; and though these were firing at frequent
+intervals, I fell asleep and had a short but refreshing nap almost
+within arm's length of the wheels of a gun-carriage.
+
+Toward evening Scammon arrived with his brigade, reporting that
+Heth's force had followed his retiring movement as far as French's,
+and confirming the information that four brigades of the enemy were
+before us. Shortly after dark the officer of the day, on the right,
+reported the noise of artillery marching around that flank. Our last
+day's rations had been issued, and our animals were without forage.
+Small parties of the enemy had gone far to our rear and cut the
+telegraph, so that we had had no news from the Kanawha valley for
+two days. The interruption was likely to create disturbance there
+and derange all our plans for supply. It was plain that we should
+have to be content with having foiled the enemy's plan to inflict a
+severe blow upon us, and that we might congratulate ourselves that
+with two brigades against four we had regained our line without
+serious loss. I therefore ordered that the troops be allowed to rest
+till three o'clock in the morning of the 18th, and that the column
+then retire behind the Blue-stone River. The movement was made
+without interruption, and a camp on Flat-top Mountain was selected,
+from which the roads on every side were well guarded, and which was
+almost impregnable in itself. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 209.]
+Our casualties of all kinds in the affairs about Princeton had been
+only 113, as the enemy had not delivered any serious attack, and the
+contest on our side had been one of manoeuvre in which our only
+chance of important results was in attacking either Heth or Marshall
+when they were so far separated that they could not unite against us
+on the field of battle. After the 15th this chance did not exist,
+and wisdom dictated that we should retire to a safe point from which
+we could watch for contingencies which might give us a better
+opportunity. Our experience proved what I have before stated, that
+the facility for railway concentration of the enemy in our front
+made this line a useless one for aggressive movements, as they could
+always concentrate a superior force after they received the news of
+our being in motion. It also showed the error of dividing my forces
+on two lines, for had Crook's brigade been with me, or my two
+brigades with him, we should have felt strong enough to cope with
+the force which was actually in our front, and would at least have
+made it necessary for the enemy to detach still more troops from
+other movements to meet us. Our campaign, though a little one, very
+well illustrates the character of the subordinate movements so often
+attempted during the war, and shows that the same principles of
+strategy are found operating as in great movements. The scale is a
+reduced one, but cause and effect are linked by the same necessity
+as on a broader theatre of warfare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+POPE IN COMMAND--TRANSFER TO WASHINGTON
+
+
+A key position--Crook's engagement at Lewisburg--Watching and
+scouting--Mountain work--Pope in command--Consolidation of
+Departments--Suggestions of our transfer to the East--Pope's Order
+No. II and Address to the Army--Orders to march across the
+mountains--Discussion of them--Changed to route by water and
+rail--Ninety-mile march--Logistics--Arriving in Washington--Two
+regiments reach Pope--Two sent to Manassas--Jackson captures
+Manassas--Railway broken--McClellan at Alexandria--Engagement at
+Bull Run Bridge--Ordered to Upton's Hill--Covering
+Washington--Listening to the Bull Run battle--Ill news travels fast.
+
+
+Our retreat to Flat-top Mountain had been made without loss of
+material, except one baggage-wagon, which broke down irreparably,
+and was burned by my order. At the crossing of Blue-stone River we
+were beyond the junction of roads by which our flank could be
+turned, and we halted there as the end of the first march. As the
+men forded the stream, the sun broke through the clouds, which had
+been pretty steadily raining upon us, the brass band with the
+leading brigade struck up the popular tune, "Aren't you glad to get
+out of the wilderness?" and the soldiers, quick to see the humorous
+application of any such incident, greeted it with cheers and
+laughter. All felt that we were again masters of the situation. Next
+day we moved leisurely to the mountain summit, a broad undulating
+table-land with some cultivated farms, where our camp was perfectly
+hidden from sight, whilst we commanded a most extensive view of the
+country in front. Outposts at the crossing of the Blue-stone and at
+Pack's Ferry on New River, with active scouting-parties and patrols
+scouring the country far and wide, kept me fully informed of
+everything occurring near us. We had time to organize the new
+wagon-trains which were beginning to reach us, and, while waiting
+till Fremont could plan new co-operative movements, to prepare for
+our part in such work.
+
+The camp on Flat-top Mountain deserved the name of a "key point" to
+the country in front as well, perhaps, as that much abused phrase
+ever is deserved. [Footnote: Clausewitz says of the phrases
+"covering position," "key of the country," etc., that they are for
+the most part mere words without sense when they indicate only the
+material advantage which is given by the elevation of the land. "On
+War," part ii. chap. xvii.] The name of the mountain indicates its
+character. The northern slope is gentle, so that the approach from
+Raleigh C. H. is not difficult, whilst the southern declivity falls
+off rapidly to the Blue-stone valley. The broad ridge at the summit
+is broken into rounded hills which covered the camp from view,
+whilst they still permitted manoeuvre to meet any hostile approach.
+The mountain abutted on the gorge of the New River on the northeast,
+and stretched also southwestward into the impracticable wilderness
+about the headwaters of the Guyandotte and the Tug Fork of Sandy.
+The position was practically unassailable in front by any force less
+than double our own, and whilst we occupied it the enemy never
+ventured in force beyond the passes of East River Mountain. We built
+a flying-bridge ferry at Pack's, on New River, near the mouth of the
+Blue-stone, where a passable road up the valley of the Greenbrier
+connected us with Colonel Crook's position at Lewisburg. The post at
+Pack's Ferry was held by a detachment from Scammon's brigade in
+command of Major Comly of the Twenty-third Ohio. On the 6th of
+August a detachment of the enemy consisting of three regiments and a
+section of artillery under Colonel Wharton made an effort to break
+up the ferry by an attack from the east side, but they accomplished
+nothing. Major Comly was quickly supported by reinforcements from
+Scammon's brigade, and drove off his assailants. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 127; pt. iii. pp. 541, 542.]
+
+I have not yet spoken of the movements of Colonel Crook's brigade on
+the Lewisburg route, because circumstances so delayed his advance
+that it had no immediate relation to our movements upon Pearisburg
+and Princeton. As the march of my own column was beginning, General
+Fremont, upon information of guerilla raids north of Summersville,
+directed that Crook be sent into Webster County to co-operate with
+troops sent southward from Weston to destroy the lawless parties.
+This involved a march of more than seventy miles each way, and
+unforeseen delays of various kinds. Two of the guerillas captured
+were tried and convicted of murder, and Colonel Crook was obliged to
+remain in that region to protect the administration of justice till
+the execution of the murderers and the dispersion of the guerilla
+bands. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 127, 159.] The organization and
+movement of his brigade upon Lewisburg was by this means put back so
+far that his column could not get within supporting distance of
+mine. He reached Lewisburg on the day of our affair at Princeton. He
+had been energetic in all his movements, but the diversion of parts
+of his command to so distant an enterprise as that into Webster
+County had been fatal to co-operation. The Confederate General Heth
+had been able to neglect the Lewisburg route and to carry his
+brigade to the assistance of Marshall in his opposition to my
+advance. As it turned out, I should have done better to have waited
+at Flat-top Mountain till I knew that Crook was at Lewisburg, and
+then to have made a fresh combination of movements. Our experience
+only added another to the numerous proofs the whole campaign
+furnished, of the futility of such combined operations from distant
+bases,
+
+Major-General Loring took command of all the Confederate forces in
+southwestern Virginia on the 19th or 20th of May, and Heth was
+already in march to oppose Crook's forward movement. On the 23d
+Heth, with some 3000 men, including three batteries of artillery,
+attacked Crook at Lewisburg, soon after daybreak in the morning.
+Crook met him in front of the town, and after a sharp engagement
+routed him, capturing four cannon, some 200 stand of arms and 100
+prisoners. His own loss was 13 killed and 53 wounded, with 7
+missing. He did not think it wise to follow up the retreating enemy,
+but held a strong position near Lewisburg, where his communications
+were well covered, and where he was upon the same range of highlands
+on which we were at Flat-top, though fifty miles of broken country
+intervened. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp.
+804-813.] Meanwhile Fremont had been ordered to Banks's relief, and
+had been obliged to telegraph me that we must be left to ourselves
+till the results of the Shenandoah campaign were tested. [Footnote:
+_Id_., pt. iii. p. 264.] Rumors were rife that after Jackson retired
+from Fremont's front at Franklin, Johnson's division was ordered to
+march into our part of West Virginia. We were thus thrown,
+necessarily, into an expectant attitude, awaiting the outcome of
+Fremont's eastward movement and the resumption of his plans. Our men
+were kept busy in marching and scouting by detachments, putting down
+guerilla bands and punishing disorders. They thus acquired a power
+of sustained exertion on foot which proved afterward of great value.
+
+There was, in a way, a resemblance in our situation and in our work
+to that of feudal chiefs in the middle ages. We held a lofty and
+almost impregnable position, overlooking the country in every
+direction. The distant ridges of the Alleghanies rose before us, the
+higher peaks standing out in the blue distance, so that we seemed to
+watch the mountain passes fifty miles away without stirring from our
+post. The loyal people about us formed relations to us not unlike
+those of the feudal retainers of old. They worked their farms, but
+every man had his rifle hung upon his chimney-piece, and by day or
+by night was ready to shoulder it and thread his way by paths known
+only to the natives, to bring us news of open movement or of secret
+plots among the Secessionists. They were organized, also, in their
+own fashion, and every neighborhood could muster its company or its
+squad of home-guards to join in quelling seditious outbreaks or in
+strengthening a little column sent against any of the enemy's
+outposts. No considerable hostile movement was possible within a
+range of thirty miles without our having timely notice of it. The
+smoke from the camp-fires of a single troop of horse could be seen
+rising from the ravines, and detachments of our regiments guided by
+the native scouts would be on the way to reconnoitre within an hour.
+Officers as well as men went on foot, for they followed ridges where
+there was not even a bridle-path, and depended for safety, in no
+small degree, on their ability to take to the thickets of the
+forest-clad hillside if they found themselves in the presence of a
+body of the Confederate cavalry. Thirty miles a day was an easy
+march for them after they had become hardened to their work, and
+taking several days together they could outmarch any cavalry,
+especially when they could take "short cuts" over hills and away
+from travelled roads. They knew at what farms they could find
+"rations," and where were the hostile neighborhoods from which
+equally enterprising scouts would glide away to carry news of their
+movements to the enemy. At headquarters there was a constant going
+and coming. Groups of home-guards were nearly always about, as
+picturesque in their homely costume as Leather-stocking himself, and
+many of our officers and men were hardly less expert as woodsmen.
+Constant activity was the order of the day, and the whole command
+grew hardy and self-reliant with great rapidity.
+
+General Pope was, on the 26th of June, assigned to command the Army
+of Virginia, including the forces under McDowell and Banks as well
+as those in the Mountain Department. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 435.] Fremont was relieved from command at his
+own request, and the Mountain Department ceased to exist. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 437.] Pope very wisely determined to unite in one army
+under his own command as many as possible of the troops reporting to
+him, and meanwhile directed us to remain on the defensive.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 471.] I ventured on the 3d of July to suggest
+by telegraph that my division would make a useful reinforcement to
+his active army in the field, and reiterated it on the 5th, with
+some explanation of my views. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 451, 457.] I
+indicated Fayetteville and Hawk's Nest as points in front of Gauley
+Bridge where moderate garrisons could cover the valley defensively,
+as I had done in the preceding year. Getting no answer, I returned
+to the subject on the 13th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 471.] Pope,
+however, did not issue his address upon assuming active command till
+the 14th, when his much ridiculed manifesto to the army appeared.
+[Footnote: He had announced his assignment and his headquarters at
+Washington on June 27 (_Id_., p. 436), but he now issued the address
+as he was about to take the field (_Id_., p. 473).] Since the war
+General Pope has himself told me that this, as well as the other
+orders issued at that time and which were much criticised, were
+drafted under the dictation, in substance, of Mr. Stanton, the
+Secretary of War. He admitted that some things in them were not
+quite in good taste; but the feeling was that it was desirable to
+infuse vigor into the army by stirring words, which would by
+implication condemn McClellan's policy of over-caution in military
+matters, and over-tenderness toward rebel sympathizers and their
+property. The Secretary, as he said, urged such public declarations
+so strongly that he did not feel at liberty to resist. They were
+unfairly criticised, and were made the occasion of a bitter and
+lasting enmity toward Pope on the part of most of the officers and
+men of the Potomac Army. It seems that Mr. Lincoln hesitated to
+approve the one relating to the arrest of disloyal persons within
+the lines of the army, and it was not till Pope repeated his sense
+of the need of it that the President yielded, on condition that it
+should be applied in exceptional cases only. It was probably
+intended more to terrify citizens from playing the part of spies
+than to be literally enforced, which would, indeed, have been hardly
+possible. No real severity was used under it, but the Confederate
+government made it the occasion of a sort of outlawry against Pope
+and his army. [Footnote: It is only fair to recollect that in the
+following year Halleck found it necessary to repeat in substance
+Pope's much abused orders, and Meade, who then commanded the Potomac
+Army, issued a proclamation in accordance with them. (Official
+Records, vol. xxvii. pt. i. p. 102; pt. iii. p. 786.) For Pope's
+submission of Order No. 11 to Mr. Lincoln and the limitation placed
+on it, see _Id_., vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 500, 540. For general
+military law on the subject, see Birkhimer's "Military Government
+and Martial Law," chap. viii. For the practice of the Confederates,
+see the treatment of the Hon. George Summers, chap. xix. _post_.]
+Only two days later he issued an order against pillaging or
+molestation of persons and dwellings, as stringent as any one could
+wish. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 573.]
+
+On the 5th of August Pope suggested to Halleck that I should be
+ordered to leave about 2500 men intrenched near Gauley Bridge, and
+march with the remainder of my command (say nine regiments) by way
+of Lewisburg, Covington, Staunton, and Harrisonburg to join him.
+Halleck replied that it was too much exposed, and directed him to
+select one more in the rear. Pope very rightly answered that there
+was no other route which would not make a great circuit to the rear.
+Halleck saw that Jackson's army near Charlottesville with a probable
+purpose of turning Pope's right flank might make a junction
+impossible for me, and stated the objection, but concluded with
+authority to Pope to order as he deemed best, "but with caution."
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 534, 540, 543.]
+
+On the 8th of August Pope telegraphed me, accordingly, to march by
+way of Lewisburg, Covington, Warm Springs, and Augusta Springs to
+Harrisonburg, and there join him by shortest route. He indicated
+Winchester or Romney as my secondary aim if I should find the
+junction with him barred. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 460, 462, 551.] This
+route avoided Staunton, but by so short a distance that it was
+scarcely safer, and the roads to be travelled were much harder and
+longer. At this time several detachments of considerable size were
+out, chasing guerilla parties and small bodies of Confederate
+troops, and assisting in the organization or enlistment of Union
+men. The movement ordered could not begin for several days, and I
+took advantage of the interval to lay before General Pope, by
+telegraph, the proof that the march would take fifteen days of
+uninterrupted travel through a mountainous region, most of it a
+wilderness destitute of supplies, and with the enemy upon the flank.
+Besides this there was the very serious question whether the Army of
+Virginia would be at Charlottesville when I should approach that
+place. On the other hand, my calculation was that we could reach
+Washington in ten days or less, by way of the Kanawha and Ohio
+rivers to Parkersburg, and thence by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+to the capital. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xiii. pt. iii. pp. 555, 559.]
+My dispatches were submitted to General Halleck, and on the 11th of
+August General Pope telegraphed a modified assent to my suggestions.
+He directed that 5000 men should remain in West Virginia under my
+command, and the remainder proceed to Washington by river and rail.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xiii. pt. iii. p. 560.] An
+incursion of the enemy's cavalry into Logan County on my right and
+rear was at the moment in progress, and we used great activity in
+disposing of it, so that the change in our dispositions might not be
+too quickly known to our adversaries nor have the appearance of
+retreat. [Footnote: I at one time supposed that the orders to march
+across the country originated with General Halleck, but the Official
+Records of the War fix the history of the matter as is above
+stated.]
+
+It is a natural wish of every soldier to serve with the largest army
+in the most important campaign. The order to remain with a
+diminished command in West Virginia was a great disappointment to
+me, against which I made haste to protest. On the 13th I was
+rejoiced by permission to accompany my command to the East.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 567, 570.] Preliminary orders had already been
+given for making Fayetteville and Hawk's Nest the principal advanced
+posts in the contracted operations of the district, with Gauley
+Bridge for their common depot of supply and point of concentration
+in case of an advance of the enemy in force. I organized two small
+brigades and two batteries of artillery for the movement to
+Washington. Colonels Scammon and Moor, who were my senior colonels,
+were already in command of brigades, and Colonel Lightburn was in
+command of the lower valley. The arrangement already existing
+practically controlled. Scammon's brigade was unchanged, and in
+Moor's the Thirty-sixth Ohio under Crook and the Eleventh were
+substituted for the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-fourth. The
+organization therefore was as follows; namely, First Brigade,
+Colonel Scammon commanding, consisted of the Twelfth, Twenty-third,
+and Thirtieth Ohio and McMullin's Ohio Battery; Second Brigade,
+Colonel Moor commanding, consisted of the Eleventh, Twenty-eighth,
+and Thirty-sixth Ohio and Simmonds's Kentucky Battery. One troop of
+horse for orderlies and headquarters escort, and another for similar
+service, with the brigades, also accompanied us. The regiments left
+in the Kanawha district were the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-seventh,
+Forty-fourth, and Forty-seventh Ohio, the Fourth and Ninth West
+Virginia Infantry, the Second West Virginia Cavalry, a battery, and
+some incomplete local organizations. Colonel J. A. J. Lightburn of
+the Fourth West Virginia was in command as senior officer within the
+district. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 567,
+570; vol. li. pt. i. pp. 738, 742, 754.]
+
+Portions of the troops were put in motion on the 14th of August, and
+a systematic itinerary was prepared for them in advance. [Footnote:
+_Id_., vol. li. pt. i. p. 738.] They marched fifty minutes, and then
+rested the remaining ten minutes of each hour. The day's work was
+divided into two stages of fifteen miles each, with a long rest at
+noon, and with a half day's interval between the brigades. The
+weather was warm, but by starting at three o'clock in the morning
+the heat of the day was reserved for rest, and they made their
+prescribed distance without distress and without straggling. They
+went by Raleigh C. H. and Fayetteville to Gauley Bridge, thence down
+the right bank of the Kanawha to Camp Piatt, thirteen miles above
+Charleston. The whole distance was ninety miles, and was covered
+easily in the three days and a half allotted to it. [Footnote:
+_Id_., vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 629.] The fleet of light-draft
+steamboats which supplied the district with military stores was at
+my command, and I gave them rendezvous at Camp Piatt, where they
+were in readiness to meet the troops when the detachments began to
+arrive on the 17th. In the evening of the 14th I left the camp at
+Flat-top with my staff and rode to Raleigh C. H. On the 15th we
+completed the rest of the sixty miles to Gauley Bridge. From that
+point I was able to telegraph General Meigs, the
+Quartermaster-General at Washington, that I should reach
+Parkersburg, the Ohio River terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio
+Railroad, on the evening of the 20th, and should need railway
+transportation for 5000 men, two batteries of six guns each, 1100
+horses, 270 wagons, with camp equipage and regimental trains
+complete, according to the army regulations then in force.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 577, 619, 629;
+vol. li. p. 754.]
+
+At Gauley Bridge I met Colonel Lightburn, to whom I turned over the
+command of the district, and spent the time, whilst the troops were
+on the march, in completing the arrangements both for our
+transportation and for the best disposition of the troops which were
+to remain. The movement of the division was the first in which there
+had been a carefully prepared effort to move a considerable body of
+troops with wagons and animals over a long distance within a
+definitely fixed time, and it was made the basis of the calculations
+for the movement of General Hooker and his two corps from Washington
+to Tennessee in the next year. It thus obtained some importance in
+the logistics of the war. The president of the railway put the
+matter unreservedly into the hands of W. P. Smith, the master of
+transportation; Mr. P. H. Watson, Assistant Secretary of War,
+represented the army in the management of the transfer, and by thus
+concentrating responsibility and power, the business was simplified,
+and what was then regarded as a noteworthy success was secured. The
+command could have moved more rapidly, perhaps, without its wagons
+and animals, but a constant supply of these was needed for the
+eastern army, and it was wise to take them, for they were organized
+into trains with drivers used to their teams and feeling a personal
+interest in them. It turned out that our having them was a most
+fortunate thing, for not only were the troops of the Army of the
+Potomac greatly crippled for lack of transportation on their return
+from the peninsula, but we were able to give rations to the Ninth
+Army Corps after the battle of Antietam, when the transportation of
+the other divisions proved entirely insufficient to keep up the
+supply of food.
+
+From the head of navigation on the Kanawha to Parkersburg on the
+Ohio was about one hundred and fifty miles; but the rivers were so
+low that the steamboats proceeded slowly, delayed by various
+obstacles and impediments, At Letart's Falls, on the Ohio, the water
+was a broken rapid, up which the boats had to be warped one at a
+time, by means of a heavy warp-line made fast to the bank and
+carried to the steam-capstan on the steamer. At the foot of
+Blennerhassett's Island there was only two feet of water in the
+channel, and the boats dragged themselves over the bottom by
+"sparring," a process somewhat like an invalid's pushing his
+wheel-chair along by a pair of crutches. But everybody worked with a
+will, and on the 21st the advanced regiments were transferred to the
+railway cars at Parkersburg, according to programme, and pulled out
+for Washington. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp.
+619, 629.] These were the Thirty-sixth Ohio, Colonel Crook, and the
+Thirtieth Ohio, Colonel Ewing. They passed through Washington to
+Alexandria, and thence, without stopping, to Warrenton, Virginia,
+where they reported at General Pope's headquarters. [Footnote:
+_Id_., pp. 636, 637, 668, 676.] The Eleventh Ohio
+(Lieutenant-Colonel Coleman) and Twelfth (Colonel White), with
+Colonel Scammon commanding brigade, left Parkersburg on the 22d,
+reaching Washington on the 24th. One of them passed on to
+Alexandria, but the other (Eleventh Ohio) was stopped in Washington
+by reason of a break in Long Bridge across the Potomac, and marched
+to Alexandria the next day. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii.
+pt. iii. pp. 650, 677.] The last of the regiments (Twenty-eighth
+Ohio, Colonel Moor, and Twenty-third, Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes),
+with the artillery and cavalry followed, and on the 26th all the men
+had reached Washington, though the wagons and animals were a day or
+two later in arriving. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 698.]
+
+In Washington I reported to the Secretary of War, and was received
+with a cordiality that went far to remove from my mind the
+impression I had got from others, that Mr. Stanton was abrupt and
+unpleasant to approach. Both on this occasion and later, he was as
+affable as could be expected of a man driven with incessant and
+importunate duties of state. In the intervals of my constant visits
+to the railway offices (for getting my troops and my wagons together
+was the absorbing duty) I found time for a hurried visit to
+Secretary Chase, and found also my friend Governor Dennison in the
+city, mediating between the President and General McClellan with the
+good-will and diplomatic wisdom which peculiarly marked his
+character. I had expected to go forward with three regiments to join
+General Pope on the evening of the 26th; but Colonel Haupt, the
+military superintendent of railways at Alexandria, was unable to
+furnish the transportation by reason of the detention of trains at
+the front. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 625, 677.] Lee's flank movement
+against Pope's army had begun, and as the latter retreated all the
+railway cars which could be procured were needed to move his stores
+back toward Washington. On the afternoon of the 26th, however,
+arrangements had been made for moving the regiments at Alexandria
+early next morning. [Footnote: _Ibid_, and pp. 678, 679.] The wagons
+and animals were near at hand, and I ordered Colonel Moor with the
+Twenty-eighth Ohio to march with them to Manassas as soon as they
+should be unloaded from the railway trains. But during the night
+occurred a startling change in the character of the campaign which
+upset all our plans and gave a wholly unexpected turn to my own part
+in it.
+
+About nine o'clock in the evening Colonel Haupt received at
+Alexandria the information that the enemy's cavalry had attacked our
+great depot of supplies at Manassas Junction. The telegrapher had
+barely time to send a message, break the connection of the wires,
+and hurry away to escape capture. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xii. pt. iii. p. 680.] It was naturally supposed to be only a
+cavalry raid, but the interruption of communication with Pope in
+that crisis was in itself a serious mishap. The first thing to be
+done was to push forward any troops at hand to protect the railway
+bridge over Bull Run, and by authority of the War Department Colonel
+Haupt was authorized to send forward, under Colonel Scammon, the
+Eleventh and Twelfth Ohio without waiting to communicate with me.
+They were started very early in the morning of the 27th, going to
+support a New Jersey brigade under General George W. Taylor which
+had been ordered to protect the Bull Run bridge. [Footnote: C. W.,
+vol. i. pp. 379, 381.] Ignorant of all this, I was busy on Wednesday
+morning (27th), trying to learn the whereabouts of the trains with
+my wagon teams, which had not yet reached Washington, and reported
+the situation as to my command to the Assistant Secretary of War,
+Mr. Watson. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 698.]
+I then learned of Scammon's sudden movement to the front, and of the
+serious character of the enemy's movement upon Manassas. I marched
+at once with the two regiments still in Washington, expecting to
+follow the rest of the command by rail as soon as we should reach
+Alexandria. Arriving there, I hastened to the telegraph office at
+the railway station, where I found not only Colonel Haupt, but
+General McClellan, who had come from Fortress Monroe the night
+before. Of the Army of the Potomac, Heintzelman's and Porter's corps
+were already with Pope, Franklin's was at Alexandria, and Sumner's
+was beginning to arrive. As soon as it was known at the War
+Department that McClellan was present, General Halleck's
+correspondence was of course with him, and we passed under his
+orders. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 688,
+689, 691.] It had already been learned that 'Stonewall' Jackson was
+with infantry as well as cavalry at Manassas, and that the Bull Run
+bridge had been burned, our troops being driven back three or four
+miles from it. McClellan thought it necessary to organize the two
+corps at Alexandria and such other troops as were there, including
+mine, first to cover that place and Washington in the possible
+contingency that Lee's whole army had interposed between General
+Pope and the capital, and, second, to open communication with Pope
+as soon as the situation of the latter could be learned. Couch's
+division was still at Yorktown, and orders had been issued by
+Halleck to ship 5000 new troops there to relieve Couch and allow his
+veteran division to join the Potomac Army. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+689.]
+
+McClellan directed me to take the two regiments with me into camp
+with Franklin's corps at Annandale, three miles in front of
+Alexandria, and to obey Franklin's orders if any emergency should
+occur. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 692.] I found, at the
+post-quartermaster's office, an officer who had served in West
+Virginia a year before, and by his hearty and efficient good-will
+secured some supplies for the regiments with me during the days that
+were yet to pass before we got our own trains and could feel that we
+had an assured means of living and moving in an independent way. We
+bivouacked by the roadside without shelter of any sort, enveloped in
+dense clouds of dust from the marching columns of the Army of the
+Potomac, their artillery and wagons, as they passed and went into
+camp just in front of us. About noon, on Thursday (28th), Colonel
+Scammon joined me with the two regiments he had taken toward
+Manassas, and we learned the particulars of the sharp engagement he
+had at the railway bridge.
+
+The train carrying the troops approached the bridge over Bull Run
+about eight o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, and Colonel Scammon
+immediately pushed forward the Twelfth Ohio (Colonel White) to the
+bridge itself and the bank of the stream. He met the New Jersey
+brigade of four regiments coming back in confusion and panic. The
+commander, General Taylor, had taken position on the west side of
+the creek, covering the bridge; but he had no artillery, and though
+his advance was made with great spirit (as Jackson recognized in his
+report [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 644.] ),
+his lines had been subjected to a heavy artillery fire from the
+batteries of A. P. Hill's and Jackson's own divisions, and broke,
+retreating in disorder to the eastern side of the stream. General
+Taylor himself fell severely wounded whilst trying to rally them. It
+was at this moment that Scammon reached the field with the Twelfth
+Ohio. He had heard the artillery fire, but little or no musketry,
+and was astonished at seeing the retreat. He sent his
+adjutant-general, Lieutenant Robert P. Kennedy, [Footnote: Member of
+Congress (1890), and recently Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio.] to
+communicate with General Taylor and to try to rally the fugitives.
+Meanwhile he ordered Colonel White to line the bank of the creek
+with his men and try to protect the bridge structure. Kennedy found
+General Taylor in a litter being carried to the rear, and the
+general, though in anguish from his wound, was in great mental
+distress at the rout of his men. He begged every one to rally the
+flying troops if possible, and sent his own adjutant-general,
+Captain Dunham, to turn over the general command to Scammon. All
+efforts to rally the panic-stricken brigade were fruitless, and
+Scammon resisted the advance of Hill's division through nearly a
+whole day with the two regiments alone. A Lieutenant Wright of the
+Fourth New Jersey, with ten men, reported to Colonel Scammon and
+begged assignment in the line. Their names are honorably enrolled in
+Scammon's report, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p.
+407.] and these, with Captain Dunham, did heroic service, but were
+all of the brigade that took any further part in the fight. Dunham
+succeeded in rallying a portion of the brigade later in the day, but
+too late to enter the engagement.
+
+Taking advantage of the bridges near the stream, Scammon kept his
+men covered from the artillery fire as well as possible, driving
+back with his volleys every effort to pass by the bridge or to ford
+the stream in his front. Hill moved brigades considerably to right
+and left, and attempted to surround White and the Twelfth Ohio. But
+Coleman, with the Eleventh, had come up in support, and Scammon
+ordered him to charge on the enemy's right, which was passing
+White's left flank. Coleman did so in splendid style, driving his
+foe before him, and crossing the bridge to the west side. The odds,
+however, were far too great where a brigade could attack each
+regiment of ours and others pass beyond them, so that Scammon,
+having fully developed the enemy's force, had to limit himself to
+delaying their advance, retiring his little command in echelon from
+one ridge to another, as his wings were threatened. This he did with
+perfect coolness and order, maintaining the unequal struggle without
+assistance till about half-past three in the afternoon. The enemy's
+efforts now relaxed, and Scammon withdrew at leisure to a position
+some three miles from the bridge. Hill still showed a disposition to
+surround the detachment by manoeuvres, and Scammon retired toward
+Annandale in the night. He himself underestimated the enemy's force
+in infantry, which Jackson's report puts at "several brigades."
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 644.] His loss in
+the two Ohio regiments was 106 in killed, wounded, and missing.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 262.] Those of the New Jersey brigade are not
+reported. The combat was a most instructive military lesson,
+teaching what audacity and skill may do with a very small force in
+delaying and mystifying a much larger one, which was imposed upon by
+its firm front and its able handling.
+
+Some of Scammon's wounded being too badly hurt to be removed, he
+detailed a surgeon to remain with them and care for them till they
+should be exchanged or otherwise brought within our lines. This
+surgeon was taken to Jackson's headquarters, where he was questioned
+as to the troops which had held the Confederates at bay. General J.
+E. B. Stuart was with Jackson, and on the surgeon's stating that the
+fighting during most of the day had been by the two Ohio regiments
+alone, Stuart's racy expressions of admiration were doubly
+complimentary as coming from such an adversary, and, when repeated,
+were more prized by the officers and men than any praise from their
+own people. [Footnote: The history of this engagement was currently
+published with curious inaccuracies. Even Mr. Ropes in his "Campaign
+under Pope" does not seem to have seen the Official Records on our
+side, and supposed that Taylor's brigade was all that was engaged.
+See Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 405-411; also pt. iii.
+pp. 698, 699; also C. W., vol. i. pp. 379-382.]
+
+Toward evening on Thursday, a thunderstorm and gale of wind came up,
+adding greatly to the wretched discomfort of the troops for the
+moment, but making the air clearer and laying the dust for a day or
+two. I found partial shelter with my staff, on the veranda of a
+small house which was occupied by ladies of the families of some
+general officers of the Potomac Army, who had seized the passing
+opportunity to see their husbands in the interval of the campaign.
+We thought ourselves fortunate in getting even the shelter of the
+veranda roof for the night. On Friday morning (29th), Captain Fitch,
+my quartermaster, was able to report his train and baggage safe at
+Alexandria, and we were ready for any service. Orders came from
+General McClellan during the forenoon to move the four regiments now
+with me into Forts Ramsey and Buffalo, on Upton's and Munson's
+hills, covering Washington on the direct road to Centreville by
+Aqueduct Bridge, Ball's Cross-Roads, and Fairfax C. H. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 712, 726. For this he had
+Halleck's authority, in view of the danger of cavalry raids into the
+city. _Id_., p. 722.] General McClellan had established his
+headquarters on Seminary Ridge beyond the northern outskirts of
+Alexandria, and after putting my command in motion I rode there to
+get fuller instructions from him as to the duty assigned me. His
+tents were pitched in a high airy situation looking toward the
+Potomac on the east; indeed he had found them a little too airy in
+the thunder-squall of the previous evening which had demolished part
+of the canvas village. It must have been about noon when I
+dismounted at his tent. The distant pounding of artillery had been
+in our ears as we rode. It was Pope's battle with Jackson along the
+turnpike between Bull Run and Gainesville and on the heights above
+Groveton, thirty miles away.
+
+[Illustration: Map]
+
+General Franklin had ridden over from Annandale and was with
+McClellan receiving his parting directions under the imperative
+orders which Halleck had sent to push that corps out to Pope.
+McClellan's words I was not likely to forget. "Go," he said, "and
+whatever may happen, don't allow it to be said that the Army of the
+Potomac failed to do its utmost for the country." McClellan then
+explained to me the importance of the position to which I was
+ordered. The heights were the outer line of defence of Washington on
+the west, which had been held at one time, a year before, by the
+Confederates, who had an earthwork there, notorious for a while
+under the camp name of "Fort Skedaddle." From them the unfinished
+dome of the Capitol was to be seen, and the rebel flag had flaunted
+there, easily distinguishable by the telescopes which were daily
+pointed at it from the city. McClellan had little expectation that
+Pope would escape defeat, and impressed upon me the necessity of
+being prepared to cover a perhaps disorderly retreat within the
+lines. Some heavy artillery troops (Fourth New York Heavy Artillery)
+were in garrison at one of the forts, and these with the forces at
+Falls Church were ordered to report to me. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 726.] Assuring me that he would soon
+visit me in my new quarters, McClellan dismissed me, and I galloped
+forward to overtake my troops.
+
+I found the position of the forts a most commanding one, overlooking
+the country in every direction. Westward the ground sloped away from
+us toward Fairfax Court House and Centreville. Northward, in a
+pretty valley, lay the village of Falls Church, and beyond it a
+wooded ridge over which a turnpike road ran to Vienna and on to
+Leesburg. Behind us was the rolling country skirting the Potomac,
+and from Ball's Cross-Roads, a mile or two in rear, a northward road
+led to the chain bridge above Georgetown, whilst the principal way
+went directly to the city by the Aqueduct Bridge. Three knolls
+grouped so as to command these different directions had been crowned
+with forts of strong profile. The largest of these, Fort Ramsey, on
+Upton's Hill was armed with twenty-pounder Parrott rifles, and the
+heavy-artillery troops occupied this work. I had a pair of guns of
+the same kind and calibre in my mixed battery, and these with my
+other field artillery were put in the other forts. Lines of infantry
+trench connected the works and extended right and left, and my four
+regiments occupied these. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt.
+i. pp. 777, 779; vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 176.] A regiment of cavalry
+(Eighth Illinois, joined later by the Eighth Pennsylvania) was
+ordered to report to me, and this, with Schambeck's squadron which
+had come with me, made a cavalry camp in front of Falls Church and
+picketed and patrolled the front. [Footnote: See my order assigning
+garrisons to the forts. Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 771.]
+
+We pitched our headquarters tents on Upton's Hill, just in rear of
+Fort Ramsey, and had a sense of luxury in "setting our house in
+order" after the uncomfortable experience of our long journey from
+West Virginia. The hurry of startling events in the past few days
+made our late campaign in the mountains seem as far away in time as
+it was in space. We were now in the very centre of excitement, and
+had become a very small part of a great army. The isolation and the
+separate responsibility of the past few months seemed like another
+existence indefinitely far away. I lost no time in making a rapid
+ride about my position, studying its approaches in the gathering
+twilight and trying to fix in mind the leading features of the
+topography with their relation to the possible retreat of our army
+and advance of the enemy. And all the while the rapid though muffled
+thumping of the distant cannon was in our ears, coming from the
+field in front of Groveton, where Lee, having now united his whole
+army against Pope, was sending part of Longstreet's divisions
+against McDowell's corps along the Warrenton turnpike.
+
+On Saturday the 30th ambulances began coming through our lines with
+wounded men, and some on foot with an arm in a sling or bandages
+upon the head were wearily finding their way into the city. All such
+were systematically questioned, their information was collated and
+corrected, and reports were made to General Halleck and General
+McClellan. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 405;
+pt. iii. pp. 748, 789; vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 170; vol. li. pt. i. p.
+777.] The general impression of all undoubtedly was that the
+engagement of Friday had been victorious for our army, and that the
+enemy was probably retreating at dark. During the day the cannonade
+continued with occasional lulls. It seemed more distant and fainter,
+requiring attentive listening to hear it. This was no doubt due to
+some change in the condition of the atmosphere; but we naturally
+interpreted it according to our wishes, and believed that the
+success of Friday was followed by the pursuit of the enemy. About
+four o'clock in the afternoon the distant firing became much more
+rapid; at times the separate shots could not be counted. I
+telegraphed to McClellan the fact which indicated a crisis in the
+battle. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 748.] It
+was the fierce artillery duel which preceded the decisive advance of
+Longstreet against Pope's left wing. This was the decisive
+turning-point in the engagement, and Pope was forced to retreat upon
+Centreville.
+
+Early in the evening all doubt was removed about the result of the
+battle. Ill news travels fast, and the retreat toward us shortened
+the distance to be travelled. But as Sumner's and Franklin's corps
+had gone forward and would report to Pope at Centreville, we were
+assured that Pope was "out of his scrape" (to use the words of
+McClellan's too famous dispatch to the President [Footnote: _Id_.,
+vol. xi. pt. i. p. 98.] ), and that the worst that could now happen
+would be the continuance of the retreat within our lines. The combat
+at Chantilly on the evening of September 1st was the last of Pope's
+long series of bloody engagements, and though the enemy was
+repulsed, the loss of Generals Kearny and Stevens made it seem to us
+like another disaster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RETREAT WITHIN THE LINES--REORGANIZATION--HALLECK AND HIS
+SUBORDINATES
+
+
+McClellan's visits to my position--Riding the lines--Discussing the
+past campaign--The withdrawal from the James--Prophecy--McClellan
+and the soldiers--He is in command of the defences--Intricacy of
+official relations--Reorganization begun--Pope's army marches
+through our works--Meeting of McClellan and Pope--Pope's
+characteristics--Undue depreciation of him--The situation when
+Halleck was made General-in-Chief--Pope's part in it--Reasons for
+dislike on the part of the Potomac Army--McClellan's secret
+service--Deceptive information of the enemy's force--Information
+from prisoners and citizens--Effects of McClellan's illusion as to
+Lee's strength--Halleck's previous career--Did he intend to take
+command in the field?--His abdication of the field command--The
+necessity for a union of forces in Virginia--McClellan's inaction
+was Lee's opportunity--Slow transfer of the Army of the
+Potomac--Halleck burdened with subordinate's work--Burnside twice
+declines the command--It is given to McClellan--Pope relieved--Other
+changes in organization--Consolidation--New campaign begun.
+
+
+On Sunday, the 31st, McClellan rode over to Upton's Hill and spent
+most of the day with me. He brought me a copy of the McDowell map of
+the country about Washington, the compilation of which had been that
+officer's first work at the beginning of hostilities. It covered the
+region to and beyond the Bull Run battlefield, and although not
+wholly accurate, it was approximately so, and was the only authority
+relied upon for topographical details of the region. McClellan's
+primary purpose was to instruct me as to the responsibilities that
+might fall upon me if the army should be driven in. A day or two
+later I received formal orders to prepare to destroy buildings in
+front within my lines of artillery fire, and to be ready to cover
+the retreat of our army should any part be driven back near my
+position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 802,
+805.] All this, however, had been discussed with McClellan himself.
+We rode together over all the principal points in the neighborhood,
+and he pointed out their relation to each other and to positions on
+the map which we did not visit. The discussion of the topography led
+to reminiscences of the preceding year,--of the manner in which the
+enemy had originally occupied these hills, and of their withdrawal
+from them,--of the subsequent construction of the forts and
+connecting lines, who occupied them all, and the system of mutual
+support, of telegraphic communication, and of plans for defence in
+case of attack.
+
+McClellan had received me at Alexandria on the 27th with all his old
+cordiality, and had put me at once upon our accustomed footing of
+personal friendship. On my part, there was naturally a little
+watchfulness not to overstep the proper line of subordination or to
+be inquisitive about things he did not choose to confide to me; but,
+this being assumed, I found myself in a circle where he seemed to
+unbosom himself with freedom. I saw no interruption in this while I
+remained in the Potomac Army. He was, at this time, a little
+depressed in manner, feeling keenly his loss of power and command,
+but maintaining a quiet dignity that became him better than any show
+of carelessness would have done. He used no bitter or harsh language
+in criticising others. Pope and McDowell he plainly disliked, and
+rated them low as to capacity for command; but he spoke of them
+without discourtesy or vilification. I think it necessary to say
+this because of the curious sidelight thrown on his character by the
+private letters to his wife which have since been published in his
+"Own Story," and of which I shall have more to say. Their
+inconsistency with his expressions and manner in conversation, or at
+least their great exaggeration of what he conveyed in familiar talk,
+has struck me very forcibly and unpleasantly.
+
+He discussed his campaign of the peninsula with apparent unreserve.
+He condemned the decision to recall him from Harrison's Landing,
+arguing that the one thing to do in that emergency was to reinforce
+his army there and make it strong enough to go on with its work and
+capture Richmond. He said that if the government had lost confidence
+in his ability to conduct the campaign to a successful end, still it
+was unwise to think of anything else except to strengthen that army
+and give it to some one they could trust. He added explicitly, "If
+Pope was the man they had faith in then Pope should have been sent
+to Harrison's Landing to take command, and however bitter it would
+have been, I should have had no just reason to complain." He
+predicted that they would yet be put to the cost of much life and
+treasure to get back to the position left by him.
+
+On Monday, September 1st, he visited me again, and we renewed our
+riding and our conversation. The road from his headquarters
+encampment near Alexandria to Upton's Hill was a pleasant one for
+his "constitutional" ride, and my position was nearest the army in
+front where news from it would most likely be first found. The Army
+of the Potomac had all passed to the front from Alexandria, and
+according to the letter of the orders issued, he was wholly without
+command; though Halleck personally directed him to exercise
+supervision over all detachments about the works and lines. He came
+almost alone on these visits, an aide and an orderly or two being
+his only escort. Colonel Colburn of his staff was usually his
+companion. He wore a blue flannel hunting-shirt quite different from
+the common army blouse. It was made with a broad yoke at the neck,
+and belt at the waist, the body in plaits. He was without sash or
+side arms, or any insignia of rank except inconspicuous
+shoulder-straps. On this day he was going into Washington, and I
+rode down with him to the bridge. Bodies of troops of the new levies
+were encamped at different points near the river. In these there
+seemed to be always some veterans or officers who knew the general,
+and the men quickly gathered in groups and cheered him. He had a
+taking way of returning such salutations. He went beyond the formal
+military salute, and gave his cap a little twirl, which with his bow
+and smile seemed to carry a little of personal good fellowship even
+to the humblest private soldier. If the cheer was repeated, he would
+turn in his saddle and repeat the salute. It was very plain that
+these little attentions to the troops took well, and had no doubt
+some influence in establishing a sort of comradeship between him and
+them. They were part of an attractive and winning deportment which
+adapted itself to all sorts and ranks of men.
+
+On Tuesday he came a little later in the day, and I noticed at once
+a change in his appearance. He wore his yellow sash with sword and
+belt buckled over it, and his face was animated as he greeted me
+with "Well, General, I am in command again!" I congratulated him
+with hearty earnestness, for I was personally rejoiced at it. I was
+really attached to him, believed him to be, on the whole, the most
+accomplished officer I knew, and was warmly disposed to give him
+loyal friendship and service. He told me of his cordial interview
+with President Lincoln, and that the latter had said he believed him
+to be the only man who could bring organized shape out of the chaos
+in which everything seemed then to be. The form of his new
+assignment to duty was that he was to "have command of the
+fortifications of Washington, and of all the troops for the defence
+of the capital." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p.
+807.] The order was made by the personal direction of the President,
+and McClellan knew that Secretary Stanton did not approve of it.
+General Halleck seemed glad to be rid of a great responsibility, and
+accepted the President's action with entire cordiality. Still, he
+was no doubt accurate in writing to Pope later that the action was
+that of the President alone without any advice from him. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 820.] McClellan was
+evidently and entirely happy in his personal relation to things. He
+had not been relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac,
+though the troops had passed temporarily to Pope's army. As
+commandant of all within the defences, his own army reported to him
+directly when they came within our lines. Pope's army of northern
+Virginia would, of course, report through its commander, and
+Burnside's in a similar way. The first thing to be done was to get
+the army in good condition, to strengthen its corps by the new
+regiments which were swarming toward the capital, and to prepare it
+for a new campaign. McClellan seemed quite willing to postpone the
+question who would command when it took the field. Of the present he
+was sure. It was in his own hands, and the work of reorganization
+was that in which his prestige was almost sure to increase. This
+attitude was plainly shown in all he said and in all he hinted at
+without fully saying it.
+
+Halleck had already directed Pope to bring the army within the
+fortifications, though the latter had vainly tried to induce him to
+ride out toward Centreville, to see the troops and have a
+consultation there before determining what to do. [Footnote: _Id_.,
+p. 796.] We were therefore expecting the head of column to approach
+my lines, and I arranged that we should be notified when they came
+near. McClellan had already determined to put the corps and
+divisions of the Army of the Potomac in the works, at positions
+substantially the same as they had occupied a year before,--Porter
+near Chain Bridge, Sumner next, Franklin near Alexandria, etc. I was
+directed to continue in the position I already occupied, to be
+supported by part of McDowell's corps.
+
+About four o'clock McClellan rode forward, and I accompanied him. We
+halted at the brow of the hill looking down the Fairfax road. The
+head of the column was in sight, and rising dust showed its position
+far beyond. Pope and McDowell, with the staff, rode at the head.
+Their uniform and that of all the party was covered with dust, their
+beards were powdered with it; they looked worn and serious, but
+alert and self-possessed. When we met, after brief salutations,
+McClellan announced that he had been ordered to assume command
+within the fortifications, and named to General Pope the positions
+the several corps would occupy. This done, both parties bowed, and
+the cavalcade moved on. King's division of McDowell's corps was the
+leading one, General Hatch, the senior brigadier, being in command
+by reason of King's illness. Hatch was present, near Pope, when
+McClellan assumed command, and instantly turning rode a few paces to
+the head of his column and shouted, "Boys, McClellan is in command
+again; three cheers!" The cheers were given with wild delight, and
+were taken up and passed toward the rear of the column. Warm friend
+of McClellan as I was, I felt my flesh cringe at the unnecessary
+affront to the unfortunate commander of that army. But no word was
+spoken. Pope lifted his hat in a parting salute to McClellan and
+rode quietly on with his escort. [Footnote: General Hatch had been
+in command of the cavalry of Banks's corps up to the battle of Cedar
+Mountain, when he was relieved by Pope's order by reason of
+dissatisfaction with his handling of that arm of the service. His
+assignment to a brigade of infantry in King's division was such a
+reduction of his prominence as an officer that it would not be
+strange if it chafed him.]
+
+McClellan remained for a time, warmly greeted by the passing troops.
+He then left me, and rode off toward Vienna, northward. According to
+my recollection, Colonel Colburn was the only member of his staff
+with him; they had a small cavalry escort. My understanding also was
+that they proposed to return by Chain Bridge, avoiding the crowding
+of the road on which they had come out, and on which McDowell's
+corps was now moving. In his "Own Story" McClellan speaks of going
+in that direction to see the situation of Sumner's troops, supposed
+to be attacked, and intimates a neglect on Pope's part of a duty in
+that direction. I am confident he is mistaken as to this, and that I
+have given the whole interview between him and Pope. The telegraphic
+connection with my headquarters was such that he could learn the
+situation in front of any part of the line much more promptly there
+than by riding in person. Lee did not pursue, in fact, beyond
+Fairfax C. H. and Centreville, and nothing more than small bodies of
+cavalry were in our vicinity. I had kept scouting-parties of our own
+cavalry active in our front, and had also collected news from other
+sources. On the 1st of September I had been able to send to army
+headquarters authentic information of the expectation of the
+Confederate army to move into Maryland, and every day thereafter
+added to the evidence of that purpose, until they actually crossed
+the Potomac on the 5th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt.
+ii. pp. 404, 405; vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 170; vol. li. pt. i. p. 777.]
+
+Hatch's division was put into the lines on my left with orders to
+report to me in case of attack. Patrick's brigade of that division
+was next day placed near Falls Church in support of my cavalry,
+reporting directly to me. My two regiments which had been with Pope
+rejoined the division, and made it complete again. The night of the
+2d was one in which I was on the alert all night, as it was probable
+the enemy would disturb us then if ever; but it passed quietly. A
+skirmish in our front on the Vienna road on the 4th was the only
+enlivening event till we began the campaign of South Mountain and
+Antietam on the 6th.
+
+Pope's proposed reorganization of his army, [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 810.] which would have put me with
+most of Sigel's corps under Hooker, was prevented by a larger change
+which relieved him of command and consolidated his army with that of
+the Potomac on September 5th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 813.] I had a
+very slight acquaintance with Pope at the beginning of the war, but
+no opportunity of increasing it till he assumed command in Virginia
+and I reported to him as a subordinate. The events just sketched had
+once more interfered with my expected association with him, and I
+did not meet him again till long afterward. Then I came to know him
+well. His wife and the wife of my intimate friend General Force were
+sisters, and in Force's house we often met. He was then broken in
+health and softened by personal afflictions. [Footnote: Mrs. Pope
+and Mrs. Force were daughters of the Hon. V. B. Horton, of Pomeroy,
+Ohio, a public man of solid influence and character, and prominent
+in the development of the coal and salt industries of the Ohio
+valley. I leave the text as I wrote it some years before General
+Pope's death. Since he died, the friendship of our families has
+culminated in a marriage between our children.] His reputation in
+1861 was that of an able and energetic man, vehement and positive in
+character, apt to be choleric and even violent toward those who
+displeased him. I remember well that I shrunk a little from coming
+under his immediate orders through fear of some chafing, though I
+learned in the army that choleric commanders, if they have ability,
+are often warmly appreciative of those who serve them with soldierly
+spirit and faithfulness. No one who had any right to judge
+questioned Pope's ability or his zeal in the National cause. His
+military career in the West had been a brilliant one. The necessity
+for uniting the columns in northern Virginia into one army was
+palpable; but it was a delicate question to decide who should
+command them. It seems to have been assumed by Mr. Lincoln that the
+commander must be a new man,--neither Fremont, McDowell, nor Banks.
+The reasons were probably much the same as those which later brought
+Grant and Sheridan from the West.
+
+Pope's introduction to the Eastern army, which I have already
+mentioned, was an unfortunate one; but neither he nor any one else
+could have imagined the heat of partisan spirit or the lengths it
+would run. No personal vilification was too absurd to be credited,
+and no characterization was too ridiculous to be received as true to
+the life. It was assumed that he had pledged himself to take
+Richmond with an army of 40,000 men when McClellan had failed to do
+so with 100,000. His defeat by Lee was taken to prove him
+contemptible as a commander, by the very men who lauded McClellan
+for having escaped destruction from the same army. There was neither
+intelligence nor consistency in the vituperation with which he was
+covered; but there was abundant proof that the wounded _amour
+propre_ of the officers and men of the Potomac Army made them
+practically a unit in intense dislike and distrust of him. It may be
+that this condition of things destroyed his possibility of
+usefulness at the East; but it would be asking too much of human
+nature (certainly too much of Pope's impetuous nature) to ask him to
+take meekly the office of scapegoat for the disastrous result of the
+whole campaign. His demand on Halleck that he should publish the
+approval he had personally given to the several steps of the
+movements and combats from Cedar Mountain to Chantilly was just, but
+it was imprudent. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii.
+pp. 812, 821.] Halleck was irritated, and made more ready to
+sacrifice his subordinate. Mr. Lincoln was saddened and embarrassed;
+but being persuaded that Pope's usefulness was spoiled, he swallowed
+his own pride and sense of justice, and turned again to McClellan as
+the resource in the emergency of the moment.
+
+Pope seems to me entirely right in claiming that Jackson's raid to
+Manassas was a thing which should have resulted in the destruction
+of that column. He seems to have kept his head, and to have prepared
+his combinations skilfully for making Jackson pay the penalty of his
+audacity. There were a few hours of apparent hesitation on August
+28th, but champions of McClellan should be the last to urge that
+against him. His plans were deranged on that day by the accident of
+McDowell's absence from his own command. This happened through an
+excess of zeal on McDowell's part to find his commander and give him
+the benefit of his knowledge of the topography of the country; yet
+it proved a serious misfortune, and shows how perilous it is for any
+officer to be away from his troops, no matter for what reason. Many
+still think Porter's inaction on the 29th prevented the advantage
+over Jackson from becoming a victory. [Footnote: I have treated this
+subject at large in "The Second Battle of Bull Run as connected with
+the Fitz-John Porter Case."] But after all, when the army was united
+within our lines, the injuries it had inflicted on the enemy so
+nearly balanced those it had received that if Grant or Sherman had
+been in Halleck's place, Lee would never have crossed the Potomac
+into Maryland. McClellan, Pope, and Burnside would have commanded
+the centre and wings of the united and reinforced army, and under a
+competent head it would have marched back to the Rappahannock with
+scarcely a halt.
+
+That Halleck was in command was, in no small measure, Pope's own
+work. He reminded Halleck of this in his letter of September 30th,
+written when he was chafing under the first effects of his removal.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 816, etc.] "If
+you desire," said he, "to know the personal obligation to which I
+refer, I commend you to the President, the Secretary of War, or any
+other member of the administration. Any of these can satisfy your
+inquiries." This means that he had, before the President and the
+cabinet, advocated putting Halleck in supreme command over himself
+and McClellan to give unity to a campaign that would else be
+hopelessly broken down. McClellan was then at Harrison's Landing,
+believing Lee's army to be 200,000 strong, and refusing to listen to
+any suggestion except that enormous reinforcements should be sent to
+him there. He had taught the Army of the Potomac to believe
+implicitly that the Confederate army was more than twice as numerous
+as it was in fact. With this conviction it was natural that they
+should admire the generalship which had saved them from
+annihilation. They accepted with equal faith the lessons which came
+to them from headquarters teaching that the "radicals" at Washington
+were trying for political ends to destroy their general and them. In
+regard to the facts there were varying degrees of intelligence among
+officers and men; but there was a common opinion that they and he
+were willingly sacrificed, and that Pope, the radical, was to
+succeed him. This made them hate Pope, for the time, with holy
+hatred. If the army could at that time have compared authentic
+tables of strength of Lee's army and their own, the whole theory
+would have collapsed at once, and McClellan's reputation and
+popularity with it. They did not have the authentic tables, and
+fought for a year under the awful cloud created by a blundering
+spy-system.
+
+The fiction as to Lee's forces is the most remarkable in the history
+of modern wars. Whether McClellan was the victim or the accomplice
+of the inventions of his "secret service," we cannot tell. It is
+almost incredible that he should be deceived, except willingly. I
+confess to a contempt for all organizations of spies and detectives,
+which is the result of my military experience. The only spies who
+long escape are those who work for both sides. They sell to each
+what it wants, and suit their wares to the demand. Pinkerton's man
+in the rebel commissariat at Yorktown who reported 119,000 rations
+issued daily, laughed well in his sleeve as he pocketed the secret
+service money. [Footnote: For Pinkerton's reports, see Official
+Records, vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 264-272.]
+
+A great deal of valuable information may be got from a hostile
+population, for few men or women know how to hold their tongues,
+though they try never so honestly. A friendly population overdoes
+its information, as a rule. I had an excellent example of this in
+the Kanawha valley. After I had first advanced to Gauley Bridge, the
+Secessionists behind me were busy sending to the enemy all they
+could learn of my force. We intercepted, among others, a letter from
+an intelligent woman who had tried hard to keep her attention upon
+the organization of my command as it passed her house. In counting
+my cannon, she had evidently taken the teams as the easiest units to
+count, and had set down every caisson as a gun, with the
+battery-forge thrown in for an extra one. In a similar way, every
+accidental break in the marching column was counted as the head of a
+new regiment. She thus, in perfect good faith, doubled my force, and
+taught me that such information to the enemy did them more harm than
+good.
+
+As to the enemy's organization and numbers, the only information I
+ever found trustworthy is that got by contact with him. No day
+should pass without having some prisoners got by "feeling the
+lines." These, to secure treatment as regular prisoners of war, must
+always tell the company and regiment to which they belong. Rightly
+questioned, they rarely stop there, and it is not difficult to get
+the brigade, division, etc. The reaction from the dangers with which
+the imagination had invested capture, to the commonly good-humored
+hospitality of the captors, makes men garrulous of whom one would
+not expect it. General Pope's chief quartermaster, of the rank of
+colonel, was captured by Stuart's cavalry in this very campaign; and
+since the war I have read with amazement General Lee's letters to
+President Davis, to the Secretary of War at Richmond, and to General
+Loring in West Virginia, dated August 23d, in which he says:
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 940-941.]
+"General Stuart reports that General Pope's chief quartermaster, who
+was captured last night, positively asserts that Cox's troops are
+being withdrawn by the way of Wheeling." Of course Lee suggests the
+importance of "pushing things" in the Kanawha valley. Stuart thus
+knew my movement on the day I left Parkersburg.
+
+Even when the captured person tells nothing he is bound to conceal,
+enough is necessarily known to enable a diligent provost-marshal to
+construct a reasonably complete roster of the enemy in a short time.
+In the Atlanta campaign I always carried a memorandum book in which
+I noted and corrected all the information of this sort which came to
+me, and by comparing this with others and with the lists at General
+Sherman's headquarters, there was no difficulty in keeping well up
+in the enemy's organization. It may therefore be said that every
+commanding officer ought to know the divisions and brigades of his
+enemy. The strength of a brigade is fairly estimated from the
+average of our own, for in people of similar race and education, the
+models of organization are essentially the same, and subject to the
+same causes of diminution during a campaign. Such considerations as
+these leave no escape from the conclusion that McClellan's estimates
+of Lee's army were absolutely destructive of all chances of success,
+and made it impossible for the President or for General Halleck to
+deal with the military problem before them. That he had continued
+this erroneous counting for more than a year, and through an active
+campaign in the field, destroyed every hope of correcting it. The
+reports of the peninsular campaign reveal, at times, the difficulty
+there was in keeping up the illusion. The known divisions in the
+Confederate army would not account for the numbers attributed to
+them, and so these divisions occasionally figure in our reports as
+"grand divisions." [Footnote: In his dispatch to Halleck on the
+morning after South Mountain (September 15), D. H. Hill's division
+is called a corps. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 294.] That
+the false estimate was unnecessary is proven by the fact that
+General Meigs, in Washington, on July 28th, made up an estimate from
+the regiments, brigades, etc., mentioned in the newspapers that got
+through the lines, which was reasonably accurate. But McClellan held
+Meigs for an enemy. [Footnote: General Meigs found ninety regiments
+of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and five batteries of
+artillery designated by name in the "Confederate" newspaper reports
+of the seven days' battles. Comparing this with other information
+from similar sources, he concluded that Lee had about one hundred
+and fifty regiments. These, at 700 men each, would make 105,000, or
+at 400 (which he found a full average) the gross of the infantry
+would be 60,000. General Webb, with official documents before him,
+puts it at 70,000 to 80,000. Does one need better evidence how much
+worse than useless was McClellan's secret service? See Official
+Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 340.] When I joined McClellan at
+Washington, I had no personal knowledge of either army except as I
+had learned it from the newspapers. My predilections in favor of
+McClellan made me assume that his facts were well based, as they
+ought to have been. I therefore accepted the general judgment of
+himself and his intimate friends as to his late campaign and Pope's,
+and believed that his restoration to command was an act of justice
+to him and of advantage to the country. I did not stay long enough
+with that army to apply any test of my own to the question of
+relative numbers, and have had to correct my opinions of the men and
+the campaigns by knowledge gained long afterward. I however used
+whatever influence I had to combat the ideas in McClellan's mind
+that the administration meant to do him any wrong, or had any end
+but the restoration of National unity in view.
+
+Whether Halleck was appointed on Pope's urgent recommendation or no,
+his campaign in the West was the ground of his promotion. The
+advance from the Ohio to Fort Donelson, to Nashville, to Shiloh, and
+to Corinth had been under his command, and he deservedly had credit
+for movements which had brought Kentucky and Tennessee within the
+Union lines. He had gone in person to the front after the battle of
+Shiloh, and though much just criticism had been made of his slow
+digging the way to Corinth by a species of siege operations, he had
+at any rate got there. Mr. Lincoln was willing to compromise upon a
+slow advance upon Richmond, provided it were sure and steady.
+Halleck's age and standing in the army were such that McClellan
+himself could find no fault with his appointment, if any one were to
+be put over him.
+
+Everything points to the expectation, at the time of his
+appointment, that Halleck would assume the personal command in the
+field. He visited McClellan at Harrison's Landing on July 25th,
+however, and promised him that if the armies should be promptly
+reunited, he (McClellan) should command the whole, with Burnside and
+Pope as his subordinates. [Footnote: McC. Own Story, p. 474;
+Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 360.] That he did not inform
+Pope of this abdication of his generalship in the field is plain
+from Pope's correspondence during the campaign. It is made
+indisputably clear by Pope's letter to him of the 25th of August.
+[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 65, 66.] He probably did not
+tell the President or Mr. Stanton of it. He seems to have waited for
+the union of the parts of the army, and when that came his prestige
+was forever gone, and he had become, what he remained to the close
+of the war, a bureau officer in Washington. He had ordered the
+transfer of the Potomac Army from the James to Acquia Creek,
+intending to unite it with Burnside's at Falmouth, opposite
+Fredericksburg, and thus begin a fresh advance from the line of the
+Rappahannock. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 5;
+vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 80-84; _Id_., pt. iii. p. 337.] He believed, and
+apparently with reason, that ten days was sufficient to complete
+this transfer with the means at McClellan's disposal, but at the end
+of ten days the movement had not yet begun. [Footnote: The order was
+given August 3; the movement began August 14. _Id_., pt. i. pp. 80,
+89.] He was right in thinking that the whole army should be united.
+McClellan thought the same. The question was where and how.
+McClellan said, "Send Pope's men to me." Halleck replied that it
+would not do to thus uncover Washington. McClellan had said that
+vigorous advance upon the enemy by his army and a victory would best
+protect the capital. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 9, 10.]
+Again he was right, but he seemed incapable of a vigorous advance.
+Had he made it when he knew (on July 30) that Jackson had gone
+northward with thirty thousand men to resist Pope's advance, his
+army would not have been withdrawn. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xi. pt.
+iii. p. 342.] He was then nearly twice as strong as Lee, but he did
+not venture even upon a forced reconnoissance. The situation of the
+previous year was repeated. He was allowing himself to be besieged
+by a fraction of his own force. Grant would have put himself into
+the relation to McClellan which he sustained to Meade in 1864, and
+would have infused his own energy into the army. Halleck did not do
+this. It would seem that he had become conscious of his own lack of
+nerve in the actual presence of an enemy, and looked back upon his
+work at St. Louis in administering his department, whilst Grant and
+Buell took the field, with more satisfaction than upon his own
+advance from Shiloh to Corinth. He seemed already determined to
+manage the armies from his office in Washington and assume no
+responsibility for their actual leadership.
+
+When the Army of the Potomac was arriving at Alexandria, another
+crisis occurred in which a single responsible head in the field was
+a necessity. McClellan had been giving a continuous demonstration,
+since August 4th, how easy it is to thwart and hinder any movement
+whilst professing to be accomplishing everything that is possible.
+No maxim in war is better founded in experience than that a man who
+believes that a plan is sure to fail should never be set to conduct
+it. McClellan had written that Pope would be beaten before the Army
+of the Potomac could be transferred to him, and Pope was beaten.
+[Footnote: Halleck to McClellan, August 10 and 12, and McClellan's
+reply: Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 86-88. See also O. S.,
+p. 466.] The only chance for any other result was for Halleck
+himself to conduct the transfer. If Halleck meant that Franklin
+should have pushed out to Manassas on the 27th of August, he should
+have taken the field and gone with the corps. He did not know and
+could not know how good or bad McClellan's excuses were, and nothing
+but his own presence, with supreme power, could certainly remove the
+causes for delay. He wrote to Pope that he could not leave
+Washington, when he ought not to have been in Washington. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 797.] He worked and worried
+himself ill trying to make McClellan do what he should have done
+himself, and then, overwhelmed with details he should never have
+burdened himself with, besought his subordinate to relieve him of
+the strain by practically taking command. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 691;
+vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103.]
+
+As soon as McClellan began the movement down the James, Lee took
+Longstreet's corps to Jackson, leaving only D. H. Hill's at
+Richmond. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 177, 552.] From that moment
+McClellan could have marched anywhere. He could have marched to
+Fredericksburg and joined Pope, and Halleck could have met them with
+Burnside's troops. But the vast imaginary army of the Confederacy
+paralyzed everything, and the ponderous task of moving the Army of
+the Potomac and its enormous material by water to Washington went
+on. The lifeless and deliberate way in which it went on made it the
+1st of September when Sumner and Franklin reached Centreville, and
+the second battle of Bull Run had ended in defeat on the evening
+before.
+
+But the army was at last reunited, within the fortifications of
+Washington, it is true, and not on the James or on the line of the
+Rappahannock. There was another opportunity given to Halleck to put
+himself at its head, with McClellan, Pope, and Burnside for his
+three lieutenants. Again he was unequal to his responsibility. Mr.
+Lincoln saw his feebleness, and does not seem to have urged him.
+Halleck was definitely judged in the President's mind, though the
+latter seems to have clung to the idea that he might be useful by
+allowing him to assume the role he chose, and confine himself to
+mere suggestions and to purely routine work. Pope's unpopularity
+with the army was adopted by popular clamor, which always finds a
+defeated general in the wrong. The President, in real perplexity,
+compromised by assigning McClellan to command for the purpose of
+organizing, a work in which he was admitted by all to be able. The
+command in the field was a second time offered to Burnside, who
+declined it, warmly advocating McClellan's claims and proving his
+most efficient friend. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 650.] Within
+three days from the time I had ridden with McClellan to meet the
+retreating army, the enemy had crossed the Potomac, and decision
+could not be postponed. The President met McClellan, and told him in
+person that he was assigned to command in the field. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 453; Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103.]
