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Personal Recollections 
 
 OF THE 
 
 War of the Rebellion 
 
 ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE COMMANDERY 
 OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, MILITARY ORDER 
 OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 A. NOEL BLAKEMAN 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 
 
 ^nickciborhcr press 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 THE NEW YORK COMMANDERY 
 
 'Cbe Tknfcftecbocher ipress, Ulcw IL'orfe 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE compiler and editor of this volume, does not suppose 
 
 that the authors of the several papers which it contains 
 desire to lay special claim to literary excellence. They were 
 prepared for the entertainment of the Companions of the 
 Commandery of the State of New York at their stated meet- 
 ings, which are always preceded by a banquet, and while they 
 have from time to time admirably served this purpose, they 
 form also a valuable contribution to the history of that great 
 Civil Strife that so severely tested the sustaining power of our 
 Republican form of Government. For the most part they 
 recount ''personal experiences" and hence are more in the 
 nature of fireside narratives, which fact deprives the frequent 
 use of the personal pronoun of the charge of what might be 
 otherwise considered offensive egotism, while at the same time 
 it accounts for the lighter vein in which grave topics are some- 
 times treated, and explains the freedom with which purely 
 personal incidents are related and personal views expressed. 
 
 These papers are valuable not only because of their personal 
 character, being as they are the testimony of those who were 
 actual participants in the events they describe, but furthermore 
 because in a few years the living witnesses of these stirring 
 scenes of war and strife will have passed away, and then the 
 personal narrative must be necessarily forever closed. During 
 a few years immediately after the conclusion of the great strug- 
 gle, the published literature relating to the war was frequently 
 embellished with more or less that partook somewhat of the 
 character of romance and fiction, but since the publication by 
 authority of the National Government of the War Records, 
 
 111 
 
iv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 the period of romance has necessarily given place to a period 
 that is producing history pure and simple, for no writer how- 
 ever reputable, now cares to controvert the record or juggle 
 with official reports which have not proved to be inaccurate and 
 which are within reach of all who care to read. Fair criticism 
 of military operations connected with the war and honest 
 differences of opinion as to results will continue at least 
 through this generation, but no such criticism or opinion will 
 now pass current unless based upon the official record, and 
 hence no Companion will have the temerity to spin a yarn in 
 the presence of his fellows that cannot be substantiated by 
 abundant reference to what has become accepted as standard 
 authority. These papers possess still further value because 
 in not a few instances they are the narratives of officers who 
 held more or less important commands afloat as well as 
 ashore, and hence are in a position to afford an intelligent 
 explanation of orders which they either issued or executed, 
 for an army both as a whole and in its several parts and a ship 
 of war is nothing if it is not a machine, moved at the will of 
 its commanding officer. ' However well disciplined, however 
 well equipped, its ofTensive or defensive power can only be 
 developed and applied by the genius and skill of its Com- 
 mander. 
 
 For the present these papers have served to entertain, 
 amuse and instruct those who took part in making the history 
 they describe, for the future it is to be hoped they will inspire 
 the patriotism and loyalty of those who come after and will 
 read these pages, not as the record of cold history, but as the 
 story of living men, who for love of country and a patriotic sense 
 of duty, sought to uphold the principles of a Government that 
 had been to them a living reality in all that was good, benefi- 
 cent and true. 
 
 With but a single exception these papers have been arranged 
 in the order, as to date, in which they were read, and with but 
 two exceptions the writers are all living at the time of publica- 
 tion. General Francis A. Walker was a guest of the Com- 
 mandery May 6th, 1896, and then paid a beautiful tribute to the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 V 
 
 memory of his old Commander and within eight months he 
 himself had joined the great army on the other side of the 
 river. Medical Director Martin, U. S. N., one of the heroes 
 of the Naval battle in Hampton Roads, died January 14th, 
 1892. 
 
 A. N. B. 
 
 This volume, the second published by the Commandery of 
 the State of New York, Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
 of the United States, has been edited by Acting Assistant 
 Paymaster A. Noel Blakeman, Recorder of the Commandery, 
 to whom the Library Committee is under great obligations 
 for painstaking and valuable services. It has been the effort 
 of the Committee to make the volume as nearly like the first 
 as possible, in order to maintain a desirable uniformity in 
 appearance. 
 
 The portrait of General Ulysses S. Grant, the Commander 
 of the Commandery, 1884-6, adds to the value of the volume. 
 For the use of the plate from which the portrait was printed, 
 the Commandery is indebted to the D. Van Nostrand Com- 
 pany, 23 and 27 Warren St., New York. 
 
 Wm. J. Carlton, Captain, U. S. V. 
 Luis F. Emilio, Captain, U. S. V. 
 Edward Trenchard, In Succession. 
 
 Library Committee, 
 
 New York, June, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SINKING of the Congress and Cumberland by the Merrimac, 
 by Medical Director Charles Martin, U. S. N. . . . i 
 Snake Creek Gap and Atlanta, by Brevet Major Rowland Cox, 
 
 U. S. V 7 
 
 In Commemoration of General William Tecumseh Sherman, by 
 
 Senator John Sherman and others. .... 30 
 In and Out of Confederate Prisons, by Captain George H. Starr, 
 
 U. S. V 64 
 
 The Navy in the Battle? and Capture of Fort Fisher, by Lt.- 
 
 Commander James Parker, late U. S. N. . . . 104 
 Admiral Farragut's Passage of Port Hudson, by Paymaster 
 
 Wm. T. Meredith, U. S. N 118 
 
 In the Company Street, by Sergeant Charles E. Sprague, 
 
 U. S. V 126 
 
 Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief, by Major Alexander K. Mc- 
 
 Clure, U. S. V 140 
 
 Major-General John Sedgwick, by Major-General M. T. Mahon, 
 
 U. S. V 159 
 
 Reminiscences of Cadet and Army Service, by Brevet Brigadier- 
 General Peter Michie, U. S. V 183 
 
 The Duty and Value of Patriotism, by Archbishop John Ireland, 
 
 late Chaplain, U. S. V. . . . . . . . 198 
 
 Surrender of the Navy Yard at Pensacola, Florida, January 12, 
 
 1861, by Rear Admiral Henry Erben, U. S. N. . . 213 
 The Cavalry at Chancellorsville, May, 1865, by Captain W. L. 
 
 Hermance, U. S. V. . . . . . . . 223 
 
 Some Personal Reminiscences of the Naval Service, by Asst. 
 
 Paymaster A. Noel Blakeman, late U. S. N. . . 232 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Battle of Atlanta, by Maj. Gen'l. Grenville M. Dodge, 
 
 U. S. V 240 
 
 The Naval Victory at Port Royal, S. C, Nov. 7, 186 1, by Bvt. 
 
 Lieut.-Col. Wm. Conant Church, U. S. V. . . . 255 
 
 The Battle of Corinth, by General D. S. Stanley, U. S. A. 267 
 
 A Few Yarns of the Early Sixties, by Rear Admiral O. F. Stanton, 
 
 U. S. N 280 
 
 In Memory of Maj. -General John Gibbon, U. S. A., Commander- 
 in-Chief, by Maj. C. A. Woodruff, U. S. A. . . . 290 
 
 General Gibbon in the Second Corps, by General Francis A. 
 
 Walker, U. S. V 302 
 
 The Old Vermont Brigade, by Lieut.-Col. Aldace F. Walker, 
 
 U. S. V 316 
 
THE LOYAL LEGION PAPERS 
 FOR 1896. 
 
 SINKING OF THE ''CONGRESS" AND "CUMBER- 
 LAND" BY THE '' MERRIMAC." 
 
 OMPANIONS: I will tell you what I saw at Newport 
 
 News when the Merrimac destroyed the Congress and 
 the Cumberland, and fought with the Monitor. It was a drama 
 in three acts, and twelve hours will elapse between the sec- 
 ond and third acts. 
 
 " Let us begin at the beginning " — 1861. The North Atlan- 
 tic squadron is at Hampton Roads, except the frigate Congress 
 and the razee Cumberland ; they are anchored at Newport 
 News, blockading the James River and Norfolk. The Merri- 
 mac, the Rebel ram, is in the dry dock of the Norfolk navy- 
 yard ; for, after the unsuccessful attempt at the outbreak of the 
 rebellion to burn the yard and the men-of-war lying there, it 
 was abandoned to the enemy, leaving them in possession of 
 the accumulation of arms and ammunition which served as 
 an outfit for the army of the Confederacy; and they utilized 
 the half-burned frigate Merrimac, cut her down, gave her a short, 
 powerful ram capable of doing much harm to our ships, they 
 built over her a sloping roof of railroad iron, they made her a 
 
 A Paper Read by Medical Director Charles Martin, U. S. Navy 
 (Retired), May 5, 1886. 
 
 I 
 
2 SINKING OF THE "CONGRESS" AND CUMBERLAND." 
 
 floating bomb-proof, and when afloat she looked like an old- 
 fashioned barn submerged to the eaves. And, besides her 
 three broadside guns, she had a port and a heavy gun in each 
 gable. 
 
 The Monitor is building in New York City. She is a secret, 
 and passes are given to visit the shipyard where she is build- 
 ing, and a young Copperhead takes advantage of frequent op- 
 portunities : he makes sketches and notes of her dimensions, 
 etc. ; he carries them with him down into Dixey. This treach- 
 ery is indirectly a cause of safety to the Monitor, The notes 
 show the Confederate Government that the ram of the Merri- 
 mac is too short — it cannot reach the hull of the Monitor wn^^x 
 her overhang. They lengthen the ram, and are well aware that 
 in doing so they have weakened it, and it is determined to keep 
 the Merrimac in the dry dock, wait the arrival of the Monitor, 
 send her out to meet her, and in the action it is positive that 
 an opportunity will offer to pierce and sink her. The ram is a 
 terror, and both sides say, When the Merrimac comes out ! " 
 The last of February, 1862, the Mo7iitor is ready for sea; she 
 will sail for Hampton Roads in charge of a steamer. There is 
 a rumor that she has broken her steering gear before reaching 
 Sandy Hook. She will be towed to Washington for repairs. 
 The Rebel spies report her a failure — steering defective, turret 
 revolves with difficulty, and when the smoke of her guns in 
 action is added to the defects of ventilation, it will be impos- 
 sible for human beings to live aboard of her. No Monitor to 
 fight, the Southern press and people grumble ; they pitch into 
 the Merrimac. Why does she lie idle ? Send her out to destroy 
 the Congress the Ctcmberland^ that have so long bullied Nor- 
 folk, then sweep away the fleet at Hampton Roads, starve out 
 Fortress Monroe, go north to Baltimore and New York and Bos- 
 ton, and destroy and plunder; and the voice of the people, not 
 always an inspiration, prevails, and the ram is floated and 
 manned and armed, and March 8th is bright and sunny when 
 she steams down the Elizabeth River to carry out the first part 
 of her programme. And all Norfolk and Portsmouth ride and 
 run to the bank of the James, to have a picnic, and assist at a 
 
SINKING OF THE "CONGRESS" AND "CUMBERLAND." 3 
 
 naval battle and victory. The ciy of " Wolf ! " has so often 
 been heard aboard the ships that the Merrimac has lost much 
 of her terrors. They argue : *' If she is a success, why don't 
 she come out and destroy us ? " And when seen this morning 
 at the mouth of the river: " It is only a trial trip or a demon- 
 stration." But she creeps along the opposite shore, and both 
 ships beat to quarters and get ready for action. The boats of 
 the Cumberlmtd are lowered, made fast to each other in line, 
 anchored between the ship and the shore, about an eighth of 
 a mile distant. 
 
 Here are two large sailing frigates, on a calm day, at slack 
 water, anchored in a narrow channel, impossible to get under 
 weigh and manoeuvre, and must lie and hammer, and be ham- 
 mered, so long as they hold together, or until they sink at 
 their anchors. To help them is a tug, the Zouave, once used 
 in the basin at Albany to tow canal boats under the grain ele- 
 vator. The Congress is the senior ship ; the tug makes fast to 
 her. The Congress slips her cable and tries to get under 
 weigh. The tug does her best and breaks her engine. The 
 Congress goes aground in line with the shore. The Zouave 
 floats down the river, firing her pop-guns at the Merrimac as 
 she drifts by her. The captain of the Congress was detached 
 on the 7th. He is waiting a chance to go North. He serves 
 as a volunteer in the action, refusing to resume command and 
 deprive the first lieutenant of a chance for glory. The captain 
 of the Cumberland has been absent since the 3d. He is presi- 
 dent of a court-martial at this moment in session on board the 
 Roanoke at Hampton Roads, so the command of both the ships 
 devolves on the first lieutenants. On board the Cumberland 
 all hands are allowed to remain on deck, watching the slow 
 approach of the Merrimac, and she comes on so slowly, the 
 pilot declares she has missed the channel ; she draws too much 
 water to use her ram. She continues to advance, and two 
 gun-boats, the Yorktowft and the Teazer, accompany her. 
 Again they beat to quarters, and every one goes to his station. 
 There is a platform on the roof of the Merrimac. Her captain 
 is standing on it. When she is near enough, he hails, " Do 
 
4 SINKING OF THE ''CONGRESS" AND "CUMBERLAND." 
 
 you surrender?" ''Never!'' is the reply. The order to fire 
 is given ; the shot of the starboard battery rattles on the iron 
 roof of the Merrimac. She answers with a shell ; it sweeps the 
 forward pivot gun, it kills and wounds ten of the gun's crew. 
 A second slaughters the marines at the after pivot gun. The 
 Yorktown and the Teazer keep up a constant fire. She bears 
 down on the Cumberland. She rams her just aft the starboard 
 bow. The ram goes into the sides of the ship as a knife goes 
 into a cheese. The Merrimac tries to back out ; the tide is 
 making ; it catches against her great length at a right angle 
 with the Cumberland ; it slews her around ; the weakened, length- 
 ened ram breaks off ; she leaves it in the Cumberland. The 
 battle rages, broadside answers broadside, and the sanded deck 
 is red and slippery with the blood of the wounded and dying ; 
 they are dragged amidships out of the way of the guns ; there 
 is no one and no time to take them below. Delirium seizes 
 the crew ; they strip to their trousers, tie their handkerchiefs 
 round their heads, kick off their shoes, fight and yell like 
 demons, load and fire at will, keep it up for the rest of the 
 forty-two minutes the ship is sinking, and fire a last gun as the 
 water rushes into her ports. 
 
 The order comes, " Save who can ! " The ship sinks head- 
 foremost ; she lists over to port ; the water is ankle deep on the 
 berth deck ; the ladders unship ; it is a scramble to the spar deck^ 
 a rush overboard ; the boats pick up the swimmers. The after 
 pivot gun, pivoted to starboard, breaks loose ; it rushes down 
 the decline of the deck like a furious animal ; a man is in the 
 track ; he falls ; the gun is on him, crushes him, bounds over- 
 board ; there is a mass of mangled flesh on the deck. The ship 
 sinks to her tops. The boats pull for shore ; a shell knocks 
 away the head of the wharf as the boats approach it. The 
 saved land. Instead of a defeat, it is a victory. The whole 
 camp is rushing to meet them, with cheers, with embraces ; 
 the soldiers bring to comfort them the first thing they lay 
 hold of — many of them the panaceas whiskey and tobacco. 
 The sailors are clothed and fed and warmed — they have reached 
 home. And no survivor will ever forget the loving kindness 
 
SINKING OF THE " CONGRESS AND CUMBERLAND." 5 
 
 of our companion, the colonel of the Zouaves, and the ofificers 
 and men of that regiment and of the Troy regiment stationed 
 at Newport News — they gave their all, and gave it twice, the 
 way they gave it. 
 
 In every man-of-war exist Jonathan-and-David, Damon-and- 
 Pythias friendships, called chummies. In the beginning of the 
 action a man hopelessly wounded is lowered down into the 
 cockpit ; later on his chummy, with a flesh wound of his arm, 
 goes below to have it dressed and to see his friend. As he 
 leans over him, the dying man says, Don't leave me, 
 Johnny " ; and Johnny sits down by him, takes him in his 
 arms, stays with him, goes down with him — and surely much 
 was forgiven them. 
 
 The Merrmiac turns to the Co7igress. She is aground, but 
 she fires her guns till the red-hot shot from the enemy sets her 
 on fire, and the flames drive the men away from the battery. 
 She has forty years of seasoning ; she burns like a torch. Her 
 commanding ofificer is killed, and her deck strewn with killed 
 and wounded. The wind is off shore ; they drag the wounded 
 under the windward bulwark, where all hands take refuge from 
 the flames. The sharpshooters on shore drive away a tug 
 from the enemy. The crew and wounded of the Congress are 
 safely landed. She burns the rest of the afternoon and even- 
 ing, discharging her loaded gur3 over the camp. At midnight 
 the fire has reached her magazines — the Congress disappears. 
 
 When it is signalled to the fleet at Hampton Roads that the 
 Merrimac has come out, the Minnesota leaves her anchorage 
 and hastens to join the battle. Her pilot puts her aground 
 off the Elizabeth River, and she lies there helpless. The 
 Merrimac has turned back for Norfolk. She has suffered 
 from the shot of the Congress and the Cumberland, or she would 
 stop and destroy the Minnesota ; instead, with the Yorktown 
 and Teazer, she goes back into the river. Sunday morning, 
 March 9th, the Merrimac is coming out to finish her work. She 
 will destroy the Minnesota. As she nears her, the Monitor 
 appears from behind the helpless ship ; she has slipped in dur- 
 ing the night, and so quietly, her presence is unknown in the 
 
6 SINKING OF THE ''CONGRESS" AND "CUMBERLAND." 
 
 camp. And David goes out to meet Goliath, and every man 
 who can walk to the beach sits down there, spectators of the 
 first iron-clad battle in the world. The day is calm, the smoke 
 hangs thick on the water, the low vessels are hidden by the 
 smoke. They are so sure of their invulnerability, they fight 
 at arms' length. They fight so near the shore, the flash of 
 their guns is seen, and the noise is heard of the heavy shot 
 pounding the armor. They haul out for breath, and again 
 disappear in the smoke. The Merrimac stops firing, the smoke 
 lifts, she is running down the Monitor, but she has left her ram 
 in the Cumberland. The Monitor slips away, turns, and re- 
 news the action. One P. M. — they have fought since 8:30 A. M. : 
 The crews of both ships are suffocating under the armor. The 
 frames supporting the iron roof of the Merrimac are sprung 
 and shattered. The turret of the Monitor is dented with shot, 
 and is revolved with difficulty. The captain of the Merrimac 
 is wounded in the leg ; the captain of the Monitor is blinded 
 with powder. It is a drawn game. The Merrimac, leaking 
 badly, goes back to Norfolk ; the Monitor returns to Hampton 
 Roads. 
 
-SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 A Paper Read by Brevet Major Rowland Cox, U. S. V., December 2, 1891. 
 
 T BEG to say, by way of introduction, that the paper which 
 I have the great pleasure of reading this evening relates 
 to the two most critical and important days in the career of 
 General McPherson, and the two days, by much the most 
 critical, of the Atlanta campaign, when, as it seems to me, 
 the possibility of very serious disaster was most imminent. 
 These two days were the 9th of May, when the affair at Snake 
 Creek Gap took place, and the 22d of July in front of Atlanta, 
 when Hood attacked the Federal left. 
 
 The course pursued by McPherson at Snake Creek Gap has 
 been the subject of much adverse and ill-considered comment ; 
 and that his services on the 226. of July, the day he fell, 
 were of an unusual character is not generally understood. 
 
 I have attempted to explain how, from the standpoint of 
 to-day, it may be seen that the results of these two pivotal 
 days were shaped and directed for great good by the man 
 whose name is especially associated with them. 
 
 The Atlanta campaign began with Johnston at Dalton with 
 an army, in round numbers, of fifty thousand men. The posi- 
 tion he occupied was a very strong one ; and it had been skill- 
 fully and completely fortified. 
 
 Toward this posit'on, Sherman turned his face with the 
 Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee, his 
 forces in the aggregate being about twice as strong as those 
 of his adversary. The Army of the Cumberland was a little 
 larger than that of Johnston, and commanded by General 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 Thomas ; the Army of the Tennessee was something over 
 twenty thousand, and commanded by General McPherson ; 
 and the Army of the Ohio, one-third smaller, was led by 
 General Schofield. With this splendid force and organization, 
 the campaign was opened. 
 
 It may be said generally that Johnston's position at Dalton 
 was in a valley, with the railroad and his line of supplies 
 directly in his rear. His right flank was in no danger, and he 
 seems to have assumed that his left and rear were effectually 
 protected by the range of mountains, which extended in a 
 southwesterly direction, and which covered, like a wall, the 
 railroad and his communications. 
 
 But investigation showed that in this range of mountains 
 there were two gateways through which it was possible to 
 move attacking columns. One of these gateways. Dugs Gap, 
 was, perhaps, four miles south of where the Confederate 
 left rested, and the other. Snake Creek Gap, concerning which 
 very little appears to have been known, was about fourteen 
 miles farther on. 
 