+
+On the 5th of September Halleck had sent to McClellan a confidential
+note, telling of the President's action relieving Pope, and
+anticipating the issue of formal orders: [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 182.] "The President has directed that
+General Pope be relieved and report to the War Department; that
+Hooker be assigned to command of Porter's corps, and that Franklin's
+corps be temporarily attached to Heintzelman's. The orders will be
+issued this afternoon. Generals Porter and Franklin are to be
+relieved from duty till the charges against them are examined. I
+give you this memorandum in advance of orders, so that you may act
+accordingly in putting forces in the field." Later in the same day
+Halleck sent to McClellan the opinion that the enemy was without
+doubt crossing the Potomac, and said, "If you agree with me, let our
+troops move immediately." The formal order to Pope was: "The armies
+of the Potomac and Virginia being consolidated, you will report for
+orders to the Secretary of War." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 183.] Pope had
+caused charges to be preferred against Porter and Franklin, and had
+accused McClellan of wilfully delaying reinforcements and so causing
+his defeat. His indignation that the interpretation of affairs given
+by McClellan and his friends should be made into public opinion by
+the apparent acquiescence of Halleck and the administration overcame
+his prudence. Had he controlled his feelings and schooled himself
+into patience, he would hardly have been relieved from active
+service, and his turn would probably have come again. As it stood,
+the President saw that McClellan and Pope could not work together,
+and the natural outcome was that he retired Pope, so that McClellan
+should not have it to say that he was thwarted by a hostile
+subordinate. McClellan himself was so manifestly responsible for
+Franklin's movements from the 27th to the 30th of August, that it
+was a matter of course that when the chief was assigned to command
+the condonation should cover the subordinate, and at McClellan's
+request Franklin was allowed to take the field at once. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 190, 197.] A few days later
+he urged the same action in Porter's case, and it was done. Porter
+joined the army at South Mountain on the 14th of September.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 190, 254, 289.] The same principle demanded
+that McDowell, who was obnoxious to McClellan, should be relieved,
+and this was also done. As an ostensible reason for the public,
+McDowell's request for a Court of Inquiry upon his own conduct was
+assumed to imply a desire to be relieved from the command of his
+corps. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 188, 189, 197.] But the court was not
+assembled till the next winter. McDowell had been maligned almost as
+unscrupulously as Pope. A total abstainer from intoxicating drinks,
+he was persistently described as a drunkard, drunken upon the field
+of battle. One of the most loyal and self-forgetting of
+subordinates, he was treated as if a persistent intriguer for
+command. A brave and competent soldier, he was believed to be
+worthless and untrustworthy. As between Halleck, McClellan, and
+Pope, the only one who had fought like a soldier and manoeuvred like
+a general was sent to the northwestern frontier to watch the petty
+Indian tribes, carrying the burden of others' sins into the
+wilderness. Mr. Lincoln's sacrifice of his sense of justice to what
+seemed the only expedient in the terrible crisis, was sublime.
+McClellan commanded the army, and Porter and Franklin each commanded
+a corps. If the country was to be saved, confidence and power could
+not be bestowed by halves.
+
+In his "Own Story" McClellan speaks of the campaign in Maryland as
+made "with a halter round his neck," [Footnote: O. S., p. 551.]
+meaning that he had no real command except of the defences of
+Washington, and that he marched after Lee without authority, so
+that, if unsuccessful, he might have been condemned for usurpation
+of command. It would be incredible that he adopted such a mere
+illusion, if he had not himself said it. It proves that some at
+least of the strange additions to history which he thus published
+had their birth in his own imagination brooding over the past, and
+are completely contradicted by the official records. [Footnote: This
+illusion, at least, is shown to be of later origin by his telegram
+to his wife of September 7. "I leave here this afternoon," he says,
+"to take command of the troops in the field. The feeling of the
+government towards me, I am sure, is kind and trusting. I hope, with
+God's blessing, to justify the great confidence they now repose in
+me, and will bury the past in oblivion." O. S., p. 567.] The
+consolidation of the armies under him was, in fact, a promotion,
+since it enlarged his authority and committed to him the task that
+properly belonged to Halleck as general-in-chief. For a few days,
+beginning September 1st, McClellan's orders and correspondence were
+dated "Headquarters, Washington," because no formal designation had
+been given to the assembled forces at the capital. When he took the
+field at Rockville on the 8th of September, he assumed, as he had
+the right to do in the absence of other direction from the War
+Department, that Burnside's and Pope's smaller armies were lost in
+the larger Army of the Potomac by the consolidation, and resumed the
+custom of dating his orders and dispatches from "Headquarters, Army
+of the Potomac," from the command of which he had never been
+removed, even when its divisions were temporarily separated from
+him. [Footnote: On August 31st Halleck had written to him, "You will
+retain the command of everything in this vicinity not temporarily
+belonging to Pope's army in the field;" and in the general order
+issued August 30, McClellan's command of the Army of the Potomac is
+affirmed. Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103; _Id_., vol. li.
+pt. i. p. 775.] The defences of Washington were now entrusted to
+Major-General Banks, strictly in subordination, however, to himself.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 202, 214.] The
+official record of authority and command is consistent and perfect,
+and his notion in his later years, that there was anything informal
+about it, is proven to be imaginary. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 257.]
+Halleck's direction, which I have quoted, to "let our troops move
+immediately," would be absurd as addressed to the commandant of the
+Army of the Potomac into which the Army of Virginia was
+consolidated, unless that commandant was to take the field, or a
+formal order relieved him of command as Pope was relieved. Certainly
+no other commander was designated, and I saw enough of him in those
+days to say with confidence that he betrayed no doubt that the order
+to "move immediately" included himself. McClellan's popularity with
+the Army of the Potomac had seemed to Mr. Lincoln the only power
+sufficient to ensure its prompt and earnest action against the
+Confederate invasion. His leadership of it, to be successful, had to
+be accompanied with plenary powers, even if the stultification of
+the government itself were the consequence. When the patriotism of
+the President yielded to this, the suggestion of McClellan twenty
+years afterward, that it had all been a pitfall prepared for him,
+would be revolting if, in view of the records, the absurdity of it
+did not prove that its origin was in a morbid imagination. It is far
+more difficult to deal leniently with the exhibition of character in
+his private letters, which were injudiciously added to his "Own
+Story" by his literary executor. In them his vanity and his ill-will
+toward rivals and superiors are shockingly naked; and since no
+historian can doubt that at every moment from September, 1861, to
+September, 1862, his army greatly outnumbered his enemy, whilst in
+equipment and supply there was no comparison, his persistent outcry
+that he was sacrificed by his government destroys even that
+character for dignity and that reputation for military intelligence
+which we fondly attributed to him.
+
+The general arrangement of the campaign seems to have been settled
+between Halleck and McClellan on the 5th of September. General
+Sumner with the Second and Twelfth corps moved up the Potomac by way
+of Tenallytown, Burnside with the First and Ninth corps moved to
+Leesboro with a view to covering Baltimore, the front was explored
+by the cavalry under Pleasonton, and the Sixth Corps, under
+Franklin, constituted a reserve. [Footnote: Confusion in the numbers
+of the First and Twelfth corps is found in the records and
+dispatches, owing to the fact that in the Army of Virginia the corps
+numbers were not those given them by the War Department. Sigel's,
+properly the Eleventh Corps, had been called First of that army.
+Banks's, properly Twelfth, had been called Second, and McDowell's,
+properly First, had been called Third. In the Maryland campaign
+Hooker was assigned to McDowell's, and it sometimes figures as
+First, sometimes as Third; Mansfield was assigned to Banks's. The
+proper designations after the consolidation were First and Twelfth.
+Reno had been assigned to the First, but McClellan got authority to
+change it, and gave it to Hooker, sending Reno back to the Ninth.
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 197, 198, 279, 349.] The
+preliminary movements occupied the 5th and 6th, but on the 7th the
+positions were as I have stated them. The principal bodies were
+designated, respectively, as right and left wings instead of armies.
+The two corps from the Army of Virginia were separated, one being
+assigned to the right wing under Burnside, and the other to the left
+under Sumner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SOUTH MOUNTAIN
+
+
+March through Washington--Reporting to Burnside--The Ninth
+Corps--Burnside's personal qualities--To Leesboro--Straggling--Lee's
+army at Frederick--Our deliberate advance--Reno at New Market--The
+march past--Reno and Hayes--Camp gossip--Occupation of
+Frederick--Affair with Hampton's cavalry--Crossing Catoctin
+Mountain--The valley and South Mountain--Lee's order found--Division
+of his army--Jackson at Harper's Ferry--Supporting Pleasonton's
+reconnoissance--Meeting Colonel Moor--An involuntary
+warning--Kanawha Division's advance--Opening of the battle--Carrying
+the mountain crest--The morning fight--Lull at noon--Arrival of
+supports--Battle renewed--Final success--Death of Reno--Hooker's
+battle on the right--His report--Burnside's comments--Franklin's
+engagement at Crampton's Gap.
+
+
+Late in the night of the 5th I received orders from McClellan's
+headquarters to march from my position on Upton's Hill through
+Washington toward Leesboro, [Footnote: Leesboro, a village of
+Maryland eight or ten miles north of Washington, must be
+distinguished from Leesburg in Virginia.] as soon as my pickets
+could be relieved by troops of McDowell's corps. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 183; vol. li. pt. i. p. 789.] My route
+was designated as by the road which was a continuation northward of
+Seventh Street, and I was directed to report to General Ambrose E.
+Burnside, commanding right wing, whose headquarters were in the
+suburbs of the city on that road. This was in accordance with my
+wish, expressed to McClellan that I might have active field work.
+For two or three days we were not attached to a corps, but as the
+organization of the army became settled we were temporarily assigned
+to the Ninth, which had been Burnside's, and had been with him in
+North Carolina. During this campaign it was commanded by
+Major-General Jesse L. Reno, who had long had a division in it, and
+had led the corps in the recent battle. We marched from Upton's Hill
+at daybreak of the 6th, taking the road to Georgetown by Ball's
+Cross-Roads. In Georgetown we turned eastward through Washington to
+Seventh Street, and thence northward to the Leesboro road. As we
+passed General Burnside's quarters, I sent a staff officer to report
+our progress. It was about ten o'clock, and Burnside had gone to the
+White House to meet the President and cabinet by invitation. His
+chief of staff, General J. G. Parke, sent a polite note, saying we
+had not been expected so soon, and directed us to halt and bivouac
+for the present in some fields by the roadside, near where the
+Howard University now is. In the afternoon I met Burnside for the
+first time, and was warmly attracted by him, as everybody was. He
+was pre-eminently a manly man, as I expressed it in writing home.
+His large, fine eyes, his winning smile and cordial manners, bespoke
+a frank, sincere, and honorable character, and these indications
+were never belied by more intimate acquaintance. The friendship then
+begun lasted as long as he lived. I learned to understand the
+limitations of his powers and the points in which he fell short of
+being a great commander; but as I knew him better I estimated more
+and more highly his sincerity and truthfulness, his unselfish
+generosity, and his devoted patriotism. In everything which makes up
+an honorable and lovable personal character he had no superior. I
+shall have occasion to speak frequently of his peculiarities and his
+special traits, but shall never have need to say a word in
+derogation of the solid virtues I have attributed to him. His
+chief-of-staff, General Parke, was an officer of the Engineers, and
+one of the best instructed of that corps. He had served with
+distinction under Burnside in North Carolina, in command of a
+brigade and division. I always thought that he preferred staff duty,
+especially with Burnside, whose confidence in him was complete, and
+who would leave to him almost untrammelled control of the
+administrative work of the command.
+
+On September 7th I was ordered to take the advance of the Ninth
+Corps in the march to Leesboro, following Hooker's corps. It was my
+first march with troops of this army, and I was shocked at the
+straggling I witnessed. The "roadside brigade," as we called it, was
+often as numerous, by careful estimate, as our own column moving in
+the middle of the road. I could say of the men of the Kanawha
+division, as Richard Taylor said of his Louisiana brigade with
+Stonewall Jackson, that they had not yet _learned_ to straggle.
+[Footnote: See Taylor's "Destruction and Reconstruction," p. 50, for
+a curious interview with Jackson.] I tried to prevent their learning
+it. We had a roll-call immediately upon halting after the march, and
+another half an hour later, with prompt reports of the result. I
+also assigned a field officer and medical officer to duty at the
+rear of the column, with ambulances for those who became ill and
+with punishments for the rest. The result was that, in spite of the
+example of others, the division had no stragglers, the first
+roll-call rarely showing more than twenty or thirty not answering to
+their names, and the second often proving every man to be present.
+[Footnote: See letters of General R. B. Hayes and General George
+Crook, Appendix B.] In both the Army of the Potomac and the Army of
+Northern Virginia the evil had become a most serious one. After the
+battle of Antietam, for the express purpose of remedying it,
+McClellan appointed General Patrick Provost-Marshal with a strong
+provost-guard, giving him very extended powers, and permitting
+nobody, of whatever rank, to interfere with him. Patrick was a man
+of vigor, of conscience, and of system, and though he was greatly
+desirous of keeping a field command, proved so useful, indeed so
+necessary a part of the organization, that he was retained in it
+against his wishes, to the end of the war, each commander of the
+Army of the Potomac in turn finding that he was indispensable.
+[Footnote: I have discussed this subject also in a review of
+Henderson's Stonewall Jackson, "The Nation," Nov. 24, 1898, p. 396.]
+
+The Confederate army suffered from straggling quite as much,
+perhaps, as ours, but in a somewhat different way. At the close of
+the Antietam campaign General Lee made bitter complaints in regard
+to it, and asked the Confederate government for legislation which
+would authorize him to apply the severest punishments. As the
+Confederate stragglers were generally in the midst of friends, where
+they could sleep under shelter and get food of better quality than
+the army ration, this grew to be the regular mode of life with many
+even of those who would join their comrades in an engagement. They
+were not reported in the return of "effectives" made by their
+officers, but that they often made part of the killed, wounded, and
+captured I have little doubt. In this way a rational explanation may
+be found of the larger discrepancies between the Confederate reports
+of casualties and ours of their dead buried and prisoners taken.
+
+The weather during this brief campaign was as lovely as possible,
+and the contrast between the rich farming country in which we now
+were, and the forest-covered mountains of West Virginia to which we
+had been accustomed, was very striking. An evening march, under a
+brilliant moon, over a park-like landscape with alternations of
+groves and meadows which could not have been more beautifully
+composed by a master artist, remains in my memory as a page out of a
+lovely romance. On the day that we marched to Leesboro, Lee's army
+was concentrated near Frederick, behind the Monocacy River, having
+begun the crossing of the Potomac on the 4th. There was a singular
+dearth of trustworthy information on the subject at our army
+headquarters. We moved forward by very short marches of six or eight
+miles, feeling our way so cautiously that Lee's reports speak of it
+as an unexpectedly slow approach. The Comte de Paris excuses it on
+the ground of the disorganized condition of McClellan's army after
+the recent battle. It must be remembered, however, that Sumner's
+corps and Franklin's had not been at the second Bull Run, and were
+veterans of the Potomac Army. The Twelfth Corps had been Banks's,
+and it too had not been engaged at the second Bull Run, its work
+having been to cover the trains of Pope's army on the retrograde
+movement from Warrenton Junction. Although new regiments had been
+added to these corps, it is hardly proper to say that the army as a
+whole was not one which could be rapidly manoeuvred. I see no good
+reason why it might not have advanced at once to the left bank of
+the Monocacy, covering thus both Washington and Baltimore, and
+hastening by some days Lee's movement across the Blue Ridge. We
+should at least have known where the enemy was by being in contact
+with him, instead of being the sport of all sorts of vague rumors
+and wild reports. [Footnote: McClellan was not wholly responsible
+for this tardiness, for Halleck was very timid about uncovering
+Washington, and his dispatches tended to increase McClellan's
+natural indecision. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 280.]
+
+The Kanawha division took the advance of the right wing when we left
+Leesboro on the 8th, and marched to Brookville. On the 9th it
+reached Goshen, where it lay on the 10th, and on the 11th reached
+Ridgeville on the railroad. The rest of the Ninth Corps was an easy
+march behind us. Hooker had been ordered further to the right on the
+strength of rumors that Lee was making a circuit towards Baltimore,
+and his corps reached Cooksville and the railroad some ten miles
+east of my position. The extreme left of the army was at
+Poolesville, near the Potomac, making a spread of thirty miles
+across the whole front. The cavalry did not succeed in getting far
+in advance of the infantry, and very little valuable information was
+obtained. At Ridgeville, however, we got reliable evidence that Lee
+had evacuated Frederick the day before, and that only cavalry was
+east of the Catoctin Mountains. Hooker got similar information at
+about the same time. It was now determined to move more rapidly, and
+early in the morning of the 12th I was ordered to march to New
+Market and thence to Frederick. At New Market I was overtaken by
+General Reno, with several officers of rank from the other divisions
+of the corps, and they dismounted at a little tavern by the roadside
+to see the Kanawha division go by. Up to this time they had seen
+nothing of us whatever. The men had been so long in the West
+Virginia mountains at hard service, involving long and rapid
+marches, that they had much the same strength of legs and ease in
+marching which was afterward so much talked of when seen in
+Sherman's army at the review in Washington at the close of the war.
+I stood a little behind Reno and the rest, and had the pleasure of
+hearing their involuntary exclamations of admiration at the marching
+of the men. The easy swinging step, the graceful poise of the musket
+on the shoulder, as if it were a toy and not a burden, and the
+compactness of the column were all noticed and praised with a
+heartiness which was very grateful to my ears. I no longer felt any
+doubt that the division stood well in the opinion of my associates.
+
+I enjoyed this the more because, the evening before, a little
+incident had occurred which had threatened to result in some
+ill-feeling. It had been thought that we were likely to be attacked
+at Ridgeville, and on reaching the village I disposed the division
+so as to cover the place and to be ready for an engagement. I
+ordered the brigades to bivouac in line of battle, covering the
+front with outposts and with cavalry vedettes from the Sixth New
+York Cavalry (Colonel Devin), which had been attached to the
+division during the advance. The men were without tents, and to make
+beds had helped themselves to some straw from stacks in the
+vicinity. Toward evening General Reno rode up, and happening first
+to meet Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, commanding the
+Twenty third Ohio, he rather sharply inquired why the troops were
+not bivouacking "closed in mass," and also blamed the taking of the
+straw. Colonel Hayes referred him to me as the proper person to
+account for the disposition of the troops, and quietly said he
+thought the quartermaster's department could settle for the straw if
+the owner was loyal. A few minutes later the general came to my own
+position, but was now quite over his irritation. I, of course, knew
+nothing of his interview with Hayes, and when he said that it was
+the policy in Maryland to make the troops bivouac in compact mass,
+so as to do as little damage to property as possible, I cordially
+assented, but urged that such a rule would not apply to the
+advance-guard when supposed to be in presence of the enemy; we
+needed to have the men already in line if an alarm should be given
+in the night. To this he agreed, and a pleasant conversation
+followed. Nothing was said to me about the straw taken for bedding,
+and when I heard of the little passage-at-arms with Colonel Hayes, I
+saw that it was a momentary disturbance which had no real
+significance. Camp gossip, however, is as bad as village gossip, and
+in a fine volume of the "History of the Twenty-first Massachusetts
+Regiment," I find it stated that the Kanawha division coming fresh
+from the West was disposed to plunder and pillage, giving an
+exaggerated version of the foregoing story as evidence of it. This
+makes it a duty to tell what was the small foundation for the
+charge, and to say that I believe no regiments in the army were less
+obnoxious to any just accusation of such a sort. The gossip would
+never have survived the war at all but for the fact that Colonel
+Hayes became President of the United States, and the supposed
+incident of his army life thus acquired a new interest. [Footnote:
+This incident gives me the opportunity to say that after reading a
+good many regimental histories, I am struck with the fact that with
+the really invaluable material they contain when giving the actual
+experiences of the regiments themselves, they also embody a great
+deal of mere gossip. As a rule, their value is confined to what
+strictly belongs to the regiment; and the criticisms, whether of
+other organizations or of commanders, are likely to be the
+expression of the local and temporary prejudices and misconceptions
+which are notoriously current in time of war. They need to be read
+with due allowance for this. The volume referred to is a favorable
+example of its class, but its references to the Kanawha division
+(which was in the Ninth Corps only a month) illustrate the tendency
+I have mentioned. It should be borne in mind that the Kanawha men
+had the position of advance-guard, and I believe did not camp in the
+neighborhood of the other divisions in a single instance from the
+time we left Leesboro till the battle of South Mountain. What is
+said of them, therefore, is not from observation. The incident
+between Reno and Hayes occurred in the camp of the latter, and could
+not possibly be known to the author of the regimental history but by
+hearsay. Yet he affirms as a fact that the Kanawha division
+"plundered the country unmercifully," for which Reno "took
+Lieutenant-Colonel Hayes severely though justly to task." He also
+asserts that the division set a "very bad example" in straggling. As
+to this, the truth is as I have circumstantially stated it above. He
+has still further indulged in a "slant" at the "Ohioans" in a story
+of dead Confederates being put in a well at South Mountain,--a story
+as apocryphal as the others. Wise's house and well were within the
+camp of the division to which the Twenty-first Massachusetts
+belonged, and the burial party there would have been from that
+division. Lastly, the writer says that General Cox, the temporary
+corps commander, "robs us [the Twenty-first Massachusetts] of our
+dearly bought fame" by naming the Fifty-first New York and
+Fifty-first Pennsylvania as the regiments which stormed the bridge
+at Antietam. He acquits Burnside and McClellan of the alleged
+injustice, saying they "follow the corps report in this respect."
+Yet mention is not made of the fact that my report literally copies
+that of the division commander, who himself selected the regiments
+for the charge! The "Ohioan" had soon gone west again with his
+division, and was probably fair game. There is something akin to
+provincialism in regimental _esprit de corps_, and such instances as
+the above, which are all found within a few pages of the book
+referred to, show that, like Leech's famous Staffordshire rough in
+the Punch cartoon, to be a "stranger" is a sufficient reason to
+"'eave 'arf a brick at un." See letters of President Hayes and
+General Crook on the subject, Appendix B.]
+
+From New Market we sent the regiment of cavalry off to the right to
+cover our flank, and to investigate reports that heavy bodies of the
+enemy's cavalry were north of us. The infantry pushed rapidly toward
+Frederick. The opposition was very slight till we reached the
+Monocacy River, which is perhaps half a mile from the town. Here
+General Wade Hampton, with his brigade as rear-guard of Lee's army,
+attempted to resist the crossing. The highway crosses the river by a
+substantial stone bridge, and the ground upon our bank was
+considerably higher than that on the other side. We engaged the
+artillery of the enemy with a battery of our own, which had the
+advantage of position, whilst the infantry forced the crossing both
+by the bridge and by a ford a quarter of a mile to the right. As
+soon as Moor's brigade was over, it was deployed on the right and
+left of the turnpike, which was bordered on either side by a high
+and strong post-and-rail fence. Scammon's was soon over, and
+similarly deployed as a second line, with the Eleventh Ohio in
+column in the road. Moor had with him a troop of horse and a single
+cannon, and went forward with the first line, allowing it to keep
+abreast of him on right and left. I also rode on the turnpike
+between the two lines, and only a few rods behind Moor, having with
+me my staff and a few orderlies. Reno was upon the other bank of the
+river, overlooking the movement, which made a fine military display
+as the lines advanced at quick-step toward the city. Hampton's
+horsemen had passed out of our sight, for the straight causeway
+turned sharply to the left just as it entered the town, and we could
+not see beyond the turn. We were perhaps a quarter of a mile from
+the city, when a young staff officer from corps headquarters rode up
+beside me and exclaimed in a boisterous way, "Why don't they go in
+faster? There's nothing there!" I said to the young man, "Did
+General Reno send you with any order to me?" "No," he replied.
+"Then," said I, "when I want your advice I will ask it." He moved
+off abashed, and I did not notice what had become of him, but, in
+fact, he rode up to Colonel Moor, and repeated a similar speech.
+Moor was stung by the impertinence which he assumed to be a
+criticism upon him from corps headquarters, and, to my amazement, I
+saw him suddenly dash ahead at a gallop with his escort and the gun.
+He soon came to the turn of the road where it loses itself among the
+houses; there was a quick, sharp rattling of carbines, and Hampton's
+cavalry was atop of the little party. There was one discharge of the
+cannon, and some of the brigade staff and escort came back in
+disorder. I ordered up at "double quick" the Eleventh Ohio, which,
+as I have said, was in column in the road, and these, with bayonets
+fixed, dashed into the town. The enemy had not waited for them, but
+retreated out of the place by the Hagerstown road. Moor had been
+ridden down, unhorsed, and captured. The artillery-men had
+unlimbered the gun, pointed it, and the gunner stood with the
+lanyard in his hand, when he was struck by a charging horse; the gun
+was fired by the concussion, but at the same moment it was capsized
+into the ditch by the impact of the cavalry column. The enemy had no
+time to right the gun or carry it off, nor to stop for prisoners.
+They forced Moor on another horse, and turned tail as the charging
+lines of infantry came up on right and left as well as the column in
+the road, for there had not been a moment's pause in the advance. It
+had all happened, and the gun with a few dead and wounded of both
+sides were in our hands, in less time than it has taken to describe
+it. Those who may have a fancy for learning how Munchausen would
+tell this story, may find it in the narrative of Major Heros von
+Borke of J. E. B. Stuart's staff. [Footnote: Von Borke's account is
+so good an example of the way in which romance may be built up out
+of a little fact that I give it in full. The burning of the stone
+bridge half a mile in rear of the little affair was a peculiarly
+brilliant idea; but he has evidently confused our advance with that
+on the Urbana road. He says: "Toward evening the enemy arrived in
+the immediate neighborhood of Monocacy bridge, and observing only a
+small force at this point, advanced very carelessly. A six-pounder
+gun had been placed in position by them at a very short distance
+from the bridge, which fired from time to time a shot at our
+horsemen, while the foremost regiment marched along at their ease,
+as if they believed this small body of cavalry would soon wheel in
+flight. This favorable moment for an attack was seized in splendid
+style by Major Butler, who commanded the two squadrons of the Second
+South Carolina Cavalry, stationed at this point as our rear-guard.
+Like lightning he darted across the bridge, taking the piece of
+artillery, which had scarcely an opportunity of firing a shot, and
+falling upon the regiment of infantry, which was dispersed in a few
+seconds, many of them being shot down, and many others, among whom
+was the colonel in command, captured. The colors of the regiment
+also fell into Major Butler's hands. The piece of artillery, in the
+hurry of the moment, could not be brought over to our side of the
+river, as the enemy instantly sent forward a large body of cavalry
+at a gallop, and our dashing men had only time to spike it and trot
+with their prisoners across the bridge, which, having been already
+fully prepared for burning, was in a blaze when the infuriated
+Yankees arrived at the water's edge. The conflagration of the bridge
+of course checked their onward movement, and we quietly continued
+the retreat." Von Borke, vol. i. p. 203. Stuart's report is very
+nearly accurate: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 816.] Moor's
+capture, however, had consequences, as we shall see. The command of
+his brigade passed to Colonel George Crook of the Thirty-sixth Ohio.
+
+Frederick was a loyal city, and as Hampton's cavalry went out at one
+end of the street and our infantry came in at the other, and whilst
+the carbine smoke and the smell of powder still lingered, the closed
+window-shutters of the houses flew open, the sashes went up, the
+windows were filled with ladies waving their handkerchiefs and
+national flags, whilst the men came to the column with fruits and
+refreshments for the marching soldiers as they went by in the hot
+sunshine of the September afternoon. [Footnote: Although at the head
+of the column, the "truth of history" compels me to say that I saw
+nothing of Barbara Frietchie, and heard nothing of her till I read
+Whittier's poem in later years. When, however, I visited Frederick
+with General Grant in 1869, we were both presented with
+walking-sticks made from timbers of Barbara's house which had been
+torn down, and, of course, I cannot dispute the story of which I
+have the stick as evidence; for Grant thought the stick shut me up
+from any denial and established the legend.] Pleasonton's cavalry
+came in soon after by the Urbana road, and during the evening a
+large part of the army drew near the place. Next morning (13th) the
+cavalry went forward to reconnoitre the passes of Catoctin Mountain,
+Rodman's division of our corps being ordered to support them and to
+proceed toward Middletown in the Catoctin valley. Through some
+misunderstanding Rodman took the road to Jefferson, leading to the
+left, where Franklin's corps was moving, and did not get upon the
+Hagerstown road. About noon I was ordered to march upon the latter
+road to Middletown. McClellan himself met me as my column moved out
+of town, and told me of the misunderstanding in Rodman's orders,
+adding that if I found him on the march I should take his division
+also along with me. [Footnote: As is usual in such cases, the
+direction was later put in writing by his chief of staff. Official
+Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 827.] I did not meet him, but the other
+two divisions of the corps crossed Catoctin Mountain that night,
+whilst Rodman returned to Frederick. The Kanawha division made an
+easy march, and as the cavalry was now ahead of us, met no
+opposition in crossing Catoctin Mountain or in the valley beyond. On
+the way we passed a house belonging to a branch of the Washington
+family, and a few officers of the division accompanied me, at the
+invitation of the occupant, to look at some relics of the Father of
+his Country which were preserved there. We stood for some minutes
+with uncovered heads before a case containing a uniform he had worn,
+and other articles of personal use hallowed by their association
+with him, and went on our way with our zeal strengthened by closer
+contact with souvenirs of the great patriot. Willcox's division
+followed us, and encamped a mile and a half east of Middletown.
+Sturgis's halted not far from the western foot of the mountain, with
+corps headquarters near by. My own camp for the night was pitched in
+front (west) of the village of Middletown along Catoctin Creek.
+Pleasonton's cavalry was a little in advance of us, at the forks of
+the road where the old Sharpsburg road turns off to the left from
+the turnpike. The rest of the army was camped about Frederick,
+except Franklin's corps (Sixth), which was near Jefferson, ten miles
+further south but also east of Catoctin Mountain.
+
+The Catoctin or Middletown valley is beautifully included between
+Catoctin Mountain and South Mountain, two ranges of the Blue Ridge,
+running northeast and southwest. It is six or eight miles wide,
+watered by Catoctin Creek, which winds southward among rich farms
+and enters the Potomac near Point of Rocks. The National road
+leaving Frederick passes through Middletown and crosses South
+Mountain, as it goes northwestward, at a depression called Turner's
+Gap. The old Sharpsburg road crosses the summit at another gap,
+known as Fox's, about a mile south of Turner's. Still another, the
+old Hagerstown road, finds a passage over the ridge at about an
+equal distance north. The National road, being of easier grades and
+better engineering, was now the principal route, the others having
+degenerated to rough country roads. The mountain crests are from ten
+to thirteen hundred feet above the Catoctin valley, and the "gaps"
+are from two to three hundred feet lower than the summits near them.
+[Footnote: These elevations are from the official map of the U.S.
+Engineers.] These summits are like scattered and irregular hills
+upon the high rounded surface of the mountain top. They are wooded,
+but along the southeasterly slopes, quite near the top of the
+mountain, are small farms, with meadows and cultivated fields.
+
+The military situation had been cleared up by the knowledge of Lee's
+movements which McClellan got from a copy of Lee's order of the day
+for the both. This had been found at Frederick on the 13th, and it
+tallied so well with what was otherwise known that no doubt was left
+as to its authenticity. It showed that Jackson's corps with Walker's
+division were besieging Harper's Ferry on the Virginia side of the
+Potomac, whilst McLaws's division supported by Anderson's was
+co-operating on Maryland Heights. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. ii. pp. 281, 603.] Longstreet, with the remainder of his
+corps, was at Boonsboro or near Hagerstown. D. H. Hill's division
+was the rear-guard, and the cavalry under Stuart covered the whole,
+a detached squadron being with Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws each.
+The order did not name the three separate divisions in Jackson's
+command proper (exclusive of Walker), nor those remaining with
+Longstreet except D. H. Hill's; but it is hardly conceivable that
+these were not known to McClellan after his own and Pope's contact
+with them during the campaigns of the spring and summer. At any
+rate, the order showed that Lee's army was in two parts, separated
+by the Potomac and thirty or forty miles of road. As soon as Jackson
+should reduce Harper's Ferry they would reunite. Friday the 12th was
+the day fixed for the concentration of Jackson's force for his
+attack, and it was Saturday when the order fell into McClellan's
+hands. Three days had already been lost in the slow advance since
+Lee had crossed Catoctin Mountain, and Jackson's artillery was now
+heard pounding at the camp and earthworks of Harper's Ferry. McLaws
+had already driven our forces from Maryland Heights, and had opened
+upon the ferry with his guns in commanding position on the north of
+the Potomac. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 607.] McClellan telegraphed to the
+President that he would catch the rebels "in their own trap if my
+men are equal to the emergency." [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. ii. p. 281.] There was certainly no time to lose. The
+information was in his hands before noon, for he refers to it in a
+dispatch to Mr. Lincoln at twelve. If his men had been ordered to be
+at the top of South Mountain before dark, they could have been
+there; but less than one full corps passed Catoctin Mountain that
+day or night, and when the leisurely movement of the 14th began, he
+himself, instead of being with the advance, was in Frederick till
+after 2 P.M., at which hour he sent a dispatch to Washington, and
+then rode to the front ten or twelve miles away. The failure to be
+"equal to the emergency" was not in his men. Twenty-four hours, as
+it turned out, was the whole difference between saving and losing
+Harper's Ferry with its ten or twelve thousand men and its
+unestimated munitions and stores. It may be that the commanders of
+the garrison were in fault, and that a more stubborn resistance
+should have been made. It may be that Halleck ought to have ordered
+the place to be evacuated earlier, as McClellan suggested.
+Nevertheless, at noon of the 13th McClellan had it in his power to
+save the place and interpose his army between the two wings, of the
+Confederates with decisive effect on the campaign. He saw that it
+was an "emergency," but did not call upon his men for any
+extraordinary exertion. Harper's. Ferry surrendered, and Lee united
+the wings of his army beyond the Antietam before the final and
+general engagement was forced upon him.
+
+At my camp in front of Middletown, I received no orders looking to a
+general advance on the 14th; but only to support, by a detachment,
+Pleasonton's cavalry in a reconnoissance toward Turner's Gap.
+Pleasonton himself came to my tent in the evening, and asked that
+one brigade might report to him in the morning for the purpose. Six
+o'clock was the hour at which he wished them to march. He said
+further that he and Colonel Crook were old army acquaintances and
+that he would like Crook to have the detail. I wished to please him,
+and not thinking that it would make any difference to my brigade
+commanders, intimated that I would do so. But Colonel Scammon,
+learning what was intended, protested that under our custom his
+brigade was entitled to the advance next day, as the brigades had
+taken it in turn. I explained that it was only as a courtesy to
+Pleasonton and at his request that the change was proposed. This did
+not better the matter in Scammon's opinion. He had been himself a
+regular officer, and the point of professional honor touched him. I
+recognized the justice of his demand, and said he should have the
+duty if he insisted upon it. Pleasonton was still in the camp
+visiting with Colonel Crook, and I explained to him the reasons why
+I could not yield to his wish, but must assign Scammon's brigade to
+the duty in conformity with the usual course. There was in fact no
+reason except the personal one for choosing one brigade more than
+the other, for they were equally good. Crook took the decision in
+good part, though it was natural that he should wish for an
+opportunity of distinguished service, as he had not been the regular
+commandant of the brigade. Pleasonton was a little chafed, and even
+intimated that he claimed some right to name the officer and command
+to be detailed. This, of course, I could not admit, and issued the
+formal orders at once. The little controversy had put Scammon and
+his whole brigade upon their mettle, and was a case in which a
+generous emulation did no harm. What happened in the morning only
+increased their spirit and prepared them the better to perform what
+I have always regarded as a very brilliant exploit.
+
+[Illustration: Map: South Mountain ]
+
+The morning of Sunday the 14th of September was a bright one. I had
+my breakfast very early and was in the saddle before it was time for
+Scammon to move. He was prompt, and I rode on with him to see in
+what way his support was likely to be used. Two of the Ninth Corps
+batteries (Gibson's and Benjamin's) had accompanied the cavalry, and
+one of these was a heavy one of twenty-pounder Parrotts. They were
+placed upon a knoll a little in front of the cavalry camp, about
+half a mile beyond the forks of the old Sharpsburg road with the
+turnpike. They were exchanging shots with a battery of the enemy
+well up in the gap. Just as Scammon and I crossed Catoctin Creek I
+was surprised to see Colonel Moor standing at the roadside. With
+astonishment I rode to him and asked how he came there. He said that
+he had been taken beyond the mountain after his capture, but had
+been paroled the evening before, and was now finding his way back to
+us on foot. "But where are _you_ going?" said he. I answered that
+Scammon was going to support Pleasonton in a reconnoissance into the
+gap. Moor made an involuntary start, saying, "My God! be careful!"
+then checking himself, added, "But I am paroled!" and turned away. I
+galloped to Scammon and told him that I should follow him in close
+support with Crook's brigade, and as I went back along the column I
+spoke to each regimental commander, warning them to be prepared for
+anything, big or little,--it might be a skirmish, it might be a
+battle. Hurrying to camp, I ordered Crook to turn out his brigade
+and march at once. I then wrote a dispatch to General Reno, saying I
+suspected we should find the enemy in force on the mountain top, and
+should go forward with both brigades instead of sending one.
+Starting a courier with this, I rode forward again and found
+Pleasonton. Scammon had given him an inkling of our suspicions, and
+in the personal interview they had reached a mutual good
+understanding. I found that he was convinced that it would be unwise
+to make an attack in front, and had determined that his horsemen
+should merely demonstrate upon the main road and support the
+batteries, whilst Scammon should march by the old Sharpsburg road
+and try to reach the flank of the force on the summit. I told him
+that in view of my fear that the force of the enemy might be too
+great for Scammon, I had determined to bring forward Crook's brigade
+in support. If it became necessary to fight with the whole division,
+I should do so, and in that case I should assume the responsibility
+myself as his senior officer. To this he cordially assented.
+
+One section of McMullin's six-gun battery was all that went forward
+with Scammon (and even these not till the infantry reached the
+summit), four guns being left behind, as the road was rough and
+steep. There were in Simmonds's battery two twenty-pounder Parrott
+guns, and I ordered these also to remain on the turnpike and to go
+into action with Benjamin's battery of the same calibre. It was
+about half-past seven when Crook's head of column filed off from the
+turnpike upon the old Sharpsburg road, and Scammon had perhaps half
+an hour's start. We had fully two miles to go before we should reach
+the place where our attack was actually made, and as it was a pretty
+sharp ascent the men marched slowly with frequent rests. On our way
+up we were overtaken by my courier who had returned from General
+Reno with approval of my action and the assurance that the rest of
+the Ninth Corps would come forward to my support.
+
+When Scammon had got within half a mile of Fox's Gap (the summit of
+the old Sharpsburg road), [Footnote: The Sharpsburg road is also
+called the Braddock road, as it was the way by which Braddock and
+Washington had marched to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg) in the old
+French war. For the same reason the gap is called Braddock's Gap. I
+have adopted that which seems to be in most common local use.] the
+enemy opened upon him with case-shot from the edge of the timber
+above the open fields, and he had judiciously turned off upon a
+country road leading still further to the left, and nearly parallel
+to the ridge above. His movement had been made under cover of the
+forest, and he had reached the extreme southern limit of the open
+fields south of the gap on this face of the mountain. Here I
+overtook him, his brigade being formed in line under cover of the
+timber, facing open pasture fields having a stone wall along the
+upper side, with the forest again beyond this. On his left was the
+Twenty-third Ohio under Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Hayes, who had been
+directed to keep in the woods beyond the open, and to strike if
+possible the flank of the enemy. His centre was the Twelfth Ohio
+under Colonel Carr B. White, whose duty was to attack the stone wall
+in front, charging over the broad open fields. On the right was the
+Thirtieth Ohio, Colonel Hugh Ewing, who was ordered to advance
+against a battery on the crest which kept up a rapid and annoying
+fire. It was now about nine o'clock, and Crook's column had come
+into close support. Bayonets were fixed, and at the word the line
+rushed forward with loud hurrahs. Hayes, being in the woods, was not
+seen till he had passed over the crest and turned upon the enemy's
+flank and rear. Here was a sharp combat, but our men established
+themselves upon the summit and drove the enemy before them. White
+and Ewing charged over the open under a destructive fire of musketry
+and shrapnel. As Ewing approached the enemy's battery (Bondurant's),
+it gave him a parting salvo, and limbered rapidly toward the right
+along a road in the edge of the woods which follows the summit to
+the turnpike near the Mountain House at Turner's Gap. White's men
+never flinched, and the North Carolinians of Garland's brigade (for
+it was they who held the ridge at this point) poured in their fire
+till the advancing line of bayonets was in their faces when they
+broke away from the wall. Our men fell fast, but they kept up their
+pace, and the enemy's centre was broken by a heroic charge. Garland
+strove hard to rally his men, but his brigade was hopelessly broken
+in two. He rallied his right wing on the second ridge a little in
+rear of that part of his line, but Hayes's regiment was here pushing
+forward from our left. Colonel Ruffin of the Thirteenth North
+Carolina held on to the ridge road beyond our right, near Fox's Gap.
+The fighting was now wholly in the woods, and though the enemy's
+centre was routed there was stubborn resistance on both flanks. His
+cavalry dismounted (said to be under Colonel Rosser [Footnote:
+Stuart's Report, Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 817.] ) was
+found to extend beyond Hayes's line, and supported the Stuart
+artillery, which poured canister into our advancing troops. I now
+ordered Crook to send the Eleventh Ohio (under Lieutenant-Colonel
+Coleman) beyond Hayes's left to extend our line in that direction,
+and to direct the Thirty-sixth Ohio (Lieutenant-Colonel Clark) to
+fill a gap between the Twelfth and Thirtieth caused by diverging
+lines of advance. The only remaining regiment (the Twenty-eighth,
+Lieutenant-Colonel Becker) was held in reserve on the right. The
+Thirty-sixth aided by the Twelfth repulsed a stout effort of the
+enemy to re-establish their centre. The whole line again sprung
+forward. A high knoll on our left was carried. The dismounted
+cavalry was forced to retreat with their battery across the ravine
+in which the Sharpsburg road descends on the west of the mountain,
+and took a new position on a separate hill in rear of the heights at
+the Mountain House. There was considerable open ground at this new
+position, from which their battery had full play at a range of about
+twelve hundred yards upon the ridge held by us. But the Eleventh and
+Twenty-third stuck stoutly to the hill which Hayes had first
+carried, and their line was nearly parallel to the Sharpsburg road,
+facing north. Garland had rushed to the right of his brigade to
+rally them when they had broken before the onset of the Twenty-third
+Ohio upon the flank, and in the desperate contest there he had been
+killed and the disaster to his command made irreparable. On our side
+Colonel Hayes had also been disabled by a severe wound as he
+gallantly led the Ohio regiment.
+
+I now directed the centre and right to push forward toward Fox's
+Gap. Lieutenant Croome with a section of McMullin's battery had come
+up, and he put his guns in action in the most gallant manner in the
+open ground near Wise's house. The Thirtieth and Thirty-sixth
+changed front to the right and attacked the remnant of Garland's
+brigade, now commanded by Colonel McRae, and drove it and two
+regiments from G. B. Anderson's brigade back upon the wooded hill
+beyond Wise's farm at Fox's Gap. The whole of Anderson's brigade
+retreated further along the crest toward the Mountain House.
+Meanwhile the Twelfth Ohio, also changing front, had thridded its
+way in the same direction through laurel thickets on the reverse
+slope of the mountain, and attacking suddenly the force at Wise's as
+the other two regiments charged it in front, completed the rout and
+brought off two hundred prisoners. Bondurant's battery was again
+driven hurriedly off to the north. But the hollow at the gap about
+Wise's was no place to stay. It was open ground and was swept by the
+batteries of the cavalry on the open hill to the northwest, and by
+those of Hill's division about the Mountain House and upon the
+highlands north of the National road; for those hills run forward
+like a bastion and give a perfect flanking fire along our part of
+the mountain. The gallant Croome with a number of his gunners had
+been killed, and his guns were brought back into the shelter of the
+woods, on the hither side of Wise's fields. The infantry of the
+right wing was brought to the same position, and our lines were
+reformed along the curving crests from that point which looks down
+into the gap and the Sharpsburg road, toward the left. The extreme
+right with Croome's two guns was held by the Thirtieth, with the
+Twenty-eighth in second line. Next came the Twelfth, with the
+Thirty-sixth in second line, the front curving toward the west with
+the form of the mountain summit. The left of the Twelfth dipped a
+little into a hollow, beyond which the Twenty-third and Eleventh
+occupied the next hill facing toward the Sharpsburg road. Our front
+was hollow, for the two wings were nearly at right angles to each
+other; but the flanks were strongly placed, the right, which was
+most exposed, having open ground in front which it could sweep with
+its fire and having the reserve regiments closely supporting it.
+Part of Simmonds's battery which had also come up had done good
+service in the last combats, and was now disposed so as to check the
+fire of the enemy.
+
+It was time to rest. Three hours of up-hill marching and climbing
+had been followed by as long a period of bloody battle, and it was
+almost noon. The troops began to feel the exhaustion of such labor
+and struggle. We had several hundred prisoners in our hands, and the
+field was thickly strewn with dead, in gray and in blue, while our
+field hospital a little down the mountain side was encumbered with
+hundreds of wounded. We learned from our prisoners that the summit
+was held by D. H. Hill's division of five brigades with Stuart's
+cavalry, and that Longstreet's corps was in close support. I was
+momentarily expecting to hear from the supporting divisions of the
+Ninth Corps, and thought it the part of wisdom to hold fast to our
+strong position astride of the mountain top commanding the
+Sharpsburg road till our force should be increased. The two Kanawha
+brigades had certainly won a glorious victory, and had made so
+assured a success of the day's work that it would be folly to
+imperil it. [Footnote: For Official Records, see Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 458-474.]
+
+General Hill has since argued that only part of his division could
+oppose us; [Footnote: Century War Book, vol. ii. pp. 559, etc.] but
+his brigades were all on the mountain summit within easy support of
+each other, and they had the day before them. It was five hours from
+the time of our first charge to the arrival of our first supports,
+and it was not till three o'clock in the afternoon that Hooker's
+corps reached the eastern base of the mountain and began its
+deployment north of the National road. Our effort was to attack the
+weak end of his line, and we succeeded in putting a stronger force
+there than that which opposed us. It is for our opponent to explain
+how we were permitted to do it. The two brigades of the Kanawha
+division numbered less than 3000 men. Hill's division was 5000
+strong, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 1025.] even
+by the Confederate method of counting their effectives, which should
+be increased nearly one-fifth to compare properly with our reports.
+In addition to these Stuart had the principal part of the
+Confederate cavalry on this line, and they were not idle spectators.
+Parts of Lee's and Hampton's brigades were certainly there, and
+probably the whole of Lee's. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 819.] With less
+than half the numerical strength which was opposed to it, therefore,
+the Kanawha division had carried the summit, advancing to the charge
+for the most part over open ground in the storm of musketry and
+artillery fire, and held the crests they had gained through the
+livelong day, in spite of all efforts to retake them.
+
+In our mountain camps of West Virginia I had felt discontented that
+our native Ohio regiments did not take as kindly to the labors of
+drill and camp police as some of German birth, and I had warned them
+that they would feel the need of accuracy and mechanical precision
+when the day of battle came. They had done reasonably well, but
+suffered in comparison with some of the others on dress parade and
+in the form and neatness of the camp. When, however, on the slopes
+of South Mountain I saw the lines go forward steadier and more even
+under fire than they ever had done at drill, their intelligence
+making them perfectly comprehend the advantage of unity in their
+effort and in the shock when they met the foe--when their bodies
+seemed to dilate, their step to have better cadence and a tread as
+of giants as they went cheering up the hill,--I took back all my
+criticisms and felt a pride and glory in them as soldiers and
+comrades that words cannot express.
+
+It was about noon that the lull in the battle occurred, and it
+lasted a couple of hours, while reinforcements were approaching the
+mountain top from both sides. The enemy's artillery kept up a pretty
+steady fire, answered occasionally by our few cannon; but the
+infantry rested on their arms, the front covered by a watchful line
+of skirmishers, every man at his tree. The Confederate guns had so
+perfectly the range of the sloping fields about and behind us, that
+their canister shot made long furrows in the sod with a noise like
+the cutting of a melon rind, and the shells which skimmed the crest
+and burst in the tree-tops at the lower side of the fields made a
+sound like the crashing and falling of some brittle substance,
+instead of the tough fibre of oak and pine. We had time to notice
+these things as we paced the lines waiting for the renewal of the
+battle.
+
+Willcox's division reported to me about two o'clock, and would have
+been up earlier, but for a mistake in the delivery of a message to
+him. He had sent from Middletown to ask me where I desired him to
+come, and finding that the messenger had no clear idea of the roads
+by which he had travelled, I directed him to say that General
+Pleasonton would point out the road I had followed, if inquired of.
+Willcox understood the messenger that I wished him to inquire of
+Pleasonton where he had better put his division in, and on doing so,
+the latter suggested that he move against the crests on the north of
+the National road. He was preparing to do this when Burnside and
+Reno came up and corrected the movement, recalling him from the
+north and sending him by the old Sharpsburg road to my position. As
+his head of column came up, Longstreet's corps was already forming
+with its right outflanking my left. I sent two regiments [Footnote:
+In my official report I said one regiment, but General Willcox
+reported that he sent two, and he is doubtless right. For his
+official report, see Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 428.] to
+extend my left, and requested Willcox to form the rest of the
+division on my right facing the summit. He was doing this when he
+received an order from General Reno to take position overlooking the
+National road facing northward. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] I can hardly
+think the order could have been intended to effect this, as the
+turnpike is deep between the hills there, and the enemy quite
+distant on the other side of the gorge. But Willcox, obeying the
+order as he received it, formed along the Sharpsburg road, his left
+next to my right, but his line drawn back nearly at right angles to
+it. He placed Cook's battery in the angle, and this opened a rapid
+fire on one of the enemy's which was on the bastion-like hill north
+of the gorge already mentioned. Longstreet's men were now pretty
+well up, and pushed a battery forward to the edge of the timber
+beyond Wise's farm, and opened upon Willcox's line, enfilading it
+badly. There was a momentary break there, but Willcox was able to
+check the confusion, and to reform his lines facing westward as I
+had originally directed; Welch's brigade was on my right, closely
+supporting Cook's battery and Christ's beyond it. The general line
+of Willcox's division was at the eastern edge of the wood looking
+into the open ground at Fox's Gap, on the north side of the
+Sharpsburg road. A warm skirmishing fight was continued along the
+whole of our line, our purpose being to hold fast my extreme left
+which was well advanced upon and over the mountain crest, and to
+swing the right up to the continuation of the same line of hills
+near the Mountain House.
+
+At nearly four o'clock the head of Sturgis's column approached.
+[Footnote: Sturgis's Report, _Id_., pt. i. p. 443.] McClellan had
+arrived on the field, and he with Burnside and Reno was at
+Pleasonton's position at the knoll in the valley, and from that
+point, a central one in the midst of the curving hills, they issued
+their orders. They could see the firing of the enemy's battery from
+the woods beyond the open ground in front of Willcox, and sent
+orders to him to take or silence those guns at all hazards. He was
+preparing to advance, when the Confederates anticipated him (for
+their formation had now been completed) and came charging out of the
+woods across the open fields. It was part of their general advance
+and their most determined effort to drive us from the summit we had
+gained in the morning. The brigades of Hood, Whiting, Drayton, and
+D. R. Jones in addition to Hill's division (eight brigades in all)
+joined in the attack on our side of the National road, batteries
+being put in every available position. [Footnote: Longstreet's
+Report, Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 839.] The fight raged
+fiercely along the whole front, but the bloodiest struggle was
+around Wise's house, where Drayton's brigade assaulted my right and
+Willcox's left, coming across the open ground. Here the Sharpsburg
+road curves around the hill held by us so that for a little way it
+was parallel to our position. As the enemy came down the hill
+forming the other side of the gap, across the road and up again to
+our line, they were met by so withering a fire that they were
+checked quickly, and even drifted more to the right where their
+descent was continuous. Here Willcox's line volleyed into them a
+destructive fire, followed by a charge that swept them in confusion
+back along the road, where the men of the Kanawha division took up
+the attack and completed their rout. Willcox succeeded in getting a
+foothold on the further side of the open ground and driving off the
+artillery which was there. Along our centre and left where the
+forest was thick, the enemy was equally repulsed, but the cover of
+the timber enabled them to keep a footing near by, whilst they
+continually tried to extend so as to outflank us, moving their
+troops along a road which goes diagonally down that side of the
+mountain from Turner's Gap to Rohrersville. The batteries on the
+north of the National road had been annoying to Willcox's men as
+they advanced, but Sturgis sent forward Durell's battery from his
+division as soon as he came up, and this gave special attention to
+these hostile guns, diverting their fire from the infantry. Hooker's
+men, of the First Corps, were also by this time pushing up the
+mountain on that side of the turnpike, and we were not again
+troubled by artillery on our right flank.
+
+It was nearly five o'clock when the enemy had disappeared in the
+woods beyond Fox's Gap and Willcox could reform his shattered lines.
+As the easiest mode of getting Sturgis's fresh men into position,
+Willcox made room on his left for Ferrero's brigade supported by
+Nagle's, doubling also his lines at the extreme right. Rodman's
+division, the last of the corps, now began to reach the summit, and
+as the report came from the extreme left that the enemy was
+stretching beyond our flank, I sent Fairchild's brigade to assist
+our men there, whilst Rodman took Harland's to the support of
+Willcox. A staff officer now brought word that McClellan directed
+the whole line to advance. At the left this could only mean to clear
+our front decisively of the enemy there, for the slopes went
+steadily down to the Rohrersville road. At the centre and right,
+whilst we held Fox's Gap, the high and rocky summit at the Mountain
+House was still in the enemy's possession. The order came to me as
+senior officer upon the line, and the signal was given. On the left
+Longstreet's men were pushed down the mountain side beyond the
+Rohrersville and Sharpsburg roads, and the contest there was ended.
+The two hills between the latter road and the turnpike were still
+held by the enemy, and the further one could not be reached till the
+Mountain House should be in our hands. Sturgis and Willcox,
+supported by Rodman, again pushed forward, but whilst they made
+progress they were baffled by a stubborn and concentrated
+resistance.
+
+Reno had followed Rodman's division up the mountain, and came to me
+a little before sunset, anxious to know why the right could not get
+forward quite to the summit. I explained that the ground there was
+very rough and rocky, a fortress in itself and evidently very
+strongly held. He passed on to Sturgis, and it seemed to me he was
+hardly gone before he was brought back upon a stretcher, dead. He
+had gone to the skirmish line to examine for himself the situation,
+and had been shot down by the enemy posted among the rocks and
+trees. There was more or less firing on that part of the field till
+late in the evening, but when morning dawned the Confederates had
+abandoned the last foothold above Turner's Gap and retreated by way
+of Boonsboro to Sharpsburg. The casualties in the Ninth Corps had
+been 889, of which 356 were in the Kanawha division. Some 600 of the
+enemy were captured by my division and sent to the rear under guard.
+
+On the north of the National road the First Corps under Hooker had
+been opposed by one of Hill's brigades and four of Longstreet's, and
+had gradually worked its way along the old Hagerstown road, crowning
+the heights in that direction after dark in the evening. Gibbon's
+brigade had also advanced in the National road, crowding up quite
+close to Turner's Gap and engaging the enemy in a lively combat. It
+is not my purpose to give a detailed history of events which did not
+come under my own eye. It is due to General Burnside, however, to
+note Hooker's conduct toward his immediate superior and his
+characteristic efforts to grasp all the glory of the battle at the
+expense of truth and of honorable dealing with his commander and his
+comrades. Hooker's official report for the battle of South Mountain
+was dated at Washington, November 17th, when Burnside was in command
+of the Army of the Potomac, and when the intrigues of the former to
+obtain the command for himself were notorious and near their final
+success. In it he studiously avoided any recognition of orders or
+directions received from Burnside, and ignores his staff, whilst he
+assumes that his orders came directly from McClellan and compliments
+the staff officers of the latter, as if they had been the only means
+of communication. This was not only insolent but a military offence,
+had Burnside chosen to prosecute it. He also asserts that the troops
+on our part of the line had been defeated and were at the turnpike
+at the base of the mountain in retreat when he went forward. At the
+close of his report, after declaring that "the forcing of the
+passage of South Mountain will be classed among the most brilliant
+and satisfactory achievements of this army," he adds, "its principal
+glory will be awarded to the First Corps." [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 214-215.]
+
+Nothing is more justly odious in military conduct than embodying
+slanders against other commands in an official report. It puts into
+the official records misrepresentations which cannot be met because
+they are unknown, and it is a mere accident if those who know the
+truth are able to neutralize their effect. In most cases it will be
+too late to counteract the mischief when those most interested learn
+of the slanders. All this is well illustrated in the present case.
+Hooker's report got on file months after the battle, and it was not
+till the January following that Burnside gave it his attention. I
+believe that none of the division commanders of the Ninth Corps
+learned of it till long afterward. I certainly did not till 1887, a
+quarter of a century after the battle, when the volume of the
+official records containing it was published. Burnside had asked to
+be relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac after the
+battle of Fredericksburg unless Hooker among others was punished for
+insubordination. As in the preceding August, the popular sentiment
+of that army as an organization was again, in Mr. Lincoln's
+estimation, too potent a factor to be opposed, and the result was
+the superseding of Burnside by Hooker himself, though the President
+declared in the letter accompanying the appointment that the
+latter's conduct had been blameworthy. It was under these
+circumstances that Burnside learned of the false statements in
+Hooker's report of South Mountain, and put upon file his stinging
+response to it. His explicit statement of the facts will settle that
+question among all who know the reputation of the men, and though
+unprincipled ambition was for a time successful, that time was so
+short and things were "set even" so soon that the ultimate result is
+one that lovers of justice may find comfort in.
+[Footnote: The text of Burnside's supplemental report is as
+follows:--
+
+"When I sent in my report of the part taken by my command in the
+battle of South Mountain, General Hooker, who commanded one of the
+corps of my command (the right wing), had not sent in his report,
+but it has since been sent to me. I at first determined to pass over
+its inaccuracies as harmless, or rather as harming only their
+author; but upon reflection I have felt it my duty to notice two
+gross misstatements made with reference to the commands of Generals
+Reno and Cox, the former officer having been killed on that day, and
+the latter now removed with his command to the West.
+
+"General Hooker says that as he came up to the front, Cox's corps
+was retiring from the contest. This is untrue. General Cox did not
+command a corps, but a division; and that division was in action,
+fighting most gallantly, long before General Hooker came up, and
+remained in the action all day, never leaving the field for one
+moment. He also says that he discovered that the attack by General
+Reno's corps was without sequence. This is also untrue, and when
+said of an officer who so nobly fought and died on that same field,
+it partakes of something worse than untruthfulness. Every officer
+present who knew anything of the battle knows that Reno performed a
+most important part in the battle, his corps driving the enemy from
+the heights on one side of the main pike, whilst that of General
+Hooker drove them from the heights on the other side.
+
+"General Hooker should remember that I had to order him four
+separate times to move his command into action, and that I had to
+myself order his leading division (Meade's) to start before he would
+go." Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 422.]
+The men of the First Corps and its officers did their duty nobly on
+that as on many another field, and the only spot on the honor of the
+day is made by the personal unscrupulousness and vainglory of its
+commander.
+
+Franklin's corps had attacked and carried the ridge about five miles
+further south, at Crampton's Gap, where the pass had been so
+stubbornly defended by Mahone's and Cobb's brigades with artillery
+and a detachment of Hampton's cavalry as to cause considerable loss
+to our troops. The principal fighting was at a stone wall near the
+eastern base of the mountain, and when the enemy was routed from
+this position, he made no successful rally and the summit was gained
+without much more fighting. The attack at the stone wall not far
+from Burkettsville was made at about three o'clock in the afternoon.
+The Sixth Corps rested upon the summit at night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ANTIETAM: PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS
+
+
+Lee's plan of invasion--Changed by McClellan's advance--The position
+at Sharpsburg--Our routes of march--At the Antietam--McClellan
+reconnoitring--Lee striving to concentrate--Our delays--Tuesday's
+quiet--Hooker's evening march--The Ninth Corps command--Changing our
+positions--McClellan's plan of battle--Hooker's evening
+skirmish--Mansfield goes to support Hooker--Confederate
+positions--Jackson arrives--McLaws and Walker reach the field--Their
+places.
+
+
+Before morning on the 15th of September it became evident that Lee
+had used the night in withdrawing his army. An advance of the
+pickets at daybreak confirmed this, and Pleasonton's cavalry was
+pushed forward to Boonsboro, where they had a brisk skirmish with
+the enemy's rear-guard. At Boonsboro a turnpike to Sharpsburg leaves
+the National road, and the retreat of the Confederate cavalry, as
+well as other indications, pointed out the Sharpsburg road as the
+line of Lee's retreat. He had abandoned his plan of moving further
+northward, and had chosen a line bringing him into surer
+communication with Jackson. His movements before the battle of South
+Mountain revealed a purpose of invasion identical with that which he
+tried to carry out in 1863 in the Gettysburg campaign. Longstreet,
+with two divisions and a brigade (D. R. Jones, Hood, and Evans), had
+advanced to Hagerstown, and it seems that a large part of the
+Confederate trains reached there also. D. H. Hill's division held
+Boonsboro and the passes of South Mountain at Turner's and Fox's
+Gaps. McLaws invested our fortifications on Maryland Heights,
+supported by R. H. Anderson's division. Jackson, with four divisions
+(A. P. Hill, Ewell, and Starke of his own corps, with Walker
+temporarily reporting to him), was besieging Harper's Ferry.
+
+On Saturday, the 13th, Lee determined to draw back Longstreet from
+his advanced position, in view of the fact that Jackson had not yet
+reduced Harper's Ferry and that McClellan was marching to its
+relief. Longstreet's divisions therefore approached Boonsboro so as
+to support D. H. Hill, and thus it happened that they took part in
+the battle of South Mountain. Hill again occupied the summit where
+we found him on the 14th. From all this it is very plain that if
+McClellan had hastened his advance on the 13th, the passes of South
+Mountain at Turner's and Fox's gaps would not have been occupied in
+force by the enemy, and the condition of things would have been what
+he believed it was on the morning of the 14th, when a single brigade
+had been thought enough to support Pleasonton's reconnoissance.
+Twenty-four hours had changed all that.
+
+The turnpike from Boonsboro to Sharpsburg continues southward a
+couple of miles, crossing the Potomac to Shepherdstown, which lies
+on the Virginia side of the river. A bridge which formerly carried
+the road over the stream had been burned; but not far below the
+ruined piers was a ford, which was a pretty good one in the present
+stage of water. Shepherdstown was the natural place of junction for
+Lee and Jackson; but for Lee to have marched there at once would
+have exposed Jackson to attack from the northern side of the
+Potomac. The precious stores and supplies captured at Harper's Ferry
+must be got to a place of safety, and this was likely to delay
+Jackson a day or two. Lee therefore ordered McLaws to obstruct
+Franklin's movement as much as he could, whilst he himself
+concentrated the rest of Longstreet's corps at Sharpsburg, behind
+the Antietam. If McClellan's force should prove overwhelming, the
+past experience of the Confederate general encouraged him to believe
+that our advance would not be so enterprising that he could not make
+a safe retreat into Virginia. He resolved therefore to halt at
+Sharpsburg, which offered an excellent field for a defensive battle,
+leaving himself free to resume his aggressive campaign or to retreat
+into Virginia according to the result.
+
+McClellan had ordered Richardson's division of the Second Corps to
+support the cavalry in the advance, and Hooker's corps followed
+Richardson. [Footnote: Hooker's Report, Official Records, vol. xix.
+pt. i. p. 216.] It would seem most natural that the whole of
+Sumner's wing should take the advance on the 15th, though the
+breaking up of organizations was so much a habit with McClellan that
+perhaps it should not be surprising that one of Sumner's divisions
+was thus separated from the rest, and that Burnside's right wing was
+also divided. [Footnote: We must not forget the fact, however, that
+the order dividing the army into wings was suspended on that
+morning, and that this gives to the incident the air of an
+intentional reduction of the wing commanders to the control of a
+single corps. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 297.] The Ninth
+Corps was ordered to follow the old Sharpsburg road through Fox's
+Gap, our line of march being thus parallel to the others till we
+should reach the road from Boonsboro to Sharpsburg.
+
+But we were not put in motion early in the day. We were ordered
+first to bury the dead, and to send the wounded and prisoners to
+Middletown It was nearly noon when we got orders to march, and when
+the head of column filed into the road, the way was blocked by
+Porter's corps, which was moving to the front by the same road. As
+soon as the way was clear, we followed, leaving a small detachment
+to complete the other tasks which had been assigned us. In the
+wooded slope of the mountain west of the gap, a good many of the
+Confederate dead still lay where they had fallen in the fierce
+combats for the possession of the crest near Wise's house. Our road
+led through a little hamlet called Springvale, and thence to
+another, Porterstown, near the left bank of the Antietam, where it
+runs into the Boonsboro and Sharpsburg turnpike. Sumner's two corps
+had taken temporary position on either side of the turnpike, behind
+the line of hills which there borders the stream. Porter's corps was
+massed in rear of Sumner, and Hooker's had been moved off to the
+right, around Keedysville. I was with the Kanawha division, assuming
+that my temporary command of the corps ended with the battle on the
+mountain. As we came up in rear of the troops already assembled, we
+received orders to turn off the road to the left, and halted our
+battalions closed in mass. It was now about three o'clock in the
+afternoon. McClellan, as it seemed, had just reached the field, and
+was surrounded by a group of his principal officers, most of whom I
+had never seen before. I rode up with General Burnside, dismounted,
+and was very cordially greeted by General McClellan. He and Burnside
+were evidently on terms of most intimate friendship and familiarity.
+He introduced me to the officers I had not known before, referring
+pleasantly to my service with him in Ohio and West Virginia, putting
+me upon an easy footing with them in a very agreeable and genial
+way.
+
+We walked up the slope of the ridge before us, and looking westward
+from its crest, the whole field of the coming battle was before us.