 The opening chapter of General Sherman's plan, generally 
 stated, was to manoeuvre with the main body of the army, in 
 front of Johnston's works at Dalton, while he made a tentative 
 movement against Dugs Gap, and threw a strong detachment 
 toward Snake Creek Gap, hoping to get through one or both 
 of them and into the enemy's rear. 
 
 Hooker with the Twentieth Corps was to move upon the 
 adjacent gateway ; while McPherson, with the Fifteenth Corps, 
 commanded by Logan, and the Sixteenth, commanded by 
 Dodge, constituting the Army of the Tennessee, was to move 
 upon the more distant and more important one, and the 
 remaining seventy thousand men were to watch the embank- 
 ments at Dalton. 
 
 When the plan of moving through Snake Creek Gap was 
 suggested to General Thomas, there seems to be no doubt 
 that he endorsed it, but he very earnestly and, for him, very 
 urgently advised that the proposed plan be modified, and 
 that the Armies of the Tennessee and the Ohio, aggregating, 
 
SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 9 
 
 say, thirty thousand men, be deployed in front of Dalton, 
 while the Army of the Cumberland, consisting of sixty thou- 
 sand, be moved through the Gap and thrown across the rail- 
 road on the enemy's line of retreat. 
 
 But General Sherman preferred his own view and its execu- 
 tion was proceeded with : the Army of the Cumberland and 
 Army of the Ohio sat down in front of Dalton, Hooker entered 
 upon the difificult task of penetrating Dugs Gap, and McPherson 
 put his command in motion for the Gap below. It was hoped 
 against every reasonable probability that the important Gap 
 would be found to be unoccupied ; that it could be seized and 
 a lodgment effected across the railroad in the enemy's rear; 
 that Thomas and Schofield, watching the works at Dalton, 
 would prevent Johnston from letting go and so being able to 
 fall upon the detachment thus in possession of the railroad in 
 his rear ; and that the sum of the operations would be, first, 
 the evacuation of Dalton, and second, the destruction of the 
 army which held it. 
 
 The orders to the Army of the Tennessee were necessarily of 
 a somewhat elastic character, leaving much to the discretion of 
 its commander. General Sherman was emphatic in making 
 known his objects and what he expected to be done, but he 
 purposely so framed his orders that they did not stand in the 
 way of whatever the emergency might demand. 
 
 McPherson, as always, entered into the spirit of the duty 
 to which he was assigned, with zeal and energy, but not, I 
 think, without misgivings. His army marched in the direction 
 of its purposes to Gordon's Mills, thence to Villanow, and on 
 the 8th of May into Snake Creek Gap, the head of the column 
 passing through the defile, or nearly through it, to its mouth 
 looking into Sugar Valle> , without hearing of the enemy or 
 firing a gun. 
 
 On the morning of the 9th, the command, with the possible 
 exception of one division of the Fifteenth Corps, which was 
 with the trains and unavailable, had emerged into Sugar Val- 
 ley and was ready to proceed with and carry out its part of 
 the plan. It was composed entirely of infantry and artillery, 
 
lO 
 
 ''SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 with the exception of a small and very tired regiment of 
 mounted infantry of about three hundred men. There must 
 have been some good reason why no cavalry was provided, for 
 it would be difificult to conceive of a situation in which an 
 adequate mounted force was more plainly necessary ; but 
 whatever the situation demanded, the duty was required to be 
 performed with infantry and artillery. The handful of dra- 
 goons, whatever their energy and usefulness in the morning, 
 had ceased to be a factor by the time they had reached the end 
 of their day's ride and battle and when their services would 
 have been of almost inestimable value and importance. 
 
 As we have seen, the first act, the occupation of the Gap, 
 had been successfully accomplished without firing a gun, and 
 the evacuation of Dalton was a foregone conclusion. The 
 other chapter, the seizure of the railroad and the things con- 
 nected therewith, which, in all its details rested in the discretion 
 of McPherson, remained to be -performed. 
 
 The imperfect and misleading maps which were our chief if 
 not our only sources of information, showed that the nearest 
 point on the railroad was Resaca, that the only practicable line 
 of march from the Gap led to that point, and that it was out 
 in the open, eight miles away. 
 
 In Sherman's Memoirs it is intimated that Resaca was only 
 three miles from the mouth of the Gap, but it was more than 
 twice that distance. General Dodge says it was nearly nine 
 miles ; it was certainly over eight ; and the road, if road it 
 could be called, was most of the way a characteristic Georgia 
 wagon-track, upon which the progress of an army must neces- 
 sarily be slow. 
 
 This wagon-track led almost directly across the valley to 
 Resaca and the railroad ; and about fifteen miles up the railroad, 
 and up the valley, was General Johnston and his army of fifty 
 thousand veterans. 
 
 To reach the railroad, therefore, and effect the proposed lodg- 
 ment across it, involved a march of eight tedious and uncertain 
 miles into a terra incognita, with the left flank of the column 
 wide open from start to finish. And on this exposed flank was 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 II 
 
 the enemy, almost within striking distance, whose movements 
 were completely masked and who might be waiting at any 
 point for the opportunity to strike. In addition to the railroad, 
 there were certainly two available highways by which he could 
 come rapidly down the valley : the Rome road, which crossed 
 the line of march a few miles from the mouth of the Gap, and 
 the Calhoun road perhaps two miles nearer Resaca. The coun- 
 try ahead was wholly unexplored, and what force there was in 
 front, or on the left, or anywhere, could be ascertained only as 
 it was developed and as the column felt its way. 
 
 Few men of discernment and a knowledge of the maxims 
 of war could have contemplated without apprehension an at- 
 tempt to solve the very difficult problem and duty which was 
 imposed that morning upon the altogether faithful and zealous 
 commander of the Army of the Tennessee. He knew that 
 Dugs Gap continued to be securely sealed and that the roads 
 leading to him from Dalton were all open to the enemy and 
 all protected against a flank attack. He knew that Wheeler's 
 divisions of cavalry could in a few hours ride down to him 
 through a country they had been over many times before, and 
 he knew that Johnston, a thoroughly trained and most efficient 
 general, had an accurate and comprehensive knowledge of all 
 the details of the situation. These things and much more he 
 knew, and yet he had no choice except to act upon the hopes 
 and expectations of his superior and go ahead. 
 
 At the earliest practicable moment, on the morning of the 
 9th of May, the advance of the Army of the Tennessee, consist- 
 ing of the 9th Illinois mounted infantry and a regiment of in- 
 fantry belonging to the Sixteenth Corps, was sent forward. As 
 it emerged from the Gap into Sugar Valley it came in contact 
 with Grigsby's brigade of Confederate cavalry, which upon 
 orders from Johnston had taken position or was being formed 
 on the Snake Creek road a short distance from the mouth of 
 the defile. 
 
 In Sherman's Memoirs^ we read that this brigade was en- 
 countered and that it *' retreated hastily toward Dalton." Mr. 
 Breckinridge of Kentucky, who was with it in command of 
 
12 
 
 " SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 one of the regiments of which it was composed, says that it 
 made a vigorous resistance and skirmished heavily until late in 
 the afternoon and until it was forced back behind the works at 
 Resaca, where it joined the other Confederate troops there in 
 position. 
 
 The Rome road, a highway from Dalton to Rome, and which 
 was a short line from the enemy's position toward Snake Creek 
 Gap, was reached by the Federal advance quite early in the 
 day ; and a reconnoissance up it toward the North was made 
 with a few men to ascertain whether the enemy held it or were 
 moving in force to receive us. The Sixteenth Corps, however, 
 which had the advance, was not detained, and the Fifteenth 
 followed as soon as it was learned that there was no sufficient 
 reason to delay the march. 
 
 By two o'clock, or about that hour, General Sweeny's divi- 
 sion of the Sixteenth Corps had been deployed and had reached 
 the Calhoun road, where it was halted. General McPherson 
 here again caused a careful reconnoissance to be made toward 
 Dalton, and as the reconnoissance was proceeding Sweeny's 
 division was moved forward, while Veatch's division of the 
 same Corps was held near the cross-roads and the divisions of 
 the Fifteenth Corps directed to close up. 
 
 Sweeny advanced, (not tardily, I think, but cautiously,) driv- 
 ing the enemy before him, until he occupied a favorable posi- 
 tion, partly upon a ridge, his line extending to the right and 
 left of the road along a creek of considerable size about a mile 
 from Resaca and in plain sight of the Confederate works. 
 Then, as the Fifteenth Corps came up and was massed near the 
 cross-roads, Veatch's command was advanced with orders to 
 connect with Sweeny's left and feel for the railroad. It may 
 be true that one of Veatch's brigades went forward with 
 Sweeny, but certainly one of them was detained until General 
 Logan came up with his corps. 
 
 By the time these dispositions had been made the day was 
 drawing toward a close. The troops had been moved with a 
 definite purpose and without waste of time. Not as rapidly 
 as if they had not been in the enemy's country marching by 
 
" SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 13 
 
 the flank across roads which opened into his camp, and not as 
 we might have moved if we had not been bound by every rule 
 to find out, as best we might with infantry and artillery, 
 whether we were being led into a trap and to our destruction. 
 But it may be safely stated that, from the time the column 
 started, there had been, on the part of its constantly alert com- 
 mander, no want of energy and no unnecessary delay of any kind. 
 
 General Dodge has stated that it was about four o'clock 
 when the head of Logan's Corps reached the Calhoun cross- 
 roads. My impression is that it must have been later, for I 
 remember seeing Fuller's men of Veatch's division going into 
 position on Sweeny's left and that the sun behind them was not 
 far above the tree-tops. I think there can be no doubt that 
 it was after five o'clock when Dodge had completed, or nearly 
 completed, his formation, and he met, or was requested to meet, 
 McPherson and Logan to discuss the situation. 
 
 Unquestionably, as the march went on, McPherson had done 
 the only things possible to be done with the forces at his dis- 
 posal. As has been stated, he had no cavalry and the regi- 
 ment of mounted infantry which he had used during the day 
 had now, by honest and creditable work, been so much reduced 
 that General Dodge says that when he got to the Calhoun road 
 he could muster only eighteen men to send in search of the rail- 
 road. The eighteen weary troopers went upon their important 
 quest, and it was after dark when they got back. 
 