+Immediately in front the Antietam wound through the hollow, the
+hills rising gently on both sides. In the background, on our left,
+was the village of Sharpsburg, with fields enclosed by stone fences
+in front of it. At its right was a bit of wood (since known as the
+West Wood), with the little Dunker Church standing out white and
+sharp against it. Farther to the right and left, the scene was
+closed in by wooded ridges with open farm lands between, the whole
+making as pleasing and prosperous a landscape as can easily be
+imagined.
+
+[Illustration: Map]
+
+We made a large group as we stood upon the hill, and it was not long
+before we attracted the enemy's attention. A puff of white smoke
+from a knoll on the right of the Sharpsburg road was followed by the
+screaming of a shell over our heads. McClellan directed that all but
+one or two should retire behind the ridge, while he continued the
+reconnoissance, walking slowly to the right. I think Fitz-John
+Porter was the only general officer who was retained as a companion
+in this walk. I noted with satisfaction the cool and business-like
+air with which McClellan made his examination under fire. The
+Confederate artillery was answered by a battery of ours, and a
+lively cannonade ensued on both sides, though without any noticeable
+effect. The enemy's position was revealed, and he was evidently in
+force on both sides of the turnpike in front of Sharpsburg, covered
+by the undulations of the rolling ground which hid his infantry from
+our sight.
+
+The examination of the enemy's position and the discussion of it
+continued till near the close of the day. Orders were then given for
+the Ninth Corps to move to the left, keeping off the road, which was
+occupied by other troops. We moved through fields and farm lands, an
+hour's march in the dusk of evening, going into bivouac about a mile
+south of the Sharpsburg bridge, and in rear of the hills bordering
+the Antietam.
+
+The village of Sharpsburg is in the midst of a plateau which is
+almost enclosed by the Potomac River and the Antietam. The Potomac
+bounds it on the south and west, and the Antietam on the east. The
+plateau in general outline may be considered a parallelogram, four
+miles in length from north to south, and two and a half miles in
+width inside the bends of the river. The northern side of this
+terrain appears the narrowest, for here the river curves sharply
+away to the west, nearly doubling the width of the field above and
+below the bend. From the village the ground descends in all
+directions, though a continuous ridge runs northward, on which is
+the Hagerstown turnpike. The Boonsboro turnpike enters the village
+from the northeast, crossing the Antietam on a stone bridge, and
+continuing through Sharpsburg to the southwest, reaches
+Shepherdstown by the ford of the Potomac already mentioned. The
+Hagerstown turnpike enters the town from the north, passing the
+Dunker Church a mile out, and goes nearly due south, crossing the
+Antietam at its mouth, and continuing down the Potomac toward
+Harper's Ferry.
+
+The Antietam is a deep creek, with few fords at an ordinary stage of
+water, and the principal roads cross it upon stone bridges. Of these
+there were three within the field of battle; the upper one in front
+of Keedysville, the middle one upon the Boonsboro turnpike, and the
+lower one on the Sharpsburg and Rohrersville road, since known as
+Burnside's bridge. McClellan's staff was better supplied with
+officers of engineers than the staff of most of our separate armies,
+and Captain Duane, his chief engineer, systematized the work of
+gathering topographical information. This was communicated to the
+general officers in connection with the orders which were given
+them. In this way we were instructed that the only fords of the
+Antietam passable at that time were one between the two upper
+bridges named, and another about half a mile below Burnside's
+bridge, in a deep bend of the stream. We found, however, during the
+engagement of the 17th, another practicable crossing for infantry a
+short distance above the bridge. This was not a ford in common use,
+but in the low stage of water at the time it was made available for
+a small force.
+
+It was about noon of the 15th of September that Lee placed the
+forces which he had in hand across the turnpike in front of
+Sharpsburg. D. H. Hill's division was on the north of the road, and
+on the south of it Longstreet's own old division (now under General
+D. R. Jones), Hood's division, and Evans's independent brigade.
+Stuart's cavalry and the reserve artillery were also present. The
+rest of the army was with Jackson at Harper's Ferry, or co-operating
+with him in the neighborhood of Maryland Heights. Out of forty-four
+brigades, Lee could put but fourteen or fifteen in line that day to
+oppose McClellan. He was very strong in artillery, however, and his
+cannon looked grimly over the hill-crests behind which his infantry
+were lying. Cutts's and Jones's battalions of the reserve artillery
+were ordered to report to Hill for the protection of the left of the
+Confederate line, and gave him in all the sixty or seventy guns
+which he speaks of in his report, and which have puzzled several
+writers who have described the battle. Whenever our troops showed
+themselves as they marched into position, they were saluted from
+shotted cannon, and the numerous batteries that were developed on
+the long line of hills before us no doubt did much to impress
+McClellan with the belief that he had the great bulk of Lee's army
+before him.
+
+The value of time was one of the things McClellan never understood.
+He should have been among the first in the saddle at every step in
+the campaign after he was in possession of Lee's order of the 9th,
+and should have infused energy into every unit in his army. Instead
+of making his reconnoissance at three in the afternoon of Monday, it
+might have been made at ten in the morning, and the battle could
+have been fought before night, if, indeed, Lee had not promptly
+retreated when support from Jackson would thus have become
+impossible. Or if McClellan had pushed boldly for the bridge at the
+mouth of the Antietam, nothing but a precipitate retreat by Lee
+could have prevented the interposition of the whole National army
+between the separated wings of the Confederates. The opportunity was
+still supremely favorable for McClellan, but prompt decision was not
+easy for him. Nothing but reconnoitring was done on Monday afternoon
+or on Tuesday, whilst Lee was straining every nerve to concentrate
+his forces and to correct what would have proven a fatal blunder in
+scattering them, had his opponent acted with vigor. The strongest
+defence the eulogists of the Confederate general have made for him
+is that he perfectly understood McClellan's caution and calculated
+with confidence upon it; that he would have been at liberty to
+perfect his combinations still more at leisure, but for the accident
+by which the copy of his plan had fallen into our hands at Frederick
+City.
+
+During the 16th we confidently expected a battle, and I kept with my
+division. In the afternoon I saw General Burnside, and learned from
+him that McClellan had determined to let Hooker make a movement on
+our extreme right to turn Lee's position. Burnside's manner in
+speaking of this implied that he thought it was done at Hooker's
+solicitation, and through his desire, openly evinced, to be
+independent in command. I urged Burnside to assume the immediate
+command of the corps and allow me to lead my own division. He
+objected that as he had been announced as commander of the right
+wing of the army, composed of the two corps, he was unwilling to
+waive his precedence or to assume that Hooker was detached for
+anything more than a temporary purpose. I pointed out that Reno's
+staff had been granted leave of absence to take the body of their
+chief to Washington, and that my division staff was too small for
+corps duty; but he met this by saying that he would use his staff
+for this purpose, and help me in every way he could till the crisis
+of the campaign should be over. Sympathizing with his very natural
+feeling, I ceased objecting, and accepted with as good grace as I
+could the unsatisfactory position of nominal commander of the corps
+to which I was a comparative stranger, and which, under the
+circumstances, naturally looked to him as its accustomed and real
+commander. Burnside's intentions in respect to myself were
+thoroughly friendly, as he afterward proved, and I had no ground for
+complaint on this score; but the position of second in command is
+always an awkward and anomalous one, and such I felt it.
+
+The 16th passed without serious fighting, though we had desultory
+cannonading and picket firing. It was hard to restrain our men from
+showing themselves on the crest of the long ridge in front of us,
+and whenever they did so they drew the fire from some of the enemy's
+batteries, to which ours would respond. McClellan reconnoitred the
+line of the Antietam near us, and the country immediately on our
+left, down the valley. As the result of this we were ordered to
+change our positions at nightfall, staff officers being sent to
+guide each division to its new camp. The selected positions were
+marked by McClellan's engineers, who then took members of Burnside's
+staff to identify the locations, and these in turn conducted our
+divisions. There was far more routine of this sort in that army than
+I ever saw elsewhere. Corps and division commanders should have the
+responsibility of protecting their own flanks and in choosing
+ordinary camps. To depend upon the general staff for this is to take
+away the vigor and spontaneity of the subordinate and make him
+perform his duty in a mechanical way. He should be told what is
+known of the enemy and his movements so as to be put upon his guard,
+and should then have freedom of judgment as to details. The changes
+made were as follows: Rodman's division went half a mile further to
+the left, where a country road led to the Antietam ford, half a mile
+below the Burnside bridge. Sturgis's division was placed on the
+sides of the road leading to the stone bridge just mentioned.
+Willcox's was put in reserve in rear of Sturgis. My own was divided,
+Scammon's brigade going with Rodman, and Crook's going with Sturgis.
+Crook was ordered to take the advance in crossing the bridge in case
+we should be ordered to attack. This selection was made by Burnside
+himself as a compliment to the division for the vigor of its assault
+at South Mountain. While we were moving we heard Hooker's guns far
+off on the right and front, and the cannonade continued an hour or
+more after it became dark.
+
+What, then, was the plan of battle of which the first step was this
+movement of Hooker's? McClellan's dispositions on the 15th were made
+whilst Franklin's corps was still absent, and, under the orders he
+received, was likely to be so for a day at least. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 29.] Sumner's two corps had
+been treated as the centre of the army in hand, Burnside's had been
+divided by putting Hooker on the extreme right and the Ninth Corps
+on the extreme left, and Porter's corps was in reserve. This looked
+as if a general attack in front with this organization of the army
+were intended. But the more McClellan examined the enemy's position
+the less inclined he was to attack the centre. He could cross the
+bridge there and on the right, and deploy; but the gentle slopes
+rising toward Sharpsburg were swept by formidable batteries and
+offered no cover to advancing troops. The enemy's infantry was
+behind stone fences and in sunken roads, whilst ours must advance
+over the open. Lee's right rested upon the wooded bluffs above the
+Burnside bridge, where it could only be approached by a small head
+of column charging along the narrow roadway under a concentrated
+fire of cannon and small arms. No point of attack on the whole field
+was so unpromising as this. Then, as Jackson was still at Harper's
+Ferry, there was the contingency of an attack in rear if anything
+less than the mass of our army were pushed beyond Lee's right.
+
+On our right, in front of Hooker, it was easy to turn the
+Confederate line. The road from Keedysville through Smoketown to the
+Hagerstown turnpike crossed the Antietam in a hollow, out of the
+line of fire, and a march around Lee's left flank could be made
+almost wholly under cover. The topography of the field therefore
+suggested a flank attack from our right, if the National commander
+rejected the better strategy of interposing his army between Lee and
+Jackson as too daring a movement. This flank attack McClellan
+determined to make, and some time after noon of the 16th issued his
+orders accordingly. In his preliminary report of the battle, made
+before he was relieved from command, McClellan says:--
+
+"The design was to make the main attack upon the enemy's left,--at
+least to create a diversion in favor of the main attack, with the
+hope of something more, by assailing the enemy's right,--and as soon
+as one or both of the flank movements were fully successful, to
+attack their centre with any reserve I might then have in hand."
+[Footnote: O R., vol. xix. pt. i. p. 30.]
+
+His report covering his whole career in the war, dated August 4,
+1863 (and published February, 1864, after warm controversies had
+arisen, and he had become a political character), modifies the above
+statement in some important particulars. It says:--
+
+"My plan for the impending general engagement was to attack the
+enemy's left with the corps of Hooker and Mansfield supported by
+Sumner's and if necessary by Franklin's, and as soon as matters
+looked favorably there, to move the corps of Burnside against the
+enemy's extreme right upon the ridge running to the south and rear
+of Sharpsburg, and having carried their position to press along the
+crest toward our right, and whenever either of these flank movements
+should be successful, to advance our centre with all the forces then
+disposable." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix, pt. i, p. 55.]
+
+The opinion I got from Burnside at the time, as to the part the
+Ninth Corps was to take, was fairly consistent with the design first
+quoted, namely, that when the attack by Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin
+should be progressing favorably, we were "to create a diversion in
+favor of the main attack, with the hope of something more." It is
+also probable that Hooker's movement was at first intended to be
+made by his corps alone, the attack to be taken up by Sumner's two
+corps as soon as Hooker began, and to be shared in by Franklin if he
+reached the field in time, thus making a simultaneous oblique attack
+from our right by the whole army except Porter's corps, which was in
+reserve, and the Ninth Corps, which was to create the "diversion" on
+our left and prevent the enemy from stripping his right to reinforce
+his left. It is hardly disputable that this would have been a better
+plan than the one actually carried out. Certainly the assumption
+that the Ninth Corps could cross the Antietam alone at the only
+place on the field where the Confederates had their line immediately
+upon the stream which must be crossed under fire by two narrow heads
+of column, and could then turn to the right along the high ground
+occupied by the hostile army before that army had been broken or
+seriously shaken elsewhere, is one which would hardly be made till
+time had dimmed the remembrance of the actual position of Lee's
+divisions upon the field. It is also noticeable that the plan as
+given in the final report leaves no "centre" with which to "advance"
+when either of the flank movements should be successful, Porter's
+corps in reserve being the only one not included in the movement as
+described.
+
+Further evidence that the plan did not originally include the wide
+separation of two corps to the right to make the extended turning
+movement is found in Hooker's incomplete report, and in the wide
+interval in time between the marching of his corps and that of
+Mansfield. Hooker was ordered to cross the Antietam at about two
+o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th by the bridge in front of
+Keedysville and the ford below it. He says that after his troops
+were over and in march, he rode back to McClellan, who told him that
+he might call for reinforcements, and that when they came they
+should be under his command. Somewhat later McClellan rode forward
+with his staff to observe the progress making, and Hooker again
+urged the necessity of reinforcements. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. i. p. 217.] Yet Sumner did not receive orders to send
+Mansfield's corps to his support till evening, and it marched only
+half an hour before midnight, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 275.] reaching
+its bivouac, about a mile and a half in rear of that of Hooker, at 2
+A.M. of the 17th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 475.]
+
+After crossing the Antietam, Hooker had shaped his course to the
+westward, aiming to reach the ridge on which the Hagerstown turnpike
+runs, and which is the dominant feature in the landscape. This ridge
+is about two miles distant from the Antietam, and for the first mile
+of the way no resistance was met. However, his progress had been
+observed by the enemy, and Hood's two brigades were taken from the
+centre and passed to the left of D. H. Hill. Here they occupied an
+open wood (since known as the East Wood) northeast of the Dunker
+Church. Hooker was now trying to approach the Confederate positions,
+Meade's division of the Pennsylvania Reserves being in the advance.
+A sharp skirmishing combat ensued, and artillery was brought into
+action on both sides. I have mentioned our hearing the noise of this
+engagement from the other extremity of the field in the fading light
+of evening. On our side Seymour's brigade had been chiefly engaged,
+and had felt the enemy so vigorously that Hood supposed he had
+repulsed a serious effort to take the wood. Hooker was, however,
+aiming to pass quite beyond the flank, and kept his other divisions
+north of the hollow beyond the wood, and upon the ridge which
+reaches the turnpike near the largest re-entrant bend of the
+Potomac, which is only half a mile distant. Here he bivouacked upon
+the slopes of the ridge, Doubleday's division resting with its right
+upon the turnpike, Ricketts's division upon the left of Doubleday,
+and Meade covering the front of both with the skirmishers of
+Seymour's brigade. Between Meade's skirmishers and the ridge were
+the farmhouse and barn of J. Poffenberger, on the east side of the
+road, where Hooker made his own quarters for the night. Half a mile
+further in front was the farm of D. R. Miller, the dwelling on the
+east, and the barn surrounded by stacks on the west of the road.
+[Footnote: Hooker's unfinished report says he slept in the barn of
+D. R. Miller, but he places it on the east of the road, and the spot
+is fully identified as Poffenberger's by General Gibbon, who
+commanded the right brigade, and by Lieutenant-Colonel Rufus R.
+Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin (afterward Brevet Brigadier-General), both of
+whom subsequently visited the field and determined the positions.]
+Mansfield's corps (the Twelfth), marching as it did late in the
+night, kept further to the right than Hooker's, but moved on a
+nearly parallel course, and bivouacked on the farm of another J.
+Poffenberger, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 275,
+475.] near the road which, branching from the Hagerstown turnpike at
+the Dunker Church, intersects the one running from Keedysville
+through Smoketown to the same turnpike about a mile north of
+Hooker's position. [Footnote: See map, p. 299.]
+
+On the Confederate side, Hood's division had been so roughly handled
+that it was replaced by two brigades of Ewell's division (commanded
+by Lawton), which with Jackson's own (commanded by J. R. Jones) had
+been led to the field from Harper's Ferry by Jackson, reaching
+Sharpsburg in the afternoon of the 16th. These divisions were formed
+on the left of D. H. Hill, and in continuation of his line along the
+turnpike, but with a brigade advanced to the East Wood, which was
+held as a salient. Hood's division, on being relieved, was placed in
+reserve near the Dunker Church, and spent part of the night in
+cooking rations, of which its supply had been short for a day or
+two. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 923.] The
+combatants on both sides slept upon their arms, well knowing that
+the dawn would bring bloody work.
+
+During the evening McClellan issued orders looking toward the
+joining of a general engagement at daybreak. McLaws's Confederate
+division, which had been opposing Franklin, crossed the Potomac at
+Maryland Heights, and marched by way of Shepherdstown, reaching
+Sharpsburg on the morning of the 17th. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 855,
+856.] Walker's division, which had come from Harper's Ferry on the
+16th, extended Lee's right down the Antietam, covering the ford at
+which Rodman, on our side, was expected to cross. [Footnote: _Id_.,
+p. 914.] A. P. Hill's division was the only force of the enemy
+completing the work at Harper's Ferry, and Franklin was ordered to
+leave Couch's division to observe Hill's movements from our side of
+the Potomac, and to bring the remainder of his corps on the field
+early in the morning. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 376.] In the respite
+given him since Sunday, Lee had therefore concentrated all his army
+but one division, and was better ready for the battle than
+McClellan, for Franklin's corps could come upon the field only after
+a considerable march, and he did not, in fact, reach it till ten
+o'clock or later. Sumner was ordered to have the Second Corps ready
+to march an hour before day, but he had no authority to move till
+explicit orders to that effect should reach him. I have said that
+Hooker claims in his report that the promise was made him that
+Mansfield's corps, when it came to reinforce him, should be under
+his orders. If this were so, it would unite all the troops now
+present which had fought in Pope's Army of Virginia. I find no
+trace, however, in the reports of the battle, that Hooker exercised
+any such command. He seems to have confined his work to the
+independent action of his own corps until Mansfield's death, and was
+himself disabled almost immediately afterward. As there were
+commanders of wings of the army duly designated, and two corps were
+now separated by a long interval from the rest in an independent
+turning movement, it can hardly be debated that that was the place
+of all others where one of them should have been, unless McClellan
+were there in person. Had Burnside's two corps been kept together as
+the right wing, the right attack could have been made a unit. If
+Sumner had then been directed to keep in communication with
+Burnside, and to advance when the latter did, nobody will doubt that
+Sumner would have been prompt in sustaining his comrades. But both
+Sumner and Burnside were made to feel that they were reduced from
+their proper rank, and however conscientious they might be in
+carrying out such orders as reached them, it was not in human nature
+that they should volunteer suggestions or anticipate commands.
+McClellan had thus thrown away the advantages, if there were any, in
+holding only two or three men directly responsible for the
+co-ordination of his movements, and had assumed the full personal
+responsibility of watching each phase of the battle and suiting the
+proper orders to each conjuncture as it should arise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE RIGHT
+
+
+Hooker astir early--The field near the Dunker Church--Artillery
+combat--Positions of Hooker's divisions--Rocky ledges in the
+woods--Advance of Doubleday through Miller's orchard and
+garden--Enemy's fire from West Wood--They rush for Gibbon's
+battery--Repulse--Advance of Patrick's brigade--Fierce fighting
+along the turnpike--Ricketts's division in the East Wood--Fresh
+effort of Meade's division in the centre--A lull in the
+battle--Mansfield's corps reaches the field--Conflicting opinions as
+to the hour--Mansfield killed--Command devolves on Williams--Advance
+through East Wood--Hooker wounded--Meade in command of the corps--It
+withdraws--Greene's division reaches the Dunker Church--Crawford's
+in the East Wood--Terrible effects on the Confederates--Sumner's
+corps coming up--Its formation--It moves on the Dunker Church from
+the east--Divergence of the divisions--Sedgwick's passes to right of
+Greene--Attacked in flank and broken--Rallying at the Poffenberger
+hill--Twelfth Corps hanging on near the church--Advance of French's
+division--Richardson follows later--Bloody Lane reached--The Piper
+house--Franklin's corps arrives--Charge of Irwin's brigade.
+
+
+Before the break of day on Wednesday the 17th, it was discovered
+that Doubleday's division of Hooker's corps lay exposed to artillery
+fire from batteries of the enemy supposed to be in position on their
+front and right. In rousing the men and changing their place, the
+stillness of the night was so far broken that the Confederates
+believed they were advancing to attack, and a lively cannonade and
+picket firing anticipated the dawn. [Footnote: R. R. Dawes, Service
+with the Sixth Wisconsin, p. 87.] The chance for getting their
+breakfast was thus destroyed, and Hooker prepared his whole command
+for action as soon as it should be light enough to move. Looking
+south from the Poffenberger farm along the turnpike, he then saw a
+gently rolling landscape of which the commanding point was the
+Dunker Church, whose white brick walls appeared on the right of the
+road, backed by the foliage of the West Wood, which came toward him
+filling a hollow that ran parallel to the turnpike, with a single
+row of fields between. On the east side of the turnpike was the
+Miller house, with its barn and stack-yard across the road to the
+right, and beyond these the ground dipped into a little depression.
+Still further on was seen a large cornfield between the East Wood
+and the turnpike, rising again to the higher level, and Hooker
+noticed the glint from a long line of bayonets beyond the corn,
+struck by the first rays of the rising sun. There was, however,
+another little hollow at the further side of the cornfield, which
+could not be seen from Hooker's position; and on the farthest ridge,
+near the church and extending across the turnpike toward the East
+Wood, were the Confederate lines, partly sheltered by piles of rails
+taken from the fences. They looked to Hooker as if they were
+deployed along the edge of the corn, but an open sloping field lay
+between the corn and them, after passing the second hollow. It was
+plain that the high ground about the little white church was the key
+of the enemy's position, and if that could be carried, Hooker's task
+would be well done.
+
+The enemy's artillery had opened early from a high hill nearly east
+of the Miller house in a position to strike our forces in flank and
+rear as they should go forward, and Hooker placed batteries on the
+equally commanding height above Poffenberger's and detached
+Hofmann's brigade from Doubleday's division to support it and to
+prevent the enemy from turning our extreme right. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 224.] This force maintained
+its position during the day, and was the nucleus about which both
+Hooker's and Sedgwick's men rallied after their fight. The enemy's
+artillery referred to were several batteries under Stuart's command
+supported by his cavalry and by Early's brigade of infantry which
+Jackson detached for that purpose. [Footnote: Official Records vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 819.]
+
+Doubleday's division (except Hofmann), was in two lines, Gibbon's
+and Phelps's in front, supported by Patrick's. Of Meade's division
+Seymour's brigade, which had sustained the combat of the evening
+before, had continued to cover the front with skirmishers during the
+night, and remained on the northeast side of the East Wood. The
+other brigades (Anderson and Magilton) were placed in reserve behind
+Doubleday. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 269.] The Tenth Regiment
+Pennsylvania Reserves was sent from Anderson's to a strong position
+west of the turnpike near the extremity of the strip of wood
+northwest of the Miller house. It was among ledges of rock looking
+into the ravine beyond which were Stuart and Early. The ravine was
+the continuation northward to the Potomac of a little watercourse
+which headed near the Dunker Church and along one side of which the
+West Wood lay, the outcrop of rock making broken ledges along its
+whole length. Indeed, all the pieces of wood in the neighborhood
+seemed to be full of such rocks, and for that reason had been
+allowed to remain in forest. The regiment was ordered to cover its
+front with skirmishers and to hold its position at all hazards.
+Ricketts's division had bivouacked in a wood east of Doubleday's.
+Its three brigades (Duryea's, Hartsuff's, and Christian's) were
+deployed on the left of Doubleday, and were to march toward the
+Dunker Church through the East Wood, passing the line of Seymour's
+brigade, which was then to become its support.
+
+The Confederates opened a rapid artillery fire from the open ground
+in front of the Dunker Church as well as from Stuart's position, and
+Hooker answered the challenge by an immediate order for his line to
+advance. Doubleday directed Gibbon, who was on the right, to guide
+upon the turnpike. Patrick remained for a time in the wood north of
+the Miller house, till he should be needed at the front. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 224.] Doubleday and his
+brigade commanders seem to have supposed that Meade's men occupied
+part at least of the West Wood, and that they would cover Gibbon's
+flank as he advanced. This belief was based on the stationing of the
+Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves; but that regiment was fifteen or twenty
+rods north of the northern end of the West Wood, and Gibbon's right
+flank, as he advanced, was soon exposed to attack from Ewell's
+division (Lawton in command), which held the wood, hidden from view
+and perfectly protected by the slope of the ground and the forest,
+as they looked over the rim into the undulating open fields in
+front. Part of Battery B, Fourth United States Artillery (Gibbon's
+own battery), was run forward to Miller's barn and stack-yard on the
+right of the road, and fired over the heads of the advancing
+regiments. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 229, 248.] Other batteries were
+similarly placed, more to the left, and our cannon roared from all
+the hill crests encircling the field. The line moved swiftly forward
+through Miller's orchard and kitchen garden, breaking through a
+stout picket fence on the near side, down into the moist ground of
+the hollow, and up through the corn which was higher than their
+heads and shut out everything from view. [Footnote: Dawes, Sixth
+Wisconsin, p. 88.] At the southern side of the field they came to a
+low fence, beyond which was the open field already mentioned, and
+the enemy's line at the further side of it. But the cornfield only
+covered part of the line, and Gibbon's right had outmarched the
+left, which had been exposed to a terrible fire. The direction taken
+had been a little oblique, so that the right wing of the Sixth
+Wisconsin (the flanking regiment) had crossed the turnpike and was
+suddenly assailed by a sharp fire from the West Wood on its flank.
+They swung back into the road, lying down along the high, stout
+post-and-rail fence, keeping up their fire by shooting between the
+rails. [Footnote: Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, p. 89.]
+
+Leaving this little band to protect their right, the main line,
+which had come up on the left, leaped the fence at the south edge of
+the cornfield, and charged up hill across the open at the enemy in
+front. But the concentrated fire of artillery and musketry was more
+than they could bear. Men fell by scores and hundreds, and the
+thinned lines gave way and ran for the shelter of the corn. They
+were rallied in the hollow on the north side of the field. The enemy
+had rapidly extended his left under cover of the West Wood, and now
+made a dash at the right flank and at Gibbon's exposed guns. His men
+on the right faced by that flank and followed him bravely, though
+with little order, in a dash at the Confederates who were swarming
+out of the wood. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 91.] The gunners
+double-charged the cannon with canister, and under a terrible fire
+of artillery and rifles Lawton's division broke and sought shelter.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 248.]
+
+Patrick's brigade had now come up in support of Gibbon, and was sent
+across the turnpike into the West Wood to cover that flank, two
+regiments of Gibbon's going with him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 243.] His
+men pushed forward, the enemy retiring, until they were in advance
+of the principal line in the cornfield upon which the Confederates
+of Jackson's division were now marching to attack. Patrick faced his
+brigade to the left, parallel to the edge of the wood and to the
+turnpike, and poured his fire into the flank of the enemy, following
+it by a charge through the field and up to the fence along the road.
+Again the Confederates were driven back, but their left came forward
+in the wood again, attacking Patrick's right, forcing him to resume
+his original direction of front and to retire to the cover of a
+rocky ledge in the open at right angles to the turnpike not far from
+the northern end of the timber. Phelps's brigade had gone forward
+with Gibbon's, pushing nearly to the Confederate lines, and being
+driven back with great loss when they charged over open ground
+against the enemy.
+
+Ricketts's division advanced from the wood in which it had spent the
+night, passed through Seymour's skirmishers and entered the East
+Wood, swinging his left forward as he went. This grove was open, but
+the rocks made perfect cover for Jackson's men, and every stone and
+tree blazed with deadly fire. Hartsuff endeavored to reconnoitre the
+ground, but was wounded and disabled immediately. Ricketts pushed
+on, suffering fearfully from an enemy which in open order could fall
+back from rock to rock and from tree to tree with little comparative
+loss. He succeeded at last in reaching the west edge of this wood,
+forming along the road and fences that were just within its margin.
+Here he kept up a rapid fire till his ammunition was exhausted.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 258.]
+
+When Doubleday's men had been finally repulsed, our line on the
+right curved from the ledge where Patrick took refuge, forward in
+front of Miller's orchard and garden, part of Gibbon's men lying
+down along the turnpike fence facing to the west. Meade's two
+brigades in reserve were sent forward, but when they reached Gibbon
+and Phelps, Ricketts was calling for assistance in the East Wood and
+Magilton's brigade was sent to him, leaving a gap on the left of
+Anderson. Another gallant effort was now made, Seymour's depleted
+brigade striving to cover the opening, but the enemy dashed at it as
+Anderson came up the slope, and the left being taken in flank, the
+whole broke again to the rear. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 269, 270.]
+Ricketts's right was also imperilled, and he withdrew his exhausted
+lines to reorganize and to fill their empty cartridge-boxes. There
+was a lull in the battle, and the combatants on both sides were
+making desperate efforts to reform their broken regiments.
+
+Mansfield had called the Twelfth Corps to arms at the first sound of
+Hooker's battle and marched to his aid. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. i. p. 475.] It consisted of two divisions, Williams's
+and Greene's, the first of two and the other of three brigades.
+There were a number of new and undrilled regiments in the command,
+and in hastening to the front in columns of battalions in mass,
+proper intervals for deployment had not been preserved, and time was
+necessarily lost before the troops could be put in line. Indeed,
+some of them were not regularly deployed at all. They had left their
+bivouac at sunrise which, as it was about the equinox, was not far
+from six o'clock. They had marched across the country without
+reference to roads, always a very slow mode of advancing, and doubly
+so with undrilled men. The untrained regiments must, in the nature
+of things, have been very much like a mob when their so-called
+columns-in-mass approached the field of battle. It is impossible to
+reconcile the statements of the reports as to the time they became
+engaged. General Williams says they were engaged before seven
+o'clock. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 476.] General Meade says they relieved
+his men not earlier than ten or eleven. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 270.]
+It seems to be guesswork in both cases, and we are forced to judge
+from circumstantial evidence. Ricketts thinks he had been fighting
+four hours when he retired for lack of ammunition, and the Twelfth
+Corps men had not yet reached him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 259.]
+Patrick, on the extreme right, says that his men had made their
+coffee in the lull after his retreat to the sheltering ledge of
+rocks, and had completed their breakfast before the first of
+Mansfield's men joined him there. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 244.] The
+circumstantial details given by several officers make the interval
+between the attack by the Twelfth Corps and the arrival of Sumner a
+very short one. It may be regarded as probable, therefore, that
+Hooker's battle covered the larger part of the time between six
+o'clock and the arrival of Sumner at about ten.
+
+On reaching the field, Mansfield had a brief consultation with
+Hooker, resulting in his ordering Williams to form his division
+nearly as Doubleday's had been, and to advance with his right upon
+the turnpike. He himself led forward the left of Crawford's brigade,
+which was the first to arrive, and pushed toward the East Wood. The
+regiments were still in columns of companies, and though Williams
+had ordered them deployed, the corps commander himself, as Crawford
+says, countermanded this order and led them under fire in column.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 484.] He evidently
+believed Ricketts's men to be still holding the East Wood, and tried
+to keep his own from opening fire upon the troops that were seen
+there. At this moment he was mortally wounded, before the deployment
+was made.
+
+General Alpheus S. Williams, on whom the command devolved, was a
+cool and experienced officer. He hastened the deployment of
+Crawford's and Gordon's brigades of his own division, sending one of
+the new and large regiments to assist the Pennsylvania regiment in
+holding the important position covering the right beyond the
+turnpike. As Greene's division came up, he ordered him to form
+beyond Gordon's left, and when deployed to move on the Dunker Church
+through the East Wood, guiding his left by the cloud of smoke from
+the Mumma house, which had been set on fire by D. H. Hill's men.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 475, 1033.] At Doubleday's request, he
+detached Goodrich's brigade from Greene, and sent it to Patrick on
+the right with orders to advance into the West Wood from its
+northern extremity. Patrick says the regiments came separately and
+at considerable intervals, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix.
+pt. i. p. 244.] and it is not unlikely that the older regiments were
+sent in to relieve Hooker's men as fast as they were ready, and the
+more disorganized ones were obliged to delay till they could be got
+into some sort of shape. Williams made his first disposition of his
+troops according to Hooker's suggestion, but the latter received a
+serious wound in the foot, as it would seem, before the attack by
+the Twelfth Corps had begun. Hooker turned over the command to
+Meade, and a formal order confirming this was issued from
+McClellan's head-quarters later in the day. [Footnote: _Id_., pt.
+ii. p. 315.]
+
+So many of the regiments were carried under fire while still in
+column that not only was the formation of the line an irregular one,
+but the deployment when made was more diagonal to the turnpike than
+Hooker's had been, and the whole line faced more to the westward.
+But they advanced with a courage equal to the heroism already shown
+on that field. The Confederates who now held the open space at the
+Dunker Church were Hood's two brigades, and the rest of Jackson's
+corps extended into the West Wood. Stuart had found his artillery
+position on the hill too far from Jackson's line, and the fighting
+was so near the church that he could not fire upon our men without
+hurting his own. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 820.] He therefore
+moved further to the south and west, and Early carried his brigade
+(except the Thirteenth Virginia) back toward Ewell's division, which
+now came under his command by the disabling of General Lawton in the
+fight. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 968, 969.]
+
+Williams's first line was a good deal shortened, and the divisions,
+guiding as well as they could upon Greene, crowded so far to the
+south that even Crawford's brigade, which was on the right of all,
+went partly through the East Wood advancing on a line nearly at
+right angles to the turnpike. The enemy had followed Ricketts's
+retiring battalions and were again in occupation of the East Wood.
+His work was to be done over again, though the stubborn courage of
+Hood's depleted brigades could not make up for the numbers which the
+National officers now led against him. But the rocks, the ledges,
+and the trees still gave him such cover that it was at a fearful
+cost that the Twelfth Corps men pushed him steadily back and then by
+a final rush drove him from the roads which skirted the grove on
+west and south. What was left of Jackson's corps except Early's
+brigade had come out of the West Wood to meet Crawford's division,
+and the stout high fences along the turnpike were the scene of
+frightful slaughter. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
+pp. 485, 487.] The Confederates tried to climb them, but the level
+fire of our troops swept over the field so that the top of the fence
+seemed in the most deadly line of the leaden storm, and the men in
+gray fell in windrows along its panels. Our own men were checked by
+the same obstacle, and lay along the ground shooting between the
+rails and over the fallen bodies of the Confederate soldiers which
+made a sort of rampart.
+
+In obedience to his original orders, Greene took ground a little
+more to his left, occupying a line along a fence from the burning
+Mumma house to the road leading from the East Wood directly to the
+Dunker Church. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 505.] The two brigades with
+thinned ranks barely filled this space, and Crawford's division
+connected with them as well as it could. Batteries came forward on
+Greene's left and right, and helped to sweep the grove around the
+church. Hill attempted to hold him back, and a bold dash was made at
+Greene, probably by Hill's left brigades which were ordered forward
+to support Hood. Greene's men lay on the ground just under the ridge
+above the burning house till the enemy were within a few rods of
+them, then rose and delivered a volley which an eyewitness (Major
+Crane, Seventh Ohio) says cut them down "like grass before the
+mower." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 506.] Those
+who escaped sought refuge in the wood behind the church, where the
+crowning ridge is some distance back from the road. Greene now
+dashed forward and gained the grove immediately about the church,
+where he held on for an hour or two. Crawford's division, after
+several ebbs and flows in the tide of battle, was holding the
+western skirt of the East wood with one or two of its regiments
+still close to the turnpike fence on his right.
+
+Meanwhile Goodrich had been trying to advance from the north end of
+the West Wood to attack the flank of the enemy there; but Early with
+his own brigade held the ledges along the ravine so stubbornly that
+he was making little progress.
+
+Greene was calling for support about the Dunker Church, for he was
+close under the ridge on which Hill and Jackson were forming such
+line as they could, and he was considerably in advance of our other
+troops. Williams withdrew one regiment from Goodrich's brigade and
+sent it to Greene, and directed Crawford to send also to him the
+Thirteenth New Jersey, a new and strong regiment which had been left
+in reserve, as we have seen, in a bit of wood northeast of the field
+of battle. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 476, 505.] Gordon's brigade was
+withdrawn by Crawford to enable it to reorganize in rear of the East
+Wood, and Crawford's own brigade held the further margin of it. It
+will thus be seen that the Twelfth Corps was now divided into three
+portions,--Greene's division at the church, Crawford's in the East
+Wood, and Goodrich's brigade near the north end of the West Wood.
+
+Meade had withdrawn the First Corps to the ridge at Poffenberger's,
+where it had bivouacked the night before, except that Patrick's
+brigade remained in support of Goodrich. The corps had suffered
+severely, having lost 2470 in killed and wounded, but it was still
+further depleted by straggling, so that Meade reported less than
+7000 men with the colors that evening. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 349.] Its organization had been preserved,
+however, and the story that it was utterly dispersed was a mistake.
+The Twelfth Corps also had its large list of casualties, increased a
+little later by its efforts to support Sumner, and aggregating,
+before the day was over, 1746.
+
+But the fighting of Hooker's and Mansfield's men, though lacking
+unity of force and of purpose, had also cost the enemy dear. J. R.
+Jones, who commanded Jackson's division, had been wounded; Starke,
+who succeeded Jones, was killed; Lawton, who commanded Ewell's
+division, was wounded. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 956.] Lawton's
+and Trimble's brigades had been fearfully crippled in the first
+fight against Hooker on the plateau between the Dunker Church and
+the East Wood, and Hood was sent back to relieve them. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 923.] He, in turn, had been reinforced by the brigades of
+Ripley, Colquitt, and McRae (Garland's) from D. H. Hill's division.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 1022.] When Greene reached the Dunker Church,
+therefore, the Confederates on that wing were more nearly
+disorganized than our own troops. Nearly half their numbers were
+killed and wounded, and Jackson's famous "Stonewall" division was so
+completely broken up that only a handful of men under Colonels
+Grigsby and Stafford remained, and attached themselves to Early's
+command. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 969.] Of the division now under Early,
+his own brigade was all that retained much strength, and this,
+posted among the rocks in the West Wood and vigorously supported by
+Stuart and the artillery on that flank, was all that covered the
+left of Lee's army. Could Hooker and Mansfield have attacked
+together, or, still better, could Sumner's Second Corps have marched
+before day and united with the first onset, Lee's left must
+inevitably have been crushed long before the Confederate divisions
+of McLaws, Walker, and A. P. Hill could have reached the field. It
+is this failure to carry out any intelligible plan which the
+historian must regard as the unpardonable military fault on the
+National side. To account for the hours between daybreak and eight
+o'clock on that morning, is the most serious responsibility of the
+National commander. [Footnote: A distinguished officer (understood
+to be Gen. R. R. Dawes) who visited the field in 1866 has published
+the statement that at the Pry house, where McClellan had his
+headquarters, he was informed that on the morning of the 17th the
+general rose at about seven o'clock and breakfasted leisurely after
+that hour. (Marietta, Ohio, Sentinel.)]
+
+Sumner's Second Corps was now approaching the scene of action, or
+rather two divisions of it, Sedgwick's and French's, for
+Richardson's was still delayed till his place could be filled by
+Porter's troops. Although ordered to be ready to move at daybreak,
+Sumner emphasizes in his report the fact that whilst his command was
+prepared to move at the time ordered, he "did not receive from
+headquarters the order to march till 7.20 A. M." [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 275.] By the time he could reach the
+field, Hooker had fought his battle and had been repulsed. The same
+strange tardiness in sending orders is noticeable in regard to every
+part of the army, and Richardson was not relieved so that he could
+follow French till an hour or two later. [Footnote: _Ibid_.]
+
+Sumner advanced, after crossing the Antietam, in a triple column,
+Sedgwick's division in front, the three brigades marching by the
+right flank and parallel to each other. French followed in the same
+formation. They crossed the Antietam by Hooker's route, but did not
+march so far to the northwest as Hooker had done. On the way Sumner
+met Hooker, who was being carried from the field, and the few words
+he could exchange with the wounded general were enough to make him
+feel the need of haste, but not enough to give him any clear idea of
+the situation. When the centre of the corps was opposite the Dunker
+Church, and nearly east of it, the change of direction was given;
+the troops faced to their proper front, and advanced in line of
+battle in three lines, fully deployed and sixty or seventy yards
+apart, Sumner himself being in rear of Sedgwick's first line and
+near its left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p.
+305.] As they approached the position held by Greene's division at
+the church, French kept on so as to form on Greene's left,
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 323.] but Sedgwick, under Sumner's immediate
+leading, diverged somewhat to the right, passing through the East
+Wood, crossing the turnpike on the right of Greene and of the Dunker
+Church, and plunged into the West Wood. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 305.]
+The fences there had been destroyed by the Confederates before the
+battle began, for the purpose of making room for their own
+manoeuvres as well as to make barricades in front of the cornfield.
+Sedgwick's right did not extend far enough north to be obstructed by
+the fences where the Twelfth Corps men had lain along them in
+repulsing Jackson. When he entered the wood, there were absolutely
+no Confederate troops in front of him. The remnants of Jackson's
+men, except Early's brigade, were clustered at the top of the ridge
+immediately in front of Greene, and Early was further to the right,
+opposing Goodrich and Patrick; Early, however, made haste under
+cover of the woods to pass around Sedgwick's right and to get in
+front of him to oppose his progress. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 970.] This
+led to a lively skirmishing fight in which Early was making as great
+a demonstration as possible, but with no chance of solid success.
+Sedgwick pushed him back, and his left was coming obliquely into the
+open at the bottom of the hollow beyond the wood, when, at the very
+moment, McLaws's and Walker's Confederate divisions came upon the
+field. The former had only just arrived by rapid marching from
+Shepherdstown beyond the Potomac; the latter had been hastily called
+away by Lee from his position on the lower Antietam opposite the
+left wing of Burnside's Ninth Corps. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 857, 914.]
+
+Walker charged headlong upon the left flank of Sedgwick's lines, and
+McLaws, passing by Walker's left, also threw his division diagonally
+upon the already broken and retreating brigades. Taken at such a
+disadvantage, these had never a chance; and in spite of the heroic
+bravery of Sumner and Sedgwick with most of their officers (Sedgwick
+being severely wounded), the division was driven off to the north
+with terrible losses, carrying along in their rout Goodrich's
+brigade of the Twelfth Corps which had been holding Early at bay.
+Goodrich was killed, and his brigade suffered hardly less than the
+others. Patrick's brigade of Hooker's corps was in good order at the
+rocky ledges north of the West Wood which are at right angles to the
+turnpike, and he held on stubbornly till the disorganized troops
+drifted past his left, and then made an orderly retreat in line
+toward the Poffenberger hill. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 245.] Meade was
+already there with the remnants of Hooker's men. Here some thirty
+cannon of both corps were quickly concentrated, and, supported by
+everything which retained organization, easily checked the pursuers
+and repulsed all efforts of Jackson and Stuart to resume the
+offensive or to pass between them and the Potomac. [Footnote: _Id_.,
+p. 306.]
+
+Sumner did not accompany the routed troops to this position, but as
+soon as it was plain that the division could not be rallied, he
+galloped off to put himself in communication with French and with
+headquarters of the army and to try to retrieve the situation. From
+the flag station east of the East Wood he signalled to McClellan,
+"Reinforcements are badly wanted; our troops are giving way."
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 134.] Williams was in that part of the field,
+and Sumner sent a staff officer to him ordering that he should push
+forward to Sedgwick's support anything he could. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 477.] Williams in person ordered
+Gordon's brigade to advance, for this, as we have seen, had been
+reorganized behind the East Wood. He sent the same order to Crawford
+for the rest of that division. Crawford had withdrawn his men in the
+East Wood to let Sedgwick pass diagonally along his front, and now
+advanced again to the west margin of the grove. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+485.] Gordon was ahead of him in time and further to the right, and
+again charged up to the turnpike fences. But the routed troops were
+already swarming from the wood across his front, and their pursuers
+were charging after them. Again the turnpike was made the scene of a
+bloody conflict, and the bodies of many more of the slain of both
+armies were added to those which already lined those fences.
+Gordon's men were overpowered and fell back in the direction they
+had come. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 495.] The enemy's attack spread out
+toward Greene and toward Crawford, who was now at the edge of the
+East Wood again; but both of these held firm, and a couple of
+batteries on the rise of ground in front poured canister into the
+enemy till he took refuge again in the wood beyond the church. It
+was between nine and ten o'clock, probably about ten, [Footnote: The
+reports on the Confederate side fix ten o'clock as the time McLaws
+and Walker reached the field, and corroborate the conclusion I draw
+from all other available evidence.] when Sumner entered the West
+Wood, and in fifteen minutes or a little more the one-sided combat
+was over.
+
+Sumner's principal attack was made, as I have already indicated, at
+right angles to that of Hooker. He had thus crossed the line of
+Hooker's movement in both the advance and the retreat of the latter.
+This led to some misconceptions on Sumner's part. Crawford's
+division had retired to the right and rear to make way for Sedgwick
+as he came up. It thus happened that Greene's division was the only
+part of the Twelfth Corps troops Sumner saw, and he led Sedgwick's
+men to the right of these. Ignorant as he necessarily was of what
+had occurred before, he assumed that he formed on the extreme right
+of the Twelfth Corps, and that he fronted in the same direction as
+Hooker had done. This misconception of the situation led him into
+another error. He had seen only stragglers and wounded men on the
+line of his own advance, and hence concluded that Hooker's Corps was
+completely dispersed and its division and brigade organizations
+broken up. He not only gave this report to McClellan at the time,
+but reiterated it later in his statement before the Committee on the
+Conduct of the War. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 368.] The truth was
+that he had marched westward more than a mile south of the
+Poffenberger hill where Meade was with the sadly diminished but
+still organized First Corps, and half that distance south of the
+Miller farm buildings, near which Goodrich's brigade had entered the
+north end of the West Wood, and in front of which part of Williams's
+men had held the ground along the turnpike till they were relieved
+by Sedgwick's advance. Sedgwick had gone in, therefore, between
+Greene and Crawford, and the four divisions of the two corps
+alternated in their order from left to right, thus: French, Greene,
+Sedgwick, Crawford, the last being Williams's, of which Crawford was
+in command.
+
+It was not Sumner's fault that he was so ill-informed of the actual
+situation on our right; but it is plain that in the absence of
+McClellan from that part of the field he should have left the
+personal leadership of the men to the division commanders, and
+should himself have found out by rapid examination the positions of
+all the troops operating there. It was his part to combine and give
+intelligent direction to the whole, instead of charging forward at
+haphazard with Sedgwick's division. Both Meade and Williams had men
+enough in hand to have joined in a concerted movement with him; and
+had he found either of those officers before plunging into the West
+Wood, he would not have taken a direction which left his flank
+wholly exposed, with the terrible but natural results which
+followed. The original cause of the mischief, however, was
+McClellan's failure to send Sumner to his position before daybreak,
+so that the three corps could have acted together from the beginning
+of Hooker's attack.
+
+But we must return to Sumner's divisions, which were advancing
+nearer the centre. The battle on the extreme right was ended by ten
+o'clock in the morning, and there was no more serious fighting north
+of the Dunker Church. The batteries on the Poffenberger hill and
+those about the East Wood swept the open ground and the cornfield
+over which Hooker and Mansfield had fought, and for some time Greene
+was able to make good his position at the church. The Confederates
+were content to hold the line of the West Wood and the high ground
+back of the church, and French's attack upon D. H. Hill was now
+attracting their attention. French advanced toward Greene's left,
+over the open farm lands, and after a fierce combat about the
+Rullett and Clipp farm buildings, drove Hill's division from them.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 323.] At what time
+the Confederates made a rush at Greene and drove him back to the
+edge of the East Wood is uncertain; but it must have been soon after
+the disaster to Sedgwick. It seems to have been an incident of the
+aggressive movement against Sedgwick, though not coincident with it.
+It must certainly have been before French's advance reached the
+Rullett and Clipp houses, for the enemy's men holding them would
+have been far in rear of Greene at the church, and he must by that
+time have been back near the burnt house of Mumma and the angle of
+the East Wood. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 505.
+Greene says that he held the ground at the church for two hours, and
+that his men were in action from 6.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. The length
+of time and hours of the day are so irreconcilable as given in
+different reports that we are forced to trust more to the general
+current of events than to the time stated.]
+
+Richardson's division followed French after an hour or two,
+[Footnote: Hancock says the division crossed the Antietam about
+9.30. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 277.] and then, foot by
+foot, field by field, from fence to fence, and from hill to hill,
+the enemy was pressed back, till the sunken road, since known as
+"Bloody Lane," was in our hands, piled full of the Confederate dead
+who had defended it with their lives. Richardson had been mortally
+wounded, and Hancock had been sent from Franklin's corps to command
+the division. Colonel Barlow had been conspicuous in the thickest of
+the fight, and after a series of brilliant actions had been carried
+off desperately wounded. On the Confederate side equal courage and a
+magnificent tenacity had been exhibited. Men who had fought
+heroically in one position no sooner found themselves free from the
+struggle of an assault than they were hurried away to repeat their
+exertions, without even a breathing-spell, on another part of the
+field. They exhausted their ammunition, and still grimly held
+crests, as Longstreet tells us, with their bayonets, but without a
+single cartridge in their boxes. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 840.] The
+story of the fight at this part of the field is simpler than that of
+the early morning, for there was no such variety in the character of
+the ground or in the tactics of the opposing forces. It was a
+sustained advance with continuous struggle, sometimes ebbing a
+moment, then gaining, but with the organization pretty well
+preserved and the lines kept fairly continuous on both sides. Our
+men fought their way up to the Piper house, near the turnpike, and
+that position marks the advance made by our centre. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 279.] The crest of the ridge
+on which the Hagerstown turnpike runs had been secured from Piper's
+north to Miller's, and it was held until the Confederate retreat on
+the 19th.
+
+The head of Franklin's Corps (the Sixth) had arrived about ten
+o'clock, and had taken the position near the Sharpsburg bridge,
+which Sumner had occupied in the night. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 376.]
+Before noon Smith's and Slocum's divisions were both ordered to
+Sumner's assistance. As they passed by the farm buildings in front
+of the East Wood, the enemy made a dash at Greene and French. Smith
+ordered forward Irwin's brigade to their support, and Irwin charged
+gallantly, driving the assailants back to the cover of the woods
+about the church. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 402, 409.] Franklin's men
+then formed under the crest already mentioned, from "Bloody Lane" by
+the Clipp, Rullett, and Mumma houses to the East Wood and the ridge
+in front. The aggressive energy of both sides seemed exhausted.
+French and Richardson's battle may be considered as ended at one or
+two o'clock. There was no fighting later but that on the extreme
+left, where Burnside's Ninth Corps was engaged, and we must turn our
+attention to that part of the field.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ANTIETAM: THE FIGHT ON THE LEFT
+
+
+Ninth Corps positions near Antietam Creek--Rodman's division at
+lower ford--Sturgis's at the bridge--Burnside's headquarters on the
+field--View from his place of the battle on the right--French's
+fight--An exploding caisson--Our orders to attack--The hour--Crisis
+of the battle--Discussion of the sequence of events--The Burnside
+bridge--Exposed approach--Enfiladed by enemy's
+artillery--Disposition of enemy's troops--His position very
+strong--Importance of Rodman's movement by the ford--The fight at
+the bridge--Repulse--Fresh efforts--Tactics of the
+assault--Success--Formation on further bank--Bringing up
+ammunition--Willcox relieves Sturgis--The latter now in
+support--Advance against Sharpsburg--Fierce combat--Edge of the town
+reached--Rodman's advance on the left--A. P. Hill's Confederate
+division arrives from Harper's Ferry--Attacks Rodman's flank--A raw
+regiment breaks--The line retires--Sturgis comes into the
+gap--Defensive position taken and held--Enemy's assaults
+repulsed--Troops sleeping on their arms--McClellan's reserve--Other
+troops not used--McClellan's idea of Lee's force and plans--Lee's
+retreat--The terrible casualty lists.
+
+
+We have seen that the divisions of the Ninth Corps were conducted by
+staff officers of Burnside's staff to positions that had been
+indicated by McClellan and marked by members of his staff. The
+morning of Wednesday the 17th broke fresh and fair. The men were
+astir at dawn, getting breakfast and preparing for a day of battle.
+The artillery fire which opened Hooker's battle on the right spread
+along the whole line, and the positions which had been assigned us
+in the dusk of evening were found to be exposed, in some places, to
+the direct fire of the Confederate guns. Rodman's division suffered
+more than the others, Fairchild's brigade alone reporting thirty-six
+casualties before they could find cover. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 451.] My own tents had been pitched at
+the edge of a little grove of forest trees, and the headquarters
+mess was at breakfast at sunrise when the cannonade began. The rapid
+explosion of shrapnel about us hastened our morning meal; the tents
+were struck and loaded upon the wagons, horses were saddled, and
+everything made ready for the contingencies of the day. It was not
+till seven o'clock that orders came to advance toward the creek as
+far as could be done without exposing the men to unnecessary loss.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 424.] Rodman was
+directed to acquaint himself with the situation of the ford in front
+of him, and Sturgis to seek the best means of approach to the stone
+bridge. All were then to remain in readiness to obey further orders.
+
+When these arrangements had been made, I rode to the position
+Burnside had selected for himself, which was upon a high knoll
+northeast of the Burnside bridge, near a haystack which was a
+prominent landmark. Near by was Benjamin's battery of twenty-pounder
+Parrotts, and a little further still to the right, on the same
+ridge, General Sturgis had sent in Durell's battery. [Footnote:
+_Ibid_.] These were exchanging shots with the enemy's guns opposite,
+and had the advantage in range and weight of metal. At this point I
+remained until the order for our attack came, later in the day. We
+anxiously watched what we could see at the right, and noted the
+effect of the fire of the heavy guns of Benjamin's battery. We could
+see nothing distinctly that occurred beyond the Dunker Church, for
+the East and West Woods with farm-houses and orchards between made
+an impenetrable screen. A column of smoke stood over the burning
+Mumma house, marking plainly its situation.
+
+As the morning wore on, we saw lines of troops advancing from our
+right upon the other side of the Antietam, and engaging the enemy
+between us and the East Wood. The Confederate lines facing them now
+also rose into view. From our position we looked, as it were, down
+between the opposing lines as if they had been the sides of a
+street, and as the fire opened we saw wounded men carried to the
+rear and stragglers making off. Our lines halted, and we were
+tortured with anxiety as we speculated whether our men would charge
+or retreat. The enemy occupied lines of fences and stone walls, and
+their batteries made gaps in the National ranks. Our long-range guns
+were immediately turned in that direction, and we cheered every
+well-aimed shot. One of our shells blew up a caisson close to the
+Confederate line. This contest was going on, and it was yet
+uncertain which would succeed, when one of McClellan's staff rode up
+with an order to Burnside. The latter turned to me, saying we were
+ordered to make our attack. I left the hill-top at once to give
+personal supervision to the movement ordered, and did not return to
+it. My knowledge by actual vision of what occurred on the right
+ceased.
+
+The question at what hour Burnside received this order, has been
+warmly disputed. The manner in which we had waited, the free
+discussion of what was occurring under our eyes and of our relation
+to it, the public receipt of the order by Burnside in the usual and
+business-like form, all forbid the supposition that this was any
+reiteration of a former order.
+[Footnote: I leave this as originally written, although the order
+itself has since come to light; for the discussion of the
+circumstantial evidence may be useful in determining the value of
+McClellan's report of 1863 where it differs in other respects from
+his original report of 1862 and from other contemporaneous
+documents.
+
+"HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
+September 17, 1862,--9.10 A. M.
+
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL BURNSIDE:
+GENERAL,--General Franklin's command is within one mile and a half
+of here. General McClellan desires you to open your attack. As soon
+as you shall have uncovered the upper stone bridge you will be
+supported, and, if necessary, on your own line of attack. So far all
+is going well.
+
+Respectfully, GEO. D. RUGGLES, Colonel, etc."
+
+This order appears in the supplementary volume of the Official
+Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 844. From Pry's house, where McClellan's
+headquarters were that day, to Burnside's, was over two miles as the
+crow flies. This establishes the accuracy of the original reports of
+both, which stated the hour of receipt at ten o'clock. It
+corroborates also the time of Franklin's arrival on the field, and
+the connection of this with Burnside's advance.]
+If then we can determine whose troops we saw engaged, we shall know
+something of the time of day; for there has been a general agreement
+reached as to the hours of movement of Sumner's divisions during the
+forenoon on the right and right centre. The official map settles
+this. No lines of our troops were engaged in the direction of Bloody
+Lane and the Rullett farm-house, and between the latter and our
+station on the hill, till French's division made its attack. We saw
+them distinctly on the hither side of the farm buildings, upon the
+open ground, considerably nearer to us than the Dunker Church or the
+East Wood. In number we took them to be a corps. The place, the
+circumstances, all fix it beyond controversy that they were French's
+men or French's and Richardson's. No others fought on that part of
+the field until Franklin went to their assistance at noon or later.
+The incident of their advance and the explosion of the caisson was
+illustrated by the pencil of Mr. Forbes on the spot, and was placed
+by him at the time Franklin's head of column was approaching from
+the direction of Rohrersville, which was about ten o'clock.
+[Footnote: Forbes's sketch is reproduced in "Battles and Leaders of
+the Civil War," vol. ii. p. 647, and is of historical importance in
+connection with the facts stated above.]
+
+It seems now very clear that about ten o'clock in the morning was
+the great crisis in this battle. The sudden and complete rout of
+Sedgwick's division was not easily accounted for, and, with
+McClellan's theory of the enormous superiority of Lee's numbers, it
+looked as if the Confederate general had massed overwhelming forces
+on our right. Sumner's notion that Hooker's corps was utterly
+dispersed was naturally accepted, and McClellan limited his hopes to
+holding on at the East Wood and the Poffenberger hill, where
+Hooker's batteries were massed and supported by the troops that had
+been rallied there. Franklin's corps, as it came on the field, was
+detained to support the threatened right centre, and McClellan
+determined to help it further by a demonstration upon the extreme
+left by the Ninth Corps. At this time, therefore, he gave his order
+to Burnside to cross the Antietam and attack the enemy, thus
+creating a diversion in favor of our hard-pressed right. His
+preliminary report of the battle (dated October 16, 1862) explicitly
+states that the order to Burnside to attack was "communicated to him
+at ten o'clock A.M." This exactly agrees with the time stated by
+Burnside in his official report, and would ordinarily be quite
+conclusive. [Footnote: See note, p. 334, _ante_. C. W., pt. i. p.
+41; Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 31, 416.]
+
+In the book published in 1864 as his official report of his whole
+military career, McClellan says he ordered Burnside to make this
+attack at eight o'clock. The circumstances under which his final
+published statements were made take away from them the character of
+a calm and judicial correction of his first report. He was then a
+general set aside from active service and a political aspirant to
+the Presidency. His book was a controversial one, issued as an
+argument to the public, and the earlier report must be regarded in a
+military point of view as the more authoritative unless good grounds
+are given for the changes. When he wrote his preliminary report he
+certainly knew the hour and the condition of affairs on the field
+when he gave the order to Burnside. To do so at eight o'clock would
+not accord with his plan of battle. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 30, 55.]
+His purpose had been to move the Ninth Corps against the enemy "when
+matters looked favorably" on our right, after an attack by Hooker,
+Mansfield, and Sumner, supported, if necessary, by Franklin. But
+Sumner's attack was not made till after nine, and Franklin's head of
+column did not reach the field till ten. McClellan's book, indeed,
+erroneously postpones Franklin's arrival till past noon, which, if
+true, would tend to explain why the day wore away without any
+further activity on the right; but the preliminary report better
+agrees with Franklin's when it says that officer reached the field
+about an hour after Sedgwick's disaster. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 30, 61, 376.]
+
+Still further, matters had at no time "looked favorably" on the
+right up to ten o'clock. The condition, therefore, which was assumed
+as precedent to Burnside's movement, never existed; and this was
+better known to McClellan than to any one else, for he received the
+first discouraging reports after Mansfield fell, and the subsequent
+alarming ones when Sedgwick was routed. Burnside's report was dated
+on the 30th of September, within two weeks of the battle, and at a
+time when public discussion of the incomplete results of the battle
+was animated. It was made after he had in his hands my own report as
+his immediate subordinate, in which I had given about nine o'clock
+as my remembrance of the time. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 424.] As I
+directed the details of the action at the bridge in obedience to
+this order, it would have been easy for him to have accepted the
+hour named by me, for I should have been answerable for any delay in
+execution after that time. But he then had in his possession the
+order which came to him upon the hill-top overlooking the field, and
+no officer in the whole army has a better established reputation for
+candor and freedom from any wish to avoid full personal
+responsibility for his acts. It was not till his report was
+published in the Official Records (1887) [Footnote: _Id_., p. 416.]
+that I saw it or learned its contents, although I enjoyed his
+personal friendship down to his death. He was content to have stated
+the fact as he knew it, and did not feel the need of debating it.
+The circumstances have satisfied me that his accuracy in giving the
+hour was greater than my own. [Footnote: Upon reflection, I think it
+probable that the order from McClellan was read to me, and that I
+thus got the hour of its date connected in my mind with the
+beginning of our attack.]
+
+It will not be wondered at, therefore, if to my mind the story of
+the eight o'clock order is an instance of the way in which an
+erroneous recollection is based upon the desire to make the facts
+accord with a theory. The actual time must have been as much later
+than nine o'clock as the period during which, with absorbed
+attention, we had been watching the battle on the right,--a period,
+it is safe to say, much longer than it seemed to us. The judgment of
+the hour which I gave in my report was merely my impression from
+passing events, for I hastened at once to my own duties without
+thinking to look at my watch; whilst the cumulative evidence seems
+to prove, conclusively, that the time stated by Burnside, and by
+McClellan himself in his original report, is correct. The order,
+then, to Burnside to attack was not sent at eight o'clock, but
+reached him at ten; it was not sent to follow up an advantage gained
+by Hooker and Sumner, but to create, if possible, a strong diversion
+in favor of the imperilled right wing when the general outlook was
+far from reassuring.
+
+McClellan truly said, in his original report, that the task of
+carrying the bridge in front of Burnside was a difficult one.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 31.] The hill on
+which I have placed the station of General Burnside was the bolder
+and more prominent crest of the line of hills which skirted the
+Antietam on the east, and was broken by depressions here and there,
+through which the country roads ran down to the stream. Such a
+hollow was just at the south of Burnside's position at the haystack
+on the Rohrback farm. In rear of him and a little lower down were
+the farm buildings, and from these a road ran down the winding
+hollow to the Antietam, but reached the stream several hundred yards
+below the bridge. Following the road, therefore, it was necessary to
+turn up stream upon the narrow space between the hills and the
+water, without any cover from the fire of the enemy on the opposite
+side. The bluffs on that side were wooded to the water's edge, and
+were so steep that the road from the bridge could not go up at right
+angles to the bank, but forked both ways and sought the upper land
+by a more gradual ascent to right and left. The fork to the right
+ran around a shoulder of the hill into a ravine which there reaches
+the Antietam, and thence ascends by an easy grade toward Sharpsburg.
+The left branch of the road rises by a similar but less marked
+depression.
+
+These roads were faced by stone fences, and the depth of the valley
+and its course made it impossible to reach the enemy's position at
+the bridge by artillery fire from the hill-tops on our side. Not so
+from the enemy's position, for the curve of the valley was such that
+it was perfectly enfiladed near the bridge by the Confederate
+batteries at the position now occupied by the National Cemetery. The
+bridge itself was a stone structure of three arches with stone
+parapets on the sides. These curved outward at the end of the bridge
+to allow for the turn of the roadway. On the enemy's side, the stone
+fences came down close to the bridge.
+
+The Confederate defence of the passage was intrusted to D. R.
+Jones's division of six brigades, [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 804.] which was the one Longstreet himself had
+disciplined and led till he was assigned to a larger command.
+Toombs's brigade was placed in advance, occupying the defences of
+the bridge itself and the wooded slopes above, while the other
+brigades supported him, covered by the ridges which looked down upon
+the valley. The division batteries were supplemented by others from
+the enemy's reserve, and the valley, the bridge, and the ford below
+were under the direct and powerful fire of shot and shell from the
+Confederate cannon. Toombs's force, thus strongly supported, was as
+large as could be disposed of at the head of the bridge, and
+abundantly large for resistance to any that could be brought against
+it. Our advance upon the bridge could only be made by a narrow
+column, showing a front of eight men at most; but the front which
+Toombs deployed behind his defences was three or four hundred yards
+both above and below the bridge. He himself says in his report:
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 890.] "From the
+nature of the ground on the other side, the enemy were compelled to
+approach mainly by the road which led up the river near three
+hundred paces parallel with my line of battle and distant therefrom
+from fifty to a hundred and fifty feet, thus exposing his flank to a
+destructive fire the most of that distance." Under such
+circumstances the Confederate position was nearly impregnable
+against a direct attack over the bridge; for the column approaching
+it was not only exposed at almost pistol-range to the perfectly
+covered infantry of the enemy and to two batteries which were
+assigned to the special duty of supporting Toombs, having the exact
+range of the little valley with their shrapnel; but, if it should
+succeed in reaching the bridge, its charge across it must be made
+under a fire ploughing through its length, the head of the column
+melting away as it advanced, so that, as every soldier knows, it
+could show no front strong enough to make an impression upon the
+enemy's breastworks, even if it should reach the other side. As a
+desperate sort of diversion in favor of the right wing, it might be
+justifiable; but I believe that no officer or man who knew the
+actual situation at that bridge thinks that a serious attack upon it
+was any part of McClellan's original plan. Yet, in his detailed
+report of 1863, instead of speaking of it as the difficult task the
+original report had called it, he treats it as little different from
+a parade or march across which might have been done in half an hour.
+
+Burnside's view of the matter was that the front attack at the
+bridge was so difficult that the passage by the ford below must be
+an important factor in the task; for if Rodman's division should
+succeed in getting across there, at the bend of the Antietam, he
+would come up in rear of Toombs, and either the whole of D. R.
+Jones's division would have to advance to meet Rodman, or Toombs
+must abandon the bridge. In this I certainly concurred, and Rodman
+was ordered to push rapidly for the ford. It is important to
+remember, however, that Walker's Confederate division had been
+posted during the earlier morning to hold that part of the Antietam
+line, supporting Toombs as well, [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 914.] and it was probably from him that Rodman
+suffered the first casualties that occurred in his ranks. But, as we
+have seen, Walker had been called away by Lee only an hour before,
+and had made the hasty march by the rear of Sharpsburg to fall upon
+Sedgwick. If therefore Rodman had been sent to cross at eight
+o'clock, it is safe to say that his column, fording the stream in
+the face of Walker's deployed division, would never have reached the
+further bank,--a contingency that McClellan did not consider when
+arguing, long afterward, the favorable results that might have
+followed an earlier attack. As Rodman died upon the field, no full
+report for his division was made, and we only know that he met with
+some resistance from both infantry and artillery; that the winding
+of the stream made his march longer than he anticipated, and that,
+in fact, he only approached the rear of Toombs's position from that
+direction about the time when our last and successful charge upon
+the bridge was made, between noon and one o'clock.
+
+The attacks at the Burnside bridge were made under my own eye.
+Sturgis's division occupied the centre of our line, with Crook's
+brigade of the Kanawha division on his right front, and Willcox's
+division in reserve, as I have already stated. Crook's position was
+somewhat above the bridge, but it was thought that by advancing part
+of Sturgis's men to the brow of the hill, they could cover the
+advance of Crook, and that the latter could make a straight dash
+down the hill to our end of the bridge. The orders were accordingly
+given, and Crook advanced, covered by the Eleventh Connecticut (of
+Rodman's) under Colonel Kingsbury, deployed as skirmishers.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 419, 424.] In
+passing over the spurs of the hills, Crook came out on the bank of
+the stream above the bridge and found himself under a heavy fire at
+short range. He faced the enemy and returned the fire, getting such
+cover for his men as he could and trying to drive off or silence his
+opponents. The engagement was one in which the Antietam prevented
+the combatants from coming to close quarters, but it was none the
+less vigorously continued with musketry fire. Crook reported that
+his hands were full and that he could not approach closer to the
+bridge. Later in the contest, his men, lining the stream, made
+experiments in trying to get over, and found a fordable place a
+little way above, by which he got over five companies of the
+Twenty-eighth Ohio at about the same time as the final and
+successful charge. But on the failure of Crook's first effort,
+Sturgis ordered forward an attacking column from Nagle's brigade,
+supported and covered by Ferrero's brigade, which took position in a
+field of corn on one of the lower slopes of the hill opposite the
+head of the bridge. The whole front was carefully covered with
+skirmishers, and our batteries on the heights overhead were ordered
+to keep down the fire of the enemy's artillery. Nagle's effort was
+gallantly made, but it failed, and his men were forced to seek cover
+behind the spur of the hill from which they had advanced. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 444.] We were constantly
+hoping to hear something from Rodman's advance by the ford, and
+would gladly have waited for some more certain knowledge of his
+progress, but at this time McClellan's sense of the necessity of
+relieving the right was such that he was sending reiterated orders
+to push the assault. Not only were these forwarded to me, but to
+give added weight to my instructions, Burnside sent direct to
+Sturgis urgent messages to carry the bridge at all hazards.
+
+I directed Sturgis to take two regiments from Ferrero's brigade,
+which had not been engaged, and make a column by moving them
+together by the flank, the one left in front and the other right in
+front, side by side, so that when they passed the bridge they could
+turn to left and right, forming line as they advanced on the run. He
+chose the Fifty-first New York, Colonel Robert B. Potter, and the
+Fifty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel John F. Hartranft (both names
+afterward greatly distinguished), and both officers and men were
+made to feel the necessity of success. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] At the
+same time Crook succeeded in bringing a light howitzer of Simmonds's
+mixed battery down from the hill-tops, and placed it where it had a
+point-blank fire on the further end of the bridge. The howitzer was
+one we had captured in West Virginia, and had been added to the
+battery, which was partly made up of heavy rifled Parrott guns. When
+everything was ready, a heavy skirmishing fire was opened all along
+the bank, the howitzer threw in double charges of canister, and in
+scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, the bridge was passed
+and Toombs's brigade fled through the woods and over the top of the
+hill. The charging regiments were advanced in line to the crest
+above the bridge as soon as they were deployed, and the rest of
+Sturgis's division, with Crook's brigade, were immediately brought
+over to strengthen the line. These were soon joined by Rodman's
+division, with Scammon's brigade, which had crossed at the ford, and
+whose presence on that side of the stream had no doubt made the
+final struggle of Toombs's men less obstinate than it would
+otherwise have been, the fear of being taken in rear having always a
+strong moral effect upon even the best of troops.
+
+It was now about one o'clock, and nearly three hours had been spent
+in a bitter and bloody contest across the narrow stream. The
+successive efforts to carry the bridge had been as closely following
+each other as possible. Each had been a fierce combat, in which the
+men with wonderful courage had not easily accepted defeat, and even,
+when not able to cross the bridge, had made use of the walls at the
+end, the fences, and every tree and stone as cover, while they
+strove to reach with their fire their well-protected and nearly
+concealed opponents. The lulls in the fighting had been short, and
+only to prepare new efforts. The severity of the work was attested
+by our losses, which, before the crossing was won, exceeded 500 men,
+and included some of our best officers, such as Colonel Kingsbury of
+the Eleventh Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Bell of the Fifty-first
+Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant-Colonel Coleman of the Eleventh Ohio,
+two of them commanding regiments. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 427.] The proportion of casualties to the number
+engaged was much greater than common; for the nature of the combat
+required that comparatively few troops should be exposed at once,
+the others remaining under cover.
+
+Our next task was to prepare to hold the heights we had gained
+against the return assault of the enemy which we expected, and to
+reply to the destructive fire from the enemy's abundant artillery.
+Light batteries were brought over and distributed in the line. The
+men were made to lie down behind the crest to save them from the
+concentrated cannonade which the enemy opened upon us as soon as
+Toombs's regiments succeeded in reaching their main line. But
+McClellan's anticipation of an overwhelming attack upon his right
+was so strong that he determined still to press our advance, and
+sent orders accordingly. The ammunition of Sturgis's and Crook's men
+had been nearly exhausted, and it was imperative that they should be
+freshly supplied before entering into another engagement. Sturgis
+also reported his men so exhausted by their efforts as to be unfit
+for an immediate advance. On this I sent to Burnside the request
+that Willcox's division be sent over, with an ammunition train, and
+that Sturgis's division be replaced by the fresh troops, remaining,
+however, on the west side of the stream as support to the others.
+This was done as rapidly as was practicable, where everything had to
+pass down the steep hill-road and through so narrow a defile as the
+bridge. [Footnote: As a mode of ready reckoning, it is usual to
+assume that a division requires an hour to march past a given point
+by the flank. With the crossing of an ammunition train, the interval
+of time is more than accounted for.] Still, it was three o'clock
+before these changes and preparations could be made. Burnside had
+personally striven to hasten them, and had come over to the west
+bank to consult and to hurry matters, and took his share of personal
+peril, for he came at a time when the ammunition wagons were
+delivering cartridges, and the road at the end of the bridge where
+they were was in the range of the enemy's constant and accurate
+fire. It is proper to mention this because it has been said that he
+did not cross the stream. The criticisms made by McClellan as to the
+time occupied in these changes and movements will not seem forcible
+if one will compare them with any similar movements on the field;
+such as Mansfield's to support Hooker, or Sumner's or Franklin's to
+reach the scene of action. About this, however, there is fair room
+for difference of opinion: what I personally know is that it would
+have been folly to advance again before Willcox had relieved
+Sturgis, and that as soon as the fresh troops reported and could be
+put in line, the order to advance was given. McClellan is in accord
+with all other witnesses in declaring that when the movement began,
+the conduct of the troops was gallant beyond criticism.
+
+Willcox's division formed the right, Christ's brigade being north,
+and Welsh's brigade south of the road leading from the bridge to
+Sharpsburg. Crook's brigade of the Kanawha division supported
+Willcox. Rodman's division formed on the left, Harland's brigade
+having the position on the flank, and Fairchild's uniting with
+Willcox at the centre. Scammon's brigade was the reserve for Rodman
+at the extreme left. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
+pp. 425, 430.] Sturgis's division remained and held the crest of the
+hill above the bridge. About half of the batteries of the divisions
+accompanied the movement, the rest being in position on the
+hill-tops east of the Antietam. The advance necessarily followed the
+high ground toward Sharpsburg, and as the enemy made strongest
+resistance toward our right, the movement curved in that direction,
+the six brigades of Jones's Confederate division being deployed
+diagonally across our front, holding the stone fences and crests of
+the cross-ridges and aided by abundant artillery, in which arm the
+enemy was particularly strong.
+
+The battle was a fierce one from the moment Willcox's men showed
+themselves on the open ground. Christ's brigade, taking advantage of
+all the cover the trees and inequalities of surface gave them,
+pushed on along the depression in which the road ran, a section of
+artillery keeping pace with them in the road. The direction of
+movement brought all the brigades of the first line in echelon, but
+Welsh soon fought his way up beside Christ, and they together drove
+the enemy successively from the fields and farm-yards till they
+reached the edge of the village. Upon the elevation on the right of
+the road was an orchard in which the shattered and diminished force
+of Jones made a final stand, but Willcox concentrated his artillery
+fire upon it, and his infantry was able to push forward and occupy
+it. They now partly occupied the town of Sharpsburg, and held the
+high ground commanding it on the southeast, where the National
+Cemetery now is. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p.
+431.] The struggle had been long and bloody. It was half-past four
+in the afternoon, and ammunition had again run low, for the wagons
+had not been able to accompany the movement. Willcox paused for his
+men to take breath again and to fetch up some cartridges; but
+meanwhile affairs were taking a serious turn on the left.
+
+As Rodman's division went forward, he found the enemy before him
+seemingly detached from Willcox's opponents, and occupying ridges on
+his left front, so that he was not able to keep his own connection
+with Willcox in the swinging movement to the right. Still, he made
+good progress in the face of stubborn resistance, though finding the
+enemy constantly developing more to his left, and the interval
+between him and Willcox widening. The view of the field to the south
+was now obstructed by fields of tall Indian corn, and under this
+cover Confederate troops approached the flank in line of battle.
+Scammon's officers in the reserve saw them as soon as Rodman's
+brigades echeloned, as these were toward the front and right. This
+hostile force proved to be A. P. Hill's division of six brigades,
+the last of Jackson's force to leave Harper's Ferry, and which had
+reached Sharpsburg since noon. Those first seen by Scammon's men
+were dressed in the National blue uniforms which they had captured
+at Harper's Ferry, and it was assumed that they were part of our own
+forces till they began to fire. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 468.] Scammon quickly changed front to the left,
+drove back the enemy before him, and occupied a line of stone
+fences, which he held until he was afterward withdrawn from it.
+[Footnote: _Id._, p. 466.] Harland's brigade was partly moving in
+the corn-fields. One of his regiments was new, having been organized
+only three weeks, and the brigade had somewhat lost its order and
+connection when the sudden attack came. Rodman directed Colonel
+Harland to lead the right of the brigade, while he himself attempted
+to bring the left into position. In performing this duty he fell,
+mortally wounded. Harland's horse was shot under him, and the
+brigade broke in confusion after a brief effort of its right wing to
+hold on. Fairchild also now received the fire on his left, and was
+forced to fall back and change front. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 451,
+453.]
+
+Being at the centre when this break occurred on the left, I saw that
+it would be impossible to continue the movement to the right, and
+sent instant orders to Willcox and Crook to retire the left of their
+line, and to Sturgis to come forward into the gap made in Rodman's.
+The troops on the right swung back in perfect order; Scammon's
+brigade hung on at its stone wall at the extreme left with
+unflinching tenacity till Sturgis had formed on the curving hill in
+rear of them, and Rodman's had found refuge behind. Willcox's left
+then united with Sturgis, and Scammon was withdrawn to a new
+position on the left flank of the whole line. That these manoeuvres
+on the field were really performed in good order is demonstrated by
+the fact that although the break in Rodman's line was a bad one, the
+enemy was not able to capture many prisoners, the whole number of
+missing, out of the 2349 casualties which the Ninth Corps suffered
+in the battle, being 115, which includes wounded men unable to leave
+the field. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. pp. 200,
+427.]
+
+The enemy were not lacking in bold efforts to take advantage of the
+check we had received, but were repulsed with severe punishment, and
+as the day declined were content to entrench themselves along the
+line of the road leading from Sharpsburg to the Potomac at the mouth
+of the Antietam, half a mile in our front. The men of the Ninth
+Corps lay that night upon their arms, the line being one which
+rested with both flanks near the Antietam and curved outward upon
+the rolling hill-tops which covered the bridge and commanded the
+plateau between us and the enemy. With my staff, I lay upon the
+ground behind the troops, holding our horses by the bridles as we
+rested, for our orderlies were so exhausted that we could not deny
+them the same chance for a little broken slumber.
+
+The Ninth Corps occupied its position on the heights west of the
+Antietam without further molestation, except an irritating picket
+firing, till the Confederate army retreated on the 19th of
+September. But the position was one in which no shelter from the
+weather could be had, nor could any cooking be done; and the troops
+were short of rations. My division wagon-train, which I had brought
+from the West, here stood us in good stead, for the corps as a whole
+was very short of transportation. The energy of Captain Fitch, my
+quartermaster, forced the train back and forth between us and the
+nearest depot of supplies, and for several days the whole corps had
+the benefit of the provisions thus brought forward. Late in the
+afternoon of Thursday the 18th, Morell's division of Porter's corps
+was ordered to report to Burnside to relieve the picket line and
+some of the regiments in the most exposed position. One brigade was
+sent over the Antietam for this purpose, and a few of the Ninth
+Corps regiments were enabled to withdraw far enough to cook some
+rations, of which they had been in need for twenty-four hours.
+[Footnote: General Porter in his report says Morell took the place
+of the whole Ninth Corps. In this he is entirely mistaken, as the
+reports from Morell's division, as well as those of the Ninth Corps,
+show.] Harland's brigade of Rodman's division had been taken to the
+east side of the stream to be reorganized, on the evening of
+Wednesday the 17th. The sounds heard within the enemy's lines by our
+pickets gave an inkling of their retrograde movement in the night of
+Thursday, and at break of day on Friday morning the retreat of Lee's
+whole army was discovered by advancing the picket line.
+Reconnoissances sent to the front discovered that the whole
+Confederate army had crossed the Potomac.
+
+The conduct of the battle on the left has given rise to several
+criticisms, among which the most prominent has been that Porter's
+corps, which lay in reserve, was not put in at the same time with
+the Ninth Corps. It has been said that some of them were engaged or
+in support of the cavalry and artillery at the centre. This does not
+appear to have been so to any important extent, for no active
+fighting was going on elsewhere after Franklin's corps relieved
+Sumner's about noon. McClellan's reports do not urge this. He
+answered the criticism by saying that he did not think it prudent to
+divest the centre of all reserve troops. No doubt a single strong
+division, marching beyond the left flank of the Ninth Corps, would
+have so occupied A. P. Hill's division that our movement into
+Sharpsburg could not have been checked, and, assisted by the advance
+of Sumner and Franklin on the right, would apparently have made
+certain the complete rout of Lee. As troops are put in reserve, not
+to diminish the army, but to be used in a pinch, I am convinced that
+McClellan's refusal to use them on the left was the result of his
+rooted belief, through all the day after Sedgwick's defeat, that Lee
+was overwhelmingly superior in force, and was preparing to return a
+crushing blow upon our right flank. He was keeping something in hand
+to fill a gap or cover a retreat, if that wing should be driven
+back. Except in this way, also, I am at a loss to account for the
+inaction of the right during the whole of our engagement on the
+left. Looking at our part of the battle as only a strong diversion
+to prevent or delay Lee's following up his success against Hooker
+and the rest, it is intelligible. I certainly so understood it at
+the time, as my report witnesses, and McClellan's original report
+sustains this view. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i.
+pp. 31, 426.] If he had been impatient to have our attack delivered
+earlier, he had reason for double impatience that Franklin's fresh
+troops should assail Lee's left simultaneously with our assault of
+his other wing, unless he regarded action there as hopeless, and
+looked upon our movement as a sort of forlorn hope to keep Lee from
+following up his advantages.
+
+But even these are not all the troublesome questions requiring an
+answer. It will be remembered that Franklin's corps, after forcing
+Crampton's Gap, had remained in Pleasant Valley between Rohrersville
+and Boonsboro until Tuesday night (16th September). McClellan then
+ordered Couch's division to be sent to occupy Maryland Heights and
+observe the enemy in Harper's Ferry, whilst Franklin with Smith's
+and Slocum's divisions should march to the battle-field at daybreak
+of Wednesday. Why could not Couch be called up and come on our left
+as well as A. P. Hill's division, which was the last of the
+Confederate troops to leave the ferry, there being nothing to
+observe after it was gone? Couch's division, coming with equal pace
+with Hill's on the other side of the river would have answered our
+needs as well as one from Porter's corps. Hill came, but Couch did
+not. Yet even then, a regiment of horse, watching that flank and
+scouring the country as we swung forward, would have developed
+Hill's presence and enabled the commanding general either to stop
+our movement or to take the available means to support it. The
+cavalry was put to no such use. It occupied the centre of the whole
+line, only its artillery being engaged during the day. It would have
+been invaluable to Hooker in the morning, as it would have been to
+us in the afternoon.
+
+McClellan had marched from Frederick City with the information that
+Lee's army was divided, Jackson being detached with a large force to
+take Harper's Ferry. He had put Lee's strength at 120,000 men.
+Assuming that there was still danger that Jackson might come upon
+our left with his large force, and that Lee had proven strong enough
+without Jackson to repulse three corps on our right and right
+centre, McClellan might have regarded his own army as divided also
+for the purpose of meeting both opponents, and his cavalry would
+have been upon the flank of the part with which he was attacking
+Lee; Porter would have been in position to help either part in an
+extremity or to cover a retreat; and Burnside would have been the
+only subordinate available to check Lee's apparent success. Will any
+other hypothesis intelligibly account for McClellan's dispositions
+and orders? The error in the above assumption would be that
+McClellan estimated Lee's troops at nearly double their actual
+numbers, and that what was taken for proof of Lee's superiority in
+force on the field was a series of partial reverses which resulted
+directly from the piecemeal and disjointed way in which McClellan's
+morning attacks had been made.
+
+The same explanation is the most satisfactory one that I can give
+for the inaction of Thursday, the 18th of September. Could McClellan
+have known the desperate condition of most of Lee's brigades, he
+would also have known that his own were in much better case, badly
+as they had suffered. I do not doubt that most of his subordinates
+discouraged the resumption of the attack, for the belief in Lee's
+great preponderance in numbers had been chronic in the army during
+the whole year. That belief was based upon the inconceivably
+mistaken reports of the secret-service organization, accepted at
+headquarters, given to the War Department at Washington as a reason
+for incessant demands of reinforcements, and permeating downward
+through the whole organization till the error was accepted as truth
+by officers and men, and became a factor in their morale which can
+hardly be overestimated. The result was that Lee retreated
+unmolested on the night of the 18th of September, and that what
+might have been a real and decisive success was a drawn battle in
+which our chief claim to victory was the possession of the field.
+
+The numbers engaged and the losses on each side have been the
+subject of unending dispute. If we take the returns of Lee at the
+beginning of his campaign against Pope, and deduct his acknowledged
+losses, he crossed the Potomac with over 72,000 men. [Footnote: See
+my review of Henderson's Stonewall Jackson, "The Nation," Nov. 24,
+1898, p.396.] If we take his returns of September 22, and add the
+acknowledged losses of the month, he had over 57,000. [Footnote: See
+my review of Allan's Army of Northern Virginia, "The Nation," Feb.
+2, 1893, p.86. Also reply to General Fitzhugh Lee, _Id_., Dec. 20,
+1894, p.462; Confederate Statistics, _Id_., Jan. 24, 1895, p.71;
+Review of Ropes's Story of the Civil War, _Id_., March 9, 1899,
+p.185.] McClellan's 87,000 present for duty is accepted by all,
+though various causes considerably reduced the number he brought
+into action. The best collation of reports of casualties at Antietam
+gives 12,410 as those on the National side, and 11,172 on the
+Confederate. [Footnote: Century War Book, vol. ii. p.603.]
+Longstreet, comparing the fighting in the fiercest battles of the
+war, says "on no single day in any one of them was there such
+carnage as in this fierce struggle." [Footnote: From Manassas to
+Appomattox, p.239.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MCCLELLAN AND POLITICS--HIS REMOVAL AND ITS CAUSE
+
+
+Meeting Colonel Key--His changes of opinion--His relations to
+McClellan--Governor Dennison's influence--McClellan's attitude
+toward Lincoln--Burnside's position--The Harrison Landing
+letter--Compared with Lincoln's views--Probable intent of the
+letter--Incident at McClellan's headquarters--John W.
+Garrett--Emancipation Proclamation--An after-dinner discussion of
+it--Contrary influences--Frank advice--Burnside and John
+Cochrane--General Order 163--Lincoln's visit to camp--Riding the
+field--A review--Lincoln's desire for continuing the
+campaign--McClellan's hesitation--His tactics of discussion--His
+exaggeration of difficulties--Effect on his army--Disillusion a slow
+process--Lee's army not better than Johnston's--Work done by our
+Western army--Difference in morale--An army rarely bolder than its
+leader--Correspondence between Halleck and McClellan--Lincoln's
+remarkable letter on the campaign--The army moves on November 2--Lee
+regains the line covering Richmond--McClellan relieved--Burnside in
+command.
+
+
+When I rode up with Burnside on the afternoon of the 15th September,
+in the group around McClellan I met Judge Key, whom I had not seen
+since we parted in the Ohio Senate in April of the preceding year.
+He was now aide-de-camp on the headquarters staff with the rank of
+colonel, and doing duty also as judge-advocate. When McClellan
+directed us to leave the ridge because the display of numbers
+attracted the enemy's fire, Colonel Key took my arm and we walked a
+little way down the slope till we found a fallen tree, on which we
+sat down, whilst he plunged eagerly into the history of his own
+opinions since we had discussed the causes of the war in the
+legislature of our State. He told me with earnestness that he had
+greatly modified his views on the subject of slavery, and he was now
+satisfied that the war must end in its abolition. The system was so
+plainly the soul of the rebellion and the tie which bound the
+seceded States together, that its existence must necessarily depend
+upon the success of the revolutionary movement, and it would be a
+fair object of attack, if doing so would help our cause. I was
+struck by the zeal with which he dashed into the discussion,
+forgetful of his actual surroundings in his wish to make me quickly
+understand the change that had come over his views since we parted
+at Columbus. He was so absorbed that even when a shell burst near
+us, he only half gave it attention, saying in a parenthetical way
+that he would change his position, as he would "rather not be hit in
+the back by one of those confounded things." We had been so sitting
+that in facing me his back was toward the front and the line of
+fire.
+
+Colonel Key has been regarded by many as McClellan's evil genius,
+whose influence had been dominant in the general's political conduct
+and who was therefore the cause of his downfall. His influence on
+McClellan was unquestionably great,--and what he said to me is an
+important help in understanding the general's conduct and opinions.
+It accords with other statements of his which have been made public
+by Judge William M. Dickson of Cincinnati, who at one time was
+Colonel Key's partner in the practice of the law. [Footnote: I have
+failed in my efforts to find a communication on the subject in a
+newspaper, written by Judge Dickson, which he showed to me,
+reiterating his statements in it.]
+
+General McClellan urged me to come to his headquarters without
+ceremony, and after the battle of Antietam I had several
+opportunities of unrestrained discussion of affairs in which he
+seemed entirely frank in giving me his opinions. It was plainly
+evident that he was subjected to a good deal of pressure by
+opponents of the administration to make him commit himself to them.
+On the other hand, Governor Dennison of Ohio, who was his sincere
+friend, took every opportunity to counteract such influences and to
+promote a good understanding between him and Mr. Lincoln. McClellan
+perfectly knew my own position as an outspoken Republican who from
+the first had regarded the system of slavery as the stake ventured
+by the Secessionists on their success in the war, and who held to
+John Quincy Adams's doctrine that the war powers were adequate to
+destroy the institution which we could not constitutionally abolish
+otherwise. With me, the only question was when the ripe time had
+come for action, and I had looked forward to Mr. Lincoln's
+proclamation with some impatience at the delay.
+
+The total impression left upon me by the general's conversation was
+that he agreed with Colonel Key in believing that the war ought to
+end in abolition of slavery; but he feared the effects of haste, and
+thought the steps toward the end should be conservatively careful
+and not brusquely radical. I thought, and still think, that he
+regarded the President as nearly right in his general views and
+political purposes, but overcrowded by more radical men around him
+into steps which as yet were imprudent and extreme. Such an attitude
+on his part made Governor Dennison and myself feel that there was no
+need of any political quarrel between him and the administration,
+and that if he would only rebuff all political intriguers and put
+more aggressive energy into his military operations, his career
+might be a success for the country as well as for himself. The
+portions of his correspondence with Burnside which have become
+public show that the latter also had, as a true friend, constantly
+urged him to keep out of political controversy. Burnside himself,
+like Grant and Sherman, began with a dislike of the antislavery
+movement; but, also like them, his patriotism being the dominant
+quality, the natural effect of fighting the Secessionists was to
+beget in him a hearty acceptance of the policy of emancipation to
+which Mr. Lincoln had been led by the same educational process.
+
+At the time I am speaking of, I knew nothing of McClellan's famous
+letter to the President from Harrison's Landing, of July 7, but
+since it has come to light, I have interpreted it much less harshly
+than many have done. Reading it in the light of his talk during
+those Antietam days, I think it fair to regard it as an effort to
+show Mr. Lincoln that they were not far apart in opinion, and to
+influence the President to take the more conservative course to
+which he thought him inclined when taking counsel only of his own
+judgment. McClellan knew that his "change of base" to the James
+River in June was not accepted as the successful strategy he
+declared it to be, and that strong influences were at work to remove
+him. Under the guise of giving advice to the President, he was in
+fact assuring him that he did not look to the acknowledgment of the
+Confederacy as a conceivable outcome of the war; that the
+"contraband" doctrine applied to slaves was consistent with
+compensated emancipation; that he favored the application of the
+principle to the border States so as to make them free States; that
+concentration of military force as opposed to dispersion of effort
+was the true policy; that he opposed the rules of warfare which he
+assumed were announced in General Pope's much criticised orders; and
+lastly, that he would cordially serve under such general-in-chief as
+Mr. Lincoln should select.
+
+Compare all this with Mr. Lincoln's known views. It was notorious
+that he was thought to be too conservative by many of his own party.
+He had urged a system of compensated emancipation for the border
+States. He had said that he held the slavery question to be only a
+part, and an absolutely subordinate part, of the greater question of
+saving the Union. He had disapproved of a portion of Pope's order
+regarding the treatment of non-combatants. However ill-advised
+McClellan's letter was, it may be read between the lines as an
+attempt to strengthen himself with the President as against Stanton
+and others, and to make his military seat firmer in the saddle by
+showing that he was not in political antagonism to Mr. Lincoln, but
+held, in substance, the conservative views that were supposed to be
+his. Its purpose seems to me to have been of this personal sort. He
+did not publish it at the time, and it was not till he was removed
+from his command that it became a kind of political manifesto. This
+view is supported by what occurred after the publication of the
+Emancipation Proclamation, which I shall tell presently; but, to
+preserve the proper sequence, I must first give another incident.
+
+A few days after the battle of Antietam a prominent clergyman of
+Hagerstown spent the Sunday in camp, and McClellan invited a number
+of officers to attend religious services in the parlors of the house
+where headquarters were. The rooms were well filled, several
+civilians being also present. I was standing by myself as we were
+waiting for the clergyman to appear, when a stout man in civilian's
+dress entered into conversation with me. He stood at my side as we
+faced the upper part of the suite of rooms, and taking it to be a
+casual talk merely to pass the time, I paid rather languid attention
+to it and to him as he began with some complimentary remarks about
+the army and its recent work. He spoke quite enthusiastically of
+McClellan, and my loyalty to my commander as well as my personal
+attachment to him made me assent cordially to what he said. He then
+spoke of the politicians in Washington as wickedly trying to
+sacrifice the general, and added, whispering the words emphatically
+in my ear, "But you military men have that matter in your own hands,
+you have but to tell the administration what they must do, and they
+will not dare to disregard it!" This roused me, and I turned upon
+him with a sharp "What do you mean, sir!" As I faced him, I saw at
+once by his look that he had mistaken me for another; he mumbled
+something about having taken me for an acquaintance of his, and
+moved away among the company.
+
+I was a good deal agitated, for though there was more or less of
+current talk about disloyal influences at work, I had been sceptical
+as to the fact, and to be brought face to face with that sort of
+thing was a surprise. I was a stranger to most of those who were
+there, and walked a little aside, watching the man who had left me.
+I soon saw him talking with General Fitz-John Porter, on the
+opposite side of the room, evidently calling attention to me as if
+asking who I was. I made inquiries as to who the civilian was, and
+later came to know him by sight very well. He was John W. Garrett,
+President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
+
+Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was published on the 24th of
+September, and within a very few days I was invited to meet General
+Burnside and General John Cochrane of New York at a camp dinner in
+McClellan's tent. General Cochrane was a "War Democrat" in politics,
+and had been active as a politician in his State. He was also the
+son-in-law of Gerrit Smith, the well-known abolitionist, and had
+advocated arming the slaves as early as November, 1861. McClellan
+told us frankly that he had brought us there for the purpose of
+asking our opinions and advice with regard to the course he should
+pursue respecting the Proclamation. He said that he was urged to put
+himself in open opposition to it by politicians not only, but by
+army officers who were near to him. He named no names, but intimated
+that they were of rank and influence which gave weight to their
+advice. He knew that we were all friends of the administration, and
+his object seemed to be to learn whether we thought he should say
+anything or should maintain silence on the subject; for he assumed
+that we would oppose any hostile demonstration on his part.
+
+This naturally led to inquiries as to his actual attitude to the
+slavery question, and he expressed himself in substance as I have
+before indicated; repeating with even stronger emphasis his belief
+that the war would work out the manumission of the slaves gradually
+and ultimately, and that as to those who came within our lines as we
+advanced the liberation would be complete and immediate. He thought,
+however, that the Proclamation was premature, and that it indicated
+a change in the President's attitude which he attributed to radical
+influences at Washington.
+
+There had been no previous understanding between us who were his
+guests. For my part, I then met General Cochrane for the first time,
+and had conversed with McClellan himself more freely on political
+subjects than I had with Burnside. We found ourselves, however, in
+entire accord in advising him that any declaration on his part
+against the Proclamation would be a fatal error. We could easily
+understand that he should differ from us in his way of viewing the
+question of public policy, but we pointed out very clearly that any
+public utterance by him in his official character criticising the
+civil policy of the administration would be properly regarded as a
+usurpation. He intimated that this was his own opinion, but, by way
+of showing how the matter was thrust at him by others, said that
+people had assured him that the army was so devoted to him that they
+would as one man enforce any decision he should make as to any part
+of the war policy.
+
+I had so recently gone through the little experience on this subject
+which I have narrated above, that I here spoke out with some
+emphasis. I said that those who made such assurances were his worst
+enemies, and in my judgment knew much less of the army than they
+pretended; that our volunteer soldiers were citizens as well as
+soldiers, and were citizens more than soldiers; and that greatly as
+I knew them to be attached to him, I believed not a corporal's guard
+would stand by his side if he were to depart from the strict
+subordination of the military to the civil authority. Burnside and
+Cochrane both emphatically assented to this, and McClellan added
+that he heartily believed both that it was true and that it ought to
+be so. But this still left the question open whether the very fact
+that there was an agitation in camp on the subject, and intrigues of
+the sort I have mentioned, did not make it wise for him to say
+something which would show, at least, that he gave no countenance to
+any would-be revolutionists. We debated this at some length, with
+the general conclusion that it might be well for him to remind the
+army in general orders that whatever might be their rights as
+citizens, they must as soldiers beware of any organized effort to
+meddle with the functions of the civil government.
+
+I left the Army of the Potomac before McClellan's general order on
+this subject, dated October 7, was published, but when I read it in
+the light of the conference in his tent, I regarded it as an honest
+effort on his part to break through the toils which intriguers had
+spread for him, and regretted that what seemed to me one of his most
+laudable actions should have been one of the most misrepresented and
+misunderstood.
+
+[Footnote: The order is found in Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii.
+p. 395, and is as follows:--
+
+General Orders. No. 163.
+HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, CAMP NEAR SHARPSBURG, MD.,
+October 7, 1862.
+
+The attention of the officers and soldiers of the army of the
+Potomac is called to General Orders No, 139, War Department,
+September 24, 1862, publishing to the army the President's
+proclamation of September 22.
+
+A proclamation of such grave moment to the nation, officially
+communicated to the army, affords to the general commanding an
+opportunity of defining specifically to the officers and soldiers
+under his command the relation borne by all persons in the military
+service of the United States toward the civil authorities of the
+Government. The Constitution confides to the civil
+authorities--legislative, judicial, and executive--the power and
+duty of making, expounding, and executing the Federal laws. Armed
+forces are raised and supported simply to sustain the civil
+authorities, and are to be held in strict subordination thereto in
+all respects. This fundamental rule of our political system is
+essential to the security of our republican institutions, and should
+be thoroughly understood and observed by every soldier. The
+principle upon which and the object for which armies shall be
+employed in suppressing rebellion, must be determined and declared
+by the civil authorities, and the Chief Executive, who is charged
+with the administration of the national affairs, is the proper and
+only source through which the needs and orders of the Government can
+be made known to the armies of the nation.
+
+Discussions by officers and soldiers concerning public measures
+determined upon and declared by the Government, when carried at all
+beyond temperate and respectful expressions of opinion, tend greatly
+to impair and destroy the discipline and efficiency of troops, by
+substituting the spirit of political faction for that firm, steady,
+and earnest support of the authorities of the Government, which is
+the highest duty of the American soldier. The remedy for political
+errors, if any are committed, is to be found only in the action of
+the people at the polls.
+
+In thus calling the attention of this army to the true relation
+between the soldier and the government, the general commanding
+merely adverts to an evil against which it has been thought
+advisable during our whole history to guard the armies of the
+Republic, and in so doing he will not be considered by any
+right-minded person as casting any reflection upon that loyalty and
+good conduct which has been so fully illustrated upon so many
+battle-fields.
+
+In carrying out all measures of public policy, this army will of
+course be guided by the same rules of mercy and Christianity that
+have ever controlled its conduct toward the defenceless.
+
+By Command of Major-General McClellan,
+JAS. A. HARDIE,
+Lieutenant-Colonel, Aide-de-camp, and Act'g Ass't Adj't Gen'l."]
+
+I have always understood that the order was drafted by Colonel Key,
+who afterward expressed in very strong terms his confidence in the
+high motives and progressive tendencies of McClellan at the time he
+issued it.
+
+General Cochrane, some time after the close of the war, in a
+pamphlet outlining his own military history, made reference to the
+visit to McClellan which I have narrated, and states that he was so
+greatly impressed by the anti-slavery sentiments avowed by the
+general, that he made use of them in a subsequent effort to bring
+him and Secretary Chase into more cordial relations. [Footnote: The
+War for the Union, Memoir by General John Cochrane, pp. 29-31.] It
+is possible that, in a friendly comparison of views in which we were
+trying to find how nearly we could come together, the general may
+have put his opinions with a liberality which outran his ordinary
+statements of belief; but I am very sure that he gave every evidence
+of sincerity, and that none of us entertained a doubt of his being
+entirely transparent with us. He has since, in his "Own Story,"
+referred to his taking counsel of Mr. Aspinwall of New York at about
+the same time, and there is evidence that General W. F. Smith also
+threw his influence against any opposition by McClellan to the
+Emancipation Proclamation. [Footnote: Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln,
+vol. vi. p. 180.] McClellan's letters show that his first impulse
+was to antagonism; but there is no fair reason to doubt that his
+action at last was prompted by the reasons which he avowed in our
+conversation, and by the honorable motives he professed. He
+immediately sent a copy of his order to Mr. Lincoln personally, and
+this indicates that he believed the President would be pleased with
+it.
+
+The reference which he made to suggestions that the army would
+follow him in a _coup d'e'tat_ is supported by what he formally
+declared in his memoirs. He there tells us that in 1861 he was often
+approached in regard to a "dictatorship," and that when he was
+finally removed many in the army were in favor of his marching upon
+Washington to take possession of the government. [Footnote: Own
+Story, pp. 85, 652.] It would seem that treasonable notions were
+rife about him to an extent that was never suspected, unless he was
+made the dupe of pretenders who saw some profit in what might be
+regarded as a gross form of adulation. He must be condemned for the
+weakness which made such approaches to him possible; but we are
+obliged to take the fact as he gives it, and to accept as one of the
+strange elements of the situation a constant stream of treasonable
+suggestions from professed friends in the army and out of it. An
+anecdote which came to me in a way to make it more than ordinarily
+trustworthy was that in the summer of 1861 McClellan was riding with
+an older officer of the regular army, [Footnote: General McCall.]
+and said to him, "I understand there is a good deal of talk of
+making a dictatorship." "Ah!" said the other, "Mr. Lincoln, I
+suppose." "Oh, no," replied McClellan, "it's me they're talking of."
+Bits of evidence from many sources prove that there had been from
+the first too much such talk about Washington, and whilst McClellan
+cannot be held responsible for it, there is no proof that he rebuked
+it as he should have done. It was part of the fermenting political
+and military intrigue which is found at the seat of government in
+such a time, if anywhere, and I take satisfaction in testifying that
+away from that neighborhood I never even heard the thing mentioned
+or referred to, that I can recollect. Washington would be spoken of
+in a general way as a place of intrigues, but I never knew this to
+have a wider meaning given to it than the ordinary one of political
+schemes within lawful limits and personal ambitions of no criminal
+character.
+
+Mr. Lincoln visited our camp on the 1st of October, and remained two
+or three days. I was with the party of officers invited by McClellan
+to accompany the President in a ride over the route which Sumner had
+followed in the battle. We crossed the Antietam in front of
+Keedysville, followed the hollows and byways to the East Wood, and
+passed through this and the cornfields which had been the scene of
+Hooker's and Mansfield's fierce fighting. We visited the Dunker
+Church and then returned to camp by Bloody Lane and the central
+stone bridge. The President was observant and keenly interested in
+the field of battle, but made no display of sentiment. On another
+day he reviewed the troops which were most accessible from
+headquarters. As my own corps was among the first on the list, I did
+not join the escort of the President at the general's quarters, but
+was with the troops attending to the details of the parade. We were
+ordered to be under arms at eight o'clock, but it was more than two
+hours after that when the reviewing cortege came on the ground. The
+officers were very hilarious over some grotesque story with which
+Mr. Lincoln had seasoned the conversation, and which seemed to have
+caused some forgetfulness of the appointment with the troops. We
+were reviewed by divisions, and I met the party with my staff,
+riding down the lines with them, and answering the inquiries of the
+President and the general as to the history and the experience of
+the different organizations as we passed them. The usual march in
+review was omitted for lack of time, the President contenting
+himself with riding along the lines formed in parade. I had missed
+seeing the President in Washington when I paid my respects at the
+White House, and this was my first meeting with him after his
+inauguration. His unpretending cordiality was what first impressed
+one, but you soon saw with what sharp intelligence and keen humor he
+dealt with every subject which came up. He referred very pleasantly
+to his knowledge of me through Secretary Chase, showing the kindly
+instinct to find some compliment or evidence of recognition for all
+who approached him.
+
+This geniality in Mr. Lincoln made him avoid personal criticism of
+the campaign, and gave an air of earnest satisfaction to what he
+said of the work done by McClellan. There was enough to praise, and
+he praised it heartily. He was also thankful that the threatened
+invasion of the North had been defeated, and showed his sense of
+great relief. He had adopted the rule for himself to limit his
+direct influence upon his generals to the presentation of his ideas
+of what was desirable, often taking pains even in his written
+communications to say that he made no order, and left the definite
+direction to General Halleck. McClellan gave the most favorable
+interpretation to all that the President said, but could not ignore
+the anxiety Mr. Lincoln showed that an energetic campaign should be
+continued. He wrote home: "I incline to think that the real purpose
+of his visit is to push me into a premature advance into Virginia."
+[Footnote: O. S., p. 654.]
+
+The President had coupled his earliest telegraphic congratulations
+with the question, "Can't you beat them some more before they get
+off?" and McClellan's private correspondence shows that he, on his
+part, chafed at every suggestion of haste. As early as the 22d of
+September, the general had written that he looked upon the campaign
+as substantially ended, and intended to give some time to the
+reorganization of the army before beginning a new one. The vicinity
+of Harper's Ferry or Frederick seemed to him the proper place for
+the camp meanwhile, and he wished for a rise in the Potomac River
+which should make it impracticable for Lee to ford it again. He
+delayed in the neighborhood of Sharpsburg, waiting for this. To
+those of us with whom he talked freely, he spoke of the necessity of
+incorporating into the Army of the Potomac at least a hundred
+thousand of the new levies to make it really fit for an aggressive
+campaign, and argued that it would save time in the end to use some
+of it now in the work of reorganizing.
+
+Mr. Lincoln was plainly troubled with the apprehension that the
+delays of 1861 were to be repeated, and that the fine October
+weather of that region would be again wasted and nothing done till
+the next spring. There were men enough about him at Washington to
+remind him of this in irritating ways, and to make him realize that
+as he had personally restored McClellan to the command he would be
+personally responsible for keeping him moving. McClellan rightly
+understood Mr. Lincoln's visit as meaning this. He did not refuse to
+move; on the other hand, he professed to be anxious to do so at the
+earliest moment when it should be really practicable. His obstinacy
+was of a feminine sort. He avoided open antagonism which would have
+been a challenge of strength, but found constantly fresh obstacles
+in the way of doing what he was determined from the first not to do.
+The need of clothing for the men and of horses for the cavalry was a
+fruitful subject for debate, and the debate, if sufficiently
+prolonged, would itself accomplish the delay that was desired.
+
+The official correspondence shows that the President went back to
+Washington determined to cut the knot in a peremptory way, if he was
+forced to do so. McClellan could not have been blind to this. His
+private letters show that he thought it not improbable that he would
+be relieved from command. His desire for military success was a
+ruling one with him on both public and private grounds. We are
+forced, therefore, to conclude that he actually lacked faith in
+success, and regarded the crossing of the Potomac as too perilous
+until he should reorganize the army with the additional hundred
+thousand recruits. In this we see the ever-recurring effect of his
+exaggeration of the enemy's force. We now know that this
+over-estimate was inexcusable, but we cannot deny that he made it,
+nor, altogether, that he believed in it. It constituted a
+disqualification for such a command, and led to what must be
+regarded as the inevitable result,--his removal. The political
+questions connected with the matter cut no important figure in it.
+If he had had faith in his ability to conquer Lee's army, we should
+never have heard of them.
+
+Whilst I mean what I say in speaking of McClellan's exaggeration of
+his enemy as constituting incompetence for such a command, it has
+reference to the necessity in which we were that our army should be
+aggressively handled. Few men could excel him in strictly defensive
+operations. He did not lack personal courage, nor did his
+intellectual powers become obscured in the excitement of actual war.
+He showed the ordinary evidences of presence of mind and coolness of
+judgment under fire. His tendency to see his enemy doubled in force
+was, however, a constitutional one, and no amount of experience
+seemed to cure it. Had it not been so he would have devised checks
+upon the reports of his secret-service agents, and corrected their
+estimates by those more reliable methods which I have already spoken
+of. McClellan was, even in those days, often compared to Marshal
+Daun, whose fair ability but studiously defensive policy was so in
+contrast with the daring strategy of the great Frederick. The
+comparison was a fair one. The trouble was that we had need of a
+Frederick.
+
+It may seem strange that his subordinates so generally accepted his
+view and supported him in his conduct; but it was a natural result
+of forces always at work in an army. The old maxim that "Councils of
+war never fight" is only another way of saying that an army is never
+bolder than its leader. It is the same as the old Greek proverb,
+"Better an army of deer with a lion for leader, than an army of
+lions with a deer for leader." The body of men thus organized relies
+upon its chief for the knowledge of the enemy and for the plan by
+which the enemy is to be taken at a disadvantage. It will
+courageously carry out his plans so long as he has faith in them
+himself and has good fortune in their execution. Let doubt arise as
+to either of these things and his troops raise the cry "We are
+sacrificed," "We are slaughtered uselessly." McClellan's arts of
+military popularity were such that his army accepted his estimate of
+the enemy, and believed (in the main) that he had shown great
+ability in saving them from destruction in a contest at such odds.
+They were inclined, therefore, to hold the government at Washington
+responsible for sacrificing them by demanding the impossible. Under
+such circumstances nothing but a cautious defensive policy could be
+popular with officers or men. If McClellan's data were true, he and
+they were right. It would have been folly to cross the Potomac and,
+with their backs to the river, fight a greatly superior enemy.
+Because the data were not true there was no solution for the problem
+but to give the army another commander, and painfully to undo the
+military education it had for a year been receiving. The process of
+disillusion was a slow one. The disasters to Burnside and Hooker
+strengthened the error. Meade's standstill after Gettysburg was very
+like McClellan's after Antietam, and Mr. Lincoln had to deal with it
+in a very similar way. When Grant took command the army expected him
+to have a similar fate, and his reputation was treated as of little
+worth because he had not yet "met Bobby Lee." His terrible method of
+"attrition" was a fearfully costly one, and the flower of that army
+was transferred from the active roster to the casualty lists before
+the prestige of its enemy was broken. But it was broken, and
+Appomattox came at last.
+
+It will not do to say that the Confederate army in Virginia was in
+any sense superior to their army in the West. When the superior
+force of the National army was systematically applied, General Lee
+was reduced to as cautious a defensive in Virginia as was General
+Johnston in Georgia. Longstreet and Hood had no better success when
+transferred to the West than the men who had never belonged to the
+Army of Virginia. In fact, it was with Joseph E. Johnston as his
+opponent that McClellan's career was chiefly run. Yet the
+Confederate army in the West was broken at Donelson and at
+Vicksburg. It was driven from Stone's River to Chattanooga, and from
+Missionary Ridge to Atlanta. Its remnant was destroyed at Franklin
+and Nashville, and Sherman's March to the Sea nearly completed the
+traverse of the whole Confederacy. His victorious army was close in
+rear of Petersburg when Richmond was finally won. Now that we have
+got rid of the fiction that the Confederate government gave to Lee
+an enormously larger army than it gave to Bragg or to Joseph
+Johnston, we have to account for the fact that with much less odds
+in their favor our Western army accomplished so much more. As a
+military objective Richmond was in easier reach from the Potomac
+than Nashville from the Ohio. From Nashville to Chattanooga was
+fully as difficult a task. The vulnerable lines of communication
+multiplied in length as we went southward, and made the campaign of
+Atlanta more difficult still. Vicksburg was a harder nut to crack
+than Richmond. We must put away our _esprit de corps_, and squarely
+face the problem as one of military art with the Official Records
+and returns before us. Our Western army was of essentially the same
+material as the Eastern. Regiments from nearly all the States were
+mingled in both. Wisconsin men fought beside those from Maine in the
+Army of the Potomac, as men who had fought at Antietam and at
+Gettysburg followed Sherman through the Carolinas. The difference
+was not in the rank and file, it was not in the subordinates. It was
+the difference in leadership and in the education of the armies
+under their leaders during their first campaigns. That mysterious
+thing, the morale of an army, grows out of its belief as to what it
+can do. If it is systematically taught that it is hopelessly
+inferior to its adversary, it will be held in check by a fraction of
+its own force. The general who indoctrinates his army with the
+belief that it is required by its government to do the impossible,
+may preserve his popularity with the troops and be received with
+cheers as he rides down the line, but he has put any great military
+success far beyond his reach. In this study of military morale, its
+causes and its effects, the history of the Army of the Potomac is
+one of the most important and one of the gravest lessons the world
+has ever seen.
+
+I have to confess that at Antietam I shared, more or less fully, the
+opinions of those among whom I was. I accepted McClellan as the best
+authority in regard to the enemy's numbers, and, assuming that he
+was approximately right in that, the reasonable prudence of waiting
+for reinforcements could not be denied. I saw that he had lost
+valuable time in the movements of the campaign, but the general
+result seemed successful enough to hide this for the time at least.
+My own experience, therefore, supports the conclusion I have already
+stated, that an army's enterprise is measured by its commander's,
+and, by a necessary law, the army reflects his judgment as to what
+it can or cannot accomplish.
+
+Mr. Lincoln had told McClellan during his visit to the army that his
+great fault was "overcautiousness." He had intimated plainly enough
+that he must insist upon the continuance of the campaign. He had
+discussed the plans of advance, and urged McClellan to operate upon
+Lee's communications by marching south on the east side of the Blue
+Ridge. He had disclaimed any purpose of forcing a movement before
+the army was ready, but saw no reason why it should take longer to
+get ready after Antietam than after Pope's last battle. Soon after
+his return to Washington, Halleck sent a peremptory order to
+McClellan to cross the Potomac. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. i. p. 10.] It was dated October 6th, and said: "The
+President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the
+enemy or drive him South. Your army must move now while the roads
+are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Washington,
+and cover the latter by your line of operations, you can be
+reinforced with 30,000 men. If you move up the valley of the
+Shenandoah, not more than 12,000 or 15,000 can be sent to you. The
+President advises the interior line between Washington and the
+enemy, but does not order it." It also required him to report
+immediately which line he adopted. Halleck, as General-in-chief,
+ought to have given his own decision as to the line of operations,
+but his characteristic indecision was shown in failing to do so. He
+did not even express an opinion as to the relative merits of the two
+lines, and limited himself to his concurrence in the order to move
+in one way or the other.
+
+McClellan replied on the 7th, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix.
+pt. i. p. 11.] saying that he had determined to adopt the Shenandoah
+line, though he wished to "state distinctly" that he should only use
+that line till the enemy should retire beyond Winchester, as he did
+not expect to be able to supply his army more than twenty or
+twenty-five miles beyond a railway or canal depot. If the enemy
+retreated, he would adopt some new and decisive line of operations.
+He objected to the interior line because it did not cover Maryland
+and Pennsylvania from a return of Lee's army, and because (as he
+said) the army could not be supplied by it. He indicated three days
+as the time within which he could move. At the end of that time he
+complained of still lacking clothing. On the 12th he found it
+"absolutely necessary" that the cavalry should have more horses. The
+discussion over these things ran on till the 21st.
+
+Mr. Lincoln made a strong effort to save McClellan from the effects
+of his mental deficiencies. He exhausted advice and exhortation. He
+even ventured upon mild raillery on the idleness of the army. On the
+13th he had written a remarkable letter to McClellan, in which he
+reminded him of what had occurred between them at the Antietam and
+argued in favor of the interior line of movement. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 13.] He showed that Lee at
+Winchester supplied his army twice as far from his railway depot as
+McClellan thought possible for the Army of the Potomac. He urged the
+recognized advantage of operating by a line which attacked the
+enemy's communications. He pointed out that if Lee should try to
+cross the Potomac, our army could be in his rear and should destroy
+him. He showed that McClellan at Harper's Ferry was nearer to
+Richmond than Lee: "His route is the arc of a circle of which yours
+is the chord." He analyzed the map and showed that the interior line
+was the easier for supplying the army: "The chord line, as you see,
+carries you by Aldie, Haymarket and Fredericksburg, and you see how
+turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac by Acquia Creek, meet
+you at all points from Washington." He even gave the figures in
+miles from gap to gap in the mountains, which would enable McClellan
+to strike the enemy in flank or rear; and this was of course to be
+done if Lee made a stand. "It is all easy," his letter concluded,
+"if our troops march as well as the enemy; and it is unmanly to say
+they cannot do it." Yet he expressly disclaimed making his letter an
+order. [Footnote: Since writing this, I have had occasion to treat
+this subject more fully, as bearing upon Mr. Lincoln's military
+judgment and intelligence, in a review of Henderson's Stonewall
+Jackson, "The Nation," Nov. 24, Dec. 1, 1898.]
+
+As a mere matter of military comprehension and judgment of the
+strategic situation, the letter puts Mr. Lincoln head and shoulders
+above both his military subordinates. Halleck saw its force, but
+would not order it to be carried out. McClellan shrank from the
+decisive vigor of the plan, though he finally accepted it as the
+means of getting the larger reinforcements. On the 21st of October
+the discussion of cavalry horses was pretty well exhausted, and
+McClellan telegraphed Halleck [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix.
+pt. i. p. 81.] that in other respects he was nearly ready to move,
+and inquires whether the President desired him to march on the enemy
+at once or to wait the arrival of the new horses. Halleck answered
+that the order of the 6th October remained unchanged. "If you have
+not been and are not now in condition to obey it, you will be able
+to show such want of ability. The President does not expect
+impossibilities, but he is very anxious that all this good weather
+should not be wasted in inactivity. Telegraph when you will move and
+on what lines you propose to march." This dispatch was plainly a
+notice to McClellan that he would be held responsible for the
+failure to obey the order of the 6th unless he could exonerate
+himself by showing that he could not obey it. In his final report,
+however, he says that he treated it as authority to decide for
+himself whether or not it was possible to move with safety to the
+army; [Footnote: _Ibid_.] "and this responsibility," he says, "I
+exercised with the more confidence in view of the strong assurance
+of his trust in me, as commander of that army, with which the
+President had seen fit to honor me during his last visit." Argument
+is superfluous, in view of the correspondence, to show that orders
+and exhortations were alike wasted.
+
+The movement began in the last days of October, the Sixth Corps,
+which was in the rear, crossing the Potomac on the 2d of November.
+McClellan had accepted Mr. Lincoln's plan, but lack of vigor in its
+execution broke down the President's patience, and on the 5th of
+November, upon Lee's recrossing the Blue Ridge without a battle, he
+ordered the general to turn over the command to Burnside, as he had
+declared he would do if Lee's was allowed to regain the interior
+line. The order was presented and obeyed on the 7th, and McClellan
+left the army. The fallen general brooded morbidly over it all for
+twenty years, and then wrote his "Own Story," a most curious piece
+of self-exposure, in which he unconsciously showed that the
+illusions which had misguided him in his campaigns were still
+realities to him, and that he had made no use of the authentic facts
+which Confederate as well as National records had brought within his
+reach. He had forgotten much, but he had learned nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PERSONAL RELATIONS OF McCLELLAN, BURNSIDE, AND PORTER
+
+
+Intimacy of McClellan and Burnside--Private letters in the official
+files--Burnside's mediation--His self-forgetful devotion--The
+movement to join Pope--Burnside forwards Porter's dispatches--His
+double refusal of the command--McClellan suspends the organization
+of wings--His relations to Porter--Lincoln's letter on the
+subject--Fault-finding with Burnside--Whose work?--Burnside's
+appearance and bearing in the field.
+
+
+McClellan and Burnside had been classmates at West Point, and had
+been associated in railway employment after they had left the army,
+in the years immediately before the war. The intimacy which began at
+the Academy had not only continued, but they had kept up the
+demonstrative boyish friendship which made their intercourse like
+that of brothers. They were "Mac" and "Burn" to each other when I
+knew them, and although Fitz-John Porter, Hancock, Parker, Reno, and
+Pleasonton had all been members of the same class, the two seemed to
+be bosom friends in a way totally different from their intimacy with
+the others. Probably there was no one outside of his own family to
+whom McClellan spoke his secret thoughts in his letters, as he did
+to Burnside. The characteristic lack of system in business which was
+very noticeable in Burnside, made him negligent, apparently, in
+discriminating between official letters and private ones, and so it
+happens that there are a number in the official records which were
+never meant to reach the public. They show, however, as nothing else
+could, the relations which the two men sustained to each other, and
+reveal strong traits in the characters of both.
+
+After Burnside had secured his first success in the Roanoke
+expedition, he had written to McClellan, then in the midst of his
+campaign of the peninsula, and this was McClellan's reply on the
+21st of May, 1862:--[Footnote: Official Records, vol ix. p. 392.]
+
+"MY DEAR BURN,--Your dispatch and kind letter received. I have
+instructed Seth [Williams] to reply to the official letter, and now
+acknowledge the kind private note. It always does me good, in the
+midst of my cares and perplexities, to see your wretched old
+scrawling. I have terrible troubles to contend with, but have met
+them with a good heart, like your good old self, and have thus far
+struggled through successfully.... I feel very proud of Yorktown: it
+and Manassas will be my brightest chaplets in history, for I know
+that I accomplished everything in both places by pure military
+skill. I am very proud, and very grateful to God that he allowed me
+to purchase such great success at so trifling a loss of life.... The
+crisis cannot long be deferred. I pray for God's blessing on our
+arms, and rely far more on his goodness than I do on my own poor
+intellect. I sometimes think, now, that I can almost realize that
+Mahomet was sincere. When I see the hand of God guarding one so weak
+as myself, I can almost think myself a chosen instrument to carry
+out his schemes. Would that a better man had been selected....
+Good-bye and God bless you, Burn. With the sincere hope that we may
+soon shake hands, I am, as ever,
+
+Your sincere friend, MCCLELLAN."
+
+When McClellan reached the James River after the seven days'
+battles, the first suggestion as to reinforcing him was that
+Burnside should bring to his aid the bulk of his little army in
+North Carolina. This was determined upon, and the Ninth Corps was
+carried by sea to Fortress Monroe. As soon as the movement was
+started, Burnside hastened in advance to Washington, and on
+returning to the fortress wrote McClellan as follows:--[Footnote:
+O. S., p. 472.]
+
+"OLD POINT, July 15, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR MAC,--I have just arrived from Washington, and have not time
+to get ready to go up this morning, but will to-morrow. I've much to
+say to you and am very anxious to see you.... The President has
+ordered me to remain here for the present, and when I asked him how
+long, he said five or six days. I don't know what it means; but I do
+know, my dear Mac, that you have lots of enemies. But you must keep
+cool; don't allow them to provoke you into a quarrel. You must come
+out all right; I'll tell you all to-morrow.
+
+Your old friend, BURN."
+
+He went up the river to Harrison's Landing and stayed a couple of
+days, consulting with McClellan as to the situation. He returned to
+Old Point Comfort on the 18th, and immediately telegraphed to the
+War Department for leave to go to Washington and present the results
+of his conference with McClellan. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xi. pt. iii. p. 326.] This was granted, and he again presented
+himself before the President and Secretary Stanton as the friend of
+McClellan. He urged the increase of McClellan's army to an extent
+which would make the general resume the aggressive with confidence.
+Halleck visited McClellan at once after assuming command as
+general-in-chief, but satisfied himself that the government could
+not furnish the thirty thousand additional troops which McClellan
+then demanded. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 337.] This led to the decision
+to bring the Army of the Potomac back by water, and to unite it with
+Pope's army on the Rappahannock.
+
+On this visit to Washington the President and Secretary of War had
+offered to Burnside himself the command of the Army of the Potomac.
+He had refused it, earnestly asserting his faith that McClellan was
+much fitter for the command than he, and trying hard to restore
+confidence and a mutual good understanding between his friend and
+the government. He was discouraged at the result, and after he
+returned to his command wrote a letter, every line of which shows
+his sadness and his disinterested friendship, for he does not
+mention, much less take credit to himself for, the refusal to
+supersede his friend. [Footnote: O. S., 472.]
+
+"FORT MONROE, Aug. 2, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR MAC,--I'm laid up with a lame leg, and besides am much
+worried at the decision they have chosen to make in regard to your
+army. From the moment I reached Washington I feared it would be so,
+and I am of the opinion that your engineers [Footnote: This hints at
+General Barnard's unfavorable criticisms of McClellan's management,
+which led to a request by the latter to have another officer
+assigned as chief engineer. See Halleck to McClellan, Aug. 7, 1862.
+Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 359.] had much to do with
+bringing about the determination. When the conclusion was arrived
+at, I was the only one who advocated your forward movement. I speak
+now as if a positive decision had been arrived at, which I do not
+know, and you of course do; my present orders indicate it. But you
+know what they are and all about it, so I will accept it as
+something that is ordered for the best. Let us continue to give our
+undivided support to the cause and all will be well. It looks dark
+sometimes, but a just God will order everything for the best. We
+can't expect to have it all as we wish. I'm off for my destination,
+and will write you a long letter from there. The troops are nearly
+all embarked. Good-bye. God bless you!
+
+Your old friend, A. E. BURNSIDE."
+
+Burnside was sent with the Ninth Corps to Falmouth on the
+Rappahannock. Porter's corps joined him there, and both the corps
+were sent forward to Warrenton to join Pope. When Pope's
+communication with Washington was cut, it was only through Burnside
+that the government could hear of him for several days, and in
+response to the calls for news he telegraphed copies of Porter's
+dispatches to him. Like McClellan's private letters, these
+dispatches told more of the writer's mind and heart than would
+willingly have been made public. Burnside's careless outspoken
+frankness as to his own opinions was such that he probably did not
+reflect what reticences others might wish to have made. Perhaps he
+also thought that Porter's sarcasms on Pope, coming from one who had
+gained much reputation in the peninsula, would be powerful in
+helping to reinstate McClellan. At any rate, the dispatches were the
+only news from the battle-field he could send the President in
+answer to his anxious inquiries, and he sent them. They were the
+cause of Mr. Lincoln's request to McClellan, on September 1st, that
+he would write Porter and other friends begging them to give Pope
+loyal support. They were also the most damaging evidence against
+Porter in his subsequent court-martial.
+
+Before the Maryland campaign began, Mr. Lincoln again urged upon
+Burnside the command of the army, and he again declined, warmly
+advocating McClellan's retention as before. [Footnote: C. W., vol.
+i. p. 650.] His advocacy was successful, as I have already stated.
+[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 257.] The arrangement that Burnside and Sumner
+were to command wings of the army of at least two corps each, was
+made before we left Washington, and Burnside's subordinates, Hooker
+and Reno, were, by direction of the President, assigned to corps
+commands through orders from army headquarters. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 188, 197.] McClellan did not publish
+to the Army of the Potomac this assignment of Burnside and Sumner
+till the 14th of September, though it had been acted upon from the
+beginning of the campaign. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 290.] On the evening
+of the same day Porter's corps joined the army at South Mountain,
+and before the advance was resumed on the following morning, the
+order was again suspended and Burnside reduced to the command of a
+single corps. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 297.] I have already suggested
+Hooker's relation to this, and only note at this point the
+coincidence, if it was nothing more, that the first evidence of any
+change in McClellan's friendship toward Burnside occurs within a few
+hours from Porter's arrival, and in connection with a complaint made
+by the latter.
+
+McClellan and Burnside had slept in the same house the night after
+the battle of South Mountain. Porter seems to have joined them
+there. During the evening McClellan dictated his orders for the
+movements of the 15th which were communicated to the army in the
+morning. That Porter should be unfriendly to Burnside was not
+strange, for it had by this time become known that the dispatches of
+August 27th to 30th were relied upon by General Pope's friends to
+show Porter's hostile and insubordinate spirit in that campaign. The
+court-martial was still impending over Porter, and he had been
+allowed to take the field only at McClellan's special request.
+Although Burnside had not dreamed of doing Porter an ill service,
+his transmittal of the dispatches to the President had made them
+available as evidence, and Porter, not unnaturally, held him
+responsible for part of his peril. The sort of favoritism which
+McClellan showed to Porter was notorious in the army. Had the
+position of chief of staff been given him, it would have sanctioned
+his personal influence without offending the self-respect of other
+general officers; but that position was held by General Marcy, the
+father-in-law of McClellan, and Porter's manifest power at
+headquarters consequently wore the air of discourtesy toward others.
+The incident I have narrated of the examination of Lee's position at
+Sharpsburg from the ridge near Pry's house was an example of this.
+It was Porter who in the presence of the commandants of the wings of
+the army was invited by McClellan to continue the examination when
+the others were sent below the crest of the hill. Governor Sprague
+testified before the Committee on the Conduct of the War to the
+notoriety of this from the beginning of the peninsular campaign and
+to the bad feeling it caused. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 566.]
+General Rosecrans testified that in the winter of 1861-62, on his
+visit to Washington, he found that Porter was regarded as the
+confidential adviser of McClellan. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. vi.
+(Rosecrans) p. 14.] It was matter of common fame, too well known to
+be questioned by anybody who served in that army. Mr. Lincoln had
+discussed it to some extent in his correspondence with McClellan in
+the month of May, and had warned the general of the mischiefs likely
+to ensue, even whilst authorizing provisional corps to be organized
+for Porter and Franklin. He had used such exceptional plainness as
+to say to the general [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii.
+p. 154.] that "it is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one
+or two pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. The
+commanders of these corps are of course the three highest officers
+with you, but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or
+communication with them; that you consult and communicate with
+nobody but General Fitz-John Porter and perhaps General Franklin. I
+do not say these complaints are true or just, but at all events it
+is proper you should know of their existence."
+
+McClellan's dealing with the division of the army into wings was
+part of the same persistent method of thwarting the purpose of the
+administration while ostensibly keeping the letter. It was perfectly
+easy to advance from South Mountain upon Sharpsburg, keeping
+Sumner's and Burnside's commands intact. The intermingling of them
+was unnecessary at the beginning, and was mischievous during the
+battle of Antietam. No military reason can be given for it, and the
+history of the whole year makes it plain that the reasons were
+personal.
+
+The offer of the command of the army to Burnside, though refused,
+was a sufficiently plain designation of McClellan's successor in
+case he should be relieved or be disabled. It needed a more
+magnanimous nature than McClellan's proved to be, to bear the
+obligation of Burnside's powerful friendship in securing for him
+again the field command of the army. When he was in personal contact
+with Burnside, the transparent sincerity of the latter's friendship
+always brought McClellan to his better self, and to the eye of an
+observer they were as cordially intimate as they had ever been. Yet
+unfriendly things which had been done officially could not easily be
+undone, and the friendship was maintained by the subordinate
+condoning the sins against it. Hooker was allowed to separate
+himself from Burnside's command on the morning of the 15th, against
+the protest of his commander; the order announcing the assignment of
+the wing command was suspended and was never renewed, though
+McClellan afterward gave Burnside temporary command of several corps
+when detached from the rest of the army.
+
+Burnside spent several hours with his chief on Monday morning
+(15th), and was disturbed and grieved at the course things had
+taken. It is possible that his pre-occupation of mind made him
+neglect the prompt issue of orders for moving the Ninth Corps,
+though I know nothing definite as to this. [Footnote: My own
+recollection is that part of the corps had marched without rations
+on the preceding day, and had sent back during the night for them.
+Burnside took the responsibility of allowing the corps to wait until
+these supplies came and the men could be fed before marching again.