 When McPherson called his lieutenants together, to con- 
 sider what ought to be done, the situation was this : 
 
 The main portion of one corps, consisting of about six thou- 
 sand men, was in line of battle facing Resaca and the works of 
 the enemy, with its left in air, and the rear of its left, which 
 was wholly unprotected, toward Dalton and the main Confeder- 
 ate Army. About the strength of the enemy's works, and the 
 presence of an efficient force behind them, there was not the 
 shadow of a doubt. The works presented a formidable ap- 
 pearance, and the artillery fire which was opened from them, and 
 the sound of musketry while the Federal line was being adjusted, 
 were too significant to be misunderstood. We now know that 
 
14 
 
 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 General Hood was there watching our movements, and that 
 the troops at his disposal and behind his works must have been 
 able to hold them until dark. The Sixteenth Corps was in line 
 facing the works, and the Fifteenth was massed at the Calhoun 
 cross-roads, a mile away, with one brigade in line of battle 
 anxiously looking up the unexplored and unknown valley to- 
 ward General Johnston's camp. 
 
 This was the condition of things when the conference be- 
 tween McPherson, Logan, and Dodge took place. Every- 
 thing seemed to indicate that the situation was in all its 
 aspects a most critical one, and the views of his lieutenants 
 were, therefore, of the greatest importance to the general in 
 command. The recollections of those who have a knowledge 
 of this conference differ very widely and essentially. In one 
 of the two corps commanders, General McPherson had the 
 greatest confidence, believing in his intelligence, sagacity, cour- 
 age, and discretion ; and it has been stated, upon what I regard 
 as very high authority, that that corps commander represented 
 without hesitation that an assault upon the works of Resaca 
 would inevitably fail, and I believe that the statement of this 
 fact, which seemed to be too obvious to require any statement 
 to make it effectual, influenced the mind of McPherson very 
 strongly in the direction of the conservative course which he 
 adopted. 
 
 The interchange of views between the three generals was 
 continued for some time, and my understanding is that General 
 McPherson left the conference, stating in substance that he 
 would decide very soon and communicate his orders. 
 
 Be this as it may, he rode with his staff to the foot of a high 
 hill upon the right of the Resaca road and near which the 
 meeting had taken place. It may be that General Logan or 
 General Dodge accompanied him. Of that I am not sure ; but 
 we dismounted at the foot of the hill, and, leaving our horses 
 with our orderlies, went up to the top. I distinctly remember 
 the observation made by General McPherson, the fact that it 
 took place during a brisk artillery fire, and that some of us 
 thought the General's life was in danger. 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 15 
 
 The timber on the side of the hill or ridge toward Resaca 
 had been slashed to give range to the guns, and a large stump 
 had been left near where we had halted. Upon this stump 
 McPherson stepped, and, raising his glass, looked intently and 
 deliberately at the enemy's works. He was over six feet tall, 
 and, standing on the stump, was a very conspicuous object, but 
 he seemed to be entirely unconscious of the fact, notwithstand- 
 ing the artillery practice of the enemy, which gave unmistak- 
 able evidences of experience and skill, and which was directed 
 toward where he stood. He did not, however, change his posi- 
 tion, but without any sign of haste concluded his observation, 
 and, having done so, walked slowly back into the timber, where 
 he informed his chief-of-staff. Colonel Clark, that he would not 
 attack and that he would withdraw his army to a place of 
 safety near the Gap. The conclusion was at once communi- 
 cated to the corps commanders, and the weary unwinding of 
 the long miles of the morning was commenced. 
 
 There were not a few officers and men in the retiring column 
 who were sadly at a loss to understand why they had been 
 withdrawn, apparently without having made an effort to ac- 
 complish the principal, if not the only, object of the march. 
 They realized that they had been in line of battle, or expect- 
 ing to be engaged, nearly all day, and that after they had 
 reached the enemy and the all-important railroad, they were 
 suddenly counter-marched and started back to the place from 
 which they had set out. 
 
 But the colonel at the head of his regiment, however com- 
 petent and intelligent he may be, rarely gets the true perspec- 
 tive of the general situation or understands the full significance 
 of the duty he is called upon to perform. 
 
 As McPherson stood on the hill in front of Resaca, he was 
 compelled either to make an attack, then and there, or withdraw 
 his little army. There were not less than two brigades of Con- 
 federates behind the works, (which spoke for themselves,) with 
 at least ten guns ; there was less than an hour of daylight ; the 
 position of the enemy in his rear was unknown ; he was eight 
 miles from the Gap, and his army was divided into detachments. 
 
i6 
 
 " SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 Certainly, to make an attack under such conditions called for 
 the exercise of a kind of military genius which General Mc- 
 Pherson did not possess. 
 
 And if Resaca had been taken, it would have been essential 
 to hold and watch the Rome cross-roads with one detachment, 
 and the Calhoun cross-roads with another, which would have 
 broken his command into three unequal parts, separated from 
 each other by intervals of about two miles. The attack, if it 
 had been made, could not have been concluded before dark» 
 and the necessary result would have been that the three iso- 
 lated detachments would have slept on their arms where they 
 had fought or been posted, with the certainty of battle in the 
 morning. It seemed to be as plain as any indisputable de- 
 duction could be, that at the break of day the enemy would be 
 in line on the Snake Creek road and before Resaca with thirty- 
 five thousand men. As it was, Johnston, knowing apparently 
 the exact situation, sent Hood to Resaca, and his three di- 
 visions were placed on the cars during the night, and on the 
 morning of the loth were at Tilton, a few miles away, where 
 they had been halted. 
 
 We now perceive that Johnston could have moved the main 
 body of his army to Resaca during the night of the 9th, and 
 that by no possibility would Thomas or Schofield have been 
 able to get there before the chances of the inevitable battle of 
 the loth would have been decided. 
 
 And how uneven those chances would have been is no 
 longer matter of conjecture. The Confederate General would 
 have had almost every possible advantage. He would have 
 encountered a divided force, and a very tired and hungry one^ 
 whose wagons on the unprotected road to the Gap were at the 
 mercy of his cavalry. General Dodge tells us that on the 
 evening of the 9th his transportation had not come up and 
 that the men and animals of his corps had for a day and a half 
 been without other food than they found in the poor and 
 picked country over which they had marched. Loring's divi- 
 sion of Polk's corps, of which corps Canty's men who were in 
 Resaca constituted a part, was on the march near by and 
 
" SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 17 
 
 reached Resaca on the loth, and might have come directly 
 up by the Calhoun road and made a connection with Hood 
 and a lodgment between us and the Gap. There were con- 
 tingencies too numerous to be recited, and all, or many of 
 them, as plain to the Federal General as the fast-setting sun 
 behind him. It has been said that genius is the capacity to 
 perceive existing factors and to comprehend the weight and 
 importance of each element of the situation. Whether Mc- 
 Pherson saw and understood all the factors of which we now 
 have knowledge, we need not seek to ascertain. His actions, 
 I think, indicated that he did. 
 
 I remember a remark which it was my privilege to hear from 
 his lips, which I have often thought of, and which should be 
 preserved as a matter of record. A few days after the affair 
 at Snake Creek Gap some allusion was made to it, and the 
 General said, in substance, that if he had attacked Resaca, or 
 if he had remained there, Johnston would have cut him off 
 as you cut off the end of a piece of tape with a pair of 
 shears." 
 
 I did not then quite understand what he meant, but with 
 our present information the figure is easily explained. He was 
 eight miles out in the open with less than 20,000 men. There 
 was a force of 50,000 of the enemy on his left and rear, and 
 perhaps 8000 on his right and rear, with about 4000 holding 
 the works in his front, and the roads behind him connecting 
 the two principal bodies of the enemy were completely screened 
 and wholly unobstructed. These were among the factors 
 which may have influenced him when he declined to attack the 
 force in his front and withdrew his command beyond the point 
 of danger. 
 
 There are many other and scarcely less material facts and 
 circumstances which point all in the same direction. The 
 more attentively the situation and its incidents are examined, 
 the more indisputably plain is the conclusion that McPherson's 
 prudence and conservatism averted a most serious disaster. I 
 think that no impartial mind, seeking the truth, can go through 
 
 the details of the story of Snake Creek Gap as we have them 
 
 2 
 
I8 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 to-day, without being convinced that, whatever his record, he 
 never did his country a greater service than on the evening of 
 the 9th of May, when he took his army away from the grave 
 and intricate dangers which surrounded it. It is not, I think, 
 too much to say that on that day, as upon a subsequent occasion, 
 he saved the Army of the Tennessee from utter destruction. 
 
 As we see the matter now, we realize that if Thomas with 
 sixty thousand men had been sent through the Gap, with a 
 logical front and a logical rear, he could have marched, with 
 his colors flying, up the Rome or Calhoun road, and seized and 
 held the railroad and invited battle ; and the fact that Dugs 
 Gap was in the possession of the enemy, and that Wheeler was 
 riding down the valley, and that Johnston and Hardee and the 
 indomitable Cleburne were all in the saddle, and coming, would 
 have been cause for congratulation instead of dismay. 
 
 As soon as General Sherman was informed of the results 
 of McPherson's movements and that his detachment had taken 
 position in Snake Creek Gap, he withdrew Thomas and Scho- 
 field from in front of Dalton, leaving only the Fourth Corps 
 and General Howard ; and although Johnston had full inform- 
 ation as to the presence of the Army of the Tennessee in the 
 Gap, he manifested no anxiety whatever, and did not even 
 evacuate Dalton until he had learned that the Army of the 
 Cumberland had left his front. He then moved down the 
 valley and took position at Resaca. 
 
 Johnston's omission to occupy and fortify Snake Creek Gap 
 and McPherson's omission to attack Resaca were discussed by 
 our whole army, particularly as it passed through the Gap, 
 marching as it did within a few yards of General McPherson's 
 tent. It was current gossip and perhaps believed that Mc- 
 Pherson had made a most unhappy mistake, that he had failed 
 to take advantage of a great opportunity, and it was even 
 hinted that he was to be relieved of his command. But I 
 think there is no evidence that General Sherman ever gave ex- 
 pression to anything more than his undisguised disappointment 
 and the belief that a more aggressive course would have effected 
 his most sanguine anticipations. 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 19 
 
 Some men would have found it impossible to bear the im- 
 putation which was not wholly unexpressed as the other armies 
 filed by the headquarters of the Army of the Tennessee and 
 looked for its commander. I remember when Sherman arrived. 
 It was a trying moment for the gentle and high-strung and 
 sensitive man, who, having done his whole duty, unselfishly, 
 wisely, and well, could by no possibility make himself under- 
 stood. Sherman rode up with his staff and as he dismounted 
 said in substance, and not ungraciously : " Mac," or " Well, 
 Mac, you have missed the opportunity of a lifetime," with 
 which they went into McPherson's tent. 
 
 The development of the campaign from Resaca down to 
 Atlanta has been lucidly and intelligently described by those 
 who took part in it and contributed to its success. The general 
 theory was to move Thomas up where his solid front covered 
 Johnston's lines, and then send McPherson, or Howard at a 
 later date, with the Army of the Tennessee, around one of his 
 flanks and thus force him out of position. From the right 
 flank to the left, and from the left to the right, and from the 
 right to the left and back again, the Army of the Tennessee 
 was thrown. It never once missed its footing, and never once 
 failed to perform with mathematical accuracy and completeness 
 the duty which the strategy of the campaign imposed upon it. 
 
 I pass over the events of the weeks of activity during which 
 the two armies manoeuvred, and perhaps it should be said 
 fought, from Resaca to Atlanta. Johnston was relieved on the 
 17th of July and the command of the Confederates turned 
 over to Hood. With the new commander a new policy and 
 new tactics were at once inaugurated. Both General McPher- 
 son and General Schofield had been members of Hood's class 
 at West Point, and he and McPherson had been intimately 
 associated as room-mates for over a year. There was no doubt 
 about his intelligence, ingenuity, and disposition to fight ; and 
 he was regarded on all hands as an enterprising and dangerous 
 adversary. 
 
 On the 20th of July, three days after he assumed command. 
 
20 
 
 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 he disclosed the course he meant to pursue, in what is known 
 as the battle of Peach-Tree Creek, which was a spirited attack 
 near the right of the Federal line, and which was repulsed 
 chiefly by Hooker's corps assisted by Newton's division of 
 the Fourth. 
 
 As the Federal lines closed in on Atlanta, the Army of the 
 Tennessee was on the extreme left and was pushed ahead until, 
 on the morning of the 22d, it occupied a position very near 
 the outer line of Confederate works. As it went forward Gen- 
 eral Garrard's division of cavalry covered its exposed flank, 
 and up to the time when it formed in front of the Confederate 
 works Garrard held and made safe the wide gate which opened 
 to its flank and rear. 
 
 But, on the night of the 20th, General Sherman, doubtless 
 for what seemed to him to be good and suflficient reasons, and 
 desiring to destroy an adjacent railroad, spirited Garrard away, 
 thus leaving the left of McPherson's line of battle dangerously 
 in air. 
 
 Hood was not long in discovering the removal of the 
 Federal cavalry and the opening and opportunity thus pre- 
 sented. He promptly decided to move Hardee's corps of 
 infantry and Wheeler's command of cavalry under cover of 
 night and as rapidly as possible around the unprotected flank, 
 until the Federal rear was reached, and then, taking us in 
 reverse, to do all the damage possible and perhaps capture the 
 bulk of the Army of the Tennessee. That he came painfully 
 near accomplishing his object is a matter of history. 
 
 Very early on the morning of the 22d, McPherson received 
 through a galloping staff officer information from Sherman that 
 Hood was falling back, and, with the information, a strong inti- 
 mation, amounting almost to an order, that preparations should 
 be made for pursuit by roads that were indicated. McPherson 
 hastened out to his most advanced position and made, as was 
 his custom, a careful personal observation and reconnoissance. 
 He soon discovered that there was no good reason to suppose 
 that Hood meant to abandon Atlanta. On the contrary, it 
 was plain that the enemy was industriously engaged in 
 
''SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 21 
 
 strengthening his works ; and that some important develop- 
 ment was about to take place which seemed to be near at hand. 
 Indeed, as he returned to his headquarters, General McPherson 
 said, with great earnestness and a number of times, that he 
 anticipated during the day an engagement such as had not 
 taken place during the campaign. 
 
 There is no doubt that for hours, perhaps from the moment 
 he had heard of the withdrawal of Garrard's cavalry, he had 
 been seriously concerned about his left flank, and there is as 
 little doubt that he had endeavored in every practicable way 
 to strengthen it and to guard against the consequences of the 
 impending attack. 
 
 As the Federal columns had converged toward Atlanta, 
 Dodge's two divisions of the Sixteenth Corps (with the ex- 
 ception of one brigade) had been crowded out of line, and were 
 temporarily, toward the evening of the 2 1st, placed in reserve 
 near the right of the Fifteenth Corps, which was on the right 
 of the Army of the Tennessee. These two divisions, number- 
 ing about six thousand men, were therefore available as a 
 reserve, and General McPherson used them accordingly. 
 
 On the morning of the 22d he directed Dodge to move to 
 the left at once and connect with the left flank of the Seven- 
 teenth Corps, and without unnecessary delay the march toward 
 the position indicated was commenced. 
 
 Shortly after Dodge had started, and while his command 
 was in motion, McPherson received the following characteris- 
 tic order, written in pencil and in General Sherman's hand : 
 
 Headquarters Military Div. of the Miss., 
 In the Field at Howard House, 
 
 "Near Atlanta, July 22, 1864. 
 
 General McPherson, 
 
 " Army of the Tennessee : 
 " General : Instead of sending Dodge to your left, I wish you 
 would put his whole corps at work destroying absolutely the rail- 
 road back to and including Decatur. I want that road absolutely 
 and completely destroyed ; every tie and every rail twisted, and as 
 
22 
 
 SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA," 
 
 soon as Garrard returns, if the enemy still holds Atlanta, I will 
 again shift you round to the extreme right with Turner's Ferry as a 
 depot. Explore roads, etc., with that view. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 (Signed.) " W. T. Sherman, 
 
 " Major-General." 
 
 Without countermanding his order to the Sixteenth Corps 
 and without even halting it, McPherson immediately went to 
 Sherman's headquarters, and upon his request the order to 
 Dodge, just quoted, was, for the present at least, withdrawn, 
 and the Sixteenth Corps continued its march. It moved 
 expeditiously directly to the left, and was halted when the 
 head of the column had reached a point something over 
 half a mile from the extreme left, the men stretching back 
 parallel with the line of battle of the Seventeenth Corps and 
 perhaps a mile from it. In that position they stacked arms 
 and rested, while the ground they were to occupy was being 
 looked over, with a view to moving them up as soon as prac- 
 ticable. 
 
 But the importance of the destruction of the railroad more 
 than the safety of his flank was still in General Sherman's 
 mind, and at "12 M. " he sent McPherson a second written 
 order, also in pencil and in his own hand, which was in part 
 as follows: 
 
 " As General Sweeny's division has already moved over to the 
 left . . . you will leave his division where we designated and 
 send Fuller's division back on the line of the railroad between here 
 and Decatur to destroy it, as directed." 
 
 This last order McPherson sent forward, but, by reason of 
 the interposition of destiny, or for some other cause or reason^ 
 it was never executed. If it had been carried out, the history 
 of the Atlanta campaign would read very differently from 
 what it does, and if that which preceded it had not been coun- 
 termanded, who shall say what would have taken place ? 
 
 Sherman's order to withdraw Fuller's division " (only one 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 23 
 
 brigade of which was present, the other being at Decatur, six 
 miles to the rear) was put in writing and placed in the hands 
 of a staff officer, who started with it at a run, but almost be- 
 fore he was out of sight the impending battle, like a mighty 
 storm, burst upon us. 
 
 Hardee and Wheeler had made their march and were swing- 
 ing their troops into the Federal rear. The Confederate di- 
 visions of Cleburne, Bate, Hindman, and Walker had crossed 
 the ground which Garrard had occupied and were moving in ex- 
 cellent order, confidently expecting to gather the great results 
 of what seemed to be a complete surprise. 
 
 But, as has been intimated, McPherson's foresight, and, I 
 think it may be said, the same prudence he had exercised at 
 Snake Creek Gap, had marched Dodge's brigades to the left, 
 and they had been halted and now were in line of battle ex- 
 actly where they ought to be to catch and hold the advancing 
 Confederate wave. With all possible haste the Federal column 
 was thrown into position and turned toward the rapidly devel- 
 oping lines of the advancing enemy. 
 
 And on the rock of the valor of the veterans of the Sixteenth 
 Corps the Confederate onset struck and was shattered. Be- 
 yond that rock, or over it, not all the courage and persistence 
 of Walker, who fell early in the fight, and Bate and Hindman 
 and their devoted officers and men could advance the Confed- 
 erate line. Repeatedly they made the effort and with unsur- 
 passed steadiness and nerve, but when the sun went down and 
 the firing ceased, the gallant men of the Sixteenth Corps held 
 all they had when the onset of the morning fell upon them. 
 
 To the right of Fuller, however, through the open space 
 between him and the Seventeenth Corps, Cleburne's division of 
 the enemy, or some part of it, passed and cut off and captured 
 a section of a battery and part of a brigade at the extreme end 
 of the line in front of Atlanta. And then followed in many 
 parts of the field, a series of battles within battles, if battles 
 they can be called, such as have few parallels in any war. 
 
 Sprague's brigade of the Sixteenth Corps had been ordered 
 to remain at Decatur, six miles in the rear of the Fifteenth 
 
24 
 
 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 Corps, and there performed a duty of great value and impor- 
 tance. Hood's plan of battle contemplated that Wheeler's cav- 
 alry should move upon Decatur, and his orders had been carried 
 out to the letter, but as Hardee's command found the main 
 body of the Sixteenth Corps on its front and in its way. 
 Wheeler's cavalry met the detachment at Decatur and failed to 
 make any impression upon it. It stubbornly held its ground 
 against every effort until the fate of the main lines was decided 
 and the enterprising cavalryman withdrew. 
 
 Thus the brilliant movement of the Confederate commander, 
 which promised such important results, had failed at every 
 point. For the second time in the campaign, the genius and 
 discernment of McPherson had saved the Army of the Tennes- 
 see from destruction. He did not live to see and understand 
 that just as he had done well at Snake Creek Gap he had done 
 well in the larger and not less trying emergency in front of 
 Atlanta. But those who are seeking the light of history 
 will not miss the relation of the two events and their true 
 significance. 
 
 The narrative of the 226. of July will never be written, and 
 even the most authentic accounts we have are not likely to be 
 fully credited. The struggle was not for position or advantage, 
 or in any sense for to-morrow. Where the impact came, it was 
 now and to the death — the spasmodic culmination, crisis, and 
 end of the heat and friction of the long campaign. 
 