+It will be remembered that McClellan made no effort to bring on an
+engagement that day, nor during the whole of the next day.] Porter's
+corps was to follow us through Fox's Gap, and when his head of
+column came up the mountain at noon, we certainly were not in
+motion. My own division was the rear one of the column that day, by
+way of change, as I had had the advance all the way from Washington.
+General Porter reported at McClellan's headquarters that the
+movement of his troops was obstructed by Burnside's, and got at his
+own special request an order to push by them. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 296.] The written order Porter
+preserved, and put upon it an endorsement adding to what it contains
+the accusation that "Burnside's corps was not moving three hours
+after the hour designated for him." [Footnote: _Ibid._] No doubt
+there was many a delay in that campaign in divers corps. The
+significant thing in this one was the pains taken to "make a record"
+of it against Burnside, and the inclusion in this of unofficial
+matter by means of the endorsement.
+
+On the 16th another vexatious incident of a similar character
+occurred. After McClellan's reconnoitring on our left, he orally
+directed that the divisions of the Ninth Corps should be moved to
+positions designated by members of his staff. When Burnside had
+taken his position on a hill-top from which the positions could be
+seen and the movement accurately directed, another staff officer
+from McClellan came and requested that the movement be delayed for
+further consideration by the commanding general. It was this that
+occasioned a halt and our subsequent march in the dusk of evening,
+as has been narrated in its place. That evening the following note
+was written at McClellan's headquarters, but it was not delivered to
+Burnside till the next day, the day of the battle: [Footnote: _Id._,
+p. 308.]--
+
+"HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
+September 16, 1862.
+
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL BURNSIDE, Commanding Ninth Corps, etc.
+
+
+GENERAL,--The General commanding has learned that although your
+corps was ordered to be in a designated position at 12 M. to-day, at
+or near sunset only one division and four batteries had reached the
+ground intended for your troops. The general has also been advised
+that there was a delay of some four hours in the movement of your
+command yesterday. I am instructed to call upon you for explanations
+of these failures on your part to comply with the orders given you,
+and to add, in view of the important military operations now at
+hand, the commanding general cannot lightly regard such marked
+departure from the tenor of his instructions.
+
+I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+
+
+----------,
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel, Aide-de-camp, and Act'g Ass't Adj't. Gen'l."
+
+To this missive Burnside dictated the following answer on the field
+during the battle:--[Footnote: Official Records., vol. xix. pt. ii.
+p. 314.]
+
+"HEADQUARTERS, September 17, 1862.
+
+BRIG. GEN. S. WILLIAMS, Assistant Adjutant-General.
+
+GENERAL,--Your dispatch of yesterday this moment received. General
+Burnside directs me to say that immediately upon the receipt of the
+order of the general commanding, which was after twelve o'clock, he
+ordered his corps to be in readiness to march, and instead of having
+Captain Duane [Footnote: Captain Duane was senior engineer officer
+in the field, on the staff of McClellan, and had conducted the
+reconnoitring of the Antietam.] post the divisions in detail, and at
+the suggestion of Captain Duane, he sent three aides to ascertain
+the position of each of the three divisions, that they might post
+them. These aides returned shortly before three o'clock, and they
+immediately proceeded to post the three columns. The general then
+went on an eminence above these positions to get a good view of
+them, and whilst there, during the progress of the movement of his
+corps, an aide from General McClellan came to him and said that
+General McClellan was not sure that the proper position had been
+indicated, and advised him not to hasten the movement until the aide
+had communicated with the general commanding. He (General Burnside)
+at once went to General McClellan's headquarters to inform him that
+he had seen large bodies of the enemy moving off to the right. Not
+finding the general commanding, General Burnside returned to his
+command, and the movement was resumed and continued as rapidly as
+possible. General Burnside directs me to say that he is sorry to
+have received so severe a rebuke from the general commanding, and
+particularly sorry that the general commanding feels that his
+instructions have not been obeyed; but nothing can occur to prevent
+the general from continuing his hearty co-operation to the best of
+his ability in any movement the general commanding may direct.
+
+I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, your obedient
+servant,
+LEWIS RICHMOND,
+Assistant Adjutant-General."
+
+
+The answer was of course conclusive, but it leaves the difficult
+problem, how came the reprimand to be written which General
+McClellan could not have dictated, as the interruption of Burnside's
+movement was caused by a message from himself? The blank for the
+name of a staff officer who was to sign it, and the indication of
+his rank and position point to Lieutenant-Colonel James A. Hardie as
+the one for whom it was prepared, but Colonel Hardie must have
+demurred to signing it, since Colonel Richmond's answer implies that
+General Seth Williams's name was finally attached. All of us who
+knew General Williams and his methods of doing business will be slow
+to believe that he volunteered a paper of that kind. He afterward
+served on Burnside's own staff and had his confidence. The
+responsibility must fall upon General Marcy, the chief of staff, and
+most of the officers of that army will be likely to conclude that he
+also would act only by the direction of McClellan or of some one
+whom he regarded as having decisive authority to speak for him in
+his absence.
+
+I have already referred to an error contained in General Porter's
+report of the battle of Antietam, where he says that "Morell's
+division in reporting to General Burnside relieved his corps, which
+was at once recalled from its position in front of Antietam bridge."
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 339.] I mention it
+again only to say that since this was not only contrary to the fact,
+but is unsupported by the records, to accept it and to embody it in
+his official report certainly indicates no friendly disposition
+toward Burnside. To that extent it supports any other circumstances
+which point to Porter as the hostile influence which becomes so
+manifest at McClellan's headquarters after the 14th of September. I
+know by many expressions uttered by Burnside during those days and
+afterward, that though he was deeply grieved at some things which
+had occurred, he did not waver in his loyal friendship to McClellan.
+He uttered no unkind word in regard to him personally, either then
+or ever in my hearing. He sometimes spoke of what he believed to be
+mischievous influences about McClellan and which he thought were too
+powerful with him, but was earnest and consistent in wishing for him
+the permanent command of that army till success should give a
+glorious end to the war. It was after the irritating incidents I
+have narrated that the visit to McClellan to dine with him occurred,
+and I saw them frequently together till I left the army on the 5th
+of October. Their manner toward each other was more than cordial, it
+was affectionately intimate. Burnside never mentioned to me,
+although I was next him in command, the reprimand which is copied
+above. His real unwillingness to supersede McClellan, even when the
+final order came in November, is abundantly attested. McClellan only
+by degrees gave outward evidence of the souring of his own feelings
+toward Burnside, but his private letters show that the process began
+with the battle of South Mountain. By the time that he wrote his
+final report in the latter part of 1863 it had advanced far enough
+to warp his memory of the campaign and to make him try to transfer
+to Burnside the responsibility for some of his mishaps. When his
+"Own Story" was written, the process was complete, and no kindly
+remembrance dictated a word which could give any indication of the
+friendship that had died.
+
+Those who are not familiar with the customs of military service
+might see little significance in the fact that the fault-finding
+with Burnside was put in the form of official communications which
+thus became part of the permanent documentary history of the war. To
+military men, however, it would be almost conclusive proof of a
+settled hostility to him, formally calling his military character in
+question in a way to make it tell against him for ulterior purposes.
+Nothing is more common in an active campaign than for a commanding
+officer to send messages hurrying the movement of a part of his
+army. These are usually oral, and even when delays are complained
+of, the commander, in the interests of cordial cooperation and
+cheerful alacrity, awaits a full opportunity for personal
+explanation from his immediate subordinates before administering a
+reprimand. It goes without saying that where intimate friendship
+exists, still more delicate consideration is used. To send such a
+letter as that of September 16th, and in the course of such
+deliberate movements as were McClellan's during those days, would be
+scarcely conceivable unless there had been a formal breach of
+personal relations, and it was equivalent to notice that they were
+henceforth to deal at arm's-length only.
+
+McClellan's "Own Story" shows that in regard to the alleged delay on
+the morning of the 15th, he had a personal explanation from
+Burnside. [Footnote: O. S., p. 586.] Yet in the night of the 16th
+the same querulous inquiry was repeated as if it had not been
+answered, with the addition of the new complaint of a delay on the
+16th which was caused by McClellan's personal request, and the whole
+accompanied by so formal a reprimand that the ordinary reply to it
+would have been a demand for a court of inquiry. The occurrence was
+unexampled in that campaign and stands entirely alone, although
+McClellan's memoirs show that he alleged delays in other cases,
+notably in Hooker's march that same afternoon to attack the enemy,
+of which no recorded notice was taken. [Footnote: O. S., p.590.]
+Considering the personal relations of the men before that time, and
+as I myself witnessed them from day to day afterward, it is simply
+incredible that McClellan dictated the letters which went from his
+headquarters.
+
+Before ending the discussion of matters personal to these officers I
+will say a few words regarding Burnside's appearance and bearing in
+the field. He was always a striking figure, and had a dashing way
+with him which incited enthusiasm among his soldiers. Without
+seeming to care for his costume, or even whilst affecting a little
+carelessness, there was apt to be something picturesque about him.
+He had a hearty and jovial manner, a good-humored cordiality toward
+everybody, that beamed in his face as he rode through the camps or
+along the lines. When not on parade, he often discarded his uniform
+coat, wearing a light undress jacket, with no indication of his rank
+except the yellow silk sash about his waist which showed that he was
+a general officer. On one occasion when I accompanied him in a
+change of position, we passed the Ninth Corps column in march, and
+it was interesting to see how he was greeted by the troops which had
+been with him in his North Carolina campaign. He wore that day a
+"Norfolk jacket," a brown knit roundabout, fitting close to his
+person; his hat was the stiff broad-rimmed, high-crowned regulation
+hat, worn rather rakishly, with gold cord, acorn-tipped; his
+pistol-belt was a loose one, allowing the holster to hang on his hip
+instead of being buckled tight about the waist; his boots were the
+high cavalry boots reaching to the knee; his large buckskin
+gauntlets covered his forearm; he rode a large bony horse,
+bob-tailed, with a wall-eye which gave him a vicious look, and
+suited well the brigandish air of his rider's whole appearance.
+Burnside's flashing eyes, his beard trimmed to the "Burnside cut"
+with the mustache running into the side whiskers whilst the square,
+clean-shaven chin and jaws gave a tone of decision and force to his
+features, made up a picture that at once arrested the eye. As we
+went along the roadside at a fast trot, his high-stepping horse
+seemed to be keeping his white eye on the lookout for a chance to
+lash out at somebody. The men evidently enjoyed the scene, cheering
+him loudly. I was particularly amused with one group of soldiers at
+rest by their stacked muskets. They sat upon their haunches, and
+clapped their hands as he passed, exclaiming and laughing, "Just see
+the old fellow! just look at him!" Burnside laughed at their fun as
+jollily as they did themselves, and took no offence at the
+free-and-easy way in which they showed their liking for him. There
+was no affectation in all this, but an honest enjoyment in following
+his own whim in style and in accoutrement. His sincere earnestness
+in the cause for which he was fighting was apparent to all who met
+him, and no one in his presence could question the single-hearted
+honesty and unselfishness of the man. His bearing under fire was
+good, and his personal courage beyond question. He shrank from
+responsibility with sincere modesty, because he questioned his own
+capacity to deal with affairs of great magnitude. He was not only
+not ambitious to command a great army, but he honestly sought to put
+it aside when it was thrust upon him, and accepted it at last from a
+sense of obligation to the administration which had nominated him to
+it in spite of his repeated disclaimers. It carafe to him finally,
+without consulting him, as a military order he could not disobey
+without causing a most awkward dead-lock in the campaign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+RETURN TO WEST VIRGINIA
+
+
+Ordered to the Kanawha valley again--An unwelcome surprise--Reasons
+for the order--Reporting to Halleck at Washington--Affairs in the
+Kanawha in September--Lightburn's positions--Enemy under Loring
+advances--Affair at Fayette C. H.--Lightburn retreats--Gauley Bridge
+abandoned--Charleston evacuated--Disorderly flight to the
+Ohio--Enemy's cavalry raid under Jenkins--General retreat in
+Tennessee and Kentucky--West Virginia not in any Department--Now
+annexed to that of Ohio--Morgan's retreat from Cumberland
+Gap--Ordered to join the Kanawha forces--Milroy's brigade also--My
+interviews with Halleck and Stanton--Promotion--My task--My division
+sent with me--District of West Virginia--Colonel Crook
+promoted--Journey westward--Governor Peirpoint--Governor
+Tod--General Wright--Destitution of Morgan's column--Refitting at
+Portland, Ohio--Night drive to Gallipolis--An amusing
+accident--Inspection at Point Pleasant--Milroy ordered to
+Parkersburg--Milroy's qualities--Interruptions to movement of
+troops--No wagons--Supplies delayed--Confederate retreat--Loring
+relieved--Echols in command--Our march up the valley--Echols
+retreats--We occupy Charleston and Gauley Bridge--Further advance
+stopped--Our forces reduced--Distribution of remaining
+troops--Alarms and minor movements--Case of Mr. Summers--His
+treatment by the Confederates.
+
+
+In war it is the unexpected that happens. On the 4th of October my
+permanent connection with the Army of the Potomac seemed assured. I
+was in command of the Ninth Corps, encamped in Pleasant Valley,
+awaiting the renewal of active operations. My promotion to the rank
+of Major-General had been recommended by McClellan and Burnside,
+with the assurance that the permanent command of the corps would be
+added. On that evening an order came from Washington directing me to
+return to the Kanawha valley, from which our troops had been driven.
+I was to report in person at Washington immediately, and would there
+get detailed directions. The order was as much a surprise to my
+immediate superiors as it was to me, and apparently as little
+welcome. We all recognized the necessity of sending some one to the
+Kanawha who knew the country, and the reasonableness, therefore, of
+assigning the duty to me. McClellan and Burnside both promised that
+when matters should be restored to a good footing in West Virginia
+they would co-operate in an effort to bring me back, and as this was
+coupled with a strong request to the War Department that my
+promotion should be made immediate, [Footnote: McClellan to Halleck,
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 383.] acquiesced with
+reasonably good grace.
+
+Going to Washington on the eth, I received my orders and
+instructions from Halleck, the General-in-Chief. They were based
+upon the events which had occurred in the Kanawha valley since I
+left it in August. The information got by General Stuart from Pope's
+captured quartermaster had led to a careful examination of the
+letter-books captured at the same time, and Lee thus learned that I
+had left 5000 men, under Colonel Lightburn, to garrison the posts
+about Gauley Bridge. The Confederate forces were therefore greater
+than ours in that region, and General Loring, who was in command,
+was ordered to make at once a vigorous aggressive campaign against
+Lightburn, to "clear the valley of the Kanawha and operate
+northwardly to a junction" with the army of Lee in the Shenandoah
+valley. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 1069;
+_Id._, vol. xii. pp. 940-943, 946. This correspondence fully
+justifies Pope's suspicion that Lee then planned to operate by the
+Valley of Virginia.] Loring marched, on the 6th of September, with a
+column which he reported about 5000 strong, expecting to add to it
+by organizing recruits and militia as Floyd had done in the previous
+year. His line of operations was by way of Princeton, Flat-top
+Mountain and Raleigh C. II. to Fayette C. H. His forces do not seem
+to have been noticeably increased by recruiting till ours had
+retreated out of the valley.
+
+Lightburn's advanced positions were two,--a brigade under Colonel
+Siber of the Thirty-seventh Ohio being at Raleigh C. H. and another
+under Colonel Gilbert of the Forty-fourth Ohio, near the Hawk's
+Nest, and at Alderson's on the Lewisburg road. A small post was kept
+up at Summersville and one at Gauley Bridge, where Lightburn had his
+headquarters, and some detachments guarded trains and steamboats in
+the lower valley. Gauley Bridge was, as in the preceding year, the
+central point, and though it was necessary to guard both the
+Lewisburg and the Raleigh roads on the opposite sides of the New
+River gorge, a concentration on the line the enemy should take was
+the plain rule of action when the opposing armies were about equal.
+Or, by concentrating at Gauley Bridge, my experience had proved that
+we could hold at bay three or four times our numbers. In either
+case, fighting in detail was to be avoided, and rapid concentration
+under one leader to be effected.
+
+On the approach of the enemy Siber was withdrawn from Raleigh C. H.
+to Fayette, and Gilbert to Tompkins farm, three miles from Gauley
+Bridge, but the brigades were not united. On the 10th of September
+Loring attacked Siber at Fayette, in the intrenchments made by
+Scammon in the winter. Siber repulsed the efforts of Loring to drive
+him out of his position, and held it during the day. Three companies
+of the Fourth Virginia under Captain Vance, and a squad of horse
+were sent by Lightburn from Gauley Bridge to Siber's assistance, but
+the latter, being without definite orders and thinking he could not
+hold the position another day, retreated in the night, setting fire
+to a large accumulation of stores and abandoning part of his wagons.
+He halted on the ridge of Cotton Hill, covering the road to Gauley
+Bridge, and was there joined by five companies of the Forty-seventh
+Ohio, also sent to his assistance by Lightburn. Loring followed and
+made a partial attack, which was met by the rear-guard under Captain
+Vance and repulsed, whilst Siber's principal column marched on to
+Montgomery's ferry on the Kanawha.
+
+Meanwhile Lightburn had called in Gilbert's force to Gauley Bridge
+during the night of the both, and placed them opposite the ferry
+connecting with Siber, which was just below Kanawha Falls and in the
+lower part of the Gauley Bridge camp. On Siber's appearance at the
+ferry, Lightburn seems to have despaired of having time to get him
+over, and directed him to march down the left bank of the river,
+burning the sheds full of stores which were on that side of the
+stream. When Captain Vance with the rear-guard reached the ferry,
+the buildings were blazing on both sides of the narrow pass under
+the bluff, and his men ran the gantlet of fire, protecting their
+heads with extra blankets which they found scattered near the
+stores. Vance easily held the enemy at bay at Armstrong's Creek, and
+Siber marched his column, next morning, to Brownstown, some
+twenty-five miles below Kanawha Falls, where steamboats met him and
+ferried him over to Camp Piatt. There he rejoined Lightburn.
+
+Gilbert's artillery was put in position on the right bank at
+Montgomery's Ferry, and checked the head of Loring's column when it
+approached the Kanawha in pursuit of Siber. Lightburn had ordered
+the detachment in post at Summersville to join him at Gauley, and
+Colonel Elliot of the Forty-seventh Ohio, who commanded it, marched
+down the Gauley with his ten companies (parts of three regiments)
+and a small wagon train. He approached Gauley Bridge on the 11th,
+but Lightburn had not waited for him, and the enemy were in
+possession. Elliot burned his wagons and took to the hills with his
+men, cutting across the angle between the Gauley and the Kanawha and
+joining Gilbert's column near Cannelton. A smaller detachment, only
+a little way up the Gauley, was also left to its fate in the
+precipitate retreat, and it also took to the hills and woods and
+succeeded in evading the enemy. It was about ten o'clock in the
+morning when Loring's head of column approached the Kanawha and drew
+the fire of Gilbert's guns. After about an hour's cannonade across
+the river, Lightburn gave the order to retreat down the right bank,
+after burning the stores and blowing up the magazine at Gauley
+Bridge. Loring found men to swim across the river and extinguish the
+fires kindled on the ferry-boats, which were soon put in use to
+ferry Echols's brigade across. This followed Lightburn down the
+right bank, whilst Loring himself, with Williams's and Wharton's
+brigades, marched after Siber down the left. The over-hanging cliffs
+and hills echoed with the cannonade, and the skirmishers exchanged
+rifle-shots across the rapid stream; but few casualties occurred,
+and after Elliot joined the column, it marched with little
+interruption to Camp Piatt, thirteen miles from Charleston, where
+Siber met them, and the steamboats he had used passed down the river
+to the Ohio.
+
+Siber's brigade continued its retreat rapidly to Charleston, passed
+through the town and crossed the Elk River. Gilbert's brigade also
+retired, but in better order, and it kept up a skirmish with the
+advance-guard of Echols's column which was following them. When
+Gilbert reached the outskirts of Charleston, he checked the advance
+of the enemy long enough to enable the quartermasters at the post to
+move their trains across the Elk; but the haste of the evacuation
+was so great that the stores in depot there were not removed, and
+were burned to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands. Gilbert
+retired across the Elk, and the suspension bridge was destroyed.
+Loring's artillery made a dash for a hill on the left bank of the
+Kanawha, which commanded the new position taken up by Lightburn's
+troops, and the Confederate battery soon opened an enfilade fire
+across the river, taking the line of breastworks along the Elk in
+flank and in reverse. The trains and the stragglers started in
+direst confusion on the road to Ravenswood on the Ohio, which
+offered a line of retreat not subject to the enemy's fire. Siber's
+brigade followed, Gilbert's continued to bring up the rear. The road
+down the Kanawha was abandoned because it was in range of artillery
+from the opposite side of the river throughout its whole course down
+the valley. The road to Ripley and Ravenswood was therefore taken,
+and the flying troops were met at those towns on the Ohio by
+steamboats which conveyed part of them to Point Pleasant at the
+mouth of the Kanawha, where the whole command was concentrated in
+the course of a few days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt.
+i. pp. 1058-1060.] Siber's loss was 16 killed, 87 wounded, and over
+100 missing. Gilbert reported 9 men killed and 8 wounded, with about
+75 missing; but as the enemy do not enumerate any captured prisoners
+in their reports except a lieutenant and 10 men, it is evident that
+the missing were mostly men who outran the others. Loring's losses
+as reported by his surgeon were 18 killed and 89 wounded. The enemy
+claim to have captured large numbers of wagons, horses, mules, and
+stores of all kinds which Loring estimated at a million dollars'
+worth, besides all that were burned.
+
+It was a panicky retreat after the hot little fight by Siber's
+brigade at Fayette C. H., and it is not worth while to apply to it
+any military criticism, further than to say that either of the
+brigades intrenched at Gauley Bridge could have laughed at Loring.
+The river would have been impassable, for all the ferry-boats were
+in the keeping of our men on the right bank, and Loring would not
+dare pass down the valley leaving a fortified post on the line of
+communications by which he must return. The topography of the wild
+mountain region was such that an army could only pass from the lower
+Kanawha to the headwaters of the James River by the road Loring had
+used in his advance, or by that leading through the post of Gauley
+Bridge to Lewisburg and beyond. The Confederate War Department seem
+to have thought that their forces might have passed from Charleston
+to the Ohio, thence to Parkersburg, and turning east from this town,
+have made their way to Beverly and to the Valley of Virginia by the
+route Garnett had used in the previous year. They would have found,
+however, as Loring told them, that it would have been easy for the
+National forces to overwhelm them with numbers while they were
+making so long and so difficult a march in a vast region most of
+which was a wilderness.
+
+Lightburn's position had been made more embarrassing by the fact
+that a cavalry raid under Brigadier-General Jenkins was passing
+around his left flank while Loring came upon him in front. Jenkins
+with a light column of horse moved from Lewisburg by way of the
+Wilderness Road to northwestern Virginia, captured posts and
+destroyed stores at Weston, Buckhannon, and Roane C. H., and made a
+circuit to the lower Kanawha, rejoining Loring after Lightburn's
+retreat. Little real mischief was done by this raid, but it added to
+the confusion, and helped to disturb the self-possession of the
+commanding officer. In this way it was one of the causes of the
+precipitate retreat.
+
+Several circumstances combined to make Lightburn's disaster
+embarrassing to the government. West Virginia had not been connected
+with any military department after Pope's command had been broken
+up. McClellan's authority did not extend beyond his own army and its
+theatre of operations. Halleck could hardly take personal charge of
+the affairs of remote districts. Thus the Kanawha valley had dropped
+out of the usual system and was an omitted case. The embarrassment
+was increased by the fact that Buell was retreating out of Tennessee
+before Bragg, Morgan had evacuated Cumberland Gap and was making a
+painful and hazardous retreat to the Ohio, and the Confederate
+forces under Kirby Smith were moving directly upon Cincinnati.
+Lightburn's mishap, therefore, was only the northern extremity of a
+line of defeats extending through the whole length of the Ohio
+valley from Parkersburg to Louisville. The governors of West
+Virginia and Ohio were naturally alarmed at the events in the
+Kanawha valley, and were earnest in their calls upon the War
+Department for troops to drive Loring back beyond the mountains and
+for an officer to command them who knew something of the country.
+
+Halleck seems to have been puzzled at the condition of things, not
+having realized that Pope's retirement had left West Virginia "in
+the air." It took a week, apparently, to get satisfactory details of
+the actual situation, and on the 19th of September the first
+important step was taken by annexing the region to the Department of
+the Ohio, then commanded by Major-General Horatio G. Wright, whose
+headquarters were at Cincinnati. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xvi. pt. ii. p. 328.] Wright was directed to provide for the
+recovery of lost ground in West Virginia as rapidly as possible, but
+the campaign in Kentucky was the more important and urgent, so that
+no troops could be spared for secondary operations until the
+Confederates had ceased to threaten Cincinnati and Louisville.
+
+On the 1st of October Halleck again called General Wright's
+attention to the need of doing something for West Virginia. Governor
+Peirpoint, of that State, represented the Confederates under Loring
+as about 10,000 in number, and this reflected the opinion which
+Lightburn had formed during his retreat. It became the basis of
+calculation in the campaign which followed, though it greatly
+exaggerated Loring's force. Three days later Brigadier-General
+George W. Morgan was known to have reached the Ohio River with the
+division he had brought from Cumberland Gap, and General Halleck
+outlined a plan of action. He ordered Morgan's division to be sent
+to Gallipolis to take part in the advance into the Kanawha valley,
+where some new Ohio regiments were also to join them. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 381.] He at the same time
+called me to Washington to receive instructions under which I was to
+take command of the whole force operating on the Kanawha line.
+Brigadier-General Milroy had already (September 25th) been ordered
+to proceed thither with his brigade, which was in Washington and was
+part of Banks's forces garrisoning the capital. [Footnote: _Id._,
+pp. 355, 359.] He was moved through Pennsylvania to Wheeling by
+rail, and thence down the Ohio River to Point Pleasant at the mouth
+of the Kanawha.
+
+My order to leave the Army of the Potomac reached me on Saturday
+evening. Much business had to be closed up before I could properly
+turn over the command of the Ninth Corps, but I was able to complete
+it and make the journey to Washington so as to report to General
+Halleck on Monday morning. He received me very kindly, and explained
+the necessity they were under to send some one to the Kanawha valley
+who knew the country. He was complimentary as to my former service
+there, and said my return to that region would meet the earnest
+wishes of the governors of West Virginia and Ohio, as well as the
+judgment of the War Department and of himself. To compensate for
+separating me from the command of the Ninth Corps, it had been
+decided to make my promotion at once and to put the whole of West
+Virginia under my command as a territorial district. He inquired
+into some details of the topography of the Kanawha valley and of my
+experience there, and concluded by saying that reinforcements would
+be sent to make the column I should lead in person stronger than the
+10,000 attributed to Loring. My task would then be to drive back the
+enemy beyond the mountains. When that was accomplished, part of the
+troops would probably be withdrawn. The actual position of Milroy's
+brigade was not definitely known, and Governor Peirpoint of West
+Virginia had asked to have it sent to Clarksburg. This gave me the
+opportunity to urge that my own Kanawha division be detached from
+the Ninth Corps and sent back to Clarksburg, where with Milroy they
+would make a force strong enough to take care of that part of the
+State and to make a co-operative movement toward Gauley Bridge. This
+also was granted, and immediate promotion was given to Colonel Crook
+so that he might command the division, and a promise was made to do
+the like for Colonel Scammon, who would then be available for the
+command of the division still under Lightburn, whose retreat was
+strongly condemned as precipitate. No soldier could object to an
+arrangement so satisfactory as this, and though I still preferred to
+remain with the Army of the Potomac, I could only accept the new
+duty with sincere thanks for the consideration shown me. The
+General-in-Chief accompanied me to the room of the Secretary of War,
+and Mr. Stanton added to my sense of obligation by warm expressions
+of personal good-will. His manner was so different from the brusque
+one commonly attributed to him that I have nothing but pleasant
+remembrances of my relations to him, both then and later. My own
+appointment as major-general was handed me by him, the usual
+promotions of my personal staff were also made, and directions were
+given for the immediate appointment of Crook to be brigadier.
+
+I called to pay my respects to the President, but he was in Cabinet
+meeting and could not be seen. I had a short but warmly friendly
+visit with Mr. Chase later in the day, and was ready to leave town
+for my new post of duty by the evening train. The Secretary of War
+directed me to visit Wheeling and Columbus on my way, and then to
+report to General Wright at Cincinnati before going to the Kanawha
+valley. This was in fact the quickest way to reach the mouth of the
+Kanawha River, for the fall rains had not yet come to make the Ohio
+navigable, and from Columbus to Cincinnati, and thence by the
+Marietta Railway eastward, was, as the railway routes then ran, the
+best method of joining my command. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
+was interrupted between Harper's Ferry and Hancock (about fifty
+miles) by the Confederate occupation of that part of Virginia.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 393, 394.]
+General Crook was ordered to march the division from its camp in
+Pleasant Valley to Hancock, where trains on the western division of
+the railway would meet him and transport the troops to Clarksburg.
+For myself and staff, we took the uninterrupted railway line from
+Washington to Pittsburg, and thence to Wheeling, where we arrived on
+the evening of October 8th. The 9th was given to consultation with
+Governor Peirpoint and to communication with such military officers
+as were within reach. We reached Columbus on the both, when I had a
+similar consultation with Governor Tod and his military staff in
+regard to new regiments available for my use. Leaving Columbus in
+the afternoon, we arrived at Cincinnati late the same night, and on
+Saturday, the 11th, I reported to General Wright.
+
+He was an officer of the engineer corps of the regular army, a man
+of fine acquirements and of a serious and earnest character, whose
+military service throughout the war was marked by solidity and
+modesty. If there seemed at first a little _hauteur_ in his manner,
+one soon saw that it was a natural reserve free from arrogance. The
+sort of confusion in which everything was, is indicated by the fact
+that he knew nothing of my whereabouts when informed from Washington
+that I would be ordered to the Kanawha, and on the same day (6th
+October) addressed a dispatch to me at Point Pleasant whilst I was
+receiving instructions from General Halleck in Washington.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 579.] Our personal
+consultation established a thoroughly good understanding at once,
+and as long as I remained under his orders, I found him thoroughly
+considerate of my wishes and appreciative of my suggestions and of
+the conduct of my own part of the work to be done.
+
+Morgan's division, after reaching the Ohio River, had been moved to
+Portland on the Marietta Railroad, the nearest point to Gallipolis,
+which was twenty-five miles away and nearly opposite the mouth of
+the Great Kanawha. His retreat had been through a sparsely settled
+country, much of which was a wilderness, rugged and broken in the
+extreme. His wagons had broken down, his teams were used up, his
+soldiers were worn out, ragged, and barefoot. [Footnote: _Id._, pt.
+i. p. 990.] Many arms and accoutrements had been lost, and the
+command was imperatively in need of complete refitting and a little
+rest. The men had been largely recruited in East Tennessee and
+Kentucky, and were unwilling to serve in any other theatre of war.
+The Tennesseans, indeed, were reported to be mutinous at the news
+that they were to be sent to the Kanawha valley. General Wright
+issued orders for the refitting of the command, and promised such
+delay and rest as might be found practicable. He detached three
+regiments to serve in Kentucky, and directed their place to be made
+good by three new Ohio regiments then organizing. The division was
+permitted to remain at Portland till imperatively needed for my
+movement.
+
+There were no trains running on the railroad on Sunday, and Monday
+morning, the 13th October, was the earliest possible start on the
+remainder of my journey. I left Cincinnati at that time, and with my
+personal staff reached Portland in the afternoon. Morgan's division
+was found to be in quite as bad condition as had been reported, but
+he was in daily expectation of the new equipments and clothing, as
+well as wagons for his baggage-train and fresh horses for his
+artillery. It was stated also that a paymaster had been ordered to
+join the division, with funds to pay part at least of the large
+arrears of pay due to the men. This looked hopeful, but still
+implied some further delay. Uneasy to learn the actual condition of
+affairs with Lightburn's command, I determined to reach Gallipolis
+the same night. Our horses had been left behind, and being thus
+dismounted, we took passage in a four-horse hack, a square wagon on
+springs, enclosed with rubber-cloth curtains. Night fell soon after
+we began our journey, and as we were pushing on in the dark, the
+driver blundered and upset us off the end of a little sluiceway
+bridge into a mud-hole. He managed to jump from his seat and hold
+his team, but there was no help for us who were buttoned in. The mud
+was soft and deep, and as the wagon settled on its side, we were
+tumbled in a promiscuous heap into the ooze and slime, which
+completely covered us. We were not long in climbing out, and seeing
+lights in a farm-house, made our way to it. As we came into the
+light of the lamps and of a brisk fire burning on the open hearth,
+we were certainly as sorry a military spectacle as could be
+imagined. We were most kindly received, the men taking lanterns and
+going to our driver's help, whilst we stood before the fire, and
+scraped the thick mud from our uniforms with chips from the farmer's
+woodyard, making rather boisterous sport of our mishap. Before the
+wagon had been righted and partly cleaned, we had scraped and
+sponged each other off and were ready to go on. We noticed, however,
+that the room had filled with men, women, and children from the
+neighborhood, who stood bashfully back in the shadows, and who
+modestly explained that they had heard there was a "live general"
+there, and as they had never seen one, they had "come over." They
+must have formed some amusing ideas of military personages, and we
+found at least as much sport in being the menagerie as they did in
+visiting it. Our mishap made us wait for the moon, which rose in an
+hour or so, and we then took leave of our entertainers and our
+audience and drove on, with no desire, however, to repeat the
+performance. We made some ten miles more of the road, but found it
+so rough, and our progress so slow, that we were glad to find
+quarters for the rest of the night, finishing the journey in the
+morning.
+
+On reaching my field of duty, my first task was to inspect the
+forces at Point Pleasant, and learn what was necessary to make a
+forward movement as soon as Morgan's troops should reach me. General
+Wright had originally expected that inclusive of Milroy's and
+Morgan's troops, I should find at the mouth of the Kanawha, on
+arriving there, some 20,000 men. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. ii. p. 402.] In fact, however, Lightburn's diminished
+command had only been reinforced by three new Ohio regiments (the
+Eighty-ninth, Ninety-first, and Ninety-second) and a new one from
+West Virginia (the Thirteenth), and with these his strength was less
+than 7300, officers and men, showing that his original command was
+sadly reduced by straggling and desertion during his retreat.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 522.] The new regiments were made up of good
+material, but as they were raw recruits, their usefulness must for
+some time be greatly limited.
+
+Two regiments of infantry and a squadron of cavalry with a howitzer
+battery were at Guyandotte, under Colonel Jonathan Cranor of the
+Fortieth Ohio, and the Fifth West Virginia was at Ceredo near the
+mouth of the Big Sandy River. They had been stationed at these
+points to protect the navigation of the Ohio and to repel the
+efforts of the Confederate Cavalry General Jenkins to "raid" that
+region in which was his old home. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. ii. pp. 459, 522.] They formed, a little later, the Third
+Brigade of the Kanawha division under Crook.
+
+I found General Milroy in command as the ranking officer present,
+and he had sent Cranor's command down the river. When Governor
+Peirpoint learned that Milroy's brigade had passed Wheeling on his
+way to the Kanawha, he applied urgently to General Wright to send
+him, instead, from Parkersburg by rail to Clarksburg to form the
+nucleus of a column to move southward from that point upon the rear
+of Loring's forces. Wright assented, for both he and Halleck
+accepted the plan of converging columns from Clarksburg and Point
+Pleasant, and regarded that from the former place as the more
+important. [Footnote: _Id_. p. 402.] If directions were sent to
+Milroy to this effect, they seem to have miscarried. Besides his
+original brigade, some new Indiana regiments were ordered to report
+to him. He had, with characteristic lack of reflection and without
+authority, furloughed the Fifth West Virginia regiment in mass and
+sent the men home. I gave him a new one in place of this, ordered
+him to reassemble the other as soon as possible, and to march at
+once to Parkersburg, proceeding thence to Clarksburg by rail. The
+new troops added to his command enabled him to organize them into a
+division of two brigades, and still other regiments were added to
+him later. Milroy was a picturesque character, with some excellent
+qualities. A tall man, with trenchant features, bright eyes, a great
+shock of gray hair standing out from his head, he was a marked
+personal figure. He was brave, but his bravery was of the excitable
+kind that made him unbalanced and nearly wild on the battle-field.
+His impulsiveness made him erratic in all performances of duty, and
+negligent of the system without which the business of an army cannot
+go on. This was shown in his furlough of a regiment whilst _en
+route_ to reinforce Lightburn, who was supposed to be in desperate
+straits. It is also seen in the absence of Official Records of the
+organization of his command at this time, so that we cannot tell
+what regiments constituted it when his division was assembled at
+Clarksburg. He is described, in the second Battle of Bull Run, as
+crazily careering over the field, shouting advice to other officers
+instead of gathering and leading his own command, which he said was
+routed and scattered. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii.
+pp. 342, 362-364.] Under the immediate control of a firm and steady
+hand he could do good service, but was wholly unfit for independent
+responsibility. His demonstrative manner, his boiling patriotism,
+and his political zeal gave him prominence and made him a favorite
+with the influential war-governor of Indiana, Oliver P. Morton, who
+pushed his military advancement.
+
+The Kanawha division left the Army of the Potomac on the 8th of
+October and reached Hancock on the 10th. There it crossed the track
+of a raid of the Confederate cavalry into Pennsylvania, under
+Stuart. By McClellan's order one brigade was sent to McConnelsville
+to intercept the enemy, and the other was halted. [Footnote: _Id_.,
+vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 62-78.] By the 13th Crook had been allowed to
+concentrate the division at Hancock again, but was kept waiting for
+orders, so that he was not able to report to me his arrival at
+Clarksburg till the 20th. Colonel Scammon was on a short leave of
+absence during this march, and was promoted. [Footnote: His new rank
+dated from 15th October, that of Crook from 7th September. Army
+Register, 1863.] He reported to me in person in his new rank of
+brigadier a little later. The brigades of the Kanawha division were
+commanded by the senior colonels present.
+
+The increase of troops in the district made immediate need of
+transportation and munitions and supplies of all kinds. The Kanawha
+division had not been allowed to bring away with it its admirably
+equipped supply train, but its energetic quartermaster, Captain
+Fitch, came with the troops, and I immediately made him chief
+quartermaster of the district. Milroy's division had no wagons,
+neither had Morgan's. The fall rains had not yet raised the rivers,
+and only boats of lightest draught could move on the Ohio, whilst
+navigation on the Kanawha was wholly suspended. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 433.] Four hundred wagons and two
+thousand mules were estimated as necessary to supply two moving
+columns of ten thousand men each, in addition to such trains as were
+still available in the district. Only one hundred wagons could be
+promised from the depot at Cincinnati, none of which reached me
+before the enemy was driven out of the Kanawha valley. I was
+authorized to contract for one hundred more to be built at Wheeling,
+where, however, the shops could only construct thirty-five per week,
+and these began to reach the troops only after the 1st of November.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 535-537.] We hoped for rains which would give
+us navigation in the Kanawha in spite of the suffering which wet
+weather at that season must produce, and I ordered wagons and teams
+to be hired from the country people as far as this could be done.
+Similar delays and trouble occurred in procuring advance stores and
+equipments. Part of Morgan's men were delayed at the last moment by
+their new knapsacks coming to them without the straps which fasten
+them to the shoulders. General Wright blamed the depot officers for
+this, and took from me and my subordinates all responsibility for
+the delays; [Footnote: ., pp. 438, 475.] but the incidents make an
+instructive lesson in the difficulty of suddenly organizing a new
+and strong military column in a region distant from large depots of
+supply. It also shows the endless cost and mischief that may result
+from an ill-advised retreat and destruction of property at such
+posts as Gauley Bridge and Charleston. To put the local
+quartermasters at Gallipolis and other towns on the Ohio side of the
+river under my command, General Wright enlarged the boundaries of my
+district so as to include the line of Ohio counties bordering on the
+river. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 381, 421.]
+
+On visiting Lightburn's command at Point Pleasant, I ordered a
+brigade to be sent forward next day (15th) to Ten-mile Creek,
+repairing the road and bridges, whilst a scouting party of
+experienced men started out at once to penetrate the country by
+circuitous ways and to collect information. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+433.] In two or three days bits of news began to arrive, with rumors
+that Loring was retreating. The truth was that he in fact withdrew
+his infantry, leaving Jenkins with the cavalry and irregular forces
+to hold the valley for a time, and then to make a circuit northward
+by way of Bulltown, Sutton, etc., gaining the Beverly turnpike near
+the mountains and rejoining the infantry, which would march to join
+Lee by roads intersecting that highway at Monterey. Such at least
+was the purpose Loring communicated to the Confederate War
+Department; but he was not allowed to attempt it. His instructions
+had been to march his whole command by the route Jenkins was taking
+and at least to hold the valley stubbornly as far as Charleston. On
+receipt of the news that he was retreating, orders were sent him to
+turn over the command to Brigadier-General John Echols, the next in
+rank, and to report in person at Richmond. [Footnote: ., pp. 661,
+667.] Echols was ordered immediately to resume the positions which
+had been abandoned, and did so as rapidly as possible. Loring had in
+fact begun his retreat on the 11th, three days before I reached
+Gallipolis, but the first information of it was got after the
+scouting had been begun which is mentioned above. By the 18th I was
+able to give General Wright confirmation of the news and a correct
+outline of Loring's plan, though we had not then learned that Echols
+was marching back to Charleston. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xix. pt. ii. p. 449.] We heard of his return two or three days
+later. As evidence of the rapidity with which information reached
+the enemy, it is noteworthy that Lee knew my command had left the
+Army of the Potomac for West Virginia on the 11th October, three
+days after Crook marched from camp in Pleasant Valley. He reported
+to Richmond that four brigades had gone to that region, which was
+accurate as to the number, though only half right as to
+identification of the brigades. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 662, 663.] On
+the 13th he sent further information that I had been promoted and
+assigned to command the district.
+
+By the 20th there had been a slight rise in the Kanawha River, so
+that it was possible to use small steamboats to carry supplies for
+the troops, and Lightburn was ordered to advance his whole division
+to Red House, twenty-five miles, and to remove obstructions to
+navigation which had been planted there. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 456,
+459.] One brigade of Morgan's division was in condition to move, and
+it was ordered from Portland to Gallipolis. The rest were to follow
+at the earliest possible moment. The discontent of the East
+Tennessee regiments had not been lessened by the knowledge they had
+that powerful political influences were at work to second their
+desire to be moved back into the neighborhood of their home. On the
+10th of October a protest against their being sent into West
+Virginia was made by Horace Maynard, the loyal representative of
+East Tennessee in Congress, a man of marked character and ability
+and deservedly very influential with the government. [Footnote:
+_Id_., vol. xvi. pt. ii. pp. 604, 635, 651.] Maynard addressed
+Halleck a second time on the subject on the 22d, and on the 29th
+Andrew Johnson, then military governor of Tennessee, wrote to
+President Lincoln for the same purpose. It hardly need be said that
+the preparation of those regiments would proceed slowly, pending
+such negotiations. Their distant homes and families were at the
+mercy of the enemy, and it seemed to them intolerable that their
+faces should be turned in any other direction. I suggested an
+exchange for new Ohio regiments, but as these were not yet filled
+up, it could not be done. General Wright assured them that they
+should be sent to Kentucky as soon as we were again in possession of
+West Virginia. Most of these regiments came under my command again
+later in the war, and I became warmly attached to them. Their drill
+and discipline were always lax, but their courage and devotion to
+the national cause could not be excelled.
+
+It was not till the 23d that any of Morgan's men really entered into
+the forward movement in the valley. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 474, 475.] On that day the brigade of Colonel
+John F. DeCourcey (Sixteenth Ohio), composed of Ohio and Kentucky
+troops, reached Ten-mile Creek and was ordered to march to Red House
+the day after. [Footnote: Colonel DeCourcey was an Irishman of good
+family, who took service in our army, and was a good officer. He
+afterwards inherited an Irish baronage.] Lightburn was busy clearing
+the river of obstructions and preparing to move to Pocataligo River
+as the next step in advance. Of the other brigades belonging to
+Morgan, that of Brigadier-General Samuel P. Carter, composed partly
+of Tennesseans, was at Gallipolis, intending to enter the valley on
+the 24th. The remaining brigade, under Brigadier-General James G.
+Spears, was entirely Tennessean, and was still at Portland where the
+paymaster had just arrived and was giving the regiments part
+payment.
+
+My purpose was to concentrate the force at Pocataligo, assume the
+command in person, and attack the enemy in the positions in front of
+Charleston, in which Wise had resisted me in the previous year. I
+should have been glad to make the expected movement of a column from
+Clarksburg under Crook and Milroy co-operate directly with my own,
+but circumstances made it impracticable. The operations of the
+Confederate cavalry under Jenkins were keeping the country north of
+the Kanawha in a turmoil, and reports had become rife that he would
+work his way out toward Beverly. The country was also full of rumors
+of a new invasion from East Virginia. Milroy's forces were not yet
+fully assembled at Clarksburg on the 20th, but he was ordered to
+operate toward Beverly, whilst Crook, with the old Kanawha division,
+should move on Summersville and Gauley Bridge. Both had to depend on
+hiring wagons for transportation of supplies. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 459, 481, 482.] Separated as they
+were, they would necessarily be cautious in their movements, making
+the suppression of guerillas, the driving out of raiders, and the
+general quieting of the country their principal task. Their role was
+thus, of course, made subordinate to the movement of my own column,
+which must force its own way without waiting for results from other
+operations.
+
+Half of Carter's brigade was, at the last moment, delayed at
+Gallipolis, the clothing and equipments sent to them there being
+found incomplete. Just half of Morgan's division with two batteries
+of artillery were in motion on the 24th. On that day Lightburn was
+moved to Pocataligo, about forty miles from the river mouth, where I
+joined him in person on the 27th. A cold storm of mingled rain and
+snow had made the march and bivouac very uncomfortable for a couple
+of days. General Morgan accompanied me, and during the 28th the
+active column of three and a half brigades was concentrated, two or
+three other regiments being in echelon along the river below. Tyler
+Mountain behind Tyler Creek was, as formerly, the place at which the
+enemy was posted to make a stand against our further progress,
+though he had no considerable force on the south side of the river
+at the mouth of Scary Creek. Reconnoissances showed nothing but
+cavalry in our immediate front, and it afterwards appeared that
+Echols began a rapid retreat from Charleston on that day. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 685.] He had called to him
+Jenkins with the greater part of the cavalry, and entrusted to the
+latter the duty of holding us back as much as possible. Suspecting
+this from evidence collected at Pocataligo, I determined to put
+Siber's brigade and a battery, all in light marching order, on the
+south side of the river, accompanied by a light-draught steamboat,
+which the rise in the river after the storm enabled us to use as far
+as Charleston. This brigade could turn the strong position at Tyler
+Mountain, and passing beyond this promontory on the opposite side of
+the river, could command with artillery fire the river road on the
+other bank behind the enemy in our front. The steamboat would enable
+them to make a rapid retreat if the belief that no great force was
+on that side of the river should prove to be a mistake. Siber was
+also furnished with a battery of four mountain howitzers, which
+could be carried to the edge of the water or anywhere that men could
+march. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 504, 509, 530.]
+
+On the right bank of the river (north side) the principal column of
+two brigades (Toland's and DeCourcey's) advanced on the turnpike near
+the stream, having one six-gun battery and a section of
+twenty-pounder Parrots with them. What was present of Carter's
+brigade was sent by the mountain road further from the stream, to
+cover our left and to turn the flank of the Tyler Mountain position,
+if a stubborn stand should be made there. A light six-gun battery
+accompanied it. All moved forward simultaneously on the morning of
+the 29th. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] The dispositions thus made rendered it
+vain for the enemy's cavalry to offer any stubborn resistance, and
+Jenkins abandoned Tyler Mountain on our approach, thus giving us
+certain knowledge that he was not closely supported by the infantry.
+Our advance-guard reached the Elk River opposite Charleston in the
+afternoon, and I made personal reconnoissance of the means of
+crossing. The suspension bridge had been ruined in Lightburn's
+retreat, and the enemy had depended upon a bridge of boats for
+communication with their troops in the lower valley. These boats had
+been taken to the further bank of the river and partly destroyed,
+but as the enemy had continued his retreat, we soon had a party over
+collecting those that could be used, and other flatboats used in the
+coal trade, and a practicable bridge was reconstructed before night
+of the 30th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 530.]
+Meanwhile I entered the town with the advance-guard as soon as we
+had a boat to use for a ferry, and spent the night of the 29th
+there. We had friends enough in the place to put us quickly in
+possession of all the news, and I was soon satisfied that Echols had
+no thought of trying to remain on the western side of the mountains.
+[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 515, 520.]
+
+The column crossed the Elk late in the afternoon of the 30th, and I
+pushed Toland's and Carter's brigades to Malden and Camp Piatt that
+evening, Siber's brigade advancing to Brownstown on the other side
+of the Kanawha River. Lightburn's division was ordered forward next
+day to Gauley Bridge, Carter's brigade at Malden was ordered to send
+strong parties southward into Boone County, to reconnoitre and to
+put down guerilla bands. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 530.] DeCourcey's
+brigade was halted at Charleston, and Spears' Tennessee brigade was
+directed to remain at Gallipolis till further orders. Communication
+was opened with Crook, who was ordered to press forward via
+Summersville to Gauley Bridge as quickly as possible. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 520.] The retreating enemy
+had burned the bridges, obstructed the roads with fallen timber, and
+cut and destroyed the flatboats along the river; so that the first
+and most pressing task was to reopen roads, make ferries and
+bridges, and thus renew the means of getting supplies to the troops.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 536.] The river was still low, unusually so for
+the season, and the water was falling. Every energy was therefore
+necessary to get forward supplies to Gauley Bridge and the other
+up-river posts, for if the river should freeze whilst low, the
+winter transportation would be confined to the almost impassable
+roads. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 537.] I reported to General Wright the
+re-occupation of the valley, our lack of wagon-trains for further
+advance, and all the facts which would assist in deciding whether
+anything further should be attempted. I did not conceal the opinion
+which all my experience had confirmed, that no military advantage
+could be secured by trying to extend operation by this route across
+the mountains into the James River valley.
+
+On the 2d of November Brigadier-General Scammon reported for duty,
+and I ordered him to Gauley Bridge to assume command of the division
+which was then under Colonel Lightburn, who resumed the command of
+his brigade. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] Scammon was directed to inspect
+carefully all our old positions as far as Raleigh C. H., to report
+whether the recent retreat of troops from Fayetteville had been due
+to any improper location of the fortifications there, to examine the
+road up Loup Creek, and any others which might be used by the enemy
+to turn our position at Gauley Bridge, to state the present
+conditions of buildings at all the upper posts, and whether any
+storehouses had escaped destruction. In short, we needed the
+material on which to base intelligent plans for a more secure
+holding of the region about the falls of the Kanawha, or for a
+further advance to the eastward if it should be ordered.
+
+The information which came to me as soon as I was in actual contact
+with the enemy, not only satisfied me that Loring's forces had been
+greatly exaggerated, but led me to estimate them at a lower figure
+than the true one. In reporting to General Wright on 1st November, I
+gave the opinion that they amounted to about 3500 infantry, but with
+a disproportionate amount of artillery, some twenty pieces. The
+cavalry under Jenkins numbered probably 1000 or 1500 horse.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 531.] About the
+first of October Loring, in a dispatch to Richmond, stated his force
+at "only a little more than 4000," [Footnote: _Id_., p. 635.] which
+probably means that the 5000 with which he entered the valley were
+somewhat reduced by the sick and by desertions. He seems to refer to
+his infantry, for Jenkins's command had been an independent one. It
+would be reasonable, therefore, to put his total strength at some
+6000 or a little higher. On our side, the column with which I
+actually advanced was just about 9000 men, with 2000 more of
+Morgan's command within reach, had there been need to call them up
+from the Ohio River.
+
+On the 8th of November Halleck telegraphed to General Wright that no
+posts need be established beyond Gauley Bridge, and that about half
+of my command should be sent to Tennessee and the Mississippi
+valley. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 556, 557.] On the same day General
+Wright formally approved my views as submitted to him, and ordered
+Morgan's division to be sent to Cincinnati at once. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 537.] It was thus definitively settled that my task for
+the winter would be to restore the condition of affairs in West
+Virginia which had existed before Loring's invasion, and organize my
+district with a view to prompt and easy supply of my posts, the
+suppression of lawlessness and bushwhacking, the support of the
+State authorities, and the instruction and discipline of officers
+and men. My first attention was given to the question of
+transportation, for the winter was upon us and wagons were very
+scarce. The plan of using the river to the utmost was an economy as
+well as a necessity, and I returned to my former arrangement of
+using batteaux for the shallow and swift waters of the upper river,
+connecting with the movable head of steamboat navigation. A tour of
+inspection to Gauley Bridge and the posts in that vicinity satisfied
+me that they were in good condition for mutual support, and for
+carrying on a system of scouting which could be made a useful
+discipline and instruction to the troops, as well as the means of
+keeping thoroughly informed of the movements of the enemy.
+
+The line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was kept under the
+control of General Kelley, and his authority extended to active
+co-operation with the Army of the Potomac in keeping open
+communication with Washington. In case of need, the commander of
+that army was authorized to give orders to General Kelley direct,
+without waiting to transmit them through my headquarters. General
+Milroy was established on the Beverly front, communicating on his
+left with General Kelley and on his right with General Crook, at
+Gauley Bridge. General Scammon had his station at Fayette C. H.,
+covering the front on the south side of New River, whilst Crook
+watched the north side and extended his posts in Milroy's direction
+as far as Summersville. Colonel Cranor remained on the Ohio near
+Guyandotte, scouting the valley of the Guyandotte River and
+communicating with Charleston and other posts on the Kanawha.
+
+On the 12th of November reports were received from General Kelley
+that authentic information showed that Jackson was advancing from
+the Shenandoah valley upon West Virginia. Similar information
+reached army headquarters at Washington, and in anticipation of
+possible necessity for it, I directed Milroy to hold himself in
+readiness to march at once to join Kelley, if the latter should call
+upon him. I telegraphed General Wright that I did not think the
+report would prove well founded, but it put everybody upon the alert
+for a little while. Kelley had beaten up a camp of Confederates
+under Imboden about eighteen miles above Moorefield on the south
+branch of the Potomac, causing considerable loss to the enemy in
+killed and wounded and capturing fifty prisoners. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 572, 573, 578, 585, 586.]
+Some movement to support Imboden probably gave rise to the story of
+Jackson's advance, but Lee kept both corps of his army in hand and
+moved the whole down the Rappahannock soon afterward, to meet
+Burnside's advance upon Fredericksburg.
+
+The invasion of the Kanawha valley by Loring had stirred up much
+bitter feeling again between Union men and Confederates, and was
+followed by the usual quarrels and recriminations among neighbors.
+The Secessionists were stimulated to drop the prudent reserve they
+had practised before, and some of them, in the hope that the
+Confederate occupation would be permanent, persecuted loyal men who
+were in their power. The retreat of the enemy brought its day of
+reckoning, and was accompanied by a fresh emigration to eastern
+Virginia of a considerable number of the more pronounced
+Secessionists. I have said [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 154.] that Mr.
+George Summers, formerly the leading man of the valley, had
+studiously avoided political activity after the war began; but this
+did not save him from the hostility of his disloyal neighbors. Very
+shortly after my re-occupation of Charleston he called upon me one
+evening and asked for a private interview. He had gone through a
+painful experience, he said, and as it would pretty surely come to
+my ears, he preferred I should hear it from himself, before enemies
+or tale-bearers should present it with such coloring as they might
+choose. During the Confederate occupation he had maintained his
+secluded life and kept aloof from contact with the military
+authorities. Their officers, however, summoned him before them,
+charged him with treason to Virginia and to the Confederate States,
+and demanded of him that he take the oath of allegiance to the
+Southern government. He demurred to this, and urged that as he had
+scrupulously avoided public activity, it would be harsh and unjust
+to force him to a test which he could not conscientiously take. They
+were in no mood to listen to argument, and charged that his
+acquiescence in the rule of the new state government of West
+Virginia was, in his case, more injurious to the Confederate cause
+than many another man's active unionism. Finding Mr. Summers
+disposed to be firm, they held him in arrest; and as he still
+refused to yield, he was told that he should be tied by a rope to
+the tail of a wagon and forced to march in that condition, as a
+prisoner, over the mountains to Richmond.
+
+He was an elderly man, used to a refined and easy life, somewhat
+portly in person, and, as he said, he fully believed such treatment
+would kill him. The fierceness of their manner convinced him that
+they meant to execute the threat, and looking upon it as a sentence
+of death, he yielded and took the oath. He said that being in duress
+of such a sort, and himself a lawyer, he considered that he had a
+moral right to escape from his captors in this way, though he would
+not have yielded to anything short of what seemed to him an imminent
+danger of his life. The obligation, he declared, was utterly odious
+to him and was not binding on his conscience; but he had lost no
+time in putting himself into my hands, and would submit to whatever
+I should decide in the matter. It would be humiliating and subject
+him to misconstruction by others if he took conflicting oaths, but
+he was willing to abjure the obligation he had taken, if I demanded
+it, and would voluntarily renew his allegiance to the United States
+with full purpose to keep it.
+
+He was deeply agitated, and I thoroughly pitied him. My acquaintance
+with him in my former campaign gave me entire confidence in his
+sincerity, and made me wish to spare him any fresh embarrassment or
+pain. After a moment's reflection, I replied that I did not doubt
+anything he had told me of the facts or of his own sentiments in
+regard to them. His experience only confirmed my distrust of all
+test oaths. Either his conscience already bound him to the National
+government, or it did not. In either case I could not make his
+loyalty more sure by a fresh oath, and believing that the one he had
+taken under duress was void in fact as well as in his own
+conscience, I would leave the matter there and ask nothing more of
+him. He was greatly relieved by my decision, but bore himself with
+dignity. I never saw any reason to be sorry for the course I took,
+and believe that he was always afterward consistent and steady in
+his loyalty to the United States.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WINTER QUARTERS, 1862-63--PROMOTIONS AND POLITICS
+
+
+Central position of Marietta, Ohio--Connection with all parts of
+West Virginia--Drill and instruction of troops--Guerilla
+warfare--Partisan Rangers--Confederate laws--Disposal of
+plunder--Mosby's Rangers as a type--Opinions of Lee, Stuart, and
+Rosser--Effect on other troops--Rangers finally abolished--Rival
+home-guards and militia--Horrors of neighborhood war--Staff and
+staff duties--Reduction of forces--General Cluseret--Later
+connection with the Paris Commune--His relations with Milroy--He
+resigns--Political situation--Congressmen distrust Lincoln--Cutler's
+diary--Resolutions regarding appointments of general officers--The
+number authorized by law--Stanton's report--Effect of Act of July,
+1862--An excess of nine major-generals--The legal questions
+involved--Congressional patronage and local distribution--Ready for
+a "deal"--Bill to increase the number of generals--A "slate" made up
+to exhaust the number--Senate and House
+disagree--Conference--Agreement in last hours of the session--The
+new list--A few vacancies by resignation, etc.--List of those
+dropped--My own case--Faults of the method--Lincoln's humorous
+comments--Curious case of General Turchin--Congestion in the highest
+grades--Effects--Confederate grades of general and
+lieutenant-general--Superiority of our system--Cotemporaneous
+reports and criticisms--New regiments instead of recruiting old
+ones--Sherman's trenchant opinion.
+
+
+Early in December I established my winter headquarters at Marietta
+on the Ohio River, a central position from which communication could
+be had most easily with all parts of the district and with
+department headquarters. It was situated at the end of the railway
+line from Cincinnati to the Ohio River near Parkersburg, where the
+Baltimore and Ohio Railroad met the Cincinnati line. The Baltimore
+road, coming from the east, forked at Grafton in West Virginia and
+reached Wheeling, as has been described in an earlier chapter.
+[Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 40, 42.] The river was usually navigable
+during the winter and made an easy communication with Wheeling as
+with the lower towns. I was thus conveniently situated for most
+speedily reaching every part of my command, in person or otherwise.
+It took but a little while to get affairs so organized that the
+routine of work ran on quietly and pleasantly. No serious effort was
+made by the enemy to re-enter the district during the winter, and
+except some local outbreaks of "bush-whacking" and petty guerilla
+warfare, there was nothing to interrupt the progress of the troops
+in drill and instruction.
+
+A good deal of obscurity still hangs about the subject of guerilla
+warfare, and the relation of the Confederate government to it. There
+was, no doubt, a good deal of loose talk that found its way into
+print and helped form a popular opinion, which treated almost every
+scouting party as if it were a lawless organization of
+"bush-whackers." But there was an authoritative and systematic
+effort of the Richmond government to keep up partisan bodies within
+our lines which should be soldiers when they had a chance to do us a
+mischief, and citizens when they were in danger of capture and
+punishment. When Fremont assumed command of the Mountain Department,
+he very early called the attention of the Secretary of War to the
+fact that Governor Letcher was sending commissions into West
+Virginia, authorizing the recipients to enlist companies to be used
+against us in irregular warfare. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xii. pt. iii. p. 75.]
+
+The bands which were organized by the Confederate Government under
+authority of law, but which were free from the control of army
+commanders and unrestrained by the checks upon lawlessness which are
+found in subordination to the operations of organized armies, were
+called "Partisan Rangers," and protection as legitimate soldiers was
+promised them. They were not required to camp with the army, or to
+remain together as troops or regiments. They wore uniforms or not,
+as the whim might take them. They remained, as much as they dared,
+in their home region, and assembled, usually at night, at a
+preconcerted signal from their leaders, to make a "raid." They were
+not paid as the more regular troops were, but were allowed to keep
+the horses which they captured or "lifted." They were nominally
+required to turn over the beef-cattle and army stores to the
+Confederate commissariat, but after a captured wagon-train had been
+looted by them, not much of value would be found in it. Their raids
+were made by such numbers as might chance to be got together.
+Stuart, the brilliant Confederate cavalry commander, whilst
+crediting Mosby with being the best of the partisans, said of him,
+"he usually operates with only one-fourth of his nominal strength.
+Such organizations, as a rule, are detrimental to the best interests
+of the army at large." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiii. p.
+1082.] General Lee, in forwarding one of Mosby's reports, commended
+his boldness and good management, but added: "I have heard that he
+has now with him a large number of men, yet his expeditions are
+undertaken with very few, and his attention seems more directed to
+the capture of sutlers' wagons, etc., than to the injury of the
+enemy's communications and outposts.... I do not know the cause for
+undertaking his expeditions with so few men; whether it is from
+policy or the difficulty of collecting them. I have heard of his
+men, among them officers, being in rear of this army, selling
+captured goods, sutlers' stores, etc. This had better be attended to
+by others. It has also been reported to me that many deserters from
+this army have joined him. Among them have been seen members of the
+Eighth Virginia Regiment." [Footnote: _Id_., vol xxix. pt. ii.
+p.652.] In the "Richmond Examiner" of August 18, 1863 (the same date
+as General Lee's letter), was the statement that "At a sale of
+Yankee plunder taken by Mosby and his men, held at Charlottesville
+last week, thirty-odd thousand dollars were realized, to be divided
+among the gallant band." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxix. pt.
+ii. p. 653.]
+
+The injury to the discipline of their own army gradually brought
+leading officers of the Confederates to the conviction that the
+"Partisan Rangers" cost more than they were worth. In January, 1864,
+General Rosser, one of the most distinguished cavalry officers of
+the South, made a formal communication to General Lee on the
+subject. "During the time I have been in the valley," he said, "I
+have had ample opportunity of judging of the efficiency and
+usefulness of the many irregular bodies of troops which occupy this
+country, known as partisans, etc., and am prompted by no other
+feeling than a desire to serve my country, to inform you that they
+are a nuisance and an evil to the service. Without discipline,
+order, or organization, they roam broadcast over the country, a band
+of thieves, stealing, pillaging, plundering, and doing every manner
+of mischief and crime. They are a terror to the citizens and an
+injury to the cause. They never fight; can't be made to fight. Their
+leaders are generally brave, but few of the men are good soldiers,
+and have engaged in this business for the sake of gain." [Footnote:
+_Id_., vol. xxxiii. p. 1081.] After classifying the mischiefs to the
+regular service, he continues: "It is almost impossible to manage
+the different companies of my brigade that are from Loudoun,
+Fauquier, Fairfax, etc., the region occupied by Mosby. They see
+these men living at their ease and enjoying the comforts of home,
+allowed to possess all that they capture, and their duties mere
+pastime pleasures compared with their own arduous ones, and it is a
+natural consequence, in the nature of man, that he should become
+dissatisfied under these circumstances. Patriotism fails, in a long
+and tedious war like this, to sustain the ponderous burdens which
+bear heavily and cruelly upon the heart and soul of man." [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxxiii. p. 1081.] General Rosser recommended
+the absorption of the partisan bodies into the ordinary brigades,
+using their supposed talents for scouting by sending them on
+expeditions as regular patrols and reconnoitring parties, reporting
+to their proper command as soon as the duty was done.
+
+It was upon Rosser's communication that Stuart made the endorsement
+already quoted, and Lee sent it forward to the War Department,
+further endorsed thus: "As far as my knowledge and experience
+extend, there is much truth in the statement of General Rosser. I
+recommend that the law authorizing these partisan corps be
+abolished. The evils resulting from their organization more than
+counterbalance the good they accomplish." The Secretary of War, Mr.
+Siddon, drafted a bill to abolish them, and it passed the
+Confederate House. Delay occurring in the Senate, the matter was
+compromised by transferring all the Rangers except Mosby's and
+McNeill's to the line. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 1082, 1253.] As it was
+to Mosby's that the reported facts applied, and all agreed that his
+was the best of the lot, we may imagine what must have been the
+character of the rest.
+
+In the first two winters of the war, these organizations were in the
+height of their pernicious activity, and the loyal West Virginians
+were their favorite victims. We knew almost nothing of their
+organization, except that they claimed some Confederate law for
+their being. We seldom found them in uniform, and had no means of
+distinguishing them from any other armed horse-stealers and
+"bush-whackers." We were, however, made unpleasantly certain of the
+fact that in every neighborhood where secession sentiments were
+rife, our messengers were waylaid and killed, small parties were
+ambushed, and all the exasperating forms of guerilla warfare were
+abundant. Besides all this, the Confederate authorities assumed to
+call out the militia of counties into which they were intending to
+make an expedition, so that they might have the temporary
+co-operation of local troops. They claimed the right to do this
+because they had not recognized the separation of West Virginia, and
+insisted that the whole was subject to the laws of Virginia. The
+result was that the Union men formed companies of "Home Guards" for
+self-protection, and the conflict of arms was carried into every
+settlement in the mountain nooks and along the valleys. In this kind
+of fighting there was no quarter given, or if prisoners were taken,
+they were too often reported as having met with fatal accidents
+before they could be handed over to the regular authorities. As all
+this could have no effect upon the progress of the war, the more
+cool and intelligent heads of both sides opposed it, and gradually
+diminished it. Severe measures against it were in fact merciful, for
+the horrors of war are always least when the fighting is left to the
+armies of responsible belligerents, unprovoked by the petty but
+exasperating hostilities of irregulars. The trouble from this source
+was less during the winter of 1862-63 than it had been the year
+before, but it still gave occupation to small movable columns of our
+troops from time to time.