 Except that efforts were made to hold fast to where we 
 stood, and occasionally to mend and better the positions of our 
 lines, and in one or two instances to meet an approaching 
 charge by a counter charge, the Federal Army remained upon 
 the defensive all day. We did not fight a battle ; we simply 
 took what came as it came and where it came, feeling assured 
 that to repulse the enemy was our all-sufficient and only duty. 
 Some of the assaults involved the fronts of divisions, while 
 others covered less than the fronts of brigades. The whole 
 story — an epitome of all that took place — is told in a message 
 which came down to the lines of battle from General Sherman. 
 When Logan took command he sent word that he was fighting 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 25 
 
 the whole Confederate Army, and that he was pressed on every 
 side. General Sherman listened for a moment and then said 
 in his nervous way : 
 
 ** Tell General Logan to fight 'em, fight 'em, fight 'em like 
 hell ! " 
 
 This order " fight 'em, fight 'em," was carried out ; and 
 necessity added virtue to choice, from the beginning to the 
 end of the long, ragged, and uncertain day. 
 
 The attacks came one after another, each as spirited as that 
 which preceded it, and each almost as well sustained as that 
 with which the struggle began ; and on parts of the Federal 
 lines they came as often from the rear of the works as from 
 the direction of Atlanta. But whenever they came and 
 wherever they fell, they encountered a fortitude and devotion 
 of equal value, and in every instance failed. For a brief in- 
 terval the Fifteenth Corps was broken, but the line was soon 
 effectually restored with a rebuke which was not likely to be for- 
 gotten. Six times during the day General Giles A, Smith, who 
 commanded the Fourth Division of the Seventeenth Corps, rode 
 from one side of his works to the other to receive the enemy 
 first from the front and then from the rear. And destiny and 
 good-fortune fought with him, for if, moving simultaneously, 
 Cleburne's men had come from his rear and Cheatham's men 
 from toward Atlanta, the consequences to his lines and to the 
 corps would have been too serious to be estimated. 
 
 The losses during the contest, which lasted for something 
 more than six hours, were certainly without a parallel in our 
 war. There were buried and turned over under flag of truce, 
 in front of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps, of the ene- 
 my's dead nearly 2000, and they were almost as numerous in 
 the rear as in the front of the works. When it is remembered 
 that the Federal loss in killed was, at Chancellorsville about 
 1500, at Chickamauga less than 1700, at Stone's River 1500, 
 and at the great battle of Gettysburg during the three days 
 about 2800, the fierceness and desperation of this unprece- 
 dented day may be in part understood. I know that General 
 Sherman at first declined to accept the reports which were 
 
26 
 
 SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 sent him of the enemy's loss, but he was subsequently con- 
 vinced of their accuracy, and they are established by official 
 reports and other proof which ought not to be for a moment 
 disputed. 
 
 In every respect, the day was one which taxed, perhaps as 
 never before, the nerve and discipline and staying powers of 
 the veteran troops that were engaged. There were many and 
 most thrilling incidents which took place along the lines. The 
 things done in front of the low^a brigade, on Bald Hill and on 
 other parts of the field, were as dramatic as anything in the 
 history of war. 
 
 But, of all the incidents of the long day, the most memora- 
 ble and most dramatic was that which we may almost see, so 
 complete and accurate are the descriptions of the scene which 
 have been preserved. 
 
 A general officer of commanding presence, mounted on a 
 spirited horse, is observing from a knoll on the right of the 
 Sixteenth Corps its incomparable performance and the telling 
 repulse of the enemy which is taking place. What he sees 
 excites his admiration and unqualified commendation, but, as 
 he looks, an urgent message reaches him telling of the devel- 
 opment of facts which for hours have been the subject of his 
 apprehensions — that his left flank, already in danger, is still 
 more seriously menaced and about to be attacked. 
 
 Near him, leading directly toward the left of the Seventeenth 
 Corps and the point of danger, there is a narrow road cut 
 through the woods, and into that fatal road he spurs his horse, 
 and down it at full speed. 
 
 His staff have all been sent in different directions, and he 
 is attended by a single orderly, followed by several mounted 
 officers whose duty takes them in the same direction. Within 
 an hour he has been over the road ; it is the only one which 
 will take him speedily to where the pinch of the increasing 
 battle has shifted ; and every moment is of inestimable signifi- 
 cance. Suddenly, without warning, as he rides, he comes upon 
 an advancing skirmish line of Confederate infantry cautiously 
 moving up the road. As quickly as possible he halts and turns 
 
"SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 27 
 
 his horse toward the cover of the woods upon his right. There 
 is one moment of hopeless silence followed by a volley ; and, 
 stricken unto death, the noble figure at which it has been 
 aimed, rises in his stirrups, catches blindly at his horse's mane, 
 and reels, and falls heavily to the ground. 
 
 The officer in command of the Confederate skirmishers 
 runs hastily forward, knowing only that the volley has done its 
 terrible work and that some prominent general has fallen. 
 Standing over the prostrate form, he calls to one of the Fed- 
 eral officers, the colonel of the 78th Ohio, who has fallen and 
 is lying near the dying chief : 
 
 " Who is this? Who is it we have shot ? " he asks. 
 
 The Federal colonel had strength to answer, and what he 
 said should hold always a place in history, as the utterance and 
 verdict of that supreme hour and occasion : 
 
 " It 's General McPherson ; you Ve killed the best man in 
 our army." 
 
 Death must have taken place not many minutes after the 
 fatal shot was fired. The enemy had possession for perhaps 
 an hour of the woods in which the body lay, when, their lines 
 having been retired, it was rescued by Colonel Strong and 
 Captain Buell and removed to General Sherman's headquarters. 
 
 As the sun went down the last journey was commenced. 
 From the field where, faithful unto death, he had yielded up 
 the full measure of his devotion, all that remained of the man 
 went back to the little town of Clyde. In the quiet home of 
 his early life his remains were laid away to await, let us hope 
 and believe, the reveille of the eternal morning and the march 
 which lies beyond the unknown river. 
 
 Our associations and the impressions they produce cause us 
 to discriminate and select where, perhaps, we should hesitate 
 to do so. 
 
 Of those who rose to prominence in the West whom it was 
 my great privilege to know, three names stand in my memory 
 and affection above all other names : McPherson, Thomas, and 
 C. F. Smith. They were different types, unlike each other in 
 
28 
 
 "SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 temperament and intellectual qualities, but there was in each 
 the indescribable charm of genuineness and that rare directness 
 and simplicity of purpose which are the evidence and proof of 
 the highest types of manhood. Their characters found no ex- 
 pression in words, but we read and know what they were, and 
 how they served their country, in the lofty and imperishable 
 records of their lives. 
 
 When we think of C. F. Smith, during the watches of the 
 winter night which he spent on that ridge which he won at 
 Fort Donelson, we understand and realize the grandeur of 
 " that high scorn which laughs at earthly fears." More courtly 
 knight and gentleman never rode to battle or gave up his life — 
 for it was his life he gave — with less hesitation and less thought 
 or desire of recognition or reward. What he did was to him a 
 simple duty, the duty in effect to die ; and he performed it with 
 all the grace and ease and ceremony with which he saluted the 
 colors on review. 
 
 And how shall we measure or define the value of Thomas at 
 Chickamauga! What grander spectacle is there in history 
 than the serious figure, standing unmoved and unmovable, 
 holding his army to its duty, until it shared his fortitude and 
 stood with him ! There were many on the trying field who 
 were as ready as he was to do their full duty, and who did their 
 full duty and much more. But the faith and patience and in- 
 dividuality and composure of that unselfish and heroic man are 
 the apples of gold of the picture. 
 
 In the story of McPherson's blameless life, we find the same 
 exalted sense of responsibility, the same single-hearted sub- 
 ordination of himself and all his interests, the same sublime and 
 unfailing loyalty to the noblest impulses of which man is capa- 
 ble. No one can turn to the record he has left without feel- 
 ing that he added something to that which is best in the history 
 of war, and made plainer the duty which we owe to our country 
 and ourselves. 
 
 His career may be likened to the record of a cloudless day. 
 It rose and ran its course, complete in every hour ; and it 
 closed, abruptly but unbroken, when he fell, without color of 
 
" SNAKE CREEK GAP, AND ATLANTA." 
 
 29 
 
 blemish or reproach, in the hour of his greatest service and 
 without an enemy. 
 
 But the light and inspiration of his day remain to us, like a 
 fixed and silent star, which in the years to come shall lose not 
 its high place and value in the firmament, but lift men's minds 
 and hearts toward higher aims and nobler purposes. 
 
IN COMMEMORATION OF GENERAL WILLIAM 
 TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 April 6, 1892. 
 
 OMPANIONS to the number of four hundred took their 
 
 ^ places at the tables at 8:30 o'clock ; Brevet Major-Gen- 
 eral Wager Swayne, U. S. A. (retired), Commander, presiding. 
 At the conclusion of the banquet, the Commander called the 
 Companions to order, and made the following remarks : 
 The Commander, introducing Senator Sherman, said : 
 Companions : You may remember that a good while ago, 
 and at the time of a very great excitement in the religious 
 world, an eminent clergyman, son of a clergyman still more 
 eminent, received a mortal injury in a threshing machine ; and, 
 as his life was ebbing away, he said to his father, " Father, 
 stand up for Jesus," and that father came back to his charge 
 straightway in St. George's Church, in this city, and preached 
 a memorable sermon commemorative of that son. It was felt 
 at that time that it had been long since any father had lost such 
 a son, and long since any son had departed leaving a father 
 who could so commemorate him. Reminded of that incident 
 by the circumstances of this day, I venture to say in your be- 
 half, to our distinguished guest, that I know no other brother 
 dying who had left behind him such a brother to commemo- 
 rate him, and I know no one else who has had such a brother 
 to commemorate. I venture to say further in your behalf, that 
 such a tribute is not inappropriate to this company. General 
 Sherman himself was one of us, and often here among us. You 
 may remember his saying, not long before his death, that when 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 3 1 
 
 he was planning the march to the sea, he was on the lookout 
 for two vigorous and capable young men to take charge of his 
 right and left wings, and those vigorous and capable men, Gen- 
 erals Slocum and Howard, are here. Many of us can remem- 
 ber, as the long march stretched out one line towards Atlanta, 
 the suspense we felt over the continuity of that daily length- 
 ening line of railroad. General Sherman depended for the 
 maintenance and operation of that railroad upon General 
 Dodge, and General Dodge is here. Some of you know that 
 he came very near not being here. On the 19th of May, 1864, 
 I saw him in his tent, surrounded by his staff, and with a 
 bullet hole square in the middle of his forehead. It has ever 
 since been a puzzle to me, perhaps you can help me solve it, 
 whether the deflection of that bullet around under his scalp 
 was occasioned by its contact with a compactness of eight 
 years of Pacific Railroad surveys, or whether it is more reason- 
 able to suppose that bullet fled in dismay at the prospect of 
 the enormous contemplated expenditures for railway construc- 
 tion which the interior of his cranium disclosed, and which 
 have since been made. I might go on. Companions, down the 
 list in point of rank and time, till I came near to my own 
 heart, and might recall the day when General Sherman, in the 
 midst of a great campaign, found time to sit down and write a 
 long, kind letter to a father whose boy had been hurt the day 
 before. Sometimes it is a little thing, the smallest thing, that 
 shows the greatest mind, precisely as the perfection of a great 
 engine is most clearly shown by the smallness of the lever that 
 will start its operation. It is better to forbear. 
 