+
+The organization of my staff was somewhat increased with the
+enlargement of responsibilities. Lieutenant-Colonel McElroy, who had
+been my adjutant-general in the campaign of 1861, returned to me as
+inspector-general and took the whole supervision of the equipment,
+drill, and instruction of the troops of the district. Major Bascom,
+who had received his promotion at the same time with mine, continued
+to be adjutant-general. The increased work in looking after supplies
+made more force in the commissariat a necessity, and Captain
+Barriger of the regular army was sent to me, my former commissary,
+Captain Treat, continuing on the staff. Barriger was a modest,
+clear-headed officer of admirable business qualifications, whom I
+had the good fortune to be again associated with late in the war.
+Three principal depots of supply were established at the bases of
+the principal lines of communication in the district,--Wheeling,
+Parkersburg, and Gallipolis. At each of these, depot commissaries
+and quartermasters were located, and the posts and commands at the
+front drew their supplies from them. Captain Fitch, my
+quartermaster, supervised his department in a similar way to that of
+the commissariat. My aides were Captain Christie and Lieutenant
+Conine, as before, and I added to them my brother, Theodore Cox, who
+served with me as volunteer aide without rank in the battles of
+South Mountain and Antietam, and was then appointed lieutenant in
+the Eleventh Ohio Infantry. He was my constant companion from this
+time till peace was established. The medical department remained
+under the care of Major Holmes, Brigade-Surgeon, who combined
+scientific with administrative qualities in a rare measure.
+
+There was no military movement during the winter of sufficient
+importance to be told at length. Constant scouting and
+reconnoissances were kept up, slight skirmishes were not infrequent,
+but these did not prevent our sense of rest and of preparation for
+the work of the next spring. General Crook, with a brigade, was
+transferred temporarily to the command of Rosecrans in Tennessee,
+and Kelley, Milroy, and Scammon divided the care of the three
+hundred miles of mountain ranges which made our front. My own
+leisure gave me the opportunity for some systematic and useful
+reading in military history and art. An amusing interlude occurred
+in a hot controversy which arose between General Milroy and one of
+his subordinates which would not be worth mentioning except for the
+fact that the subordinate had afterward a world-wide notoriety as
+military chief of the Paris Commune in 1870.
+
+Gustave Cluseret was a Frenchman, who was appointed in the spring of
+1862 an aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel upon the staff of
+General Fremont, who (with questionable legality) assigned him to
+command a brigade, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. i. pp.
+9, 35.] and recommended his appointment as brigadier for good
+conduct in the May and June campaign against Jackson. The
+appointment was made on October 14th, [Footnote: Army Register,
+1863, p. 95.] and during the fall and winter he had a brigade in
+Milroy's division. Milroy was, for a time, loud in his praises of
+Cluseret as the _beau ideal_ of an officer, and their friendship was
+fraternal. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxi. p. 779.] In the
+winter, however, their mutual admiration was nipped by a killing
+frost, and a controversy sprung up between them which soon led to
+mutual recrimination also in the superlative degree. They addressed
+their complaints to General Halleck, and as the papers passed
+through my headquarters, I was a witness of their berating of each
+other. They made a terrible din, on paper, for a while, but I cannot
+recall anything very serious in their accusations. Halleck
+pigeon-holed their correspondence, but Milroy had powerful political
+friends, and Cluseret, learning that his appointment would not be
+confirmed by the Senate, anticipated their action, and terminated
+his military career in the United States by resigning two days
+before the close of the session of Congress. [Footnote: Army
+Register, 1863, p. 101. His name does not appear in the lists in the
+body of the Register, because he was not in the Army April 1, 1863,
+the date of publication.]
+
+This brings me to the subject of Congressional action in the matter
+of the promotions and appointments in the army during this winter
+session which closed the Thirty-seventh Congress. By it I was myself
+to suffer the one severe disappointment of my military career. The
+time was one of great political excitement, for the fall elections
+had resulted in a great overturning in the Congressional
+delegations. The Democrats had elected so many representatives for
+the Thirty-eighth Congress that it was doubtful whether the
+administration would be able to command a majority in the House. The
+retirement of McClellan from the command had also provoked much
+opposition, and in the lack of full knowledge of the reasons for
+displacing him, political ones were imagined and charged. Public
+policy forbade the President to make known all his grounds of
+dissatisfaction with the general, and many of his own party openly
+questioned his wisdom and his capacity to govern. Men whose
+patriotism cannot be questioned shared in this distrust, and in
+their private writings took the most gloomy view of the situation
+and of the future of the country. This was intensified when Burnside
+was so bloodily repulsed at Fredericksburg at the close of the first
+week of the session. [Footnote: Mr. W. P. Cutler, Representative
+from Ohio, a modest but very intelligent and patriotic man, wrote in
+his diary under December 16th: "This is a day of darkness and peril
+to the country... Lincoln himself seems to have no nerve or decision
+in dealing with great issues. We are at sea, and no pilot or
+captain. God alone can take care of us, and all his ways _seem_ to
+be against us and to favor the rebels and their allies the
+Democrats. Truly it is a day of darkness and gloom." "Life and
+Times" of Ephraim Cutler, with biographical sketches of Jervis
+Cutler and W. P. Cutler, p.296.]
+
+As is usual in revolutionary times, more radical measures were
+supposed by many to be the cure for disasters, and in caucuses held
+by congressmen the supposed conservatism of Mr. Lincoln and part of
+his cabinet was openly denounced, and the earnestness of the army
+leaders was questioned. [Footnote: Mr. Cutler reports a caucus of
+the House held January 27th, in which "Mr. ---- stated that the great
+difficulty was in holding the President to anything. He prided
+himself on having a divided cabinet, so that he could play one
+against the other... The earnest men are brought to a deadlock by
+the President. The President is tripped up by his generals, who for
+the most part seem to have no heart in their work." _Id_., p.301.
+Mr. Cutler himself expresses similar sentiments and reiterates: "It
+really seems as if the ship of state was going to pieces in the
+storm." "How striking the want of a leader. The nation is without a
+head." "The true friends of the government are groping around
+without a leader," etc. _Id_., pp. 297, 301,302] Much of this was a
+misunderstanding of the President and of events which time has
+corrected, but at the moment and in the situation of the country it
+was natural. It strongly affected the conduct of the federal
+legislators, and must be taken into the account when we try to
+understand their attitude toward the army and the administration of
+military affairs.
+
+In the Senate, at a very early day after the opening of the session,
+Mr. Wilson, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, offered a
+resolution (which passed without opposition) calling upon the
+Secretary of War for "the number and names of the major-generals and
+brigadier-generals in the service of the United States, and where
+and how they are employed." [Footnote: Senate Journal, 3d Session,
+37th Congress, Dec. 8, 1862.] This was, no doubt, the offspring of
+an opinion in vogue in Congress, that the President had gone beyond
+the authority of law in the number of these officers he had
+appointed. If this were true, the course taken was not a friendly
+one toward the administration. The whole list of appointments and
+promotions would be submitted to the Senate for confirmation, and if
+the statutory number had been exceeded, that body could stop
+confirming when it reached the legal limit. There were, of course,
+frequent consultations between the Congressional committees or the
+individual members and the Secretary of War; but whatever efforts
+there may have been to reach a quiet understanding failed. On the
+21st of January, the Secretary not having responded to Mr. Wilson's
+resolution, Mr. Rice of Minnesota offered another (which also passed
+by unanimous consent), directing the Secretary of War "to inform the
+Senate whether any more major and brigadier generals have been
+appointed and paid than authorized by law; and if so, how many; give
+names, dates of appointment and amounts paid." [Footnote: _Id_.,
+Jan. 21, 1863.]
+
+Two days later the Secretary sent in his reports in response to both
+resolutions. To the first he replied that the interests of the
+public service would not permit him to state "where and how" the
+general officers were employed, but he gave the list of names. He
+gave also a separate list of six major-generals who were not
+assigned to any duty. [Footnote: These were McClellan, Fremont,
+Cassius M. Clay, Buell (ordered before a military commission),
+McDowell, and F. J. Porter (both before military courts in
+connection with the second battle of Bull Run).] To the second
+resolution he replied that "It is believed by this Department that
+the law authorizing the increase of the volunteer and militia forces
+necessarily implied an increase of officers beyond the number
+specified in the Act of July 17, 1862, to any extent required by the
+service, and that the number of appointments is not beyond such
+limit." If the limit of the statute named were strictly applied, he
+said there would be found to be nine major-generals and forty-six
+brigadier-generals in excess. There had been no payments of
+increased salary to correspond with the increased rank, except in
+one instance. [Footnote: Executive Documents of Senate, 3d Session,
+37th Congress, Nos. 21 and 22. The nine major-generals were Schuyler
+Hamilton, Granger, Cox, Rousseau, McPherson, Augur, Meade, Hartsuff,
+and N. B. Buford. If the number were thirteen, it would include
+Foster, Parke, Schenck, and Hurlbut.] The list submitted showed
+fifty-two major-generals in service, and one (Buford) was omitted,
+so that if forty should prove to be the limit, there would be
+thirteen in excess. This, however, was only apparently true, for the
+Secretary's list included the four major-generals in the regular
+army, whose case was not covered by the limitation of the statute.
+This seems to have been overlooked in the steps subsequently taken
+by members of Congress, and as the action was unwelcome to the
+President, he did not enlighten the legislators respecting their
+miscalculation. The business proceeded upon the supposition that the
+appointments in the highest rank were really thirteen in excess of
+the number fixed by the statute.
+
+The state of the law was this. The Act of July 22, 1861, authorized
+the President to call for volunteers, not exceeding half a million,
+and provided for one brigadier-general for four regiments and one
+major-general for three brigades. The Act of 25th July of the same
+year authorized a second call of the same number, and provided for
+"such number of major-generals and brigadier-generals as may in his
+(the President's) judgment be required for their organization." In
+the next year, however, a "rider" was put upon the clause in the
+appropriation bill to pay the officers and men of the volunteer
+service, which provided "that the President shall not be authorized
+to appoint more than forty major-generals, nor more than two hundred
+brigadier-generals," and repealed former acts which allowed more.
+[Footnote: The several acts referred to may be found in vol. xii. U.
+S. Statutes at Large, pp. 268, 274, 506. The appropriation bill was
+passed July 5, 1862. The date July 17, 1862, in the Secretary's
+report seems to be a misprint.] This limit just covered those who
+had been appointed up to the date of the approval of the
+appropriation bill. Two questions, however, were still open for
+dispute. First, whether a "rider" upon the appropriation should
+change a general law on the subject of army organization, and
+second, whether the new limit might not allow appointments to be
+_thereafter_ made to the extent of the numbers stated. The report of
+Mr. Stanton evidently suggests such questions.
+
+The matter was now in good shape for what politicians call "a deal,"
+and negotiations between members of Congress and the executive were
+active. The result appears to have been an understanding that a bill
+should be passed increasing the number of general officers, so as
+not only to cover the appointments already made, but leaving a
+considerable margin of new promotions to be filled by arrangement
+between the high contracting parties. On the 12th of February, 1863,
+the Senate passed a bill providing for the appointment of twenty
+major-generals of volunteers and fifty brigadiers. This was not
+acceptable to the House. The battle of Stone's River had lately been
+fought in Tennessee, and representatives from the West were urgent
+in arguing that affairs near Washington unduly filled the view of
+the administration. There was some truth in this. At any rate the
+House amended the bill so as to increase the numbers to forty
+major-generals and one hundred brigadiers, to be made by promotions,
+for meritorious service, from lower grades. As soon as it was known
+that the Military Committee of the House would report such an
+amendment, it was assumed that the Senate would concur, and a
+"slate" was made up accordingly. On the hypothesis that the list of
+major-generals was thirteen in excess of the forty fixed by statute,
+a new list of twenty-seven was made out, which would complete the
+forty to be added by the new bill. A similar list was prepared for
+the brigadiers and precisely similar negotiations went on, but for
+brevity's sake I shall confine myself to the list for the highest
+rank, in which I was personally concerned.
+
+The House passed the amended bill on the 27th of February, and it
+went back to the Senate for concurrence in the amendments. But now
+an unexpected difficulty arose. The Senate refused to concur in the
+changes made by the House. It matters little whether the senators
+were offended at the determination of the lower House to have so
+large a share in the nominations, or desired to punish the President
+for having gone beyond the letter of the law in his promotions of
+1862; the fact was that they voted down the amendments. A committee
+of conference between the two houses was appointed, and a compromise
+report was made fixing the additional number of major-generals at
+thirty and of brigadiers at seventy-five. Both Houses finally
+concurred in the report, the bill went to the President on the 1st
+of March, and he signed it on the next day.
+
+There was but a single working-day of the session left, for the
+session must end at noon of the 4th of March. The list must be
+reduced. The manner in which this was done clinches the proof, if
+there had been any doubt before, that the list of twenty-seven was
+the result of negotiations with congressmen. No meddling with that
+list was permitted, though the use of patronage as "spoils" had some
+very glaring illustrations in it. The President had to make the
+reduction from his own promotions made earlier, and which were
+therefore higher on the list and in rank, instead of dropping those
+last added, as had seemed to be demanded by the earlier action of
+Congress. The only exception to this was in the case of General
+Schofield, whose even-handed administration of the District of
+Missouri and army of the frontier had excited the enmity of extreme
+politicians in that State and in Kansas, led by Senator "Jim" Lane,
+the prince of "jay-hawkers." Schofield was dropped from the
+twenty-seven.
+
+A few changes had occurred in the original roster of officers,
+making additional vacancies. Governor Morgan of New York, who had a
+complimentary appointment as major-general, but had never served,
+resigned. Schuyler Hamilton also resigned, and Fitz-John Porter was
+cashiered.
+
+The number to be sacrificed was thus reduced to six, and the lot
+fell on Generals N. B. Buford, G. W. Morell, W. F. Smith, H. G.
+Wright, J. M. Schofield, and myself. The last four won their
+promotion a second time and were re-appointed and confirmed at
+varying intervals; but of that later. Of course, in such a scramble
+it was only a question as to who had or had not powerful friends on
+the spot who would voluntarily champion his cause. No one at a
+distance could have any warning. The passage of the bill and action
+under it came together. For myself, I had gone quietly on in the
+performance of duty, never dreaming of danger, and it was long years
+after the war before I learned how the thing had in fact been done.
+My place had been near the top of the list, the commands which I had
+exercised and the responsibilities intrusted to me had been greater
+than those of the large majority of the appointees, and I had
+conclusive evidence of the approval of my superiors. The news was at
+first, therefore, both astonishing and disheartening. As a result of
+political "influences," it is sufficiently intelligible. I had at
+that time a barely speaking acquaintance with Senator Wade of Ohio.
+It was the same with Senator Sherman, but with the added
+disadvantage that in the senatorial contest of 1860 between him and
+Governor Dennison I had warmly espoused the cause of the latter. Mr.
+Hutchins, the representative from my district, had not been
+renominated, and Garfield, who was elected in his place, had not yet
+taken his seat, but was still in the military service in the field.
+Mr. Chase had been a constant friend, but this was just the time
+when his differences with Mr. Lincoln had become acute, and since
+the 20th of December the President had in his hands the resignations
+of both Seward and Chase, which enabled him to refuse both, and to
+baffle the party in the Senate which was trying to force him to
+reorganize his cabinet by excluding Seward and those who were
+thought the more conservative. As he expressed it, "he had a pumpkin
+in each end of his bag, and could now ride." [Footnote: Hay and
+Nicolay's "Lincoln," vol. vi. p. 271.] If, on the theory of
+apportioning the promotions to States, it were held that Ohio must
+lose one of the six nominated, it was easy to see where the balance
+of influence would be. General Halleck was well known to be
+persistent in favoring appointments from the regular army, and would
+urge that the reduction should be made from those originally
+appointed from civil life. These were Schenck and myself. But
+General Schenck was a veteran member of the House of Representatives
+and had now been elected to the next house, in which it was known he
+would be a prominent character. It goes without saying, therefore,
+that on such a basis the black ball would come to me. [Footnote: The
+promotions of Ohio officers then pending, besides my own, were of
+Schenck, McCook, Rosecrans, Stanley, McPherson, and Sheridan.] To
+complete the story of the promotions made at this time, it may be
+added that a short executive session of the Senate was held after
+the regular adjournment of Congress on the 4th of March, and that
+the President sent in the names of Carl Schurz and Julius Stahel to
+be made major-generals. For one of these a vacancy was made by the
+arrangement that Cassius M. Clay was reappointed minister to St.
+Petersburg and resigned the military rank which he had never used.
+The other seems to have been made by a resignation to take effect
+the next month. General Sumner died on the 21st of March, making
+another vacancy, but it is difficult to fix with accuracy the exact
+date of the changes which occurred. [Footnote: The reason for this
+difficulty is in part found in the frequent assignment of rank to
+officers from an earlier date than their appointment, and as the
+official lists are arranged according to rank, they are sometimes
+misleading as to date of appointment. Thus Rosecrans dates in the
+register from March 21, 1862, but he was not appointed till some six
+months later. So also Schofield when reappointed in May, 1863, was
+made to rank as in his first appointment, from Nov. 29, 1862.] In
+the case of the last two promotions Mr. Lincoln openly declared that
+he made them in recognition of the German element in the army and in
+politics. [Footnote: For an illustration of Mr. Lincoln's way of
+putting things in such cases, see "Military Miscellany" by Colonel
+James B. Fry, p. 281.]
+
+It would be unjust to assume that members of Congress and the
+President were not guided by patriotic motives. The reform of the
+public service in matters of appointment had not then attracted much
+attention. Patronage was used for political purposes with complete
+frankness and openness. In civil offices this custom was boldly
+defended and advocated. There was some consciousness shown that
+promotions in the army ought to be controlled by a somewhat
+different rule, but it seemed to be thought that enough was done in
+the way of safeguard when the choice was confined to officers
+already in service, and appointments for the highest grades were not
+given to entirely new men from civil life. Each aspirant could find
+friends to sound his praises, and it was easy to assert that it was
+only giving preference to one's friends among officers of equal
+merit. Many excellent appointments were in fact made, and the
+proportion of these would have been greater if the judgment of
+military superiors had been more controlling in determining the
+whole list. Mr. Lincoln's humorous way of explaining his actions may
+give an impression of a lower standard than he actually
+acknowledged; but it cannot be denied that he allowed himself to be
+pressed into making military promotions, at times, upon purely
+political or personal reasons. [Footnote: Colonel Fry, who was
+assistant adjutant-general at Washington and in personal intercourse
+with the President, gives the following as a memorandum made by Mr.
+Lincoln himself in reference to an application to have a
+regular-army officer made a brigadier-general of volunteers. "On
+this day Mrs. ----- called upon me: she is the wife of Major -----
+of the regular army. She is a saucy little woman, and I think she
+will torment me till I have to do it." Colonel Fry adds, "It was not
+long till that little woman's husband was appointed a
+brigadier-general." Miscellany, pp. 280, 281.]
+
+It did not seem to occur to the authorities that the judgment of
+superior officers in the field should be called for and carefully
+considered when it was a question of promoting one of their
+subordinates. An instance which occurred in General Buell's army
+carried this beyond the verge of the grotesque. Colonel Turchin, of
+an Illinois regiment, was a Russian, an educated officer who had
+served in the Russian staff corps. An excellent soldier in many
+respects, his ideas of discipline were, unfortunately, lax, and in
+the summer of 1862 he was courtmartialled for allowing his men to
+pillage a town in Tennessee. The court was an intelligent one, of
+which General Garfield was president. The story current in the army
+at the time, and which I believe to be true, is that after the court
+had heard part of the testimony it became apparent that they must
+convict, and Mrs. Turchin, who usually accompanied her husband in
+the field, started to the rear to procure political "influences" to
+save him. With various recommendations she went to Washington, and
+was so successful that although the sentence of the court dismissing
+him from the service was promulgated on the 6th of August, he had
+been appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on the 5th, and he
+was not one of those who were dropped from the list on March 3,
+1863. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 277.] The
+trial was one of considerable notoriety, yet it is probable that it
+was overlooked by the President and Secretary of War at the time the
+appointment was made; but it cannot need to be said that whatever
+grounds for leniency might have existed, it turns the whole business
+into a farce when they were made the basis of a promotion in the
+revised list six months later. To add to the perfection of the
+story, Mrs. Turchin had acted on her own responsibility, and the
+colonel did not know of the result till he had gone home, and in an
+assembly of personal friends who called upon him ostensibly to cheer
+him in his doleful despondency, his wife brought the little drama to
+its _denouement_ by presenting him with the appointment in their
+presence.
+
+One of the worst features of the method of appointment by "slate"
+made up between congressmen and the executive was that it filled up
+every place allowed by law, and left nothing to be used as a
+recognition for future services in the field, except as vacancies
+occurred, and these were few and far between. The political
+influences which determined the appointment were usually powerful
+enough to prevent dismissal. Whoever will trace the employment of
+officers of the highest grades in the last half of the war, will
+find large numbers of these on unimportant and nominal duty, whilst
+their work in the active armies was done by men of lower grade, to
+whom the appropriate rank had to be refused. The system was about as
+bad as could be, but victory was won in spite of it. It was
+fortunate, on the whole, that we did not have the grades of
+lieutenant-general and general during the war, as the Confederates
+had. They made the one the regular rank of a corps commander and the
+other of the commander of an army in the field. With us the
+assignment of a major-general by the President to command a corps
+gave him a temporary precedence over other major-generals not so
+assigned, and in like manner for the commander of an army.
+[Footnote: Our system was essentially that of the first French
+Republic and the Consulate, under which any general of division was
+assignable to an army command in chief.] If these were relieved,
+they lost the precedence, and thus there was a sort of temporary
+rank created, giving a flexibility to the grade of major-general,
+without which we should have been greatly embarrassed. Grant's rank
+of lieutenant-general was an exceptional grade, made for him alone,
+when, after the battle of Missionary Ridge, he was assigned to the
+command of all the armies.
+
+These opinions of mine are not judgments formed after the fact. The
+weak points in our army organization were felt at the time, and I
+took every means in my power to bring them to the attention of the
+proper authorities, State and National. At the close of 1862 a
+commission was appointed by the Secretary of War to revise the
+articles of war and army regulations. Of this commission
+Major-General Hitchcock was chairman. They issued a circular calling
+for suggestions as to alterations supposed to be desirable, and a
+copy was sent to me among others. I took occasion to report the
+results of my own experience, and to trace the evils which existed
+to their sources in our military system. I called attention to the
+striking parallel between our practices and those that had been in
+use in the first French Republic, and to the identical mischiefs
+which had resulted. Laxity of discipline, straggling, desertion,
+demagoguery in place of military spirit, giving commissions as the
+reward of mere recruiting, making new regiments instead of filling
+up the old ones, absence of proper staff corps,--every one of these
+things had been suffered in France till they could no longer be
+endured, and we had faithfully copied their errors without profiting
+by the lesson.
+
+In the freedom of private correspondence with Mr. Chase I enlarged
+upon the same topics, and urged him to get the serious attention of
+the President and the cabinet to them. I gave him examples of the
+mischiefs that were done by the insane efforts to raise new
+regiments by volunteering when we ought to apply a conscription as
+the only fair way of levying a tax on the physical strength of the
+nation. I said: "I have known a lieutenant to be forced by his
+captain (a splendid soldier) to resign on account of his general
+inefficiency. I have seen that same lieutenant take the field a few
+months later as lieutenant-colonel of a new regiment, whilst the
+captain still stood at the head of his fraction of a company in the
+line. This is not a singular instance, but an example of cases
+occurring literally by the thousand in our vast army during the year
+past.... Governor Tod (of Ohio) said to me some time ago, with the
+deepest sorrow, that he was well aware that in raising the new
+regiments by volunteering, the distribution of offices to the
+successful recruiters was filling the army with incompetent men whom
+we should have to sift out again by such process as we could!....
+Have we time for the sifting process? Even if we had, how
+inefficient the process itself when these officers have their
+commissions in their pockets, and cannot be brought before a court
+or a military commission till much of the mischief they can do is
+accomplished, bad habits amongst the soldiers formed, and the work
+of training them made infinitely more difficult than with absolutely
+raw recruits. It was in view of such probable results that I
+expressed the hope that no more new regiments would be raised by
+volunteering, when, in July last, the levy of an additional force
+was mooted. It seemed to me that the President could well say to the
+world, 'Our people have shown abundant proof of their enthusiasm in
+support of the government by volunteering already to the number of
+more than half a million, a thing unprecedented in the world's
+history: we now, as a matter of military expediency, call for a
+draft to fill up the broken battalions.'" [Footnote: From private
+letter of Jan. 1, 1863.]
+
+I urged with equal frankness the need of giving unity to the army by
+abolishing the distinction between regulars and volunteers, and by a
+complete reorganization of the staff. I said it seemed absurd that
+with nearly a million of men in the field, the Register of the Army
+of the United States should show an organization of some twenty
+regiments only, of which scarce a dozen had been in active service.
+"If a volunteer organization is fit to decide the _great_ wars of
+the nation, is it not ridiculous to keep an expensive organization
+of regulars for the petty contests with Indians or for an ornamental
+appendage to the State in peace?" The thing to be aimed at seemed to
+me to be to have a system flexible enough to provide for the
+increase of the army to any size required, without losing any of the
+advantage of character or efficiency which, in any respect,
+pertained to it as a regular army. Circumstances to which I have
+already alluded, probably prevented Mr. Chase from taking any active
+part again in the discussion of army affairs in the cabinet.
+Probably many of the same ideas were urged upon the President from
+other quarters, for there was much agitation of the subject in the
+army and out of it. But nothing came of it, for even the draft, when
+it became the law, was used more as a shameful whip to stimulate
+volunteering than as an honorable and right way to fill the ranks of
+the noble veteran regiments. General Sherman found, in 1864, the
+same wrong system thwarting his efforts to make his army what it
+should be, and broke out upon it in glorious exasperation.
+[Footnote: Letter to Halleck, Sept. 4, 1864. "To-morrow is the day
+for the draft, and I feel more interested in it than in any event
+that ever transpired. I do think it has been wrong to keep our old
+troops so constantly under fire. Some of these old regiments that we
+had at Shiloh and Corinth have been with me ever since, and some of
+them have lost seventy per cent in battle. It looks hard to put
+these brigades, now numbering less than 800 men, into battle. They
+feel discouraged, whereas, if we could have a steady influx of
+recruits, the living would soon forget the dead. The wounded and
+sick are lost to us, for once at a hospital, they become worthless.
+It has been a very bad economy to kill off our best men and pay full
+wages and bounties to the drift and substitutes." Official Records,
+vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 793.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FAREWELL TO WEST VIRGINIA--BURNSIDE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO
+
+
+Desire for field service--Changes in the Army of the
+Potomac--Judgment of McClellan at that time--Our defective
+knowledge--Changes in West Virginia--Errors in new
+organization--Embarrassments resulting--Visit to General
+Schenck--New orders from Washington--Sent to Ohio to administer the
+draft--Burnside at head of the department--District of
+Ohio--Headquarters at Cincinnati--Cordial relations of Governor Tod
+with the military authorities--System of enrolment and
+draft--Administration by Colonel Fry--Decay of the veteran
+regiments--Bounty-jumping--Effects on political parties--Soldiers
+voting--Burnside's military plans--East Tennessee--Rosecrans aiming
+at Chattanooga--Burnside's business habits--His frankness--Stories
+about him--His personal characteristics--Cincinnati as a border
+city--Rebel sympathizers--Order No. 38--Challenged by
+Vallandigham--The order not a new departure--Lincoln's
+proclamation--General Wright's circular.
+
+
+My purpose to get into active field service had not slept, and soon
+after the establishment of a winter organization in the district, I
+had applied to be ordered to other duty. My fixed conviction that no
+useful military movements could be made across the mountain region
+implied that the garrisons of West Virginia should be reduced to a
+minimum and confined to the duty of defending the frontier of the
+new State. The rest of the troops might properly be added to the
+active columns in the field. McClellan had been relieved of command
+whilst I was conducting active operations in the Kanawha valley, and
+Burnside suffered his repulse at Fredericksburg within a few days
+after I was directed to make my headquarters at Marietta and perfect
+the organization of the district. I was therefore at a loss to
+choose where I would serve, even if I had been given _carte blanche_
+to determine my own work. Enough was known of the reasons for the
+President's dissatisfaction with McClellan to make me admit that the
+change of command was an apparent necessity, yet much was unknown,
+and the full strength of the President's case was not revealed till
+the war was over. My personal friendship for McClellan remained
+warm, and I felt sure that Hooker as a commander would be a long
+step downward. In private I did not hesitate to express the wish
+that McClellan should still be intrusted with the command of the
+Potomac army, that it should be strongly reinforced, and that by
+constant pressure upon its commander his indecision of character
+might be overcome. Those who were near to McClellan believed that he
+was learning greater self-confidence, for the Antietam campaign
+seemed a decided improvement on that of the Chickahominy. The event,
+in great measure, justified this opinion, for it was not till Grant
+took command a year later that any leadership superior to
+McClellan's was developed. Yet it must be confessed that we did not
+know half the discouragements that were weighing upon the President
+and his Secretary of War, and which made the inertia of the Eastern
+army demand a desperate remedy.
+
+My personal affairs drifted in this way: the contest over the lists
+of promotions, of which I knew next to nothing, prevented any action
+on the request for a change of duty, and the close of the session of
+Congress brought the official notice that the promotion had expired
+by legal limitation. [Footnote: March 24th; received the 30th.] The
+first effect was naturally depressing, and it took a little time and
+some philosophy to overcome it; but the war was not ended yet, and
+reflection made the path of duty appear to be in the line of
+continued active service.
+
+To form a new department for General Schenck, West Virginia was
+detached from the Department of the Ohio and annexed to Maryland.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxv. pt. ii. p. 145.] This was a
+mistake from a military point of view, for not only must the posts
+near the mountains be supplied and reinforced from the Ohio as their
+base, toward which would also be the line of retreat if retreat were
+necessary, but the frequent advances of the Confederate forces,
+through the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac, always separated the
+West from any connection with Baltimore, and made it impossible for
+an officer stationed there (as General Schenck was) to direct
+affairs in the western district at the very time of greatest
+necessity.
+
+Another important fact was overlooked. The river counties of Ohio
+formed part of the district, and the depots on the river were
+supplied from Cincinnati. Not only was Gallipolis thus put in
+another department from the posts directly dependent on that depot
+as a base of supplies and the principal station for hospitals, but
+the new boundary line left me, personally, and my headquarters in
+the Department of the Ohio. I at once called the attention of the
+War Department to these results, sending my communication in the
+first instance through General Wright. He was in the same boat with
+myself, for his rank had also been reduced on the 4th of March, but
+he thought the intention must have been to transfer me with the
+district to the Eastern Department. On this I wrote to Washington
+direct, asking for definite orders. I also wrote to General Schenck,
+telling him of General Wright's supposition that I was transferred
+with the district, and inquiring if he had any definite decision of
+the question. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 159, 160.]
+
+About the 3d of April I was directed to report in person to General
+Schenck at Baltimore, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 175.] and reached that
+city on the 4th. My relations with General Schenck had been,
+personally, cordial, and our friendship continued till his death,
+many years after the war. Whatever plans he may have had were set
+aside by orders from Washington, which met me at his headquarters,
+ordering me to report at Columbus, Ohio, to assist the governor in
+organizing the troops to be called out under the new enrolment and
+conscription law. This was accompanied by the assurance that this
+duty would be but temporary, and that my desire to be assigned to
+active field duty would then be favorably considered. It is not
+improbable that my report on army organization, which has been
+mentioned, had something to do with this assignment; but I did not
+ask permission to visit Washington, though within a couple of hours'
+ride of the capital, and hastened back to my assigned post. Besides
+my wish to cut my connection with West Virginia on general military
+theories of its insignificance as a theatre of war, my stay there
+would have been intolerable, since General Milroy, in whose judgment
+I had less confidence than in that of any of my other subordinates,
+was, by the curious outcome of the winter's promotions, the one of
+all others who had been put over my head. I could not then foresee
+the cost the country would pay for this in the next summer's
+campaign in the Shenandoah, but every instinct urged me to sever a
+connection which could bode no good. The reasonableness of my
+objection to serving as a subordinate where I had been in command
+was recognized, and the arrangement actually made was as acceptable
+as anything except a division in an active army.
+
+It greatly added to my contentment to learn that General Burnside
+had been ordered to the Department of the Ohio, and would be my
+immediate superior. I hastened back to Marietta, closed up the
+business pending there, and went to Columbus on the 9th of April.
+The arrangement between Governor Tod and General Burnside proved to
+be the formation of the Military District of Ohio, including the
+whole State. I was placed in command of this district, reporting
+directly to the general, who himself conferred with the governor. My
+own relations to my superiors were thus made strictly military,
+which was a much pleasanter thing for me than direct connection with
+the civil authorities would be; for this involved a danger of
+cross-purposes and conflicting orders. Brigadier-General John S.
+Mason, an excellent officer, was ordered to report to me as my
+immediate subordinate in command of the camps and the post at
+Columbus, and before the end of the month Burnside directed me to
+fix my own headquarters at Cincinnati, where I could be in constant
+communication with himself. All this was done with the most cordial
+understanding between Burnside and the governor. Indeed, nothing
+could be more perfect than the genial and reasonable tone of
+Governor Tod's intercourse with the military officers stationed in
+Ohio.
+
+My duties under the Enrolment Act turned out to be very slight. The
+Act (passed March 3, 1863) made, in general, each congressional
+district an enrolment district under charge of a provost-marshal
+with the rank of captain. A deputy provost-marshal supervised the
+enrolment and draft for the State, and the whole was under the
+control of the provost-marshal-general at Washington, Colonel James
+B. Fry. The law provided for classification of all citizens capable
+of military duty between the ages of twenty and forty-five, so as to
+call out first the unmarried men and those not having families
+dependent on them. The exemptions on account of physical defects
+were submitted to a board of three, of which the local
+provost-marshal was chairman, and one was a medical man. Substitutes
+might be accepted in the place of drafted men, or a payment of three
+hundred dollars would be taken in place of personal service, that
+sum being thought sufficient to secure a voluntary recruit by the
+government. The principal effect of this provision was to establish
+a current market price for substitutes.
+
+The general provisions of the law for the drafting were wise and
+well matured, and the rules for the subordinate details were well
+digested and admirably administered by Colonel Fry and his bureau.
+It was a delicate and difficult task, but it was carried out with
+such patience, honesty, and thoroughness that nothing better could
+be done than copy it, if a future necessity for like work should
+arise. There was no good ground for complaint, and in those cases
+where, as in New York, hostile political leaders raised the cry of
+unfairness and provoked collision between the mob and the National
+authorities, the victims were proved to be the dupes of ignorance
+and malice. The administration of the law was thoroughly vindicated,
+and if there were to be a draft at all, it could not be more fairly
+and justly enforced.
+
+There was room for difference of opinion as to some of the
+provisions of the law regarding exemption and substitution, but the
+most serious question was raised by the section which applied to old
+regiments and which had nothing to do with the enrolment and draft.
+This section directed that when regiments had become reduced in
+numbers by any cause, the officers of the regiment should be
+proportionately diminished. As new regiments were still received and
+credited upon the State's liability under the draft, it of course
+resulted that the old regiments continued to decay. A public
+sentiment had been created which looked upon the draft as a
+disgrace, and the most extraordinary efforts were made to escape it.
+Extra bounties for volunteering were paid by counties and towns, and
+the combination of influences was so powerful that it was successful
+in most localities, and very few men were actually put in the ranks
+by the draft.
+
+The offer of extra bounties to induce volunteering brought into
+existence "bounty-jumping," a new crime analogous to that of
+"repeating" at elections. A man would enlist and receive the bounty,
+frequently several hundred dollars, but varying somewhat in
+different places and periods. He would take an early opportunity to
+desert, as he had intended to do from the first. Changing his name,
+he would go to some new locality and enlist again, repeating the
+fraud as often as he could escape detection. The urgency to get
+recruits and forward them at once to the field, and the wide country
+which was open to recruiting, made the risk of punishment very
+small. Occasionally one was caught, and he would of course be liable
+to punishment as a deserter. The final report of the
+provost-marshal-general mentions the case of a criminal in the
+Albany penitentiary, New York, who confessed that he had "jumped the
+bounty" thirty-two times. [Footnote: Provost-Marshal-General's
+Report, p. 153.]
+
+Another evil incidental to the excessive stimulus of volunteering
+was a political one, which threatened serious results. It deranged
+the natural political balance of the country by sending the most
+patriotic young men to the field, and thus giving an undue power to
+the disaffected and to the opponents of the administration. This led
+to the State laws for allowing the soldiers to vote wherever they
+might be, their votes being certified and sent home. In its very
+nature this was a makeshift and a very dubious expedient to cure the
+mischief. It would not have been necessary if we had had at an early
+day a system of recruiting that would have drawn more evenly from
+different classes into the common service of the country.
+
+The military officers of the department and district had nothing to
+do with the enrolment and drafting, unless resistance to the
+provost-marshals should make military support for these officers
+necessary. We had hoped to have large camps of recruits to be
+organized and instructed, but the numbers actually drafted in Ohio,
+in 1863, were insignificant, for reasons already stated. Three or
+four very small post garrisons were the only forces at my command,
+and these were reduced to the minimum necessary to guard the prison
+camps and the depots of recruiting and supply.
+
+General Burnside had not come West with a purpose to content himself
+with the retiracy of a department out of the theatre of actual war.
+His department included eastern Kentucky, and afforded a base for
+operations in the direction of East Tennessee. Mr. Lincoln had never
+lost his eagerness and zeal to give assistance to the loyal
+mountaineers, and had arranged with Burnside a plan of co-operation
+with Rosecrans by which the former should move from Lexington, Ky.,
+upon Knoxville, whilst the latter marched from Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
+upon Chattanooga. This was better than the impracticable plan of
+1861, which aimed at the occupation of East Tennessee before
+Chattanooga had been taken, and the task was at last accomplished by
+the method now used. It was by no means the best or most economical
+method, which would have been to have but one strong army till
+Chattanooga were firmly in our hands, and then direct a subordinate
+column upon the upper Holston valley. It was utterly impossible to
+keep up a line of supply for an army in East Tennessee by the wagon
+roads over the mountains. The railroad through Chattanooga was
+indispensable for this purpose. But Mr. Lincoln had not fully
+appreciated this, and was discontented that both Buell and Rosecrans
+had in turn paid little attention, as it seemed, to his desire to
+make the liberation of East Tennessee the primary and immediate aim
+of their campaigns. He had therefore determined to show his own
+faith in Burnside, and his approval of the man, by giving him a
+small but active army in the field, and to carry out his cherished
+purpose by having it march directly over the Cumberland Mountains,
+whilst Rosecrans was allowed to carry out the plan on which the
+commanders of the Cumberland army seemed, in the President's
+opinion, too stubbornly bent.
+
+Burnside's old corps, the Ninth, was taken from the Army of the
+Potomac and sent to Kentucky, and a new corps, to be called the
+Twenty-third, was soon authorized, to contain the Tennessee
+regiments which had been in General Morgan's command, and two
+divisions made up of new regiments organized in Ohio, Indiana, and
+Illinois under the last call for volunteers. To these were added
+several Kentucky regiments of different ages in service. General
+Parke, so long Burnside's chief of staff, was to command the Ninth
+Corps, and Major-General George L. Hartsuff was assigned to the
+Twenty-third. In a former chapter I have spoken of Hartsuff's
+abilities as a staff officer in West Virginia. [Footnote: Chap, vi.,
+_ante_.] His qualities as a general officer had not been tried. He
+was wounded at the beginning of the engagement at Antietam, where he
+commanded a brigade in Hooker's corps. [Footnote: Chap, xv.,
+_ante_.] That was his first service under his appointment as
+brigadier, and he had necessarily been out of the field since that
+time. My own expectation was that he would make an excellent
+reputation as a corps commander, but it was not his fortune to see
+much continuous field service. His health was seriously affected by
+his wounds, and after a short trial of active campaigning he was
+obliged to seek more quiet employment.
+
+The establishment of my headquarters at Cincinnati threw me once
+more into close personal relations with Burnside, and enabled me to
+learn his character more intimately. His adjutant-general's office
+was on East Fourth Street, and most of the routine work was done
+there. The general had his own quarters on Ninth Street, where he
+had also an office for himself and his aides-de-camp. My own office
+and the official headquarters of the district were on Broadway below
+Fourth, in the house now occupied by the Natural History Society.
+There was thus near half a mile between us, though I was but a
+little way from the adjutant-general of the department, through
+whose office my regular business with the general went. Burnside,
+however, loved to discuss department affairs informally, and with
+the perfect freedom of unrestrained social intercourse. When he gave
+his confidence he gave it without reserve, and encouraged the
+fullest and freest criticism of his own plans and purposes. His
+decisions would then be put in official form by the proper officers
+of the staff, and would be transmitted, though I was nearly always
+personally aware of what was to be ordered before the formal papers
+reached me. He had very little pride of opinion, and was perfectly
+candid in weighing whatever was contrary to his predilections; yet
+he was not systematic in his business methods, and was quite apt to
+decide first and discuss afterward. He never found fault with a
+subordinate for assuming responsibility or acting without orders,
+provided he was assured of his earnest good purpose in doing so. In
+such cases he would assume the responsibility for what was done as
+cheerfully as if he had given the order. In like manner he was
+careless of forms himself, in doing whatever seemed necessary or
+proper, and might pass by intermediate officers to reach immediately
+the persons who were to act or the things to be done. There was no
+intentional slight to any one in this: it was only a characteristic
+carelessness of routine. Martinets would be exasperated by it, and
+would be pretty sure to quarrel with him. No doubt it was a bad
+business method, and had its mischiefs and inconveniences. A story
+used to go the rounds a little later that soldiers belonging to the
+little army in East Tennessee were sometimes arrested at their homes
+and sent back as deserters, when they would produce a furlough
+written by Burnside on a leaf of his pocket memorandum-book, which,
+as they said, had been given by him after hearing a pitiful story
+which moved his sympathies. Such inventions were a kind of popular
+recognition of his well-known neglect of forms, as well as of his
+kind heart. There was an older story about him, to the effect that,
+when a lieutenant in the army, he had been made post-quartermaster
+at some little frontier garrison, and that his accounts and returns
+got into such confusion that after several pretty sharp reminders
+the quartermaster-general notified him, as a final terror, that he
+would send a special officer and subject him and his papers to a
+severe scrutiny. As the story ran, Burnside, in transparent honesty,
+wrote a cordial letter of thanks in reply, saying it was just what
+he desired, as he had been trying hard to make his accounts up, but
+had to confess he could do nothing with them, but was sure such an
+expert would straighten them. In my own service under him I often
+found occasion to supply the formal links in the official chain, so
+that business would move on according to "regulations;" but any
+trouble that was made in this way was much more than compensated by
+the generous trust with which he allowed his name and authority to
+be used when prompt action would serve the greater ends in view.
+
+My habit was to go to his private quarters on Ninth Street, when the
+regular business of the day was over, and there get the military
+news and confer with him on pending or prospective business
+affecting my own district. His attractive personality made him the
+centre of a good deal of society, and business would drop into the
+background till late in the evening, when his guests voluntarily
+departed. Then, perhaps after midnight, he would take up the arrears
+of work and dictate letters, orders, and dispatches, turning night
+into day. It not unfrequently happened that after making my usual
+official call in the afternoon, I had gone to my quarters and to bed
+at my usual hour, when I would be roused by an orderly from the
+general begging that I would come up and consult with him on some
+matter of neglected business. He was always bright and clear in
+those late hours, and when he buckled to work, rapidly disposed of
+it.
+
+He did not indulge much in retrospect, and rarely referred to his
+misfortunes in the Army of the Potomac. On one or two occasions he
+discussed his Fredericksburg campaign with me. The delay in sending
+pontoons from Washington to Falmouth, which gave Lee time to
+concentrate at Fredericksburg, he reasonably argued, was the fault
+of the military authorities at Washington; but I could easily see
+that if his supervision of business had been more rigidly
+systematic, he would have made sure that he was not to be
+disappointed in his means of crossing the Rappahannock promptly. As
+to the battle itself he steadily insisted that the advance of
+Meade's division proved that if all the left wing had acted with
+equal vigor and promptness, Marye's heights would have been turned
+and carried. It is due to him to repeat that in such discussions his
+judgment of men and their motives was always kind and charitable. I
+never heard him say anything bitter, even of those whom I knew he
+distrusted.
+
+At the time I am speaking of, Cincinnati was in a curious political
+and social condition. The advance through Kentucky of Bragg and
+Kirby Smith in the preceding year had made it a centre for "rebel
+sympathizers." The fact that a Confederate army had approached the
+hills that bordered the river had revived the hopes and the
+confidence of many who, while wishing success to the Southern cause,
+had done so in a vague and distant way. Now it seemed nearer to
+them, and the stimulus to personal activity was greater. There was
+always, in the city, a considerable and influential body of business
+men who were of Southern families; and besides this, the trade
+connections with the South, and the personal alliances by marriage,
+made a ground of sympathy which had noticeable effects. There were
+two camps in the community, pretty distinctly defined, as there were
+in Kentucky. The loyal were ardently and intensely so. The disloyal
+were bitter and not always restrained by common prudence. A good
+many Southern women, refugees from the theatre of active war, were
+very open in their defiance of the government, and in their efforts
+to aid the Southern armies by being the bearers of intelligence. The
+"contraband mail" was notoriously a large and active one.
+
+Burnside had been impressed with this condition of things from the
+day he assumed command. His predecessor had struggled with it
+without satisfactory results. It was, doubtless, impossible to do
+more than diminish and restrain the evil, which was the most
+annoying of the smaller troubles attending the anomalous
+half-military and half-civil government of the department. Within
+three weeks from his arrival in Cincinnati, Burnside was so
+convinced of the widespread and multiform activity of the disloyal
+element that he tried to subdue it by the publication of his famous
+General Order No. 38. The reading of the order gives a fair idea of
+the hostile influences he found at work, for of every class named by
+him there were numerous examples.
+[Footnote: The text of the order is as follows:
+
+"General Orders.
+No. 38.
+
+
+HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
+CINCINNATI, OHIO, April 13, 1863.
+
+
+The commanding general publishes, for the information of all
+concerned, that hereafter all persons found within our lines who
+commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, will be
+tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death.
+This order includes the following classes of persons: Carriers of
+secret mails; writers of letters sent by secret mails; secret
+recruiting officers within the lines; persons who have entered into
+an agreement to pass our lines for the purpose of joining the enemy;
+persons found concealed within our lines, belonging to the service
+of the enemy; and, in fact, all persons found improperly within our
+lines who could give private information to the enemy; and all
+persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe,
+or in any way aid the enemies of our country. The habit of declaring
+sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department.
+Persons committing such offences will be at once arrested with a
+view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into
+the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that
+treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this
+department. All officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the
+execution of this order,
+By command of Major-General Burnside,
+LEWIS RICHMOND,
+Assistant Adjutant General."]
+
+It was no doubt true that the Confederate authorities had constant
+correspondence with people in the Northern States, and that
+systematic means were used to pass information and contraband
+merchandise through the lines. Quinine among drugs, and percussion
+caps among ordnance stores were the things they most coveted, and
+dealers in these carried on their trade under pretence of being
+spies for each side in turn. But besides these who were merely
+mercenary, there were men and women who were honestly fanatical in
+their devotion to the Confederate cause. The women were especially
+troublesome, for they often seemed to court martyrdom. They
+practised on our forbearance to the last degree; for they knew our
+extreme unwillingness to deal harshly with any of their sex.
+Personally, I rated the value of spies and informers very low, and
+my experience had made me much more prone to contempt than to fear
+of them. But examples had to be made occasionally; a few men were
+punished, a few women who belonged in the South were sent through
+the lines, and we reduced to its lowest practical terms an evil and
+nuisance which we could not wholly cure. The best remedy for these
+plots and disturbances at the rear always was to keep the enemy busy
+by a vigorous aggressive at the front. We kept, however, a species
+of provost court pretty actively at work, and one or two officers
+were assigned to judge-advocate's duty, who ran these courts under a
+careful supervision to make sure that they should not fall into
+indiscretions.
+
+So long as the hand of military power was laid only on private
+persons who were engaged in overt acts of giving aid and comfort to
+the rebellion in the ways specified in Order No. 38, there was
+little criticism. But the time came when General Burnside seemed to
+be challenged by a public character of no little prominence to
+enforce his order against him. The Vallandigham case became the
+sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance.
+The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion
+that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No.
+38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so. In
+the preceding year, and about the time of his Emancipation
+Proclamation, the President had also proclaimed against treasonable
+practices in very emphatic terms. He had declared that "all rebels
+and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States,
+and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting
+militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid
+and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States,
+shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment
+by courts-martial or military commission." [Footnote: Messages and
+Papers of the Presidents, vol. vi. p. 98. See also Order No. 42 of
+General Burbridge, commanding District of Kentucky. Official
+Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 27.]
+
+Burnside's order was in strict accordance with this authority, and
+he had no ultimate responsibility for the policy thus proclaimed. He
+was simply reiterating and carrying out in his department the
+declared purpose of the administration. Even in the matter of
+newspaper publications, his predecessor, General Wright, had felt
+obliged, upon Bragg and Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky, to put a
+stop to treasonable editorials and to the publication of military
+information likely to benefit the enemy. He issued a circular on
+September 13, 1862, notifying the publishers of the Cincinnati
+papers that the repetition of such offence would be immediately
+followed by the suppression of the paper and the arrest and
+confinement of the proprietors and writers. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 514. See a characteristic letter by
+Sherman on this subject, _Id_., vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 765: "Now I am
+again in authority over you, and you must heed my advice. Freedom of
+speech and freedom of the press, precious relics of former history,
+must not be construed too largely. You must print nothing that
+prejudices government or excites envy, hatred, and malice in a
+community. Persons in office or out of office must not be flattered
+or abused. Don't publish an account of any skirmish, battle, or
+movement of an army, unless the name of the writer is given in full
+and printed. I wish you success; but my first duty is to maintain
+'order and harmony.'" (To editors of "Memphis Bulletin.")] It is
+necessary to keep these facts in mind if we would judge fairly of
+Burnside's responsibility when it was his fortune to apply the rule
+to a case attracting great public attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE VALLANDIGHAM CASE--THE HOLMES COUNTY WAR
+
+
+Clement L. Vallandigham--His opposition to the war--His theory of
+reconstruction--His Mount Vernon speech--His arrest--Sent before the
+military commission--General Potter its president--Counsel for the
+prisoner--The line of defence--The judgment--Habeas Corpus
+proceedings--Circuit Court of the United States--Judge Leavitt
+denies the release--Commutation by the President--Sent beyond the
+lines--Conduct of Confederate authorities--Vallandigham in
+Canada--Candidate for Governor--Political results--Martial
+law--Principles underlying it--Practical application--The intent to
+aid the public enemy--The intent to defeat the draft--Armed
+resistance to arrest of deserters, Noble County--To the enrolment in
+Holmes County--A real insurrection--Connection of these with
+Vallandigham's speeches--The Supreme Court refuses to
+interfere--Action in the Milligan case after the war--Judge Davis's
+personal views--Knights of the Golden Circle--The Holmes County
+outbreak--Its suppression--Letter to Judge Welker.
+
+
+Clement L. Vallandigham had been representative in Congress of the
+Montgomery County district of Ohio, and lived at Dayton. He was a
+man of intense and saturnine character, belligerent and denunciatory
+in his political speeches, and extreme in his views. He was the
+leader in Ohio of the ultra element of opposition to the
+administration of Mr. Lincoln, and a bitter opponent of the war. He
+would have prevented the secession of the Southern States by
+yielding all they demanded, for he agreed with them in thinking that
+their demands for the recognition of the constitutional
+inviolability of the slave system were just. After the war began he
+still advocated peace at any price, and vehemently opposed every
+effort to subdue the rebellion. To his mind the war was absolutely
+unconstitutional on the part of the national government, and he
+denounced it as tyranny and usurpation. His theory seemed to be that
+if the South were "let alone," a reconstruction of the Union could
+be satisfactorily effected by squelching the anti-slavery agitation,
+and that the Western States, at any rate, would find their true
+interest in uniting with the South, even if the other Northern
+States should refuse to do so. Beyond all question he answered to
+the old description of a "Northern man with Southern principles,"
+and his violence of temper made it all a matter of personal hatred
+with him in his opposition to the leaders of the party in power at
+the North. His denunciations were the most extreme, and his
+expressions of contempt and ill-will were wholly unbridled. He
+claimed, of course, that he kept within the limits of a
+"constitutional opposition," because he did not, in terms, advise
+his hearers to combine in armed opposition to the government.
+
+About the first of May he addressed a public meeting at Mount Vernon
+in central Ohio, where, in addition to his diatribes against the
+Lincoln administration, he denounced Order No. 38, and Burnside as
+its author. His words were noted down in short-hand by a captain of
+volunteers who was there on leave of absence from the army, and the
+report was corroborated by other reputable witnesses. He charged the
+administration with designing to erect a despotism, with refusing to
+restore the Union when it might be done, with carrying on the war
+for the liberation of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites.
+He declared that the provost-marshals for the congressional
+districts were intended to restrict the liberties of the people;
+that courts-martial had already usurped power to try citizens
+contrary to law; that he himself would never submit to the orders of
+a military dictator, and such were Burnside and his subordinates;
+that if those in authority were allowed to accomplish their
+purposes, the people would be deprived of their liberties and a
+monarchy established. Such and like expressions, varied by
+"trampling under his feet" Order No. 38, etc., made the staple of
+his incendiary speech.
+
+When the report was made to Burnside and he had satisfied himself of
+its substantial truth, he promptly accepted the challenge to test
+the legality of his order, and directed the arrest of Mr.
+Vallandigham. It was characteristic of him that he did not consult
+with his subordinates or with lawyers. He did not even act through
+my district organization, but sent his own aide-de-camp with a guard
+to make the arrest at Dayton. My recollection is that I did not know
+of the purpose till it was accomplished. His reason for direct
+action, no doubt, was that if there were many links in the chain of
+routine, there were multiplied chances of failure. He did not want
+to be baffled in the arrest, or to give the opportunity for raising
+a mob, which there would be if his purposes were to become known in
+advance,
+
+The arrest was made in the early morning of the 5th of May, before
+dawn, and the prisoner was brought to Cincinnati. He was at first
+taken under guard to the Burnet House, where he breakfasted, and was
+then put in the military prison connected with the houses used as
+barracks for the troops in the city. A military commission had been
+ordered on the 21st of April from Department Headquarters for the
+trial of the classes of offenders named in Order No. 38, and of this
+commission Brigadier-General R. B. Potter of the Ninth Corps was
+President. General Potter was a distinguished officer throughout the
+war. He was a brother of Clarkson N. Potter, the prominent lawyer
+and Democratic member of Congress later, and both were sons of the
+Episcopal Bishop Potter of Pennsylvania. The character of the whole
+court was very high for intelligence and standing. Before this court
+Mr. Vallandigham was arraigned on the charge of publicly expressing
+sympathy with those in arms against the government, and uttering
+disloyal sentiments and opinions with intent to weaken the power of
+the government in its efforts to suppress the rebellion.
+
+Vallandigham consulted with the Hon. George E. Pugh and others as
+his counsel, and then adopted the course of protesting against the
+jurisdiction of the court and against the authority for his arrest.
+His grounds were that he was not amenable to any military
+jurisdiction, and that his public speech did not constitute an
+offence known to the Constitution and laws. To avoid the appearance
+of waiving the question of jurisdiction, his counsel did not appear,
+though offered the opportunity to do so, and Mr. Vallandigham
+cross-examined the witnesses himself, and called those who testified
+for him. The question of fact raised by him was that he had not
+advised forcible resistance to the government, but had urged action
+at the elections by defeating the party in power at the polls. That
+he did not in terms advocate insurrection was admitted by the judge
+advocate of the court, but the commission were persuaded that the
+effect of his speech was intended and well calculated to be
+incendiary, and to arouse any kind of outbreak in sympathy with the
+armed enemies of the country. The trial ended on the 7th of May, but
+the judgment was not promulgated till the 16th, proceedings in
+_habeas corpus_ having intervened. The finding of the court was that
+the prisoner was guilty, as charged, and the sentence was close
+confinement in Fort Warren, Boston harbor, during the continuance of
+the war.
+
+On the 9th of May Mr. Pugh made application to the United States
+Circuit Court, Judge Leavitt sitting, for a writ of _habeas corpus_
+directed to General Burnside, in order that the lawfulness of Mr.
+Vallandigham's arrest and trial might be tested. The court directed
+notice of the application to be given to the general, and set the
+11th for the hearing. The case was elaborately argued by Mr. Pugh
+for the prisoner, and by Mr. Aaron F. Perry and the District
+Attorney Flamen Ball for General Burnside. The hearing occupied
+several days, and the judgment of the court was given on the morning
+of the 16th. Judge Leavitt refused the writ on the ground that,
+civil war being flagrant in the land, and Ohio being under the
+military command of General Burnside by appointment of the
+President, the acts and offences described in General Order No. 38
+were cognizable by the military authorities under the powers of war.
+
+General Burnside had awaited the action of the court, and now
+promulgated the sentence under the judgment of the military
+commission. Three days later (May 19th) the President commuted the
+sentence by directing that Mr. Vallandigham be sent "under secure
+guard, to the headquarters of General Rosecrans, to be put by him
+beyond our military lines, and that in case of his return within our
+line, he be arrested and kept in close custody for the term
+specified in his sentence." This was done accordingly. The
+Confederate officials adopted a careful policy of treating him
+courteously without acknowledging that he was one of themselves, and
+facilities were given him for running the blockade and reaching
+Canada. There he established himself on the border and put himself
+in communication with his followers in Ohio, by whom he was soon
+nominated for the Governorship of the State.
+
+The case, of course, excited great public interest, and was, no
+doubt, the occasion of considerable embarrassment to the
+administration. Mr. Lincoln dealt with it with all that shrewd
+practical judgment for which he was so remarkable, and in the final
+result it worked to the political advantage of the National cause.
+Sending Vallandigham beyond the lines took away from him the
+personal sympathy which might have been aroused had he been confined
+in one of the casemates of Fort Warren, and put upon him an
+indelible badge of connection with the enemies of the country. The
+cautious action of the Confederates in regard to him did not tend to
+remove this: for it was very apparent that they really regarded him
+as a friend, and helped him on his way to Canada in the expectation
+that he would prove a thorn in Mr. Lincoln's side. The President's
+proposal to the leading politicians who applied to him to rescind
+the sentence, that as a condition of this they should make certain
+declarations of the duty to support the government in a vigorous
+prosecution of the war, was a most telling bit of policy on his
+part, and took the sting entirely out of the accusations of tyranny
+and oppression.
+
+It must be admitted, however, that the case was one in which the
+administration ought to have left Burnside wholly untrammelled in
+carrying out the proclamation of September 25, 1862, or should have
+formulated a rule for its military officers, so that they would have
+acted only in accordance with the wishes of the government, and in
+cases where the full responsibility would be assumed at Washington.
+When Burnside arrested Mr. Vallandigham, the Secretary of War
+telegraphed from Washington his approval, saying, "In your
+determination to support the authority of the government and
+suppress treason in your department, you may count on the firm
+support of the President." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii.
+pt. ii. p. 316.] Yet when a little later Burnside suppressed the
+"Chicago Times" for similar utterances, the President, on the
+request of Senator Trumbull, backed by prominent citizens of
+Chicago, directed Burnside to revoke his action. [Footnote: _Id_.,
+pp. 385, 386.] This the latter did by General Order No. 91, issued
+on the 4th of June. He read to me on June 7th a letter from Mr.
+Stanton, which practically revoked the whole of his Order No. 38 by
+directing him not to arrest civilians or suppress newspapers without
+conferring first with the War Department. This would have been very
+well if it had been done at the beginning; but to have it come after
+political pressure from the outside, and in so marked contradiction
+to the approval first expressed, shows that there was no
+well-considered policy. It put Burnside himself in an intolerable
+position, and, of course, made him decline further responsibility
+for such affairs in his department. [Footnote: I do not find in the
+Official Records the letter of Mr. Stanton above referred to; but I
+speak of it from a written memorandum I made at the time.]
+
+The whole question as to the right and the policy of military
+arrests and orders in such a time bristles with difficulties. Had I
+been consulted before Burnside took action, I should have advised
+him to collect carefully the facts and report them to Washington,
+asking for specific instructions. The subject called for directions
+which would be applicable in all the military departments which
+included States out of the theatre of active warlike operations; and
+such general directions should be given by the government. But
+Burnside was apt to act impulsively, and his impulse was to follow
+the bent of his ardent patriotism. He was stirred to burning wrath
+by what seemed to him an intent to give aid and comfort to the
+rebellion, and meant to punish such conduct without stopping to ask
+what complications might come of it.
+
+I had found it desirable to form a judgment of my own with reference
+to the extent or limitation of military authority in the actual
+circumstances, and I quote the form in which I then cast it, so that
+I may not seem to be giving opinions formed after my own military
+duties were ended. I concluded, "First: That martial law operates
+either by reason of its proclamation by competent authority, or _ex
+necessitate rei_ in the immediate theatre of military operations.
+Second; That when the struggle is in the nature of a revolution, and
+so long as the attempted revolution is in active progress, no
+definite limits can be given to the 'theatre of operations,' but the
+administration must be regarded as possessing a limited
+discretionary power in the use of martial law." As to the practical
+application of this power, "the presumptions are always in favor of
+the established civil law of the land, whenever and wherever it has
+a reasonable chance of unobstructed operation. In a State or portion
+of the country not the theatre of actual fighting, and where the
+civil courts are actually organized and working, there must be some
+strong reason for sending criminals or State prisoners before a
+military tribunal; such as that the government had reason to believe
+that a conspiracy was so powerful as to make an actual present
+danger of its overthrowing the loyal governments in some of the
+States before the civil courts could act in the ordinary process of
+business. In such a case, the arrest and admission to bail of the
+conspirators might be only the signal for their adherents to seize
+the reins of civil power, overthrow the courts, and consummate a
+revolution. The quick and summary action of military power would
+then be the only thing which could avert the danger. The
+justification of the use of a military tribunal depends on the
+existence of 'probable cause' for believing the public danger to be
+great."
+
+I see no reason to change the form of stating the principle I then
+adopted. The limitations given it seem sufficient to secure proper
+caution in applying it, and will show that I thought then, as I do
+now, that the administration ought to have laid down rules by which
+the commandants of military departments could be guided, and which
+would have saved us from the weakness of acting with seeming vigor
+on one day, only to retreat from our position the next.
+
+In Vallandigham's case the common argument was used by his friends
+that he was not exceeding a lawful liberty of speech in political
+opposition to the administration. When, however, a civil war is in
+progress, it is simply a question of fact whether words used are
+intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy and are evidence of
+conspiracy with the public enemy. If so, it is too clear for
+argument that the overt acts of the enemy are brought home to all
+who combine and confederate with them, and all are involved in the
+same responsibility. This question of fact and intent was officially
+settled by the findings of the military court. But there was another
+connection of the speech with overt acts, which the public mind took
+firm hold of. Among the most incendiary of Vallandigham's appeals
+had been those which urged the people to resist the provost-marshals
+in the several districts. It is nonsense to say that resisting the
+draft or the arrest of deserters only meant voting for an opposition
+party at the elections. There had been armed and organized
+resistance to arrest of deserters in Noble County just before his
+speech, and soon after it there was a still more formidable armed
+organization with warlike action against the enrolling officers in
+Holmes County, in the same region in which the speech was made. This
+last took the form of an armed camp, and the insurgents did not
+disperse till a military force was sent against them and attacked
+them in fortified lines, where they used both cannon and musketry.
+It did not seem plausible to the common sense of the people that we
+could properly charge with volleying musketry upon the barricades of
+the less intelligent dupes, whilst the leader who had incited and
+counselled the resistance was to be held to be acting within the
+limits of proper liberty of speech. Law and common sense are
+entirely in harmony in regarding the conspiracy as a unit, the
+speech at Mount Vernon and the armed collision on the Holmes County
+hill being parts of one series of acts in which the instigator was
+responsible for the natural consequences of the forces he set in
+motion.
+
+To complete the judicial history of the Vallandigham case, it may be
+said that he applied to the Supreme Court of the United States a few
+months afterward for a writ to revise and examine the proceedings of
+the military commission and to determine their legality. The court
+dismissed his application on the ground that the writ applied for
+was not a legal means of bringing the proceedings of the military
+court under review. The charges and specifications and the sentence
+were all set forth in the application, so that the court was made
+officially aware of the full character of the case. This was
+naturally accepted at the time as practically sustaining the action
+of the President and General Burnside. When, however, the war was
+over, there was taken up to the Supreme Court the case of Milligan
+from Indiana, who had been condemned to death for treasonable
+conduct in aid of the rebellion, done as a member of the Knights of
+the Golden Circle, an organization charged with overt acts in
+attempting to liberate by force the Confederate prisoners of war in
+the military prisons, and otherwise to assist the rebellion. The
+current public sentiment in regard to executive power had
+unquestionably changed with the return to peace, and Lincoln having
+been assassinated and Johnson being in the presidential chair, the
+tide was running strongly in favor of congressional rather than
+executive initiative in public affairs. It cannot be denied that the
+court responded more or less fully to the popular drift, then as in
+other important historical junctures. In the opinion as delivered by
+Judge Davis, it went all lengths in holding that the military
+commission could not act upon charges against a person not in the
+military service, and who was a citizen of the State where tried,
+when in such State the civil courts were not actually suspended by
+the operations of war. Chief Justice Chase and three of the justices
+thought this was going too far, and whilst concurring in discharging
+Milligan, held that Congress could authorize military commissions to
+try civilians in time of actual war, and that such military
+tribunals might have concurrent jurisdiction with the civil courts.
+[Footnote: Ex parte Vallandigham, Wallace's Reports, i. 243. Ex
+parte Milligan, _Id_., iv. 2, etc.]
+
+We must not forget that whilst the judicial action determines the
+rights of the parties in a suit, the executive has always asserted
+his position as an independent co-ordinate branch of the government,
+authorized by the Constitution to determine for himself, as
+executive, his duties, and to interpret his powers, subject only to
+the Constitution as he understands it. Jefferson, Jackson, and
+Lincoln in turn found themselves in exigencies where they held it to
+be their duty to decide for themselves on their high political
+responsibility in matters of constitutional power and duty. Lincoln
+suspended the privilege of _habeas corpus_ by his own proclamation,
+and adhered to his view, although Judge Taney in the Circuit Court
+for Maryland denied his power to do so. When Congress passed a
+regulating act on the subject which seemed to him sufficient, he
+signed the statute because he was quite willing to limit his action
+by the provisions embodied in it, and not because he thought the act
+necessary to confer the power.
+
+An incident in the history of the treasonable organizations believed
+to exist in Indiana emphasizes the change of mental attitude of
+Judge Davis between 1863 and 1866. During the progress of the
+Vallandigham case, General Burnside conceived a distrust of the
+wisdom of the course pursued by Brigadier-General Carrington, who
+commanded at Indianapolis, and sent Brigadier-General Hascall there
+to command that district. Carrington had been the right hand of
+Governor Morton in ferreting out the secrets of the Golden Circle,
+and applying Order No, 38 to them, but Burnside's lack of confidence
+in the cool-headed caution and judgment of his subordinate led him
+to make the change. Hascall was a brave and reliable Indiana
+officer, who had seen much active field service, and with whom I was
+associated in the Twenty-third Corps during the Atlanta campaign. He
+was ardently loyal, but an unexcitable, matter-of-fact sort of
+person. He did not suit Governor Morton, who applied to the
+Secretary of War to have him removed from command, declaring that
+immediate action was important. Judge Davis, who was in
+Indianapolis, was induced to co-operate with the governor in the
+matter, and telegraphed to Mr. Stanton that Hascall's removal was
+demanded by the honor and interests of the government. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.369. See also _Id_., p.194.]
+Hascall was sent to the field, and after a short interval Carrington
+was restored to duty at Indianapolis. In the continued investigation
+and prosecution of the Golden Circle, and finally in the trial of
+Milligan, General Carrington was, under Governor Morton, the most
+active instrument; and it was, of course, to keep him at work on
+that line that the changes in command were secured. Yet it was the
+fruit of this very work of Carrington that was so strongly and
+sweepingly declared to be illegal by the Supreme Court, Judge Davis
+himself delivering the opinion and going beyond the chief-justice
+and others in denying all power and authority to military courts in
+such cases. Had Mr. Lincoln lived, he would no doubt have avoided
+any question before the Supreme Court in regard to his authority, by
+pardoning Milligan as he granted amnesty to so many who had been
+active in the rebellion. But Mr. Johnson was so much hampered by his
+quarrel with Congress over reconstruction that he was disposed to
+avoid interference with criminal cases where his action could
+subject him to the charge of sympathy with the accused. He carefully
+abstained from meddling with Jefferson Davis as he did with
+Milligan, and left the responsibility with the courts.
+
+The final development of the investigation of the Society of the
+Golden Circle took place after I had again obtained a field command,
+and I was glad to have no occasion to form a personal judgment about
+it. The value of evidence collected by means of detectives depends
+so greatly on the character of the men employed and the instructions
+under which they act, that one may well suspend judgment unless he
+has more than ordinarily full knowledge on these points. The
+findings of the military commission must stand as a _prima facie_
+historical determination of the facts it reported, and the burden of
+proof is fairly upon those who assert that the conclusions were not
+sustained by trustworthy evidence.
+
+I have mentioned the open resistance to the draft and to the arrest
+of deserters in Noble and in Holmes counties. The first of these was
+scarcely more than a petty riotous demonstration, which melted away
+before the officers as soon as they were able to show that they were
+backed by real power. The second looked for a time more formidable,
+and assumed a formal military organization. Governor Tod issued a
+proclamation warning the offenders of the grave consequences of
+their acts, and exhorting them for their own sake and the sake of
+their families to disperse and obey the laws. I directed General
+Mason at Columbus to be sure, if military force had to be used, that
+enough was concentrated to make stubborn resistance hopeless. The
+insurgents maintained a bold face till the troops were close upon
+them; but when they saw a strong line of infantry charging up toward
+the stone fences on the hillside where they had made their camp, and
+heard the whistling of bullets from the skirmishers, their courage
+gave way and they fled, every man for himself. Only two or three
+were seriously wounded, and comparatively few arrests were made.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp.395-397.]
+Submission to law was all that was demanded, and when this was fully
+established, the prisoners were soon released without further
+punishment. The fear of further prosecutions operated to preserve
+the peace, and the men who had been allowed to go at large were a
+guaranty, in effect, for the good behavior of the community.
+
+Before dropping the subject, I may properly add that the arrest of
+Mr. Vallandigham very naturally raised the question how far we were
+willing to go in bringing disloyal men before the military courts.
+Prominent citizens, and especially men in official position, often
+found themselves urged to ask for the arrest of the more outspoken
+followers of Vallandigham in every country neighborhood. In answer
+to inquiries which had come through the Hon. Martin Welker,
+[Footnote: Afterward for many years Judge of the U. S. District
+Court for northern Ohio.] member of Congress for the Wayne County
+district, I wrote him a letter which shows the efforts we made to be
+prudent and to avoid unnecessary collisions. Judge Welker had served
+as Judge Advocate on my staff in the three months' service in the
+spring of 1861, and my intimacy with him made me speak as to our
+policy without reserve.
+
+"We are hopeful," I wrote, "now that the United States Circuit Court
+has refused to release Mr. Vallandigham on _habeas corpus_, that his
+followers will take warning and that their course will be so
+modified that there may be no occasion to make many more arrests.
+
+"I am persuaded that our policy should be to repress disloyalty and
+sedition at home rather by punishment of prominent examples than by
+a general arrest of all who may make themselves obnoxious to General
+Order No. 38, as the latter course will involve a more frequent
+application of military authority than we choose to resort to,
+unless circumstances should make it imperatively necessary... I am
+full of hope that the seditious designs of bad men will fail by
+reason of the returning sense of those who have been their dupes,
+and that the able and patriotic opinion of Judge Leavitt in the
+_habeas corpus_ case will cause great numbers to take positive
+ground in favor of the government, who have hitherto been more or
+less under the influence of our northern traitors. If such shall be
+the result we can afford to overlook bygones, and I am inclined to
+await the development of public sentiment before following up
+Vallandigham's arrest by many others."
+
+This letter was written before the Secretary of War made any
+limitation of Burnside's authority in enforcing his famous order,
+and shows that in the District of Ohio, at least, there was no
+desire to set up a military despotism, or to go further in applying
+military methods to conduct in aid of the rebellion than we might be
+forced to go.
+
+Burnside's action in suppressing disloyal newspapers was not
+peculiar to himself. General Wright, his predecessor, had done the
+same, and other military commandants, both before and after and in
+other parts of the country, had felt obliged to take the same
+course. These facts only make more clear the desirability of a
+well-considered system of action determined by the government at
+Washington, and applicable to all such cases.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BURNSIDE AND ROSECRANS--THE SUMMER'S DELAYS
+
+
+Condition of Kentucky and Tennessee--Halleck's instructions to
+Burnside--Blockhouses at bridges--Relief of East
+Tennessee--Conditions of the problem--Vast wagon-train
+required--Scheme of a railroad--Surveys begun--Burnside's efforts to
+arrange co-operation with Rosecrans--Bragg sending troops to
+Johnston--Halleck urges Rosecrans to activity--Continued
+inactivity--Burnside ordered to send troops to Grant--Rosecrans's
+correspondence with Halleck--Lincoln's dispatch--Rosecrans collects
+his subordinates' opinions--Councils of war--The situation
+considered--Sheridan and Thomas--Computation of
+effectives--Garfield's summing up--Review of the situation when
+Rosecrans succeeded Buell--After Stone's River--Relative
+forces--Disastrous detached expeditions--Appeal to ambition--The
+major-generalship in regular army--Views of the President
+justified--Burnside's forces--Confederate forces in East
+Tennessee--Reasons for the double organization of the Union armies.
+
+
+Burnside was not a man to be satisfied with quasi-military duty and
+the administration of a department outside of the field of active
+warfare. He had been reappointed to the formal command of the Ninth
+Corps before he came West, and the corps was sent after him as soon
+as transportation could be provided for it. He reached Cincinnati in
+person just as a raid into Kentucky by some 2000 Confederate cavalry
+under Brigadier-General John Pegram was in progress. Pegram marched
+from East Tennessee about the middle of March, reaching Danville,
+Ky., on the 23d. He spread reports that he was the advance-guard of
+a large force of all arms intending a serious invasion of the State.
+These exaggerations had their effect, and the disturbance in the
+Department of the Ohio was out of proportion to the strength of the
+hostile column. [Footnote: Letter of Governor Robinson, Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 97; _Id_., pp. 121, 126.] The troops
+belonging to the post at Danville retreated to the hither side of
+the Kentucky River at Hickman's Bridge, where they took up a
+defensive position. They saved the railway bridge from destruction,
+and Brigadier-General Quincy A. Gillmore, who commanded the District
+of Central Kentucky with headquarters at Lexington, was able to
+concentrate there a sufficient force to resume the offensive against
+Pegram.
+
+Burnside ordered reinforcements to Gillmore from the other parts of
+Kentucky, and Pegram, whose report indicates that a foray for beef,
+cattle, and horses was the principal object of his expedition,
+commenced his retreat. Gillmore followed him up vigorously,
+recapturing a considerable part of the cattle he had collected, and
+overtaking his principal column at Somerset, routed him and drove
+him beyond the Cumberland River.
+
+The month of March had begun with pleasant spring weather, and on
+the 15th General Wright had written to Halleck that an invasion of
+Kentucky was probable, especially as Rosecrans showed no signs of
+resuming the aggressive against Bragg's army in middle Tennessee.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 143.] In Halleck's letter of instructions to
+Burnside as the latter was leaving Washington to relieve Wright, the
+general plan of an advance on East Tennessee in connection with that
+of Rosecrans toward Chattanooga was outlined, but the
+General-in-Chief acknowledged that the supply of an army in East
+Tennessee by means of the wagon roads was probably impracticable.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 163.] He pointed out the necessity of reducing
+the number and size of garrisons in the rear, and making everything
+bend to the great object of organizing the army for active
+initiative against the enemy. He recommended building block-houses
+to protect the principal bridges on the railroads, where very small
+garrisons could give comparative security to our lines of
+communication. This plan was ultimately carried out on a large
+scale, and was the necessary condition of Sherman's Atlanta campaign
+of 1864. Taken as a whole, Halleck's instructions to Burnside
+presented no definite objective, and were a perfunctory sort of
+introduction to his new command, which raises a doubt whether the
+organization of a little army in the Department of the Ohio met his
+approval.
+
+The fact was that Burnside was acting on an understanding with
+President Lincoln himself, whose ardent wish to send a column for
+the relief of the loyal people of East Tennessee never slumbered,
+and who was already beginning to despair of its accomplishment by
+Rosecrans's army. The uneasiness at Washington over Rosecrans's
+inaction was becoming acute, and Mr. Lincoln was evidently turning
+to Burnside's department in hope of an energetic movement there. In
+this hope Burnside was sent West, and the Ninth Corps was detached
+from the Army of the Potomac and sent after him. The project of
+following up his advance by the construction of a railroad from
+Danville, then the terminus of the railway line reaching southward
+from Cincinnati, was discussed, and the President recommended it to
+Congress, but no appropriation of money was made. The scheme was
+hardly within the limits of practicable plans, for the building of a
+railway through such difficult country as the Cumberland mountain
+region implied laborious engineering surveys which could only be
+made when the country was reduced to secure possession, and the
+expenditure of time as well as of money would be likely to exceed
+the measure of reasonable plans for a military campaign. The true
+thing to do was to push Rosecrans's army to Chattanooga and beyond.
+With the valley of the Tennessee in our possession, and Chattanooga
+held as a new base of supply for a column in East Tennessee as well
+as another in Georgia, the occupation of Knoxville and the Clinch
+and Holston valleys to the Virginia line was easy. Without it, all
+East Tennessee campaigns were visionary. It was easy enough to get
+there; the trouble was to stay. Buell's original lesson in
+logistics, in which he gave the War Department a computation of the
+wagons and mules necessary to supply ten thousand men at Knoxville,
+was a solid piece of military arithmetic from which there was no
+escape. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 199. Official Records, vol. vii. p.
+931.]
+
+When Burnside reached Cincinnati and applied himself practically to
+the task of organizing his little army for a march over the
+mountains, his first requisitions for wagons and mules were a little
+startling to the Quartermaster-General and a little surprising to
+himself. He began at once an engineering reconnoissance of the
+country south of Lexington and Danville, as far as it was within our
+control, and employed an able civil engineer, Mr. Gunn, to locate
+the preliminary line for a railway. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxiii.
+pt. ii. p. 610.] These surveys were the starting-points from which
+the actual construction of the road between Cincinnati and
+Chattanooga was made after the close of the war.
+
+Burnside also urged that the troops in Kentucky, exclusive of the
+Ninth Corps, be organized into a new corps with General Hartsuff as
+its commander. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 259.] Halleck demurred to this,
+but the President directed it to be done, and the order was issued
+by the War Department on 27th April. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 269, 283,
+400.] Burnside also applied himself earnestly to procuring from
+Rosecrans a plan of active co-operation for an advance. As soon as
+Hartsuff assumed command of the new Twenty-third Corps, Burnside
+sent him, on May 3d, to visit Rosecrans in person, giving him
+authority to arrange an aggressive campaign. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+312.] Hartsuff's old relations to Rosecrans made him a very fit
+person for the negotiation. Rosecrans hesitated to decide, and
+called a council of his principal officers. He suggested that the
+Ninth Corps be sent down the Louisville and Nashville Railroad to
+Glasgow, near the Tennessee line, but did not indicate any immediate
+purpose of advancing. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
+ii. pp. 313, 315.] Burnside meant to take the field with both corps
+of his command, which he had organized under the name of the Army of
+the Ohio; but to reassure Rosecrans, he wrote that if in
+co-operation the two armies should come together, he would waive his
+elder rank and serve under Rosecrans whilst he should remain in
+middle Tennessee. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 331.] It was now the 15th of
+May, and he sent a confidential staff officer again to Rosecrans to
+try to settle a common plan of operations. On the 18th Halleck had
+heard of Bragg's army being weakened to give General Joseph E.
+Johnston a force with which to relieve Pemberton at Vicksburg, and
+he became urgent for both Rosecrans and Burnside to advance.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 337.] He thought it probable that raids would
+be attempted by the enemy to distract attention from his real
+object, and pointed out concentration and advance as the best way to
+protect the rear as well as to reach the enfeebled adversary.
+Burnside hastened in good faith his preparations for movement. He
+was collecting a pack mule train to supply the lack of wagons, and
+put his detachments in motion to concentrate. He begged for the
+third division of his corps (Getty's), which had been detained in
+the Army of the Potomac and could not yet be spared, but did not
+wait for it. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 338.] By the 1st of June he was
+ready to leave in person for the front, and on the 3d was at
+Lexington, definitely committed to the movement into East Tennessee.
+There he was met by an order from Halleck to send 8000 men at once
+to reinforce General Grant at Vicksburg. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 384.]
+The promise was made that they should be returned as soon as the
+immediate exigency was over, but the order was imperative. Burnside
+never hesitated in obedience. The two divisions of the Ninth Corps
+made about the number required, and they were immediately turned
+back and ordered to the Ohio River to be shipped on steamboats.
+Sorely disappointed, Burnside asked that he might go with his men,
+but was told that his departmental duties were too important to
+spare him from them. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
+ii. pp. 384, 386.] Major-General Parke was therefore sent in command
+of the corps. Burnside returned to Cincinnati, grieving at the
+interruption of his plans, yet hoping it would not be for long. His
+duties at the rear were not agreeable, especially as this was just
+the time when he was directed to recall his order suppressing
+disloyal newspapers, and to refrain from arrests of civilians
+without explicit authority from Washington.
+
+We may safely assume that the President and his War Secretary were
+as little pleased at having to order the Ninth Corps away as
+Burnside was to have them go. In fact the order was not made till
+they entirely despaired of making Rosecrans advance with the vigor
+necessary to checkmate the Confederates. On the receipt of Halleck's
+dispatch of the 18th May, Rosecrans entered into a telegraphic
+discussion of the probable accuracy of Halleck's information, saying
+that whatever troops were sent by the enemy to Mississippi were no
+doubt sent from Charleston and Savannah and not from Bragg.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 337.] He insisted that it was not good policy
+to advance at present. On the 21st he said, "If I had 6000 cavalry
+in addition to the mounting of the 2000 now waiting horses, I would
+attack Bragg within three days." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 351.] He also
+interposed the unfavorable judgment of his corps commanders in
+regard to an advance. Military history shows that this is pretty
+uniformly an excuse for a delay already fully resolved on by a
+commanding general. Halleck had no more cavalry to send, and could
+only say so. Burnside notified Rosecrans on the 22d that his columns
+had begun the movements of concentration and that they would be
+complete in three or four days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxiii. pt. ii. p. 355.] On the 28th Mr. Lincoln himself telegraphed
+Rosecrans, "I would not push you to any rashness, but I am very
+anxious that you do your utmost, short of rashness, to keep Bragg
+from getting off to help Johnston against Grant." [Footnote: _Id_.,
+p. 369.] Rosecrans curtly answered, "Dispatch received. I will
+attend to it." In his dispatches to Mr. Stanton of similar date
+there is no intimation of any purpose whatever to move. [Footnote:
+_Ibid_.] In telegraphing to Burnside, Rosecrans said that he was
+only waiting for the development of the former's concentration, and
+that he wished to advance by the 4th of June. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.
+372, 376.] Burnside had already informed him that he would be ready
+by June 2d, and repeated it. On the date last named Rosecrans
+telegraphed Burnside that his movement had already begun, and that
+he wanted the Army of the Ohio to come up as near and as quickly as
+possible. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 381.] Still he gave no intimation to
+the authorities at Washington of an advance, for none had in fact
+been made by his army, nor even of any near purpose to make one. On
+June 3d, Halleck telegraphed him: "Accounts received here indicate
+that Johnston is being heavily reinforced from Bragg's army. If you
+cannot hurt the enemy now, he will soon hurt you." He followed this
+by his dispatch to Burnside ordering reinforcements to be sent to
+Grant, and the remainder of the troops in the Department of the Ohio
+to be concentrated defensively in Kentucky. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.
+383, 384.] The only move that Rosecrans made was to send on the 8th
+to his general officers commanding corps and divisions, a
+confidential circular asking their opinion in writing in answer to
+the following questions, in substance,--
+
+1. Has the enemy been so materially weakened that this army could
+advance on him at this time with strong reasonable chances of
+fighting a great and successful battle?
+
+2. Is an advance of our army likely to prevent additional
+reinforcements being sent against General Grant by Bragg?
+
+3. Is an immediate or early advance of our army advisable?
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 395.]
+
+With substantial unanimity they answered that it was not advisable
+to move, though they seem generally to have been aware that
+Breckinridge with about 10,000 men of all arms had gone from Bragg
+to Johnston. When Rosecrans reported the result of this council to
+Halleck, the latter reminded him of the maxim that "councils of war
+never fight," and that the responsibility for his campaign rests
+upon a commanding general and cannot be shared by a council of war.
+
+The careful study of the correspondence elicited by Rosecrans's
+circular would make a most valuable commentary upon the theme,
+"_Why_ Councils of War never fight." The three questions were
+addressed to sixteen general officers commanding corps and
+divisions. [Footnote: Their answers are found in Official Records,
+vol. xxiii. pt. ii. as follows: Davis, p. 395, Johnson, do., McCook,
+396, Turchin, 397, Brannan, 402, Crittenden, 403, Granger, 403,
+Wood, 405, Negley, 407, Palmer, do., Reynolds, 409, Rousseau, 410,
+Sheridan, 411, Stanley, 412, Thomas, 414, Van Cleve, 415, Mitchell,
+417, and Garfield's summing up, 420.] In reading the responses the
+impression grows strong that there was what may be called a popular
+feeling among these officers that their duty was to back up their
+commanding general in a judgment of his on the subjects submitted,
+which could hardly be other than well known. On the question as to
+the probable reduction of Bragg's army by detachments sent to
+Johnston, whilst they nearly all have some knowledge of the
+diminution of the Confederate army to about the extent mentioned
+above, most of them answer that they do not think it a _material_
+weakening, that being the tenor of the inquiry put to them. Some of
+them, however, say very naturally that as the secret service is
+managed from headquarters and all the information received is
+forwarded there, General Rosecrans should be much better able to
+answer this question than his subordinates. As to the second part of
+that question, nearly all seem to assume that the battle would be in
+the nature of a direct attack on the fortifications at Shelbyville
+and are not sanguine of a successful result. The few who speak of
+turning manoeuvres feel that the further retreat of Bragg would only
+lengthen their own line of communications and do no good. Strangely,
+too, they argue, many of them, that an advance would not prevent
+further depletion of Bragg to strengthen Johnston. They consequently
+and almost unanimously advise against an immediate or early advance.
+
+It is instructive to compare these opinions with the actual facts.
+The inaction of the summer had led directly to the detachment of two
+divisions of infantry and artillery and one of cavalry to reinforce
+Johnston, just as the inactivity of Meade later in the season
+encouraged the Richmond government to send Longstreet to Bragg from
+Virginia. If Rosecrans had moved early in the season, not only must
+Bragg have kept his army intact, but the battle of Chickamauga, if
+fought at all, must have been decided without Longstreet, and
+therefore most probably with brilliant success for our arms. It was
+delay in advancing, both in Tennessee and in Virginia, that thus
+directly led to disaster. If a brilliant victory at Chickamauga had
+been coincident with the fall of Vicksburg and Lee's defeat at
+Gettysburg, it does not seem rash to believe that the collapse of
+the Confederacy would have been hastened by a year.
+
+Two of the generals who answered these questions attained afterward
+to such distinction that their replies are an interesting means of
+learning their mental character and gauging their development.
+Sheridan answered briefly that he believed Bragg had no more than
+25,000 or 30,000 infantry and artillery, with a "large" cavalry
+force. In this he was very close to the mark. Bragg's report for the
+latter part of May, before sending reinforcements to Johnston,
+showed his forces present for duty to be 37,000 infantry, a little
+less than 3000 artillery, and 15,000 cavalry, in round numbers.
+Deduct 10,000 from these, and Sheridan is found to be sufficiently
+accurate. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 846.
+
+The reference to Bragg's returns of strength to the
+Adjutant-General's office makes this an appropriate place to note
+the method of making these returns and its bearing on the much
+debated question of the "Effective Total" commonly given by
+Confederate writers as the force of their armies compared with ours.
+The blanks for these reports were sent out from the
+Adjutant-and-Inspector-General's office at Richmond, with the order
+that the numerical returns be made "on the forms furnished and
+according to the directions expressed on them" (General Orders No.
+64, Sept. 8, 1862). The column "Effective Total" in these returns
+included only enlisted men carrying arms and actually in the line of
+battle. It excluded all officers, the non-commissioned staff,
+extra-duty men, the sick in hospital, and those in arrest. To secure
+uniformity in the method of reporting in his army and to correct
+some irregularity, General Bragg issued a circular, as follows
+(Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 619):--
+
+[Circular.]
+
+"HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF TENNESSEE,
+TULLAHOMA, January 29, 1863.
+
+
+Hereafter, under the column of 'Effective Total' in the reports from
+this army, extra-duty men and men in arrest will not be included.
+The 'Effective Total' must include only the fighting field
+force--those who are carried into the field of battle with fire-arms
+in their hands.
+
+By command of General Bragg.
+GEORGE WM. BRENT,
+Assistant Adjutant-General."
+
+Before the publication of the Official Records, I had occasion to
+call attention to the subject: see "The Nation," May 21, 1874, p.
+334; also "Atlanta" (Scribners' Series), pp. 27, 28; and again in
+"The Nation," February 2, 1893, p. 86. A fair comparison between the
+Confederate and the National armies, therefore, demands a
+computation of numbers by the same method; and as we did not use
+forms containing the "Effective Total" as reported by the
+Confederates, the columns of officers and men "present for duty"
+which are computed alike in the returns on both sides are the most
+satisfactory and fair basis of comparison.] He did not think Bragg
+would fight, but would retreat, and thought that in such a case he
+would not be hindered from sending more help to Johnston. Again, as
+forage in the country was scarce, he voted against an early advance.
+
+Thomas did not believe Bragg had been materially weakened, for if
+any troops had been sent away, he thought they had returned or their
+places had been supplied. He concluded that Bragg was ready to fight
+with an army at least as large as that of Rosecrans; that to hold
+our army where it was would sufficiently prevent further reduction
+of Bragg's; that an advance would give the latter the advantage and
+was not advisable. His preference for defensive warfare was very
+evident. He said it was true that Bragg might be reinforced and take
+the initiative, but that he "should be most happy to meet him here
+with his reinforcements." In conclusion he indicated the necessity
+of 6000 more cavalry to be added to the army. [Footnote: See also
+_ante_, p. 478.]
+
+When the answers were all received, Garfield summed them up in a
+paper, which must be admitted to be a remarkable production for a
+young volunteer officer deliberately controverting the opinions of
+such an array of seniors. He gave, as the best information at
+headquarters, the force of Bragg, before sending help to Johnston,
+as 38,000 infantry, 2600 artillery, and 17,500 cavalry. This made
+the infantry about 1000 too many, the artillery nearly exactly
+right, and the cavalry 2500 too many,--on the whole a very close
+estimate. From these he deducted 10,000, which was right. He stated
+Rosecrans's force at 82,700 "bayonets and sabres" with about 3000
+more on the way, but deducted 15,000 for necessary posts and
+garrisons. The balancing showed 65,000 to throw against Bragg's
+41,500. He further showed that delay would give time for the enemy's
+detachments to return, whilst we could hope for no further increase
+during the rest of the season. He then analyzed the military and
+civil reasons for activity, declared that he believed we could be
+victorious, and that the administration and the country had the
+right to expect the army to try.
+
+The result was a curious but encouraging result of bold and cogent
+reasoning. Although Rosecrans reported to General Halleck on the
+11th of June the opinion of his corps and division commanders
+against an early advance, the logic and the facts pressed upon him
+by his chief of staff evidently took strong hold of his active
+intellect, so that when Halleck on the 16th asked for a categorical
+answer whether he would make an immediate movement forward, he
+replied, "If it means to-night or to-morrow, no. If it means as soon
+as all things are ready, say five days, yes." [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp. 8-10.] No doubt the rather plain
+intimation that a categorical "no" would be followed by action at
+Washington helped the decision; but it would have helped it to a
+decided negative if Garfield's paper, reinforced by the personal
+advice and oral discussions which we now know were of daily
+occurrence between them, had not had a convincing weight with him,
+both as to the feasibility of the campaign of turning manoeuvres
+which he devised and adopted, and as to its probable success. The
+result is reckoned one of his chief claims to military renown.
+
+But to judge properly the relations of the government to both the
+commanding generals in Kentucky and Tennessee, it is necessary to go
+back to the days immediately after the battle of Stone's River, and
+to inquire what were the tasks assigned these commanders and the
+means furnished to perform them. The disappointment of the
+administration at Washington with Rosecrans's conduct of his
+campaign dated, indeed, much earlier than the time indicated. He had
+succeeded Buell at the end of October when Bragg was in full retreat
+to the Tennessee River. The continuance of a vigorous pursuit and
+the prompt reoccupation of the country held by us in the early
+summer was regarded as of the utmost importance for political, quite
+as much as for military reasons. It was not a time to halt and
+reorganize an army. The question of foreign intervention was
+apparently trembling in the balance, and to let European powers rest
+under the belief that we had lost most of what had been gained in
+the advance from Donelson to Shiloh and Corinth, was to invite
+complications of the most formidable character. The Washington
+authorities had therefore a perfect right to decide that to press
+Bragg vigorously and without intermission was the imperative duty of
+the commander of the Army of the Cumberland. He would be rightly
+held to have disappointed the expectations of his government if he
+failed to do so. Rosecrans had been chosen to succeed Buell because
+of the belief that his character was one of restless vehemence
+better adapted to this work than the slower but more solid qualities
+of Thomas, who was already second in command in that army.
+[Footnote: Since the text was written the Life of O. P. Morton has
+appeared, and in it his part in the change from Buell to Rosecrans
+is given. He urged the change upon Lincoln on the ground that
+aggressive vigor was imperatively demanded. "Another three months
+like the last six, and we are lost," said he. "Reject the wicked
+incapables whom you have patiently tried and found utterly wanting."
+On October 24th he telegraphed, "The removal of General Buell and
+the appointment of Rosecrans came not a moment too soon." Life, vol.
+i. pp. 197, 198.] Halleck was obliged very soon to remind Rosecrans
+of this, and to claim the right of urging him onward because he
+himself had given the advice which had been decisive when the
+question of the choice was under consideration.
+
+Yet as soon as the army was again concentrated about Nashville,
+Rosecrans's correspondence took the form of urgent demands for the
+means of reorganization. He insisted that his cavalry force must be
+greatly increased, that he must have repeating arms for his
+horsemen, that he must organize a selected corps of mounted infantry
+and obtain horses for them--in short, that he must take months to
+put his army in a condition equal to his desires before resuming the
+work of the campaign. His energy seemed to be wholly directed to
+driving the administration to supply his wants, whilst Bragg was
+allowed not only to stop his rather disorganized flight, but to
+retrace his steps toward middle Tennessee.
+
+On the 4th of December Halleck telegraphed that the President was so
+disappointed and dissatisfied that another week of inaction would
+result in another change of commanders. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xx. pt. ii. p. 118.] Rosecrans replied detailing his
+necessities, but taking a high tone and declaring himself insensible
+to threats of removal. The next day Halleck patiently but decidedly
+gave the reasons which made the demand for activity a reasonable
+one, adding the reminder that no one had doubted that Buell would
+eventually have succeeded, and that Rosecrans's appointment had been
+made because they believed he would move more rapidly. [Footnote:
+_Id_., p. 124.] Meanwhile every effort was made to furnish him with
+the arms, equipments, and horses he desired.
+
+The battle of Stone's River had many points of resemblance to that
+of Antietam, and like that engagement was indecisive in itself, the
+subsequent retreat of the Confederates making it a victory for the
+national arms. The condition of the Army of the Cumberland after the
+battle was a sufficient reason for some delay, and a short time for
+recuperation and reinforcement was cordially accepted by everybody
+as a necessity of the situation. Congratulations and thanks were
+abundantly showered on the army, and promotions were given in more
+than common number. It was not concealed, however, that the
+government was most anxious to follow up the success and to make the
+delays as short as possible. An aggressive campaign was demanded,
+and the demand was a reasonable one because the means furnished were
+sufficient for the purpose.
+
+At the close of the month of January, Rosecrans's forces present for
+duty in his department numbered 65,000, [Footnote: _Id_., vol.
+xxiii. pt. ii. p. 29.] the Confederates under Bragg were 40,400.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 622.] The end of February showed the National
+forces to be 80,000, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
+ii. p. 93.] the enemy 43,600. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 654.] After this
+Bragg's army gradually increased till midsummer, when it reached a
+maximum of about 57,000, and Rosecrans's grew to 84,000. The
+Confederates had a larger proportion of cavalry than we, but this
+was at the expense of being much weaker in infantry, the decisive
+arm in serious engagements. In fact this disproportion was another
+reason for active work, since experience showed that the enemy kept
+his cavalry at home when he was vigorously pushed, and sent them on
+raids to interrupt our communications when we gave him a respite.
+Our superiority in numbers was enough, therefore, to make it
+entirely reasonable and in accord with every sound rule of
+conducting war, that the government should insist upon an active and
+aggressive campaign from the earliest day in the spring when the
+weather promised to be favorable. Such weather came at the beginning
+of March, and the Confederates took advantage of it, as we have
+seen, by sending Pegram into Kentucky. Their cavalry under Wheeler
+attacked also Fort Donelson, but were repulsed. A reconnoissance by
+a brigade under Colonel Coburn from Franklin toward Spring Hill
+resulted in the capture of the brigade by the Confederates under Van
+Dorn. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 115.] In the same month Forrest made a
+daring raid close to Nashville and captured Colonel Bloodgood and
+some 800 men at Brentwood. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 171, 732.]
+Rosecrans organized a raid by a brigade of infantry mounted on
+mules, commanded by Colonel Streight, with the object of cutting the
+railroad south of Chattanooga. It was delayed in starting till near
+the end of April, and was overtaken and captured near Rome in
+Georgia. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 232, 321.] These exasperating
+incidents were occurring whilst the Army of the Cumberland lay still
+about Murfreesboro, and its commander harassed the departments at
+Washington with the story of his wants, and intimated that nothing
+but carelessness as to the public good stood between him and their
+full supply. He was assured that he was getting his full share of
+everything which could be procured,--rifles, revolvers, carbines,
+horses, and equipments,--but the day of readiness seemed as far off
+as ever.
+
+On the 1st of March the President, feeling that the time had come
+when his armies should be in motion, and plainly discouraged at the
+poor success he had had in getting Rosecrans ready for an advance,
+authorized General Halleck to say to him that there was a vacant
+major-generalcy in the regular army which would be given to the
+general in the field who should first win an important and decisive
+victory. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 95.]
+The appeal to ambition was treated as if it had been an insult. It
+was called an "auctioneering of honor," and a base way to come by a
+promotion. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 111.] Halleck retorted conclusively
+that Rosecrans himself had warmly advocated giving promotion in the
+lower grades only for distinguished services in the field, and said:
+"When last summer, at your request, I urged the government to
+promote you for success in the field, and, again at your request,
+urged that your commission be dated back to your services in West
+Virginia, I thought I was doing right in advocating your claim to
+honors for services rendered." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 138.] In view of
+this unique correspondence it is certainly curious to find Rosecrans
+a few days later enumerating his personal grievances to Mr. Lincoln,
+and putting among them this, that after the battle of Stone's River
+he had asked "as a personal favor" that his commission as
+major-general of volunteers should be dated back to December, 1861,
+and that it was not granted. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 146.] It was
+considerably antedated, so as to make him outrank General Thomas,
+much to the disgust of the latter when he learned it; but the date
+was not made as early as Rosecrans desired, which would have made
+him outrank Grant, Buell, and Burnside as well as Thomas.
+
+Persuasion and exhortation having failed, Grant must either be left
+to take the chances that part of Bragg's army would be concentrated
+under Johnston in Mississippi, or he must be strengthened by sending
+to him that part of our forces in Kentucky and Tennessee which could
+most easily be spared. There can be no doubt that it was well judged
+to send the Ninth Corps to him, as it would be less mischievous to
+suspend Burnside's movement into East Tennessee than to diminish the
+Army of the Cumberland under existing circumstances. It is, however,
+indisputably clear that the latter army should have been in active
+campaign at the opening of the season, whether we consider the
+advantage of the country or the reputation of its commander.
+
+If we inquire what means the administration gave Burnside to perform
+his part of the joint task assigned him, we shall find that it was
+not niggardly in doing so. His forces were at their maximum at the
+end of May, when they reached but little short of 38,000 present for
+duty in his whole department. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxiii. pt. ii. p. 380.] This included, however, all the great States
+of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan as well as the eastern half
+of Kentucky, and there were several camps of prisoners and posts
+north of the Ohio which demanded considerable garrisons. Eight
+thousand men were used for this purpose, and nobody thought this an
+excess. Thirty thousand were thus left him for such posts in
+Kentucky as would be necessary to cover his communications and for
+his active column. He expected to make his active army about 25,000,
+and the advance movements had begun when, as has been stated, he was
+ordered to suspend, and to send the Ninth Corps to Grant.
+
+The enemy in East Tennessee were under the command of General Dabney
+Maury at first, but when he was sent to Mobile, General S. B.
+Buckner was made the commandant. His returns of forces for May 31st
+show that he had 16,267 present for duty, with which to oppose the
+advance of Burnside. The information of the latter was that his
+opponent had 20,000, and he reckoned on having to deal with that
+number. The passes of the Cumberland Mountains were so few and so
+difficult that it was by no means probable that his campaign would
+be an easy one; yet the difficulties in the first occupation were
+not so serious as those which might arise if Bragg were able to
+maintain an interior position between the two National armies. In
+that case, unless he were kept thoroughly employed by Rosecrans, he
+might concentrate to crush Burnside before his decisive conflict
+with the Army of the Cumberland. This was the inherent vice of a
+plan which contemplated two independent armies attempting to
+co-operate; and if Rosecrans had been willing to open his campaign
+on the 1st of March, it is almost certain that the troops in
+Kentucky would have been ordered to him. The President did not
+determine to send Burnside to the West and to give him a little army
+of his own till he despaired of the liberation of East Tennessee in
+that season by any activity of Rosecrans. This cannot be overlooked
+in any candid criticism of the summer's work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE MORGAN RAID
+
+
+Departure of the staff for the field--An amusingly quick
+return--Changes in my own duties--Expeditions to occupy the
+enemy--Sanders' raid into East Tennessee--His route--His success and
+return--The Confederate Morgan's raid--His instructions--His
+reputation as a soldier--Compared with Forrest--Morgan's start
+delayed--His appearance at Green River, Ky.--Foiled by Colonel
+Moore--Captures Lebanon--Reaches the Ohio at Brandenburg--General
+Hobson in pursuit--Morgan crosses into Indiana--Was this his
+original purpose?--His route out of Indiana into Ohio--He approaches
+Cincinnati--Hot chase by Hobson--Gunboats co-operating on the
+river--Efforts to block his way--He avoids garrisoned posts and
+cities--Our troops moved in transports by water--Condition of
+Morgan's jaded column--Approaching the Ohio at
+Buffington's--Gunboats near the ford--Hobson attacks--Part captured,
+the rest fly northward--Another capture--A long chase--Surrender of
+Morgan with the remnant--Summary of results--A burlesque
+capitulation.
+
+
+The departure of General Burnside and his staff for active service
+in the field was quite an event in Cincinnati society. The young men
+were a set of fine fellows, well educated and great social
+favorites. There was a public concert the evening before they left
+for Lexington, and they were to go by a special train after the
+entertainment should be over. They came to the concert hall,
+therefore, not only booted and spurred, but there was perhaps a bit
+of youthful but very natural ostentation of being ready for the
+field. Their hair was cropped as close as barber's shears could cut
+it, they wore the regulation uniform of the cavalry, with trim
+round-about jackets, and were the "cynosure of all eyes." Their
+parting words were said to their lady friends in the intervals of
+the music, and the pretty dramatic effect of it all suggested to an
+onlooker the famous parting scene in "Belgium's capital" which
+"Childe Harold" has made so familiar.
+
+It was quite an anti-climax, however, when the gay young officers
+came back, before a week was over, crestfallen, the detaching of the
+Ninth Corps having suspended operations in Kentucky. They were a
+little quizzed about their very brief campaign, but so
+good-humoredly that they bore it pretty well, and were able to seem
+amused at it, as well as the fair quizzers.
+
+In preparation for a lengthened absence, Burnside had turned over to
+me some extra duties. He ordered the District of Michigan to be
+added to my command, and gave general directions that the current
+business of the department headquarters should pass through my
+hands. As General Parke, his chief of staff, had gone to Vicksburg
+in command of the Ninth Corps, Burnside made informal use of me to
+supply in some measure his place. Our relations therefore became
+closer than ever. He hoped his troops would soon come back to him,
+as was promised, and in resuming business at the Cincinnati
+headquarters, he tried to keep it all in such shape that he could
+drop it at a moment's notice.
+
+To keep the enemy occupied he organized two expeditions, one under
+Brigadier-General Julius White into West Virginia, and the other
+under Colonel W. P. Sanders into East Tennessee. The latter was one
+of the boldest and longest raids made during the war, and besides
+keeping the enemy on the alert, destroying considerable military
+stores and a number of important railway bridges, it was a
+preliminary reconnoissance of East Tennessee and the approaches to
+it through the mountains, which was of great value a little later.
+The force consisted of 1500 mounted men, being detachments from
+different regiments of cavalry and mounted infantry, among which
+were some of the loyal men of East Tennessee under Colonel R. K.
+Byrd. Sanders was a young officer of the regular army who was now
+colonel of the Fifth Kentucky Cavalry. He rapidly made a first-class
+reputation as a bold leader of mounted troops, but was unfortunately
+killed in the defence of Knoxville in November of this same year.
+His expedition started from Mount Vernon, Kentucky, on the 14th of
+June, marched rapidly southward sixty miles to Williamsburg, where
+the Cumberland River was fordable. Thence he moved southwest about
+the same distance by the Marsh Creek route to the vicinity of
+Huntsville in Tennessee. Continuing this route southward some fifty
+miles more, he struck the Big Emory River, and following this
+through Emory Gap, he reached the vicinity of Kingston on the Clinch
+River in East Tennessee, having marched in all rather more than two
+hundred miles. Avoiding Kingston, which was occupied by a superior
+force of Confederates, he marched rapidly on Knoxville, destroying
+all the more important railway bridges. Demonstrating boldly in
+front of Knoxville, and finding that it was strongly held and its
+streets barricaded for defence, he passed around the town and
+advanced upon Strawberry Plains, where a great bridge and trestle
+crosses the Holston River, 2100 feet in length, a place to become
+very familiar to us in later campaigning. Crossing the Holston at
+Flat Creek, where other bridges were burned, he moved up the left
+(east) bank of the river to attack the guard at the big bridge, the
+Confederate forces being on that side. He drove them off, capturing
+150 of the party and five cannon. He not only destroyed the bridge,
+but captured and burnt large quantities of military stores and camp
+equipage. On he went along the railway to Mossy Creek, where another
+bridge 300 feet long was burned. He now turned homeward toward the
+north-west, having greatly injured a hundred miles of the East
+Tennessee Railroad. Turning like a fox under the guidance of his
+East Tennessee scouts, he crossed the Clinch Mountains and the
+valley of the Clinch, and made his way back by way of Smith's Gap
+through the Cumberland Mountains to his starting-place in Kentucky.
+He had captured over 450 prisoners, whom he paroled, had taken ten
+cannon and 1000 stands of small arms which he destroyed, besides the
+large amounts of military stores which have been mentioned. He
+marched about five hundred miles in the whole circuit, and though
+frequently skirmishing briskly with considerable bodies of the
+enemy, his losses were only 2 killed, 4 wounded, and 13 missing. Of
+course a good many horses were used up, but as a preliminary to the
+campaign which was to follow and in which Sanders was to have a
+prominent place, it was a raid which was much more profitable than
+most of them. He was gone ten days. [Footnote: Sanders' Report,
+Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp. 385, 386.]
+
+The expedition under Brigadier-General Julius White was sent to beat
+up the Confederate posts in the Big Sandy valley and to aid
+incidentally the raid under Sanders into East Tennessee. Burnside
+sent another southward in the direction of Monticello, Kentucky. The
+object of these was to keep the enemy amused near home and prevent
+the raids his cavalry had been making on the railway line by which
+Rosecrans kept up his communication with Louisville. They seem
+rather to have excited the emulation of the Confederate cavalryman
+Brigadier-General John H. Morgan, who, a few days before Rosecrans's
+advance on Tullahoma, obtained permission to make a raid, starting
+from the neighborhood of McMinnville, Tenn., crossing the Cumberland
+near Burkesville, and thence moving on Louisville, which he thought
+he might capture with its depots of military stores, as it was
+supposed to be almost stripped of troops. His division consisted of
+about 3000 horsemen, and he took the whole of it with him, though
+Wheeler, his chief, seems to have limited him to 2000. His
+instructions were to make a rapid movement on the line of the
+Louisville and Nashville Railroad in Kentucky and to get back to his
+place in Bragg's army as quickly as possible. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p.817.]
+
+Morgan's reputation as a soldier was a peculiar one. He had made a
+number of raids which showed a good deal of boldness in the general
+plan and a good deal of activity in the execution, but it cannot be
+said that he showed any liking for hard fighting. Like boys skating
+near thin ice, he seemed to be trying to see how close he could come
+to danger without getting in. A really bold front showed by a small
+body of brave men was usually enough to turn him aside. It is
+instructive to compare his career with Forrest's. They began with
+similar grade, but with all the social and personal prestige in
+Morgan's favor. Forrest had been a local slave-trader, a calling
+which implied social ostracism in the South, and which put a great
+obstacle in the way of advancement. Both were fond of adventurous
+raids, but Forrest was a really daring soldier and fought his way to
+recognition in the face of stubborn prejudice. Morgan achieved
+notoriety by the showy temerity of his distant movements, but nobody
+was afraid of him in the field at close quarters.
+
+The official order to Morgan to start on his expedition was dated on
+the 18th of June, but he did not get off till the close of the
+month. It would seem that he remained in observation on the flank of
+Rosecrans's army as the left wing moved upon Manchester, and began
+his northward march after Bragg had retreated to Decherd on the way
+to Chattanooga. At any rate, he was first heard of on the north side
+of the Cumberland on the 2d of July, near Burkesville and marching
+on Columbia. Burnside immediately ordered all his cavalry and
+mounted infantry to concentrate to meet him, but his route had been
+chosen with full knowledge of the positions of our detachments and
+he was able to get the start of them. Brigadier-General H. M. Judah,
+who commanded the division of the Twenty-third Corps which covered
+that part of our front, seems to have wholly misconceived the
+situation, and refused to listen to the better information which his
+subordinates gave him. [Footnote: Sketches of War History, vol. iv.
+(Papers of the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion). A paper by
+Capt. H. C. Weaver, Sixteenth Kentucky Infantry, who was on the
+staff of Brigadier-General E. H. Hobson during the pursuit of
+Morgan.] After a slight skirmish at Columbia, Morgan made for the
+Green River bridge at Tebb's Bend, an important crossing of the
+Louisville Railroad. The bend was occupied by Colonel O. H. Moore of
+the Twenty-fifth Michigan Infantry, who, under previous instructions
+from Brigadier-General E. H. Hobson, intrenched a line across the
+neck of the bend, some distance in front of the stockade at the
+bridge. Morgan advanced upon the 4th of July, and after a shot or
+two from his artillery, sent in a flag demanding the surrender of
+Moore's little force, which amounted to only 200 men. Moore did not
+propose to celebrate the national anniversary in that way, and
+answered accordingly. The enemy kept up a lively skirmishing fight
+for some hours, when he withdrew. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxiii. pt. i. p. 645.] Moore had beaten him off with a loss of 6
+killed and 23 wounded of the brave Michigan men. He reported
+Morgan's loss at 50 killed and 200 wounded. The Confederate
+authorities admit that they had 36 killed, but put their wounded at
+only 46, an incredibly small proportion to the killed.
+
+The raiders continued their route to Lebanon, where was the
+Twentieth Kentucky Infantry under Lieutenant-Colonel Charles S.
+Hanson, numbering less than 400 men, without artillery. A brigade
+ordered to reinforce the post delayed its advance, and Hanson was
+left to his own resources. After several hours of a lively
+skirmishing fight without much loss, he surrendered to save the
+village from destruction by fire, which Morgan threatened. The loss
+in the post was 4 killed and 15 wounded. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p. 649.] Hanson reported 29 rebel dead
+left on the field and 30 wounded, also abandoned. No doubt others of
+the wounded were taken care of and concealed by their sympathizers
+in the vicinity. Some military stores had been burned with the
+railway station-house before Hanson surrendered. He and his men were
+paroled in the irregular way adopted by Morgan on the raid.
+
+Bardstown was the next point reached by the enemy, but Morgan's
+appetite for Louisville seems now to have diminished, and he turned
+to the westward, reaching the Ohio River on the 8th, at Brandenburg,
+some thirty miles below the city. The detachments of mounted troops
+which were in pursuit had been united under the command of General
+Hobson, the senior officer present, and consisted of two brigades,
+commanded by Brigadier-General J. M. Shackelford and Colonel F.
+Wolford. They approached Brandenburg on the evening of the 8th and
+captured the steamboat "McCombs" with a remnant of Morgan's men and
+stores the next morning when they entered the town. They saw on the
+opposite bank the smoking wreck of the steamboat "Alice Dean" which
+Morgan had set on fire after landing his men on the Indiana shore.
+The steamboat "McCombs" was sent to Louisville for other transports.
+A delay of twenty-four hours thus occurred, and when Hobson's
+command was assembled in Indiana, Morgan had the start by nearly two
+days. [Footnote: Hobson's Report, Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
+i. p. 659.]
+
+It is claimed by Morgan's intimate friend and chronicler that he
+intended to cross the Ohio from the day he left camp in Tennessee,
+although it would be contrary to his orders; [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+818. History of Morgan's Cavalry, by B. W. Duke, p. 410.] and that
+he had made investigations in advance in regard to fords on the
+upper Ohio and particularly at Buffington Island, where he
+ultimately tried to cross into West Virginia. If true, this would
+forfeit every claim on his part to the character of a valuable and
+intelligent subordinate; for operations on a large scale would be
+absolutely impossible if the commander of a division of cavalry may
+go off as he pleases, in disobedience to the orders which assign him
+a specific task. Except for this statement, it would be natural to
+conclude that when he approached Louisville he began to doubt
+whether the city were so defenceless as he had assumed, and knowing
+that twenty-four hours' delay would bring Hobson's forces upon his
+back, he then looked about for some line of action that would save
+his prestige and be more brilliant than a race back again to
+Tennessee. It is quite probable that the feasibility of crossing the
+Ohio and making a rapid ride through the country on its northern
+bank had been discussed by him, and conscious as he was that he had
+thus far accomplished nothing, he might be glad of an excuse for
+trying it. This interpretation of his acts would be more honorable
+to him as an officer than the deliberate and premeditated
+disobedience attributed to him. But whether the decision was made
+earlier or later, the capture of the steamboats at Brandenburg was
+at once made use of to ferry over his command, though it was not
+accomplished without some exciting incidents. A party of the
+Confederates under Captain Hines had crossed into Indiana a few days
+before without orders from Morgan, being as independent of him,
+apparently, as he was of General Bragg. Hines's party had roused the
+militia of the State, and he had made a rapid retreat to the Ohio,
+reaching it just as Morgan entered Brandenburg. It may be that the
+lucky daredeviltry of Hines's little raid fired his commander's
+heart to try a greater one; at any rate, Morgan forgave his trespass
+against his authority as he prayed to be forgiven by Bragg, and
+turned his attention to driving off the Indiana militia who had
+followed Hines to the bank of the river and now opened fire with a
+single cannon. Morgan's artillery silenced the gun and caused the
+force to retreat out of range, when he put over two of his
+regiments, dismounted, to cover the ferrying of the rest. At this
+point one of the "tin-clad" gunboats of the river fleet made its
+appearance and took part in the combat. The section of Parrot guns
+in Morgan's battery proved an overmatch for it, however, and it
+retired to seek reinforcements. The interval was used to hasten the
+transport of the Confederate men and horses, and before further
+opposition could be made, the division was in the saddle and
+marching northward into Indiana.
+
+At the first news of Morgan's advance into Kentucky, Burnside had
+directed General Hartsuff, who commanded in that State, to
+concentrate his forces so as to capture Morgan if he should attempt
+to return through the central part of it. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp.13, 679, etc.] Judah's and Boyle's
+divisions were put in motion toward Louisville, and the remainder of
+the mounted troops not already with Hobson were also hurried
+forward. These last constituted a provisional brigade under Colonel
+Sanders. It may help to understand the organization of the National
+troops to note the fact that all which operated against Morgan were
+parts of the Twenty-third Corps, which was composed of four
+divisions under Generals Sturgis, Boyle, Judah, and White. The
+brigades were of both infantry and mounted troops, united for the
+special purposes of the contemplated campaign into East Tennessee.
+For the pursuit of Morgan the mounted troops were sent off first,
+and as these united they formed a provisional division under Hobson,
+the senior brigadier present. Quite a number of the regiments were
+mounted infantry, who after a few months were dismounted and resumed
+their regular place in the infantry line. For the time being,
+however, Hobson had a mounted force that was made up of fractions of
+brigades from all the divisions of the corps; and Shackelford,
+Wolford, Kautz, and Sanders were the commanders of the provisional
+brigades during the pursuit. Its strength did not quite reach 3000
+men. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p. 658.]
+
+Morgan's first course was due north, and he marched with some
+deliberation. On the 10th he reached Salem, about forty miles from
+the river, on the railway between Louisville and Chicago. [Footnote:
+_Id_., pp. 717, 719.] A small body of militia had assembled here,
+and made a creditable stand, but were outflanked and forced to
+retreat after inflicting on him a score of casualties. The evidences
+Morgan here saw of the ability of the Northern States to overwhelm
+him by the militia, satisfied him that further progress inland was
+not desirable, and turning at right angles to the road he had
+followed, he made for Madison on the Ohio. There was evidently some
+understanding with a detachment he had left in Kentucky, for on the
+11th General Manson, of Judah's division, who was on his way with a
+brigade from Louisville to Madison by steamboats under naval convoy,
+fell in with a party of Morgan's men seeking to cross the river at
+Twelve-mile Island, a little below Madison. Twenty men and
+forty-five horses were captured. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 729,
+745.] If any of this party had succeeded in crossing before (as was
+reported) they would of course inform their chief of the
+reinforcements going to Madison, and of the gunboats in the river.
+Morgan made no attack on Madison, but took another turn northward in
+his zigzag course, and marched on Vernon, a railway-crossing some
+twenty miles from Madison, where the line to Indianapolis intersects
+that from Cincinnati to Vincennes. Here a militia force had been
+assembled under Brigadier-General Love, and the town was well
+situated for defence. Morgan, declining to attack, now turned
+eastward again, his course being such that he might be aiming for
+the river at Lawrenceburg or at Cincinnati.
+
+The deviousness of his route had been such as to indicate a want of
+distinct purpose, and had enabled Hobson greatly to reduce the
+distance between them. Hanson's brigade on the steamboats was now
+about 2500 strong, and moved on the 12th from Madison to
+Lawrenceburg, keeping pace as nearly as possible with Morgan's
+eastward progress. Sanders's brigade reached the river twenty miles
+above Louisville, and General Boyle sent transports to put him also
+in motion on the river. At the request of Burnside, Governor Tod, of
+Ohio, called out the militia of the southern counties, as Governor
+Morton had done in Indiana. Burnside himself, at Cincinnati, kept in
+constant telegraphic communication with all points, assembling the
+militia where they were most likely to be useful and trying to put
+his regular forces in front of the enemy. It would have been easy to
+let the slippery Confederate horsemen back into Kentucky. The force
+in the river, both naval and military, unquestionably prevented this
+at Madison, and probably at Lawrenceburg. On the 13th Morgan was at
+Harrison on the Ohio State line, and it now became my turn as
+district commander to take part in the effort to catch him. I had no
+direct control of the troops of the Twenty-third Corps, and the only
+garrisons in Ohio were at the prison camps at Columbus and Sandusky.
+These of course could not be removed, and our other detachments were
+hardly worth naming. Burnside declared martial law in the counties
+threatened with invasion, so that the citizens and militia might for
+military purposes come directly under our control. The relations
+between the general and myself were so intimate that no strict
+demarcation of authority was necessary. He authorized me to give
+commands in his name when haste demanded it, and we relieved each
+other in night watching at the telegraph.
+
+A small post had been maintained at Dayton, since the Vallandigham
+disturbance, and Major Keith, its commandant, was ordered to take
+his men by rail to Hamilton. He went at once and reported himself
+holding that town with 600 men, including the local militia, but
+only 400 were armed. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i.
+pp.742, 743.] Lieutenant-Colonel Neff commanded at Camp Dennison,
+thirteen miles from Cincinnati, and had 700 armed men there, with
+1200 more of unarmed recruits. [Footnote: _Id_., p.749.] At both
+these posts systematic scouting was organized so as to keep track of
+the enemy, and their active show of force was such that Morgan did
+not venture to attack either, but threaded his way around them. At
+Cincinnati there was no garrison. A couple of hundred men formed the
+post at Newport on the Kentucky side of the river, but the main
+reliance was on the local militia. These were organized as soon as
+the governor's call was issued on the evening of the 12th. Batteries
+were put in position covering the approaches to the city from the
+north and west, and the beautiful suburban hills of Clifton and
+Avondale afforded excellent defensive positions.
+
+The militia that were called out were of course infantry, and being
+both without drill and unaccustomed to marching, could only be used
+in position, to defend a town or block the way. In such work they
+showed courage and soldierly spirit, so that Morgan avoided
+collision with all considerable bodies of them. But they could not
+be moved. All we could do was to try to assemble them at such points
+in advance as the raiders were likely to reach, and we especially
+limited their task to the defensive one, and to blockading roads and
+streams. Particular stress was put on the orders to take up the
+planking of bridges and to fell timber into the roads. Little was
+done in this way at first, but after two or three days of constant
+reiteration, the local forces did their work better, and delays to
+the flying enemy were occasioned which contributed essentially to
+the final capture.
+
+No definite news of Morgan's crossing the Ohio line was received
+till about sunset of the 13th when he was marching eastward from
+Harrison. Satisfied that Lawrenceburg and lower points on the Ohio
+were now safe, Burnside ordered the transports and gunboats at once
+to Cincinnati. Manson and Sanders arrived during the night, and the
+latter with his brigade of mounted men was, at dawn of the 14th,
+placed on the north of the city in the village of Avondale. Manson
+with the transports was held in readiness to move further up the
+river.
+
+Feeling the net drawing about him, Morgan gave his men but two or
+three hours' rest near Harrison, and then took the road toward
+Cincinnati. He reached Glendale, thirteen miles northwest of the
+city, late in the night, and then turned to the east, apparently for
+Camp Dennison, equally distant in a northeast direction. His men
+were jaded to the last degree of endurance, and some were dropping
+from the saddle for lack of sleep. Still he kept on. Colonel Neff,
+in accordance with his orders, had blockaded the principal roads to
+the west, and stood at bay in front of his camp. Morgan threw a few
+shells at Neff's force, and a slight skirmish began, but again he
+broke away, forced to make a detour of ten miles to the north. We
+had been able to warn Neff of their approach by a message sent after
+midnight, and he had met them boldly, protecting the camp and the
+railroad bridge north of it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxiii. pt. i. pp. 748, 750.] The raiders reached Williamsburg in
+Clermont County, twenty-eight miles from Cincinnati, in the
+afternoon of the 14th, and there the tired men and beasts took the
+first satisfactory rest they had had for three days. Morgan had very
+naturally assumed that there would be a considerable regular force
+at Cincinnati, and congratulated himself that by a forced night
+march he had passed round the city and avoided being cut off. He
+had, in truth, escaped by the skin of his teeth. Could Burnside have
+felt sure that Lawrenceburg was safe a few hours earlier, Manson and
+Sanders might have been in Cincinnati early enough on the 13th to
+have barred the way from Harrison. He had in fact ordered Manson up
+at two o'clock in the afternoon, but the latter was making a
+reconnoissance north of the town, and was detained till late in the
+night. As soon as it was learned on the 14th that Morgan had passed
+east of the Little Miami River, Sanders was ordered to join Hobson
+and aid in the pursuit. [Footnote: In the reports of Hobson and
+Sanders there seems to be a mistake of a day in the dates, from the
+12th to the 16th. This may be corrected by the copies of current
+dispatches given in Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp.
+730-750.] Hobson's horses were almost worn out, for following close
+upon Morgan's track, as he was doing, he found only broken down
+animals left behind by the rebels, whilst these gathered up the
+fresh animals as they advanced. Still he kept doggedly on, seldom
+more than ten or fifteen miles behind, but unable to close that gap
+till his opponent should be delayed or brought to bay.
+
+After entering Clermont County, the questions as to roads, etc,
+indicated that Morgan was making for Maysville, hoping to cross the
+river there. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 749.] Manson's brigade and the
+gunboats were accordingly sent up the river to that vicinity. The
+militia of the Scioto valley were ordered to destroy the bridges, in
+the hope that that river would delay him, but they were tardy or
+indifferent, and it was a day or two later before the means of
+obstruction were efficiently used. Judah's forces reached Cincinnati
+on the 14th, a brigade was there supplied with horses, and they were
+sent by steamers to Portsmouth. Judah was ordered to spare no effort
+to march northward far enough to head off the enemy's column. On the
+16th General Scammon, commanding in West Virginia, was asked to
+concentrate some of his troops at Gallipolis or Pomeroy on the upper
+Ohio, and promptly did so. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 756.] The militia
+were concentrated at several points along the railway to Marietta.
+Hobson was in the rear, pushing along at the rate of forty miles a
+day.
+
+Morgan had soon learned that the river was so patrolled that no
+chance to make a ferry could be trusted, and he made his final
+effort to reach the ford at Buffington Island, between Marietta and
+Pomeroy. He reached Pomeroy on the 18th, but Scammon was occupying
+it, and the troops of the Kanawha division soon satisfied Morgan
+that he was not dealing with militia. He avoided the roads held by
+our troops, and as they were infantry, could move around them,
+though a running skirmish was kept up for some miles. Hobson was
+close in rear, and Judah's men were approaching Buffington. Morgan
+reached the river near the ford about eight o'clock in the evening.
+The night was pitchy dark, and his information was that a small
+earthwork built to command the ford was occupied by a permanent
+garrison. He concluded to wait for daylight. The work had in fact
+been abandoned on the preceding day, but at daybreak in the morning
+he was attacked. Hobson's men pushed in from west and north, and
+Judah from the south. The gunboats came close up to the island,
+within range of the ford, and commanded it. Hobson attacked
+vigorously and captured the artillery. The wing of the Confederate
+forces, about 700 in number, surrendered to General Shackelford, and
+about 200 to the other brigades under Hobson. The rest of the enemy,
+favored by a fog which filled the valley, evaded their pursuers and
+fled northward. Hobson ordered all his brigades to obey the commands
+of Shackelford, who was in the lead, and himself sought Judah, whose
+approach had been unknown to him till firing was heard on the other
+side of the enemy. Judah had also advanced at daybreak, but in
+making a reconnoissance he himself with a small escort had stumbled
+upon the enemy in the fog. Both parties were completely surprised,
+and before Judah could bring up supports, three of his staff were
+captured, Major Daniel McCook, paymaster, who had volunteered as an
+aide, was mortally wounded, ten privates were wounded, and twenty or
+thirty with a piece of artillery captured. Morgan hastily turned in
+the opposite direction, when he ran into Hobson's columns; Judah's
+prisoners and the gun were recaptured, and the enemy driven in
+confusion, with the losses above stated. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. pp. 775-777.]
+
+As Hobson was regularly a brigade commander in Judah's division, the
+latter now asserted command of the whole force, against Hobson's
+protest, who was provisionally in a separate command by Burnside's
+order. Fortunately, Shackelford had already led Hobson's men in
+rapid pursuit of the enemy, and as soon as Burnside was informed of
+the dispute, he ordered Judah not to interfere with the troops which
+had operated separately. By the time this order came Shackelford was
+too far away for Hobson to rejoin him, and continued in independent
+command till Morgan's final surrender. He overtook the flying
+Confederates on the 20th, about sixty miles further north, and they
+were forced to halt and defend themselves. Shackelford succeeded in
+getting a regiment in the enemy's rear, and after a lively skirmish
+between 1200 and 1300 surrendered. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 778, 781.]
+Morgan himself again evaded with about 600 followers. Shackelford
+took 500 volunteers on his best horses and pressed the pursuit. The
+chase lasted four days of almost continuous riding, when the enemy
+was again overtaken in Jefferson County, some fifteen miles
+northwest of Steubenville. General Burnside had collected at
+Cincinnati the dismounted men of Hobson's command, had given them
+fresh horses, and had sent them by rail to join Shackelford. They
+were under command of Major W. B. Way of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry
+and Major G. W. Rue of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry. They brought five
+or six hundred fresh men to Shackelford's aid, and their assistance
+was decisive. Morgan's course to the river at Smith's Ferry on the
+border of Columbiana County was intercepted, and near Salineville he
+was forced to surrender with a little less than 400 men who still
+followed him. About 250 had surrendered in smaller bodies within a
+day or two before, and stragglers had been picked up at many points
+along the line of pursuit. Burnside reported officially that about
+3000 prisoners were brought to Cincinnati. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i. p. 14.] General Duke states that some
+300 of Morgan's command succeeded in crossing the Ohio about twenty
+miles above Buffington, and escaped through West Virginia. He also
+gives us some idea of the straggling caused by the terrible fatigues
+of the march by telling us that the column was reduced by nearly 500
+effectives when it passed around Cincinnati. [Footnote: Hist. of
+Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 442, 443.] It is probable that these figures
+are somewhat loosely stated, as the number of prisoners is very
+nearly the whole which the Confederate authorities give as Morgan's
+total strength. [Footnote: A note attached to Wheeler's return of
+the cavalry of his corps for July 31st says that Morgan's division
+was absent "on detached service," effectives 2743. Add to this the
+officers, etc., and the total "present for duty" would be a little
+over 3000. Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 941. For Bragg's
+circular explaining the term "effectives" as applying only to
+private soldiers actually in the line of battle, see _Id_., p. 619,
+and _ante_, p. 482.] Either a considerable reinforcement must have
+succeeded in getting to him across the river, or a very small body
+must have escaped through West Virginia. Burnside directed the
+officers to be sent to the military prison camp for officers on
+Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay, and the private soldiers to go to
+Camp Chase at Columbus and Camp Morton at Indianapolis. Soon
+afterward, however, orders came from Washington that the officers
+should be confined in the Ohio penitentiary, in retaliation for
+unusual severities practised on our officers who were prisoners in
+the South. Morgan's romantic escape from the prison occurred just
+after I was relieved from the command of the district in the fall,
+for the purpose of joining the active army in East Tennessee.
+
+A glance at the raid as a whole, shows that whilst it naturally
+attracted much attention and caused great excitement at the North,
+it was of very little military importance. It greatly scattered for
+a time and fatigued the men and horses of the Twenty-third Corps who
+took part in the chase. It cost Indiana and Ohio something in the
+plunder of country stores and farm-houses, and in the pay and
+expenses of large bodies of militia that were temporarily called
+into service. But this was all. North of the Ohio no military posts
+were captured, no public depots of supply were destroyed, not even
+an important railway bridge was burned. There was no fighting worthy
+of the name; the list of casualties on the National side showing
+only 19 killed, 47 wounded, and 8 missing in the whole campaign,
+from the 2d of July to the final surrender. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxlii. pt. i. p.637.] For this the whole Confederate
+division of cavalry was sacrificed. Its leader was never again
+trusted by his government, and his prestige was gone forever. His
+men made simply a race for life from the day they turned away from
+the militia at Vernon, Indiana. Morgan carefully avoided every
+fortified post and even the smaller towns. The places he visited
+after he crossed the Ohio line do not include the larger towns and
+villages that seemed to lie directly in his path. He avoided the
+railroads also, and these were used every day to convey the militia
+and other troops parallel to his route, to hedge him in and finally
+to stop him. His absence was mischievous to Bragg, who was
+retreating upon Chattanooga and to whom the division would have been
+a most welcome reinforcement. He did not delay Burnside, for the
+latter was awaiting the return of the Ninth Corps from Vicksburg,
+and this did not begin to arrive till long after the raid was over.