 To introduce Senator Sherman to you with comments in- 
 troductory of him, would be a travesty on introductions. It 
 is enough that he is here. Let me present him to you. 
 
 REMARKS OF SENATOR SHERMAN. 
 
 Mr. Commander and Gentlemen of the Loyal Legion : 
 
 It is a delicate task for me to respond to your invitation to 
 speak in honor of the memory of General Sherman. I did 
 
32 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 not fully appreciate this when I accepted the invitation of your 
 Commander, General Swayne. He and I often, in the free- 
 dom of personal friendship and intercourse, have talked of the 
 traits and characteristics of leading actors in our Civil War, 
 and especially of General Sherman, to whom each of us was 
 bound by the strongest ties : he by intimate association, by the 
 warm friendship that had existed between his father and mine, 
 and by the closer ties of comradeship in war ; and I by the nat- 
 ural ties of brothers associated during all our lives in the most 
 intimate confidence and affection. It is one thing to talk with 
 a personal friend about incidents in the life of a man of such 
 varied adventure and experience as General Sherman, but 
 it is quite another thing to present to an audience, even of his 
 comrades, however partial they may be, the just measure of 
 praise due to his memory, without seeming to derogate from 
 the equal or higher praise due to his associates. As to the 
 merits and services of General Sherman as a soldier, I am not 
 a competent judge. His standing as such will rest mainly 
 upon the opinions of his comrades and the official record of 
 events now being gathered into volumes too numerous and 
 large to be read, except by the compiler and proof-reader. All 
 I can do is to recall some personal incidents and traits illustra- 
 tive of his life from boyhood to old age. 
 
 He was born on the 8th day of February, 1820. He was 
 three years and three months older than I, and, therefore, 
 was always to me an elder brother. Among my earliest recol- 
 lections, and the saddest, was the sudden death of my father, 
 at the age of forty, when on duty away from home as Judge 
 of the Supreme Court of Ohio, leaving eleven children, the 
 eldest about to graduate in college, and the youngest an infant. 
 General Sherman was then nine years old — a red-headed boy, 
 active and alert, but easily moved by sympathy or passion. 
 My father shared the poverty then general in Ohio, and left to 
 his children only an honorable reputation and great popularity 
 for his generous and social qualities. These especially en« 
 deared him to the members of the bar in Ohio. Necessity 
 soon compelled the partial breaking up of the family. 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 33 
 
 Cump," as we called him, entered the family of Hon. 
 Thomas Ewing, then, or soon after, a Senator of the United 
 States, and had the benefit of the kindness, assistance, and 
 affection of Mr. Ewing and his family to as full a degree as his 
 own children. By his influence, William Tecumseh Sherman 
 was appointed in July, 1836, a cadet at West Point, and there 
 laid the foundation for his military career. About a year 
 later, I, at the age of fourteen, was employed as a junior rod- 
 man on the Muskingum Improvement. Soon after commenced 
 a correspondence between us which continued until within a 
 week of his death, only interrupted when the thread of our 
 lives brought us together at Washington. It is in this corre- 
 spondence, carefully preserved, relating to every material event 
 of his life, that are to be found the opinions and motives that 
 guided him in every period of his career, and is the basis of 
 what I have to say to-night. 
 
 General Sherman, as many of you know, was a copious and 
 rapid writer, writing almost as rapidly as he spoke, and rarely 
 correcting his manuscript. He was a careful observer, and a 
 great reader. His mind was stored with information upon a 
 variety of subjects, especially of topography, geography, and 
 history, and his language, whether written or spoken, was a 
 flowing and transparent river, revealing his inmost thoughts 
 without caution or concealment. Remember that this cor- 
 respondence commenced when the United States charged 
 twenty-five cents for conveying a letter ; and twenty-five cents 
 was then a much larger sum than it appears to be now. 
 Letters with us were a serious matter, and every part of the 
 sheet was literally covered. The extravagance of an envelope 
 doubled the postage and was rarely used. 
 
 Cadet Sherman graduated at West Point in the summer of 
 
 1840. After a brief visit to Ohio he was ordered to Florida to 
 
 take part in the Indian War. He remained in the South until 
 
 1846, stationed mainly at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston Bay, 
 
 and at the Augusta Arsenal, in Georgia. It was during this 
 
 time, when sent on official duty in connection with Indian 
 
 accounts through several States, he became familiar with the 
 3 
 
34 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 region from Chattanooga to Atlanta, knowledge of great serv- 
 ice to him during his campaign of 1864. His letters during 
 this period gave a very interesting and friendly view of life in 
 the South — of the social habits of the people, of the kindly 
 relation between the whites and the blacks. He had a strong 
 prejudice against Abolitionists, who, he said, would disturb the 
 peace of the country to carry out Utopian views. 
 
 On the approach of the Mexican War, Lieutenant Sherman 
 was ordered to Pittsburg on recruiting duty, but was so impa- 
 tient to join the army, then gaining laurels in Mexico, that he 
 applied in rather an abrupt manner for leave to join his com- 
 pany, but the result was he was sent with another company 
 around Cape Horn to California, to take and occupy that dis- 
 tant territory of Mexico until the result of the war should 
 determine its ownership. The story of the long voyage, the 
 occupancy of California, the quarrels between Kearny and 
 Fremont, the discovery of gold by Marshall, and the vast and 
 heterogeneous migration to the gold-fields, is well told in 
 General Sherman's Memoirs, very much as it was told to me in 
 letters. The first detailed authentic account of the great dis- 
 covery made known in Ohio was in a letter from Captain 
 Sherman, which was received with incredulity, and many came 
 from far and near to see his letters and have assurance from 
 some one they knew that an industrious man could earn an 
 ounce of gold or more in a day. 
 
 [In a letter dated Monterey, August 24, 1848, he says : "Gold 
 in immense quantities has been discovered. All the towns and 
 farms are abandoned, and nobody left on the coast but us 
 soldiers ; and, now that the New York Volunteers are disbanded, 
 there remain in service but two companies. Our men are all desert- 
 ing, as they can earn by so doing in one day more than a soldier's 
 pay for a month. Everything is high in price ; beyond our reach ; 
 and not a nigger in California but gets more pay than us offi- 
 cers. Of course, we are running into debt merely to live. I have 
 not been so hard up in my life, and really see no way of extricating 
 myself. All others here in the service of the United States are as 
 badly off. Even Colonel Mason himself has been compelled to 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 35 
 
 assist in cooking his own meals. Merchants are making for- 
 tunes, for gold, such as I send you, can be bought at eight or ten 
 dollars an ounce, and goods command prices thirty times higher 
 than in New York. . . . This gold is found in the beds of 
 streams, in dry quarries ; in fact, mingled with the earth over a 
 large extent of the country, and the whole cannot be extracted in 
 centuries. I have not the least doubt that five or six millions of 
 dollars have already been extracted, and men are now getting, from 
 their individual labor, from five thousand to eight thousand dollars 
 a month. This is not fiction. It is truth. I went with Governor 
 Mason and saw the evidence of it myself."] 
 
 This, coming at a time when all industries in the States 
 were stagnant and unprofitable, led active young men of every 
 condition to drop the shovel and the hoe, their law books, and 
 all the diversified employments of life, and to undertake, with- 
 out suitable preparation, a long and wearisome journey in the 
 hope of growing suddenly rich in this new El Dorado. It 
 created the same feverish anxiety and perilous adventure that 
 followed the discovery of America by Columbus, but results 
 were more rapid and marvellous, and ultimately led to our Civil 
 War, and the occupation and development of the vast region 
 now embraced in the United States of America. 
 
 General Sherman shared in the ups and downs of this ad- 
 venturous period. While an officer in the United States Army 
 his daily pay became insufficient to buy a dinner. His servant 
 deserted him to earn ten dollars a day. To make a living he 
 was allowed leave of absence, and earned as a surveyor ten 
 times as much as his pay as an officer. In two or three years 
 he was compelled to resign his commission in order to support 
 his family, and embarked in banking. After remarkable suc- 
 cess he had to weather the storm of a general panic which 
 broke the strongest banks in San Francisco. He saved the 
 credit of his house by the sacrifice of all its earnings. At the 
 request of General Wool and the Governor of California he 
 undertook to put down the Vigilance Committee, who, with- 
 out and against law, assumed to hang people without trial, but 
 was prevented from the attempt by the refusal of the author- 
 
36 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 ities to furnish arms and ammunition. He turned from bank- 
 ing to the law. I cannot say he was a success in this adventure. 
 He was soon called to the head of a military institution in the 
 State of Louisiana. This gave him an employment suited to 
 his active temperament. He soon gained the confidence and 
 support of all persons connected with the institution. He 
 seemed to have reached in his adventurous career a haven of 
 rest, when, without any fault of his, he was compelled to 
 choose his side in the great tragedy of our Civil War. He in- 
 herited from his Revolutionary ancestors a love for liberty and 
 union, one and inseparable, now and forever. He was born in 
 Ohio, where the first lesson of patriotism was love for the 
 Union. He was educated as a soldier to fight for his Country. 
 All his instincts, tendencies, and convictions were for the su- 
 premacy of National authority. He had lived in many States, 
 but to him they were only parts of one great Nation. He 
 had no pride in, or hate for, any section, and he belonged to 
 no political party. He had cherished friends in both parties 
 and in all sections. When, therefore, he was compelled to 
 choose his side in the Civil War, is it any wonder that he was, 
 without question or doubt, without a shadow of turning, on 
 the side of the Union ? Secession would destroy the Union, 
 and therefore he was opposed to secession. 
 
 It is certain he did not enter into the military service on 
 account of slavery. His sympathies and friendships were 
 largely with the South. In a letter dated November 30, 1854, 
 congratulating me upon my election as a Member of Congress, 
 he says : 
 
 " As a young member, I hope you will not be too forward, espe- 
 cially on the question of slavery, which it seems is rising every year 
 more and more into a question of real danger, notwithstanding the 
 compromises. Having lived a good deal in the South, I think I 
 know practically more of slavery than you do. If it were a new 
 question no one would contend for introducing it, but it is an old 
 and historical fact that you must take as you find it." 
 