+None of the National army's communications were interrupted, and not
+a soldier under Rosecrans lost a ration by reason of the pretentious
+expedition. It ended in a scene that was ridiculous in the extreme.
+Morgan had pressed into his service as guides, on the last day of
+his flight, two men who were not even officers of the local militia,
+but who were acting as volunteer homeguards to protect their
+neighborhood. When he finally despaired of escape, he begged his
+captive guides to change their _role_ into commanders of an
+imaginary army and to accept his surrender upon merciful and
+favorable terms to the vanquished! He afterward claimed the right to
+immediate liberation on parole, under the conditions of this
+burlesque capitulation. Shackelford and his rough riders would
+accept no surrender but an unconditional one as prisoners of war,
+and were sustained in this by their superiors. The distance by the
+river between the crossing at Brandenburg and the ferry above
+Steubenville near which Morgan finally surrendered, was some six
+hundred miles. This added to the march from Tennessee through
+Kentucky would make the whole ride nearly a thousand miles long. Its
+importance, however, except as a subject for an entertaining story,
+was in an inverse ratio to its length. Its chief interest to the
+student of military history is in its bearing on the question of the
+rational use of cavalry in an army, and the wasteful folly of
+expeditions which have no definite and tangible military object.
+[Footnote: For Official Records and correspondence concerning the
+raid, see Burnside's report (Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. i.
+pp.13, 14) and the miscellaneous documents (_Id_., pp.632-818).]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE LIBERATION OF EAST TENNESSEE
+
+
+News of Grant's victory at Vicksburg--A thrilling scene at the
+opera--Burnside's Ninth Corps to return--Stanton urges Rosecrans to
+advance--The Tullahoma manoeuvres--Testy correspondence--Its real
+meaning--Urgency with Burnside--Ignorance concerning his
+situation--His disappointment as to Ninth Corps--Rapid concentration
+of other troops--Burnside's march into East Tennessee--Occupation of
+Knoxville--Invests Cumberland Gap--The garrison surrenders--Good
+news from Rosecrans--Distances between armies--Divergent lines--No
+railway communication--Burnside concentrates toward the Virginia
+line--Joy of the people--Their intense loyalty--Their faith in the
+future.
+
+
+During the Morgan Raid and whilst we in Ohio were absorbed in the
+excitement of it, events were moving elsewhere. Lee had advanced
+from Virginia through Maryland into Pennsylvania and had been
+defeated at Gettysburg by the National army under Meade. Grant had
+brought the siege of Vicksburg to a glorious conclusion and had
+received the surrender of Pemberton with his army of 30,000
+Confederates. These victories, coming together as they did and on
+the 4th of July, made the national anniversary seem more than ever a
+day of rejoicing and of hope to the whole people. We did not get the
+news of Grant's victory quite so soon as that of Meade's, but it
+came to us at Cincinnati in a way to excite peculiar enthusiasm.
+
+An excellent operatic company was giving a series of performances in
+the city, and all Cincinnati was at Pike's Opera House listening to
+_I Puritani_ on the evening of the 7th of July. General Burnside and
+his wife had one of the proscenium boxes, and my wife and I were
+their guests. The second act had just closed with the famous trumpet
+song, in which Susini, the great basso of the day, had created a
+_furore_. A messenger entered the box where the general was
+surrounded by a brilliant company, and gave him a dispatch which
+announced the surrender of Vicksburg and Pemberton's army. Burnside,
+overjoyed, announced the great news to us who were near him, and
+then stepped to the front of the box to make the whole audience
+sharers in the pleasure. As soon as he was seen with the paper in
+his hand, the house was hushed, and his voice rang through it as he
+proclaimed the great victory and declared it a long stride toward
+the restoration of the Union. The people went almost wild with
+excitement, the men shouted hurrahs, the ladies waved their
+handkerchiefs and clapped their hands, all rising to their feet. The
+cheering was long as well as loud, and before it subsided the
+excitement reached behind the stage. The curtain rose again, and
+Susini came forward with a national flag in each hand, waving them
+enthusiastically whilst his magnificent voice resounded in a
+repetition of the song he had just sung, and which seemed as
+appropriate as if it were inspired for the occasion,--
+
+  "Suoni la tromba, e intrepido
+   Io pugnero da forte,
+   Bello e affrontar la morte,
+   Gridando liberta!"
+
+The rejoicing and the cheers were repeated to the echo, and when at
+last they subsided, the rest of the opera was only half listened to,
+suppressed excitement filling every heart and the thought of the
+great results to flow from the victories absorbing every mind.
+
+Burnside reckoned with entire certainty on the immediate return of
+the Ninth Corps, and planned to resume his expedition into East
+Tennessee as soon as his old troops should reach him again. The
+Morgan raid was just beginning, and no one anticipated its final
+scope. In the dispatch from the Secretary of War which announced
+Grant's great victory, Burnside was also told that the corps would
+immediately return to him. In answering it on the 8th July, he said,
+"I thought I was very happy at the success of General Grant and
+General Meade, but I am still happier to hear of the speedy return
+of the Ninth Corps." He informed Rosecrans of it on the same day,
+adding, "I hope soon to be at work again." [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.522, 524.]
+
+The Washington authorities very naturally and very properly wished
+that the tide of success should be kept moving, and Secretary
+Stanton had exhorted Rosecrans to further activity by saying, on the
+7th, "You and your noble army now have the chance to give the
+finishing blow to the rebellion. [Footnote: _Id_., p.518.] Will you
+neglect the chance?" Rosecrans replied: "You do not appear to
+observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from
+middle Tennessee, of which my dispatches advised you. I beg in
+behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so
+great an event because it is not written in letters of blood." He,
+however, did not intimate any purpose of advancing. No doubt the
+manoeuvering of Bragg out of his fortified positions at Shelbyville
+and Tullahoma had been well done; but its chief value was that it
+forced Bragg to meet the Army of the Cumberland in the open field if
+the advantage should be promptly followed up. If he were allowed to
+fortify another position, nothing would be gained but the ground the
+army stood on. Had Rosecrans given any intimation of an early date
+at which he could rebuild the Elk River bridge and resume active
+operations, it would probably have relieved the strain so noticeable
+in the correspondence between him and the War Department. He did
+nothing of the kind, and the necessity of removing him from the
+command was a matter of every-day discussion at Washington, as is
+evident from the confidential letters Halleck sent to him. The
+correspondence between the General-in-Chief and his subordinate is a
+curious one. A number of the most urgent dispatches representing the
+dissatisfaction of the President and the Secretary were accompanied
+by private and confidential letters in which Halleck explains the
+situation and strongly asserts his friendship for Rosecrans and the
+error of the latter in assuming that personal hostility to himself
+was at bottom of the reprimands sent him on account of his delays.
+It was with good intentions that Halleck wrote thus, but the wisdom
+of it is very questionable. It gave Rosecrans ground to assume that
+the official dispatches were only the formal expression of the ideas
+of the President and Secretary whilst the General-in-Chief did not
+join in the condemnation of his dilatory mode of conducting the
+campaign. To say to Rosecrans, as Halleck did on July 24th, "Whether
+well founded or without any foundation, the dissatisfaction really
+exists, and I deem it my duty as a friend to represent it to you
+truly and fairly," [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii.
+pp. 552, 555, 601.] is to neglect his duty as commander of the whole
+army to express his own judgment and to give orders which would have
+the weight of his military position and presumed knowledge in
+military matters. When, therefore, a few days later he gave
+peremptory orders to begin an active advance, these orders were
+interpreted in the light of the preceding correspondence, and lost
+their force and vigor. They were met by querulous and insubordinate
+inquiries whether they were intended to take away all discretion as
+to details from the commander of an army in the field. [Footnote:
+Aug. 4, _Id_., p. 592.] It has been argued that Rosecrans's weakness
+of character consisted in a disposition to quarrel with those in
+power over him, and that a spirit of contradiction thwarted the good
+military conduct which his natural energy might have produced. I
+cannot help reading his controversial correspondence in the light of
+my personal observation of the man, and my conviction is that his
+quarrelsome mode of dealing with the War Department was the result
+of a real weakness of will and purpose which did not take naturally
+to an aggressive campaign that involved great responsibilities and
+risks. Being really indecisive in fixing his plan of campaign and
+acting upon it, his infirmity of will was covered by a belligerence
+in his correspondence. A really enterprising commander in the field
+would have begun an active campaign in the spring before any
+dissatisfaction was exhibited at Washington; and if he had a decided
+purpose to advance at any reasonably early period, there was nothing
+in the urgency shown by his superiors to make him abandon his
+purpose. He might have made testy comments, but he would have acted.
+
+Halleck's correspondence with Burnside in July is hard to
+understand, unless we assume that it was so perfunctory that he did
+not remember at one time what he said or did earlier. In a dispatch
+to the General-in-Chief dated the 11th, Rosecrans had said, "It is
+important to know if it will be practicable for Burnside to come in
+on our left flank and hold the line of the Cumberland; if not, a
+line in advance of it and east of us." [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 529.] It was already understood between
+Rosecrans and Burnside that the latter would do this and more as
+soon as he should have the Ninth Corps with him; and the dispatch
+must be regarded as a variation on the form of excuses for inaction,
+by suggesting that he was delayed by the lack of an understanding as
+to co-operation by the Army of the Ohio. On receipt of Rosecrans's
+dispatch, Halleck answered it on the 13th, saying, "General Burnside
+has been frequently urged to move forward and cover your left by
+entering East Tennessee. I do not know what he is doing. He seems
+tied fast to Cincinnati." On the same day he telegraphed Burnside,
+"I must again urge upon you the importance of moving forward into
+East Tennessee, to cover Rosecrans's left." [Footnote: _Id_., p.
+531.] It is possible that Burnside's telegraphic correspondence with
+the Secretary of War was not known to Halleck, but it is hard to
+believe that the latter was ignorant of the proportions the Morgan
+raid had taken after the enemy had crossed the Ohio River. The 13th
+of July was the day that Morgan marched from Indiana into Ohio and
+came within thirteen miles of Cincinnati. Burnside was organizing
+all the militia of southern Ohio, and was concentrating two
+divisions of the Twenty-third Corps to catch the raiders. One of
+these was on a fleet of steamboats which reached Cincinnati that
+day, and the other, under Hobson, was in close pursuit of the enemy.
+Where should Burnside have been, if not at Cincinnati? If the raid
+had been left to the "militia and home guards," as Halleck afterward
+said all petty raids should be, this, which was not a petty raid,
+would pretty certainly have had results which would have produced
+more discomfort at Washington than the idea that Burnside was "tied
+fast to Cincinnati." Burnside was exactly where he ought to be, and
+doing admirable work which resulted in the capture of the division
+of 3000 rebel cavalry with its officers from the general in command
+downward. That the General-in-Chief was entirely ignorant of what
+was going on, when every intelligent citizen of the country was
+excited over it and every newspaper was full of it, reflects far
+more severely upon him than upon Burnside.
+
+But this was by no means the whole. He forgot that when he stopped
+Burnside's movement on 3d June to send the Ninth Corps to Grant, it
+was with the distinct understanding that it prevented its resumption
+till the corps should return. He had himself said that this should
+be as early as possible, and meanwhile directed Burnside to
+concentrate his remaining forces as much as he could. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.384.] Burnside had been told
+on the 8th of July, without inquiry from him, that the corps was
+coming back to him, and had immediately begun his preparation to
+resume an active campaign as soon as it should reach him. Not
+hearing of its being on the way, on the 18th he asked Halleck if
+orders for its return had been given. To this dispatch no answer was
+given, and it was probably pigeonholed and forgotten. Burnside
+continued his campaign against Morgan, and on the 24th, when the
+last combinations near Steubenville were closing the career of the
+raider, Halleck again telegraphs that there must be no further delay
+in the movement into East Tennessee, [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.553.] and orders an immediate report of the
+position and number of Burnside's troops organized for that purpose!
+He was still ignorant, apparently, that there had been any occasion
+to withdraw the troops in Kentucky from the positions near the
+Cumberland River.
+
+Burnside answered temperately, reciting the facts and reminding him
+of the actual state of orders and correspondence, adding only, "I
+should be glad to be more definitely instructed, if you think the
+work can be better done." Morgan's surrender was on the 26th, and
+Burnside immediately applied himself with earnest zeal to get his
+forces back into Kentucky. Judah's division at Buffington was three
+hundred miles from Cincinnati and five hundred from the place it had
+left to begin the chase. Shackelford's mounted force was two hundred
+miles further up the Ohio. This last was, as has been recited, made
+up of detachments from all the divisions of the Twenty-third Corps,
+and its four weeks of constant hard riding had used up men and
+horses. These all had to be got back to the southern part of central
+Kentucky and refitted, returned to their proper divisions, and
+prepared for a new campaign. The General-in-Chief does not seem to
+have had the slightest knowledge of these circumstances or
+conditions.
+
+On the 28th another Confederate raid developed itself in southern
+Kentucky, under General Scott. It seemed to be intended as a
+diversion to aid Morgan to escape from Ohio, but failed to
+accomplish anything. Scott advanced rapidly from the south with his
+brigade, crossing the Cumberland at Williamsburg and moving through
+London upon Richmond. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
+ii. p. 568.] Colonel Sanders endeavored to stop the enemy at
+Richmond with about 500 men hastily collected, but was driven back.
+He was ordered to Lexington and put in command of all the mounted
+men which could be got together there, 2400 in all, and advanced
+against Scott, who now retreated by Lancaster, Stanford, and
+Somerset. At Lancaster the enemy was routed in a charge and 200 of
+them captured. Following them up with vigor, their train was
+destroyed and about 500 more prisoners were taken. At the Cumberland
+River Sanders halted, having been without rations for four days. The
+remnant of Scott's force had succeeded in crossing the river after
+abandoning the train. Scott claimed to have taken and paroled about
+200 prisoners in the first part of his raid, but such irregular
+paroles of captured men who could not be carried off were
+unauthorized and void. The actual casualties in Sanders's command
+were trifling. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. pp. 828-843; pt. ii. pp.
+568, 589.]
+
+The effect of this last raid was still further to wear out
+Burnside's mounted troops, but he pressed forward to the front all
+his infantry and organized a column for advance. In less than a
+week, on August 4, he was able to announce to the War Department
+that he had 11,000 men concentrated at Lebanon, Stanford, and
+Glasgow, with outposts on the Cumberland River, and that he could
+possibly increase this to 12,000 by reducing some posts in guard of
+the railway. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 591.] Upon this, Halleck gave to
+Rosecrans peremptory orders for the immediate advance of the Army of
+the Cumberland, directing him also to report daily the movement of
+each corps till he should cross the Tennessee. On the next day
+Burnside was ordered in like manner to advance with a column of
+12,000 men upon Knoxville, on reaching which place he was to
+endeavor to connect with the forces under Rosecrans. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.592-593.] The dispatch
+closed with what was called a repetition of a former order from the
+Secretary of War for Burnside to leave Cincinnati and take command
+of his moving column in person. Burnside had never dreamed of doing
+anything else, as everybody near him knew, though he had in fact
+been quite ill during the latter part of July. The mention of a
+former order was another sheer blunder on General Halleck's part,
+and Burnside indignantly protested against the imputation contained
+in it. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.593, 594.] The truth seems to be that
+Halleck was in such a condition of irritation over his
+correspondence with Rosecrans, that nothing pertaining to the
+Department of the Ohio was accurately placed in his mind or
+accurately stated when he had occasion to refer to it. In cutting
+the knot by peremptory orders to both armies to move, he was right,
+and was justified in insisting that the little column of 12,000
+under Burnside should start although it could only be got together
+in greatest haste and with the lack of equipment occasioned by the
+"wear and tear" of the operations against Morgan. If, in insisting
+on this, he had recognized the facts and given Burnside and his
+troops credit for the capture of the rebel raiders and the
+concentration, in a week, of forces scattered over a distance of
+nearly a thousand miles, no one would have had a right to criticise
+him. The exigency fairly justified it. But to treat Burnside as if
+he had been only enjoying himself in Cincinnati, and his troops all
+quietly in camp along the Cumberland River through the whole
+summer,--to ignore the absence of the Ninth Corps and his own
+suspension of a movement already begun when he took it away,--to
+assume in almost every particular a basis of fact absolutely
+contrary to the reality and to telegraph censures for what had been
+done, under his own orders or strictly in harmony with them,--all
+this was doing a right thing in as absurdly wrong a way as was
+possible. A gleam of humor and the light of common sense is thrown
+over one incident, when Mr. Lincoln, seeing that Burnside had full
+right from the dispatches to suppose the Ninth Corps was to come at
+once to him from Vicksburg and that no one had given him any
+explanation, himself telegraphed that the information had been based
+on a statement from General Grant, who had not informed them why the
+troops had not been sent. "General Grant," the President quaintly
+added, "is a copious worker and fighter, but a very meagre writer or
+telegrapher. No doubt he changed his purpose for some sufficient
+reason, but has forgotten to notify us of it." [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 561.] The reference to copious work
+as contrasted with the _copia verborum_ gains added point from a
+dispatch of Halleck to Rosecrans, quite early in the season, in
+which the latter is told that the cost of his telegraph dispatches
+is "as much or perhaps more than that of all the other generals in
+the field." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 255.] The form of the reference to
+Grant enables us also to read between the lines the progress he was
+making in reputation and in the President's confidence. He kept
+"pegging away," and was putting brains as well as energy into his
+work. The records show also that Burnside took the hint, whether
+intended or not, and in this campaign did not err on the side of
+copiousness in dispatches to Washington.
+
+To avoid the delay which would be caused by the distribution of his
+mounted force to the divisions they had originally been attached to,
+Burnside organized these into a division under Brigadier-General S.
+P. Carter, and an independent brigade under Colonel F. Wolford. He
+also reorganized the infantry divisions of the Twenty-third Corps.
+The first division, under Brigadier-General J. T. Boyle, was to
+remain in Kentucky and protect the lines of communication. The
+second was put under command of Brigadier-General M. D. Manson, and
+the third under Brigadier-General M. S. Hascall. Each marching
+division was organized into two brigades with a battery of artillery
+attached to each brigade. Three batteries of artillery were in
+reserve. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp.
+553-555.]
+
+On the 11th of August General Burnside went to Hickman's Bridge, and
+the forward movement was begun. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 16.
+Hickman's Bridge, as has already been mentioned, was at the terminus
+of the Central Kentucky Railroad. There, on the bank of the Kentucky
+River, Burnside made a fortified depot from which his wagon trains
+should start as a base for the supply system of his army in East
+Tennessee. It was called Camp Nelson in honor of the dead Kentucky
+general.] At this date the Confederate forces in East Tennessee
+under General Buckner numbered 14,733 "present for duty," with an
+"aggregate present" of 2000 or 3000 more. Conscious that the column
+of 12,000 which Halleck had directed him to start with was less than
+the hostile forces in the Holston valley, Burnside reduced to the
+utmost the garrisons and posts left behind him. Fortunately the
+advanced division of the Ninth Corps returning from Vicksburg
+reached Cincinnati on the 12th, and although the troops were wholly
+unfit for active service by reason of malarial diseases contracted
+on the "Yazoo," they could relieve some of the Kentucky garrisons,
+and Burnside was thus enabled to increase his moving column to about
+15,000 men. The earlier stages of the advance were slow, as the
+columns were brought into position to take up their separate lines
+of march and organize their supply trains for the road. On the 20th
+Hanson's division was at Columbia, Hascall's was at Stanford,
+Carter's cavalry division was at Crab Orchard, and independent
+brigades of cavalry under Colonels Wolford and Graham were at
+Somerset and Glasgow. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 548.] On that day
+orders were issued for the continuous march. General Julius White
+relieved Manson in command of the second division, and the two
+infantry divisions were to move on Montgomery, Tenn., Hascall's by
+way of Somerset, Chitwoods, and Huntsville, and White's by way of
+Creelsboro, Albany, and Jamestown. Carter's cavalry, which covered
+the extreme left flank, marched through Mt. Vernon and London to
+Williamsburg, where it forded the Cumberland, thence over the
+Jellico Mountains to Chitwoods where it became the advance of
+Hascall's column to Montgomery. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxx. pt. ii. p. 548.] At this point the columns were united and all
+moved together through Emory Gap upon Kingston. Burnside accompanied
+the cavalry in person, and sent two detachments, one to go by way of
+Big Creek Gap to make a demonstration on Knoxville, and the other
+through Winter's Gap for the same purpose of misleading the enemy as
+to his line of principal movement.
+
+[Illustration: Map of East Tennessee.]
+
+Nothing could be more systematic and vigorous than the march of
+Burnside's columns. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 569.] They made from
+fifteen to twenty or twenty-five miles a day with the regularity of
+clock-work, though the route in many parts of it was most difficult.
+There were mountains to climb and narrow gorges to thread. Streams
+were to be forded, roads were to be repaired and in places to be
+made anew. On the 1st of September Burnside occupied Kingston,
+having passed through Emory Gap into East Tennessee and communicated
+with Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army. [Footnote: Itinerary,
+Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp. 576-578.] Here he learned
+that upon the development of the joint plan of campaign of the
+National commanders, Bragg had withdrawn Buckner's forces south of
+the Tennessee at Loudon, there making them the right flank of his
+army about Chattanooga. There was, however, one exception in
+Buckner's order to withdraw. Brigadier-General John W. Frazer was
+left at Cumberland Gap with 2500 men, and though Buckner had on
+August 30th ordered him to destroy his material and retreat into
+Virginia, joining the command of Major-General Samuel Jones, this
+order was withdrawn on Frazer's representation of his ability to
+hold the place and that he had rations for forty days. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 608.] There being therefore
+no troops in East Tennessee to oppose its occupation, Burnside's
+advance-guard entered Knoxville on the 3d of September. Part of the
+Twenty-third Corps had been sent toward London on the 2d, and upon
+their approach the enemy burned the great railroad bridge at that
+place. A light-draught steamboat was building at Kingston, and this
+was captured and preserved. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 333.] It
+played a useful part subsequently in the transportation of supplies
+when the wagon-trains were broken down and the troops were reduced
+nearly to starvation. No sooner was Burnside in Knoxville than he
+put portions of his army in motion for Cumberland Gap, sixty miles
+northward. He had already put Colonel John F. DeCourcey (Sixteenth
+Ohio Infantry) in command of new troops arriving in Kentucky, and
+ordered him to advance against the fortifications of the gap on the
+north side. General Shackelford was sent with his cavalry from
+Knoxville, but when Burnside learned that DeCourcey and he were not
+strong enough to take the place, he left Knoxville in person with
+Colonel Samuel Gilbert's brigade of infantry and made the sixty-mile
+march in fifty-two hours. Frazer had refused to surrender on the
+summons of the subordinates; but when Burnside arrived and made the
+demand in person, he despaired of holding out and on the 9th of
+September surrendered the garrison. A considerable number got away
+by scattering after the flag was hauled down, but 2,205 men laid
+down their arms, and twelve pieces of cannon were also among the
+spoils. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 548, 599, 604, 611.]
+DeCourcey's troops were left to garrison the fortifications, and the
+rest were sent to occupy the upper valley of the Holston toward the
+Virginia line.
+
+On the 10th, and while still at Cumberland Gap, Burnside received a
+dispatch from General Crittenden with the news that he was in
+possession of Chattanooga, that Bragg had retreated toward Rome,
+Ga., and that Rosecrans hoped with his centre and right to intercept
+the enemy at Rome, which was sixty miles south of Chattanooga.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] Everything
+was therefore most promising on the south, and Burnside had only to
+provide for driving back the Confederates under Jones, at the
+Virginia line, a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Knoxville. It
+becomes important here to estimate these distances rightly.
+Knoxville is a hundred and eleven miles distant from Chattanooga by
+the railroad, and more by the country roads. From Bristol on the
+northeast to Chattanooga on the southwest is two hundred and
+forty-two miles, which measures the length of that part of the
+Holston and Tennessee valley known as East Tennessee. If Rosecrans
+were at Rome, as General Crittenden's dispatch indicated, he was
+more than a hundred and seventy miles distant from Knoxville, and
+nearly three hundred miles from the region about Greeneville and the
+Watauga River, whose crossing would be the natural frontier of the
+upper valley, if Burnside should not be able to extend his
+occupation quite to the Virginia line. It will be seen therefore
+that the progress of the campaign had necessarily made Rosecrans's
+and Burnside's lines of operation widely divergent, and they were
+far beyond supporting distance of each other, since there was no
+railway communication between them, and could not be for a long
+time. Burnside captured some locomotives and cars at Knoxville; but
+bridges had been destroyed to such an extent that these were of
+little use to him, for the road could be operated but a short
+distance in either direction and the amount of rolling stock was, at
+most, very little. Complete success for Rosecrans, with the
+reopening and repair of the whole line from Nashville through
+Chattanooga, including the rebuilding of the great bridge at London,
+were the essential conditions of further co-operation between the
+two armies, and of the permanent existence of Burnside's in East
+Tennessee.
+
+Efforts had been made to extend the lines of telegraph as Burnside
+advanced, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 574; pt.
+iii. p. 717.] but it took some time to do this, and even when the
+wires were up there occurred a difficulty in making the electric
+circuit, so that through all the critical part of the Chickamauga
+campaign, Burnside had to communicate by means of so long a line of
+couriers that three days was the actual time of transmittal of
+dispatches between himself and Washington. [Footnote: _Id_., pt.
+iii. p. 718.] The news from Rosecrans on the 10th was so reassuring
+that Burnside's plain duty was to apply himself to clearing the
+upper valley of the enemy, and then to further the great object of
+his expedition by giving the loyal inhabitants the means of
+self-government, and encouraging them to organize and arm themselves
+with the weapons which his wagon trains were already bringing from
+Kentucky. He had also to provide for his supplies, and must use the
+good weather of the early autumn to the utmost, for the long roads
+over the mountains would be practically impassable in winter. The
+route from Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap was the shortest, and,
+on the whole, the easiest, and a great system of transportation by
+trains under escort was put in operation. The camp at Cumberland Gap
+could give this protection through the mountain district, and made a
+convenient stopping-place in the weary way when teams broke down or
+had to be replaced. Other roads were also used whilst they seemed to
+be safe, and the energies and resources of the quartermaster's
+department were strained to the utmost to bring forward arms,
+ammunition for cannon and muskets, food and medical supplies, and
+all the munitions of war. The roads were covered with herds of
+beeves and swine, and feeding stations for these were established
+and the forage had to be drawn to them, for nothing could be got,
+along the greater part of the route. Burnside hoped that the railway
+by Chattanooga would be put in repair and be open before winter
+should shut in, but he very prudently acted on the principle of
+making the most of his present means. It was well he did so, for
+otherwise his little army would have been starved before the winter
+was half over.
+
+From Cumberland Gap the courier line was sixty miles shorter than
+from Knoxville, and the first dispatches of Burnside announcing his
+capture of Frazer's troops reached Washington more quickly than
+later ones. At noon of the 11th Mr. Lincoln answered it with hearty
+congratulations and thanks. This was quickly followed by a
+congratulatory message from Halleck accompanied by formal orders.
+[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 555.] These last
+only recapitulated the points in Burnside's further operations and
+administration which were the simplest deductions from the
+situation. Burnside was to hold the country eastward to the gaps of
+the North Carolina mountains (the Great Smokies) and the valley of
+the Holston up to the Virginia line. Halleck used the phrase "the
+line of the Holston," which would be absurd, and was probably only a
+slip of the pen. The exact strength of General Jones, the
+Confederate commander in southwestern Virginia, was not known, but,
+to preserve his preponderance, Burnside could not prudently send
+less than a division of infantry and a couple of brigades of cavalry
+to the vicinity of Rogersville or Greeneville and the railroad
+crossing of the Watauga. This would be just about half his available
+force. The other division was at first divided, one of the two
+brigades being centrally placed at Knoxville, and the other at
+Sevierville, thirty miles up the French Broad River, where it
+covered the principal pass over the Smokies to Asheville, N. C. The
+rest of his cavalry was at London and Kingston, where it covered the
+north side of the Tennessee River and communicated with Rosecrans's
+outposts above Chattanooga.
+
+Halleck further informed Burnside that the Secretary of War directed
+him to raise all the volunteers he could in East Tennessee and to
+select officers for them. If he had not already enough arms and
+equipments he could order them by telegraph. As to Rosecrans, the
+General-in-Chief stated that he would occupy Dalton or some other
+point south of Chattanooga, closing the enemy's line from Atlanta,
+and when this was done, the question would be settled whether the
+whole would move eastward into Virginia or southward into Georgia
+and Alabama. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
+555.] Burnside's present work being thus cut out for him, he set
+himself about it with the cordial earnestness which marked his
+character. He had suggested the propriety of his retiring as soon as
+the surrender of Frazer had made his occupation of East Tennessee an
+assured success, but he had not formally asked to be relieved.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 523.] His reasons for doing so dated back to
+the Fredericksburg campaign, in part; for he had believed that his
+alternative then presented to the government, that he should be
+allowed to dismiss insubordinate generals or should himself resign,
+ought to have been accepted. His case had some resemblance to Pope's
+when the administration approved his conduct and his courage but
+retired him and restored McClellan to command, in deference to the
+supposed sentiment of the Army of the Potomac. Halleck's persistent
+ignoring of the officially recorded causes of the delay in this
+campaign, and his assumption that the Morgan raid was not an
+incident of any importance in Burnside's responsibilities, had not
+tended to diminish the latter's sense of discomfort in dealing with
+army head-quarters. A debilitating illness gave some added force to
+his other reasons, which, however, we who knew him well understood
+to be the decisive ones with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxx. pt. iii. p. 523; vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 757.] Mr. Lincoln's
+sincere friendship and confidence he never doubted, but his nature
+could not fully appreciate the President's policy of bending to
+existing circumstances when current opinion was contrary to his own,
+so that he might save his strength for more critical action at
+another time. Burnside had now the _eclat_ of success in a campaign
+which was very near the heart of the President and full of interest
+for the Northern people. This, he felt, was a time when he could
+retire with honor. Mr. Lincoln postponed action in the kindest and
+most complimentary words, [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
+554. "Yours received. A thousand thanks for the late successes you
+have given us. We cannot allow you to resign until things shall be a
+little more settled in East Tennessee. If then, purely on your own
+account you wish to resign, we will not further refuse you."] and
+when he finally assigned another to command the department, did not
+allow Burnside to resign, but laid out other work for him where his
+patriotism and his courage could be of use to the country.
+
+The advent of the army into East Tennessee was, to its loyal people,
+a resurrection from the grave. Their joy had an exultation which
+seemed almost beyond the power of expression. Old men fell down
+fainting and unconscious under the stress of their emotions as they
+saw the flag at the head of the column and tried to cheer it! Women
+wept with happiness as their husbands stepped out of the ranks of
+the loyal Tennessee regiments when these came marching by the home.
+[Footnote: Temple's East Tennessee and the Civil War, pp. 476, 478.
+Humes's The Loyal Mountaineers, pp. 211, 218.] These men had
+gathered in little recruiting camps on the mountain-sides and had
+found their way to Kentucky, travelling by night and guided by the
+pole-star, as the dark-skinned fugitives from bondage had used to
+make their way to freedom. Their families had been marked as
+traitors to the Confederacy, and had suffered sharpest privations
+and cruel wrong on account of the absence of the husband and father,
+the brother, or the son. Now it was all over, and a jubilee began in
+those picturesque valleys in the mountains, which none can
+understand who had not seen the former despair and the present
+revulsion of happiness. The mountain coves and nooks far up toward
+the Virginia line had been among the most intense in loyalty to the
+nation. Andrew Johnson's home was at Greeneville, and he was now the
+loyal provisional governor of Tennessee, soon to be nominated
+Vice-President of the United States. General Carter, who had asked
+to be transferred from the navy to organize the refugee loyalists
+into regiments, was a native of the same region. It was at the
+Watauga that the neighboring opponents of secession had given the
+first example of daring self-sacrifice in burning the railway
+bridge. For this they were hanged, and their memory was revered by
+the loyal men about them, as was Nathan Hale's by our revolutionary
+fathers. East Tennessee was full of such loyalty, but here were good
+reasons why Burnside should push his advance at least to the
+Watauga, and if possible to the Virginia line. His sympathies were
+all alive for this people. The region, he telegraphed the President,
+is as loyal as any State of the North. [Footnote: Official Records,
+vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] It threw off all disguise, it blossomed
+with National flags, it took no counsel of prudence, it refused to
+think of a return of Confederate soldiers and Confederate rule as a
+possibility. It exulted in every form of defiance to the Richmond
+government and what had been called treason to the Confederate
+States. The people had a religious faith that God would not abandon
+them or suffer them to be again abandoned. If such an incredible
+wrong were to happen, they must either leave their country in mass,
+or they must be ready to die. They could see no other alternative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BURNSIDE IN EAST TENNESSEE
+
+
+Organizing and arming the loyalists--Burnside concentrates near
+Greeneville--His general plan--Rumors of Confederate
+reinforcements--Lack of accurate information--The Ninth Corps in
+Kentucky--Its depletion by malarial disease--Death of General Welsh
+from this cause--Preparing for further work--Situation on 16th
+September--Dispatch from Halleck--Its apparent purpose--Necessity to
+dispose of the enemy near Virginia border--Burnside personally at
+the front--His great activity--Ignorance of Rosecrans's
+peril--Impossibility of joining him by the 20th--Ruinous effects of
+abandoning East Tennessee--Efforts to aid Rosecrans without such
+abandonment--Enemy duped into burning Watauga bridge
+themselves--Ninth Corps arriving--Willcox's division garrisons
+Cumberland Gap--Reinforcements sent Rosecrans from all
+quarters--Chattanooga made safe from attack--The supply
+question--Meigs's description of the roads--Burnside halted near
+Loudon--Halleck's misconception of the geography--The people
+imploring the President not to remove the troops--How Longstreet got
+away from Virginia--Burnside's alternate plans--Minor operations in
+upper Holston valley--Wolford's affair on the lower Holston.
+
+
+For a week after the capture of Cumberland Gap Burnside devoted
+himself to the pleasing task of organizing the native loyalists into
+a National Guard for home defence, issuing arms to them upon
+condition that they should, as a local militia, respond to his call
+and reinforce for temporary work his regular forces whenever the
+need should arise. The detailed reports from the upper valley
+reported the enemy under Jones at first to be 4000, and later to be
+6000 strong. These estimates came through cool-headed and prudent
+officers, and were based upon information brought in by loyal men
+who had proven singularly accurate in their knowledge throughout the
+campaign. Point was added to these reports by the experience of one
+of his regiments. A detachment of 300 men of the One Hundredth Ohio
+had been sent to support a cavalry reconnoissance near Limestone
+Station on the railroad, whilst Burnside was investing Cumberland
+Gap, and these had been surrounded and forced to surrender by the
+enemy. This showed the presence of a considerable body of
+Confederates in the upper valley, and that they were bold and
+aggressive. It was the part of prudence to act upon this
+information, and Burnside ordered all his infantry except one
+brigade to march toward Greeneville. Two brigades of cavalry were
+already there, and his purpose was to concentrate about 6000
+infantry, try to obtain a decisive engagement with the Confederates,
+and to punish them so severely that the upper valley would be safe,
+for a time at least, from invasion by them, so that he might be free
+to withdraw most of his troops to co-operate with Rosecrans in a
+Georgia campaign, if that alternative in Halleck's plans should be
+adopted. He felt the importance of this the more, as the news
+received from Virginia mentioned the movement of railway
+rolling-stock to the East to bring, as rumor had it, Ewell's corps
+from Lee to reinforce Jones. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx.
+pt. iii. pp. 661, 717.] The sending of the railway trains was a
+fact, but the object, as it turned out, was to transport
+Longstreet's corps to reinforce Bragg. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 731.] Of
+this, however, Burnside had no intimation, and must act upon the
+information which came to him.
+
+The Ninth Corps began to arrive at Cincinnati from Vicksburg on the
+12th of August, half of it coming then, and the second division
+arriving on the 20th. It was reduced to 6000 by casualties and by
+sickness, and was in a pitiable condition. Being made up of troops
+which had served in the East, the men were not acclimated to the
+Mississippi valley, and in the bayous and marshes about Vicksburg
+had suffered greatly. Malarial fevers ate out their vitality, and
+even those who reported for duty dragged themselves about, the mere
+shadows of what they had been. General Parke reported their arrival
+and was then obliged to go upon sick-leave himself. General Welsh,
+who had distinguished himself at Antietam, reported that his
+division must recuperate for a few weeks before it could take the
+field. He made a heroic effort to remain on duty, but died suddenly
+on the 14th, and his loss was deeply felt by the corps. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 45.] Potter's division was
+as badly off as Welsh's, and both were for a short time scattered at
+healthful camps in the Kentucky hills. Each camp was, at first, a
+hospital; but the change of climate and diet rapidly restored the
+tone of the hardy soldiery.
+
+General Willcox, who commanded the Indiana district, belonged to the
+corps, and asked to be returned to duty with it. He was allowed to
+do so on the 11th of September, and the War Department sent with him
+a new division of Indiana troops which had been recruited and
+organized during the summer. Burnside had ordered recruits and new
+regiments to rendezvous in Kentucky, and prepared to bring them as
+well as the Ninth Corps forward as soon as the latter should be fit
+to march. Every camp and station at the rear was full of busy
+preparation during the last of August and the beginning of
+September, and at the front the general himself was now
+concentrating his little forces to strike a blow near the Virginia
+line which would make him free to move afterward in any direction
+the General-in-Chief should determine.
+
+On the 16th of September Hascall's division was echeloned along the
+road from Morristown back toward Knoxville; White's division passed
+Knoxville, moving up the valley to join Hascall. Hartsuff, who
+commanded the Twenty-third Corps, had been disabled for field work
+by trouble from his old wounds and was at Knoxville. Burnside was
+also there, intending to go rapidly forward and overtake his
+infantry as soon as they should approach Greeneville. In the night
+the courier brought him a dispatch from Halleck, [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 617.] dated the 13th, directing a
+rapid movement of all his forces in Kentucky toward East Tennessee,
+where the whole Army of the Ohio was to be concentrated as soon as
+possible. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 550.] He also directed
+Burnside to move his infantry toward Chattanooga, giving as a reason
+that Bragg might manoeuvre to turn Rosecrans's right, and in that
+case Rosecrans would want to hand Chattanooga over to Burnside so
+that he himself could move the whole Army of the Cumberland to meet
+Bragg.
+
+There was nothing in this dispatch which intimated that Rosecrans
+was in any danger, nor was Burnside informed that Bragg had been
+reinforced by Longstreet's corps. On the other hand, his information
+looked to Ewell's joining Jones against himself. The object Halleck
+had in view seemed to be to get the Ninth Corps and other troops now
+in Kentucky into East Tennessee as rapidly as possible, and then to
+move the whole Army of the Ohio down toward Rosecrans. It certainly
+could not be that he wished Cumberland Gap abandoned, and the trains
+and detachments coming through it from Kentucky left to the tender
+mercies of Jones and his Confederates, who could capture them at
+their leisure and without a blow. It was equally incredible that the
+government could wish to stop the organization of the loyalists just
+as weapons were being distributed to them, and to abandon them to
+the enemy when their recent open demonstrations in favor of the
+Union would make their condition infinitely worse than if our troops
+had never come to them. The rational interpretation, and the one
+Burnside gave it, was that the alternative which had been stated in
+the earlier dispatch of the 11th had been settled in favor of a
+general movement southward instead of eastward, and that this made
+it all the more imperative that he should disembarrass himself of
+General Jones and establish a line on the upper Holston which a
+small force could hold, whilst he with the rest of the two corps
+should move southward as soon as the Ninth Corps could make the
+march from Kentucky. This was exactly what General Schofield did in
+the next spring when he was ordered to join Sherman with the Army of
+the Ohio; and I do not hesitate to say that it was the only thing
+which an intelligent military man on the ground and knowing the
+topography would think of doing. To make a panicky abandonment of
+the country and of the trains and detachments _en route_ to it,
+would have been hardly less disgraceful than a surrender of the
+whole. To Burnside's honor and credit it should be recorded that he
+did not dream of doing it. He strained every nerve to hasten the
+movement of his troops so as to get through with his little campaign
+against Jones by the time the Ninth Corps could come from Kentucky,
+and if he could accomplish it within that limit, he would have the
+right to challenge the judgment of every competent critic, whether
+he had not done that which became a good soldier and a good general.
+
+On the 17th of September the concentration of Burnside's infantry
+toward Greeneville had so far progressed that he was preparing to go
+personally to the front and lead them against the enemy. It is
+noticeable in the whole campaign that he took this personal
+leadership and activity on himself. In Hartsuff's condition of
+health it would have been within the ordinary methods of action that
+the next in rank should assume command of the Twenty-third Corps,
+and that the department commander should remain at his headquarters
+at Knoxville. But Hartsuff was able to attend to office business,
+and so Burnside practically exchanged places with him, leaving his
+subordinate with discretion to direct affairs in the department at
+large, whilst he himself did the field work with his troops. He had
+done it at Cumberland Gap when he received the surrender of Frazer;
+he was doing it now, and he was to do it again, still later, when he
+met Longstreet's advance at the crossing of the Holston River.
+
+In preparation for an absence of some days, he wrote, on the date
+last mentioned, a long dispatch to General Halleck, in the nature of
+a report of the state of affairs at that date. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 717.] He explained the failure of the
+telegraph and the efforts that were making to get it in working
+order. He gave the situation of the troops and stated his purpose to
+attack the enemy. He noticed the report of Ewell's coming against
+him and promised stout resistance, finding satisfaction in the
+thought that it would give Meade the opportunity to strike a
+decisive blow against Lee's reduced army. He reported the condition
+of his trains and cattle droves on the road from Kentucky, and the
+contact of his cavalry in the south part of the valley with
+Rosecrans's outposts. The bridge over the Hiwassee at Calhoun, he
+said, could be finished in ten days, and the steamboat at Kingston
+would soon be completed and ready for use. All this promised better
+means of supply at an early day, though at present "twenty-odd cars"
+were all the means of moving men or supplies on the portion of the
+railroad within his control.
+
+Later in the same day he received Halleck's dispatch of the 14th,
+which said it was believed the enemy would concentrate to give
+Rosecrans battle, and directed him to reinforce the latter with all
+possible speed. [Footnote: Burnside's dispatches of the 17th in
+answer to Halleck's seem to show that both those of 13th and 14th
+were received by him after he had written the long one in the
+morning. The internal evidence supports this idea, and his second
+dispatch on the 17th acknowledges the receipt of Halleck's two
+together. Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 718. In his
+official report, however, Burnside says the dispatch of 13th was
+received "on the night of the 16th" (Official Records, vol. xxx. pt.
+ii. p. 550), and I have followed this statement, although his report
+was not written till November, 1865, when lapse of time might easily
+give rise to an error in so trifling a detail. The matter is of no
+real consequence in the view I have taken of the situation.] Still,
+no information was given of the movement of Longstreet to join
+Bragg, and indeed it was only on the 15th that Halleck gave the news
+to Rosecrans as reliable. [Footnote: Official Records, xxx. pt. ii.
+p. 643.] Burnside must therefore regard the enemy concentrating in
+Georgia as only the same which Rosecrans had been peremptorily
+ordered to attack and which he had been supposed to be strong enough
+to cope with. No time was stated at which the battle in Georgia
+would probably occur. To hasten the work in hand, to put affairs at
+the Virginia line in condition to be left as soon as might be, and
+then to speed his forces toward Chattanooga to join in the Georgia
+campaign, was plainly Burnside's duty. If it would be too rash for
+Rosecrans to give battle without reinforcements, that officer was
+competent to manoeuvre his army in retreat and take a defensible
+position till his reinforcements could come. That course would be
+certainly much wiser than to abandon East Tennessee to the enemy,
+with all the consequences of such an act, quite as bad as the loss
+of a battle. As matters turned out, even such instantaneous and
+ruinous abandonment would not have helped Rosecrans. It was now the
+afternoon of the 17th of September. The battle of Chickamauga was to
+begin in the early morning of the 19th and to end disastrously on
+the 20th. One full day for the marching of troops was all that
+intervened, or two at most, if they were only to reach the field
+upon the second day of the battle. And where were Burnside's men?
+One division at Greeneville and above, more than two hundred miles
+from Chattanooga, and the other near New Market and Morristown, a
+hundred and fifty miles. Burnside's "twenty-odd cars" were confined
+to a section of the railroad less than eighty miles long, and could
+hardly carry the necessary baggage and ammunition even for that
+fraction of the way. The troops must march, and could not by any
+physical possibility make a quarter of the distance before
+Rosecrans's fate at Chickamauga should be decided. The authorities
+at Washington must bear the responsibility for complete ignorance of
+these conditions, or, what would be equally bad, a forgetfulness of
+them in a moment of panic.
+
+But Burnside did not know and could not guess that a battle was to
+be fought so soon. All he could do was to prepare to carry out the
+wishes of the War Department as speedily as could be, without the
+total ruin of East Tennessee and all he had accomplished. Such ruin
+might come by the fate of war if he were driven out by superior
+force, but he would have been rightly condemned if it had come by
+his precipitate abandonment of the country. He did more to carry out
+Halleck's wish than was quite prudent. He stopped the troops which
+had not yet reached Greeneville and ordered a countermarch. He
+hastened up the country to make the attack upon the Confederates
+with the force he already had in their presence, and then to bring
+the infantry back at once, hoping the cavalry could hold in check a
+defeated enemy.
+
+The necessity of delivering a blow at General Jones was afterwards
+criticised by Halleck, but it was in accordance with the sound rules
+of conducting war. To have called back his troops without a fight
+would have been to give the enemy double courage by his retreat, and
+his brigades would have been chased by the exulting foe. They would
+either have been forced to halt and fight their pursuers under every
+disadvantage of loss of prestige and of the initiative, or have made
+a precipitate flight which would have gone far to ruin the whole
+command as well as the Tennessee people they had just liberated. It
+is true that this involved an advance from Greeneville upon
+Jonesboro, but the cavalry were already in contact with the enemy
+near there, and this was the only successful mode of accomplishing
+his purpose. [Footnote: Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, in their "Life of
+Lincoln," give the draft of a letter to Burnside which Mr. Lincoln
+wrote but did not send, in which he expressed his surprise that
+Burnside should be moving toward Virginia when they at Washington
+were so anxious to have him in Georgia. Mr. Lincoln's judgments of
+military affairs were excellent when he was fully possessed of the
+facts; and I have elaborated somewhat my statement of the
+circumstances in East Tennessee, and of the distances, etc., to show
+how little they were known or understood in Washington. Nicolay and
+Hay's Lincoln, vol. viii. p. 166.]
+
+Making use of the portion of the railroad which could be operated,
+Burnside reached Greeneville on the 18th and rode rapidly to
+Jonesboro. On the 19th a brigade of cavalry under Colonel Foster
+attacked the enemy at Bristol, defeated them, tore up the railroad,
+and destroyed the bridges two miles above the town. [Footnote:
+Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 592.] Foster then returned to
+Blountsville, and marched on the next day to Hall's Ford on the
+Watauga, where, after a skirmishing fight lasting several hours, he
+again dislodged the enemy, capturing about fifty prisoners and a
+piece of artillery with slight loss to himself. These were flanking
+movements designed to distract the attention of the enemy whilst
+Burnside concentrated most of his force in front of their principal
+position at Carter's Station, where the most important of the
+railway bridges in that region crosses the Watauga. To impress his
+opponent with the belief that he meant to make an extended campaign,
+Burnside, on the 22d, notified Jones to remove the non-combatants
+from the villages of the upper valley. Foster's brigade of cavalry
+was again sent to demonstrate on the rear, whilst Burnside
+threatened in front with the infantry. The enemy now evacuated the
+position and retreated, first burning the bridge. This was what
+Burnside desired, and the means of resuming railway communication to
+support an advance toward Knoxville being taken from the
+Confederates for a considerable time, he was now able to put all his
+infantry except two regiments in march for Knoxville. A brigade of
+cavalry with this small infantry support at Bull's Gap was entrusted
+with the protection of this region, and by the help of the home
+guards of loyal men, was able to hold it during the operations of
+the next fortnight. Burnside's purpose had been, if he had not been
+interrupted, to have pressed the Confederates closely with a
+sufficient force in front to compel a retreat, whilst he intercepted
+them with the remainder of his army, moving by a shorter line from
+Blountsville. He made, however, the best of the situation, and
+having driven the enemy over the State line and disengaged his own
+troops, he was free to concentrate the greater part of them for
+operations at the other end of the valley.
+
+The Ninth Corps was now beginning to arrive, and was ordered to
+rendezvous first at Knoxville. Willcox had assembled his division of
+new troops, mostly Indianans, and marched with them to Cumberland
+Gap, where he relieved the garrison of that post, and was himself
+entrusted by Burnside with the command of that portion of the
+department, covering the upper valleys of the Clinch and Holston as
+well as the lines of communication with Cincinnati and the Ohio
+River.
+
+In the days immediately preceding the battle of Chickamauga, Halleck
+had urged reinforcements forward toward Rosecrans from all parts of
+the West. Pope in Minnesota, Schofield in Missouri, Hurlbut at
+Memphis, and Sherman at Vicksburg had all been called upon for help,
+and all had put bodies of troops in motion, though the distances
+were great and the effect was a little too much like the proverbial
+one of locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As
+there was no telegraphic communication with Burnside, the
+General-in-Chief gave orders through the adjutant-general's office
+in Cincinnati directly to the Ninth Corps and to the detachments of
+the Twenty-third Corps remaining or assembling in Kentucky, to march
+at once into East Tennessee. An advisory supervision of the
+department offices in Cincinnati had been left with me, and Captain
+Anderson, the assistant adjutant-general, issued orders in General
+Burnside's name after consultation with me. General Parke cut short
+his sick-leave, and, though far from strong, assumed command of the
+Ninth Corps and began the march for Cumberland Gap. The guards for
+the railways and necessary posts were reduced to the lowest limits
+of safety, and every available regiment was hurried to the front.
+
+By the end of September Burnside's forces were pretty well
+concentrated between Knoxville and Loudon, the crossing of the
+Holston River. It had now been learned that Bragg's army had
+suffered even more than Rosecrans's in the battle of Chickamauga,
+and notwithstanding the rout of the right wing of the Cumberland
+Army, the stubborn fighting of the centre and left wing under Thomas
+had made the enemy willing to admit that they had not won a decisive
+victory. Our army was within its lines at Chattanooga, and these had
+been so strengthened that General Meigs, who had been sent out in
+haste as a special envoy of the War Department, reported to Mr.
+Stanton on the 27th of September that the position was very strong,
+being practically secure against an assault, and that the army was
+hearty, cheerful, and confident. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
+xxx. pt. iii. p. 890.] Meigs was himself a distinguished officer of
+the Engineer Corps as well as quartermaster-general, and the weight
+of his opinion at once restored confidence in Washington. He saw at
+a glance that the only perilous contingency was the danger of
+starvation, for the wagon roads over the mountains on the north side
+of the Tennessee were most difficult at best, and soon likely to
+become impassable. The army was safe from the enemy till it chose to
+resume the offensive, provided it could be fed. He concluded his
+dispatch by saying, "Of the rugged nature of this region I had no
+conception when I left Washington. I never travelled on such roads
+before." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 890.] It
+was only too evident that Halleck shared this ignorance, and had
+added to it a neglect to estimate the distances over these mountains
+and through these valleys, and the relations of the points, he
+directed Burnside to hold, with the immediate theatre of Rosecrans's
+operations.
+
+On the same date as Meigs's report, Burnside was also sending a full
+statement of his situation and an explanation of his conduct.
+[Footnote: _Id_., p. 904.] The telegraphic communication was opened
+just as he finished his dispatch, and for the first time he had the
+means of rapid intercourse with army headquarters. He patiently
+explained the misconceptions and cross purposes of the preceding
+fortnight, and showed how impossible and how ruinous would have been
+any other action than that which he took. Halleck had said that it
+would now be necessary to move the Army of the Ohio along the north
+side of the Tennessee till it should be opposite Chattanooga and
+reinforce Rosecrans in that way. Burnside pointed out that this
+would open the heart of East Tennessee to Bragg's cavalry or
+detachments from his army. He offered to take the bolder course of
+moving down the south side of the rivers, covering Knoxville and the
+valley as he advanced.
+
+Mr. Lincoln replied by authorizing Burnside to hold his present
+positions, sending Rosecrans, in his own way, what help he could
+spare. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 905.] Halleck's answer was an amazing
+proof that he had never comprehended the campaign. He reiterated
+that Burnside's orders, before leaving Kentucky and continuously
+since, had been "to connect your right with General Rosecrans's
+left, so that if the enemy concentrated on one, the other would be
+able to assist." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 906.] If this meant anything,
+it meant that Burnside was to keep within a day's march of
+Rosecrans; for two days was more than enough to fight out a battle
+like Chickamauga. Yet he and everybody else knew that Burnside's
+supply route from Kentucky was through Cumberland Gap, and he had
+warmly applauded when Burnside turned that position, and by
+investing it in front and rear, had forced Frazer to surrender. He
+had explicitly directed Burnside to occupy and hold the upper
+Holston valley nearly or quite to the Virginia line, and one gets
+weary of repeating that between these places and Chattanooga was a
+breadth of two hundred miles of the kind of country Meigs had
+described and more than ten days of hard marching. His present
+orders are equally blind. Burnside is directed to reinforce
+Rosecrans with "all your available force," yet "East Tennessee must
+be held at all hazards, if possible." To "hold at all hazards" might
+be understood, but what is the effect of the phrase "if possible"?
+It must amount in substance to authority to do exactly what Burnside
+was doing,--to hold East Tennessee with as small means as he thought
+practicable, and to reinforce Rosecrans with what he could spare.
+
+It was, on the whole, fortunate for the country that Burnside was
+not in telegraphic communication with Washington sooner. Had he been
+actually compelled to abandon East Tennessee on the 13th or 14th of
+September, incalculable mischief would have followed. The Ninth
+Corps was _en route_ for Cumberland Gap, and it with all the trains
+and droves on the road must either have turned back or pushed on
+blindly with no probability of effecting a junction with the
+Twenty-third Corps. Even as it was, the terror in East Tennessee,
+when it became known that they were likely to be abandoned, was
+something fearful. Public and private men united in passionate
+protests, and the common people stood aghast. Two of the most
+prominent citizens only expressed the universal feeling when, in a
+dispatch to Mr. Lincoln, they used such language as this,--
+
+"In the name of Christianity and humanity, in the name of God and
+liberty, for the sake of their wives and children and everything
+they hold sacred and dear on earth, the loyal people of Tennessee
+appeal to you and implore you not to abandon them again to the
+merciless dominion of the rebels, by the withdrawal of the Union
+forces from East Tennessee." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx.
+pt. iv. p. 401. ]
+
+With the evidence of the ability of the Army of the Cumberland to
+hold its position at Chattanooga, there came a breathing spell and a
+quick end of the panic. It was seen that there was time to get all
+desirable reinforcements to Rosecrans from the West, and Hooker was
+sent with two corps from the East, open lines of well-managed
+railways making this a quicker assistance than could be given by
+even a few days' marches over country roads. The culmination of the
+peril had been caused by the inactivity of the Army of the Potomac,
+which had permitted the transfer of Longstreet across four States;
+and now Hooker was sent from that army by a still longer route
+through the West to the vicinity of Bridgeport, thirty miles by rail
+below Chattanooga on the Tennessee River, but nearer fifty by the
+circuitous mountain roads actually used. It became evident also that
+Burnside's army could only subsist by making the most of its own
+lines of supply through Kentucky. To add its trains to those which
+were toiling over the mountains between Chattanooga and Bridgeport,
+would risk the starvation of the whole. Until a better line could be
+opened, Burnside was allowed to concentrate most of his forces in
+the vicinity of Loudon, where he guarded the whole valley. His
+cavalry connected with Rosecrans on the north side of the Tennessee,
+and also held the line of the Hiwassee on the left.
+
+On the last day of September Burnside reported the concentration of
+his forces and submitted three alternate plans of assisting
+Rosecrans: [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 954.]
+First, to abandon East Tennessee and move all his forces by the
+north bank of the Tennessee River to Chattanooga. This was what
+Halleck had seemed to propose. Second, to cross the Holston and
+march directly against Bragg's right flank whilst Rosecrans should
+attack in front. This was essentially what Grant afterward did,
+putting Sherman in a position similar to that which Burnside would
+have taken. Third, to march with 7000 infantry and 5000 cavalry
+entirely around Bragg by the east, and strike his line of
+communications at Dalton or thereabouts. This had a strong
+resemblance to the strategy of Sherman next spring, when he forced
+Johnston out of Dalton by sending McPherson to his rear at Resaca.
+Burnside added to it the plan of a march to the sea, proposing that
+if Bragg pursued him, he should march down the railroad to Atlanta,
+destroying it as thoroughly as possible, and then make his way to
+the coast, living on the country.
+
+The last of these plans was that which Burnside preferred and
+offered to put into immediate execution. Neither of them was likely
+to succeed at that moment, for Rosecrans was so far demoralized by
+the effects of his late battle that he was in no condition to carry
+out any aggressive campaign with decisive energy. He declared in
+favor of the first [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iv. p. 72.] (for they were
+communicated to him as well as to Halleck), and this only meant that
+he wanted his army at Chattanooga reinforced by any and every means,
+though he could not supply them, and the fortifications were already
+so strong that General Meigs reported that 10,000 men could very
+soon hold them against all Bragg's army. The plans, however, give us
+interesting light on Burnside's character and abilities, and show
+that he was both fertile in resources and disposed to adopt the
+boldest action. Halleck in reply said that distant expeditions into
+Georgia were not now contemplated, nor was it now necessary to join
+Rosecrans at Chattanooga. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt.
+iv. p. 25.] It was sufficient for Burnside to be in position to go
+to Rosecrans's assistance if he should require it. He was, however,
+to "hold some point near the upper end of the valley," which kept
+alive the constant occasion for misunderstanding, since it implied
+the protection and occupation of all East Tennessee, and the general
+there in command was the only one who could judge what was necessary
+to secure the object. The necessity for activity soon showed itself.
+About the 6th of October General Jones was reported to be showing a
+disposition to be aggressive, and Burnside determined to strike a
+blow at him again and with more force than that which had been
+interrupted a fortnight before. Willcox was ordered from Cumberland
+Gap to Morristown with his four new Indiana regiments; the Ninth
+Corps (having now only about 5000 men present for duty) was moved up
+the valley also, whilst the Twenty-third Corps, with two brigades of
+cavalry, was left in its positions near Loudon. The rest of the
+cavalry, under Shackelford, accompanied the movement up the valley
+of which Burnside took command in person. Leaving the cavalry post
+at Bull's Gap and advancing with his little army, he found the enemy
+strongly posted about midway between the Gap and Greeneville.
+Engaging them and trying to hold them by a skirmishing fight, he
+sent Foster's cavalry brigade to close the passage behind them.
+Foster found the roads too rough to enable him to reach the desired
+position in time, and the enemy retreating in the night escaped. The
+pursuit was pushed beyond the Watauga River, and a more thorough
+destruction was made of the railroad to and beyond the Virginia
+line. Considerable loss had been inflicted on the enemy and 150
+prisoners had been captured, but no decisive engagement had been
+brought about, Jones being wary and conscious of inferiority of
+force. Willcox was left at Greeneville with part of the cavalry,
+while Burnside brought back the Ninth Corps to Knoxville. The
+activity was good for the troops and was successful in curbing the
+enemy's enterprise, besides encouraging the loyal inhabitants. There
+was now a lull in affairs till November, broken only by a mishap to
+Colonel Wolford's brigade of cavalry on the south of the Holston,
+where he was watching the enemy's advanced posts in the direction of
+Athens and Cleveland. Burnside had sent a flag of truce through the
+lines on the 19th of October, and the enemy taking advantage of it,
+delivered an unexpected blow upon Wolford, capturing 300 or 400 of
+his men and a battery of mountain howitzers, together with a wagon
+train which was several miles from camp. [Footnote: Official
+Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 273.] Wolford heard that his train was
+attacked and sent two regiments to protect it. These were surrounded
+by a superior force, and Wolford then brought up the rest of his
+command, only 700 strong, and made a bold effort to rescue his
+comrades. This he did, with the loss of the prisoners mentioned and
+the howitzers, which were taken after they had fired their last
+cartridge. The wagons were burned, but the men bravely cut their way
+out. Approaching Loudon, they were met by General Julius White with
+infantry reinforcements. The tables were now turned on the
+Confederates, who fled over the Hiwassee again, losing in their turn
+about 100 prisoners. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 5, 6.]
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+_List of Letters and Dispatches relating to the campaign in the
+Great Kanawha valley, 1861, which are not found in the publication
+of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate armies (see
+footnote, chapter iv. p. 60)._
+
+Letters and Dispatches of General McClellan to General J. D. Cox, of
+dates July 6th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 20th, August 1st.
+
+Letters and Dispatches of General J. D. Cox to General McClellan, of
+dates July 4th, 6th, 10th, 17th.
+
+Letters and Dispatches of General Rosecrans to General Cox of dates
+July 26th, 29th, 31st, four of August 5th, one of August 6th, 8th,
+two of 13th, three of 16th, one of 17th, 18th, two of 20th, one each
+of 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th.
+
+Letters and Dispatches of General Cox to General Rosecrans, of dates
+August 6th, 7th, 10th, 19th, 28th, two each of 30th and 31st, one of
+September 2d (enclosing Colonel Tyler's report of engagement at
+Cross Lanes), 3d, 9th, 22d, October 5th (order of withdrawal from
+Sewell Mountain), two of October 7th, one each of 8th, 9th, three of
+10th, one of 16th.
+
+There are also missing numerous ones from and to Colonel Tyler,
+Colonel W. Sooy Smith, Colonel J. V. Guthrie, and other officers.
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+_Letters of Generals R. B. Hayes and George Crook as to the
+discipline and conduct of the Kanawha Division in the campaign of
+September, 1862. The death of President Hayes has removed any
+objections to the publication of his letter._
+
+FREMONT, OHIO, 8th September, 1882.
+
+MY DEAR GENERAL,--Your note of the 4th instant came during a brief
+absence from home. I appreciate your kindness and your friendly
+suggestions. After sleeping on it, I am not inclined to depart from
+my custom in dealing with attacks upon me.... Besides, to give a
+correct relation of the Reno altercation would be to disparage an
+officer who died in battle a few days after the affair, and who
+cannot now give his side of the controversy.
+
+One of the brigades of the division was commanded by General Crook
+and another by General Scammon, both regular army officers
+conspicuous for attention to strictness of discipline. General
+Scammon was at the time still colonel of the Twenty-third. The
+regiment on that march repeatedly reported, as I was glad to do, not
+a single absentee on the first roll-call immediately after the halt.
+
+The altercation, in its general facts, was as you recall it. But the
+occasion of it was this. The regiment halted to bivouac in a
+stubble-field. The men got bundles of straw, or possibly of wheat
+unthreshed, from a stack in the field to lie upon. General Reno saw
+it. I was temporarily absent. The general, as you say, "in a rough
+way" accosted the men, and as I returned, I heard his language and
+retorted in behalf of my men, not in my own case at all, for he had
+said nothing to me. Hence the row between us. I was told, while I
+was lying wounded, [Footnote: During the battle of South
+Mountain.--J. D. C.] that General Reno was greatly pleased by our
+vigorous attack, and that he paid us a high compliment, expressing
+gratification that our difficulty had gone no further than it did.
+
+Now excuse my suggestion. Let officers tell the story whose names
+are not called in question in the note referred to--say General
+Scammon, General Crook, and yourself. I am grateful for your
+attention to this misrepresentation, and hope you will not differ
+widely from me as to the correctness of the course I take.
+Sincerely,
+(Signed) R. B. HAYES.
+
+
+HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ARIZONA, WHIPPLE BARRACKS,
+PRESCOTT, A. T., November 27, 1882.
+
+
+MY DEAR GENERAL,--Referring to your letter of the 3d instant asking
+replies to certain queries with reference to the conduct of the
+Kanawha Division during the Antietam campaign, I can only reply
+generally. The twenty years which have elapsed make my memory
+indistinct, and I can now recall only prominent features or
+particular incidents in which I was especially interested. I
+remember distinctly, however, that the Kanawha Division compared
+favorably in discipline and general good conduct with the best
+troops of the army. In my own brigade there was no straggling, or,
+if any, so little that it did not come to my notice. I am quite sure
+there was no pillaging in my brigade. My men probably took fence
+rails for their bivouac fires, and straw and hay for their beds, but
+to the best of my belief there was nothing done that could be called
+pillaging.
+
+I heard, at the time, something with reference to a controversy
+between Generals Reno and Hayes, but if ever I knew what it was
+about, I have forgotten it. In this matter it seems as if the
+statement of General Hayes should be conclusive.
+
+I am very glad that you have interested yourself in refuting the
+numberless charges which the writers of personal histories have
+found it convenient to lay against the Kanawha Division, and which
+in almost every instance are base slanders. The _personnel_ of the
+division should in itself be a sufficient refutation. The regiments
+were mainly of '61 men from country districts who enlisted from
+motives of patriotism, and as a rule were never disgraced by conduct
+which many of the regiments enlisted in the large cities of the East
+were notorious for throughout the army.
+
+The Kanawha Division did not belong to the Army of the Potomac, and
+it was therefore an easy matter to shift responsibility from its own
+organization by throwing it on the shoulders of the troops serving
+with it. The subsequent reputation of this division is in itself a
+sufficient answer, and I challenge history to show an organization
+which was more distinguished for all soldierly qualities than the
+one you had the honor to command during the campaign, until the
+death of Reno gave you the Ninth Corps.
+
+You are at liberty to use this letter in any way you deem best, and
+I am only sorry that I can do no more to assist you.
+
+Very Sincerely, Your friend,
+GEORGE CROOK, Brig. Gen'l.
+
+
+To General J. D. Cox.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Military Reminiscences of the Civil
+War V1, by Jacob Dolson Cox
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