 In another letter, of the date of March 20, 1856, he says : 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 37 
 
 *' The slavery question is forced on you in spite of yourself. 
 Time and facts are accomplishing all you aim at — viz., the prepon- 
 derance of the free over the slave States. This is so manifest that 
 the politicians and people of the South feel it, and consequently are 
 touchy and nervous. Of course you will vote as you think right, 
 but should you have occasion to speak, do not imitate Giddings or 
 Seward. . . . The repeal of the compromise was unfortunate, 
 but being done, to repeal it would only produce feeling and no good. 
 Kansas will be a free State ; so will Missouri and Kentucky in time. 
 But the way to accomplish that is to let things go on as now, show- 
 ing the eminent prosperity of the free States, while the slave States 
 get along slowly." 
 
 He acknowledged no fealty to any party, and, like General 
 Grant, he voted for President but once, and then acknovi^ledged 
 he had made a mistake. He had an idea, too common, I think, 
 among the graduates of West Point, that there was something, 
 inherently wrong in politics. In his Memoirs he states his de- 
 fence of me in Louisiana against the vague charge of being an 
 Abolitionist." He came to Ohio to hear me speak, and re- 
 turned to Louisiana only partially satisfied with my position, 
 which was substantially that of Lincoln and Corwin : against 
 interference with slavery in the States, but opposed to the 
 extension of slavery into the Territories. 
 
 The motive that led him into the war was his intense patriot- 
 ism. This was the most striking trait of his character. The 
 evils of slavery, the dictates of party, and the hope of promo- 
 tion had no influence with him. The seizure of the arms and 
 arsenals of the United States at Baton Rouge on the lOth of 
 January, 1861, the forced surrender of Captain Haskin's com- 
 pany of artillery, the transfer of some of the arms to the mili- 
 tary academy in charge of General Sherman, making him the 
 receiver of stolen goods, and these goods the property of the 
 United States, fired his blood, aroused his patriotism, and 
 forced him to take his stand. On the i8th of January, 1861, 
 before the ordinance of secession by Louisiana or the capture 
 of the forts below New Orleans, he sent to the Governor of 
 Louisiana a letter which, though often published, cannot be 
 
38 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 omitted in the briefest sketch of his life. I read from a letter 
 he wrote me on the same day : 
 
 " Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military 
 
 Academy. 
 
 " Alexandria, January i8, 1861. 
 
 " Dear Brother : 
 
 " Before receiving yours of the 7th, I addressed a letter to Gov- 
 ernor Moore at Baton Rouge, of which this is a copy : 
 
 " * Sir. As I occupy a ^uasi-miHtary position under the laws of 
 this State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such 
 position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the 
 motto of this Seminary was inscribed in marble over the main door : 
 "By the liberality of the General Government. T/te Union esto 
 perpetual 
 
 " * Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all 
 men to choose. If Louisiana withdraws from the Federal Union, I 
 prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Constitution as long as a 
 fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in 
 every sense of the word. In that event I beg that you will send or 
 appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and muni- 
 tions of war here belonging to the State ; or advise me what disposi- 
 tion to make of them. 
 
 " * And furthermore, as President of the Board of Supervisors, I 
 beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the 
 moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account 
 will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of 
 the old Government of the United States. 
 
 " ' With respect, etc., 
 
 "MV. T. Sherman.'" 
 
 In his letters to me he expresses his deep regret for the 
 course of events which involved his separation from General 
 Bragg, and his many friends in the South, his clear perception 
 that the inevitable results of secession would be war or a dis- 
 honored flag and a broken Union, and his resolve that, come 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 39 
 
 what may, he would do all that one trained soldier could do 
 for the old Union and Constitution. 
 
 He came to Washington in March, 1861, to advise the au- 
 thorities of the condition of affairs in Louisiana, and to offer 
 his services. He was amazed at the apathy he found. I went 
 with him to President Lincoln. I heard the conversation be- 
 tween them. General Sherman referred to the fact that he was 
 educated at West Point ; that he had recently come from 
 Louisiana. He stated the condition of affairs there, and that 
 he felt it to be his duty to tender his services to the President 
 for any military position for which he was deemed fitted. The 
 President said he hoped that they would not need soldiers ; 
 that he thought they could keep house. What was said by 
 Mr. Lincoln was kindly meant, but it had an unpleasant effect 
 on General Sherman, who was deeply impressed with the grav- 
 ity of the situation. When he left he said to me, These men 
 are sleeping on a volcano, but I have done my duty." He 
 went to St. Louis and became president of a street railroad. 
 
 His letters at this period exhibit the excited state of his 
 mind. The rapid drift of events ; the firing on Fort Sumter ; 
 the defence of that post by his old friend and associate, Major 
 Anderson ; the ordinances of secession of State after State ; 
 the call for three-months regiments, which he denounced 
 as imbecility ; and the contemptuous refusal of his offer of 
 service, left him like Achilles in his wrath, and Coriolanus 
 in his banishment. An effort was made by General Frank 
 Blair to have him raise a regiment. I appealed to him to come 
 to Ohio and accept a command, but he wrote he '* would not 
 act with three-months volunteers ; he would not identify 
 himself with a partisan Government. . . . The first move- 
 ments of our Government will fail and the leaders will be cast 
 aside." He did not stipulate for rank or pay, but he wanted 
 assurance of an " army " and not a militia muster. No doubt 
 he was impatient and irritable. He had a clearer and better 
 view of the great task before this country than any of us, and 
 was violent and intolerant with the politicians, and especially 
 with the newspapers of the day with their " On to Richmond " 
 
40 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 cry. But there was not the sh'ghtest abatement of his zeal in 
 the cause of the Union, or his determination to uphold it, and 
 to fight for it. 
 
 When the call for three-year regiments was made, and es- 
 pecially when the new regular regiments were proposed, the 
 doubts of General Sherman disappeared. On the 8th day of 
 May, 1 86 1, he wrote to Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, 
 tendering his services in the capacity for which he was trained, 
 closing with these words : " Should my services be needed, the 
 records of the War Department will enable you to designate 
 the station in which I can render best service." He was soon 
 after appointed Colonel of the 13th Infantry, one of the new 
 three-battalion regiments, and ordered to Washington. Pend- 
 ing the recruitment of his regiment he was attached to General 
 Scott's staff as Inspector-General. 
 
 I was then with General Patterson on his way to Hagers- 
 town. General Sherman wrote me that there was with us an 
 " A No. I man, George H. Thomas, Colonel 2d Cavalry. Say 
 to him I wish all the success that he aspires to ; and, if in the 
 varying changes of war the opportunity offers, I would name 
 him for a high place." He adds : " But Thomas is a Virginian 
 from near Norfolk, and, say what we may, he must feel un- 
 pleasant at leading an invading army. But, if he says he will 
 do it, he will do it well." 
 
 Soon after. General Sherman visited me at a village on the 
 banks of the Potomac, and he and General Thomas, his class- 
 mate and friend, with a large map of the United States spread 
 out before them on the floor, discussed in my presence the 
 probabilities of the war, and they agreed that Richmond, 
 Chattanooga, and Nashville were the great strategic points. 
 The sagacity with which these two soldiers pointed out the 
 theatres of future operations in which they were to take so im- 
 portant a part is worthy of notice. 
 
 His part in the battle of Bull Run was creditable, and the 
 general result proved that his estimate of raw troops was 
 correct. He was soon after transferred, as second to General 
 Robert Anderson, to the Kentucky campaign. There again 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 41 
 
 he encountered the hostility of the newspaper press and the 
 civil authorities, who could not comprehend the gravity of the 
 war in which we were engaged. 
 
 They regarded his demand for sixty thousand troops to 
 justify an advance through Kentucky into Tennessee as ridi- 
 culous, and denounced him as crazy when he said that two 
 hundred thousand troops would be required to open up the 
 Mississippi from its source to its mouth. I knew full well that 
 this charge was false, and understood better than any one else 
 his strong opinions as to the nature of the war, and how easily 
 his frank and open, but true, declarations could be used as an 
 evidence of timidity or even insanity. Though then engaged 
 in recruiting a brigade, I went to Louisville and found him cool 
 and self-possessed, but very willing to be relieved from that 
 command, and to turn over his forces to General Buell. 
 
 In a letter to Hon. Thomas Ewing, soon after, he wrote : 
 
 Among the keenest feelings of my life is that arising from a 
 consciousness that you will be mortified beyond measure at the dis- 
 grace which has befallen me by the announcement in the Cincinnati 
 Commercial that I am insane. 
 
 You can appreciate how keenly he felt this insult when it 
 wrung from him such language as this. Then follows a clear 
 and very interesting statement of the situation in Kentucky, 
 and the ground of his opinion, which, though scoffed at the 
 time, was promptly acted upon by the speedy collection along 
 the line of the Ohio River of a larger force under Grant and 
 Buell than General Sherman claimed to be necessary. He 
 closes this letter with this paragraph : 
 
 "There is no doubt my mind is deeply moved by an estimate of 
 strength and purpose on the part of our enemies much higher than 
 the Government or people believe to be true. I am perfectly will- 
 ing to leave its solution to time, and will be much relieved to find 
 I am wholly wrong. I will stay here until next week and return to 
 St. Louis, but feel certain this paragraph will be widely circulated 
 and will impair my personal influence for much time to come, if not 
 always.'* 
 
42 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 The drift of events soon gave General Sherman an opportu- 
 nity to demonstrate his sanity. The battle of Shiloh gave the 
 country assurance of his fighting qualities. It was one of the 
 most severely contested battles of the war. The chief force of 
 the attack fell upon his division on the first day, but he held 
 the front line of the Union forces facing the enemy until night 
 closed upon that gloomy day ; and was the first to advance on 
 the enemy in the morning, and soon re-occupied his old camp 
 and led the pursuit of the retreating foe. His part in this bat- 
 tle is thus stated by General Halleck in a dispatch to Secretary 
 Stanton, dated Pittsburg, Tenn. : 
 
 " It is the unanimous opinion here that Brigadier-General W. T . 
 Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th, and contributed 
 largely to the glorious victory of the 7th. He was in the thickest of 
 the fight on both days, having three horses killed under him, and 
 being wounded twice. I respectfully request that he be made a 
 Major-General of Volunteers, to date from the 6th inst." 
 
 Here commenced his friendship with General Grant, which, 
 like that of Damon and Pythias, has been made the subject of 
 story and of song. It is one of the most interesting incidents 
 of the war, and continued unbroken while both lived. The cam- 
 paign of Vicksburg was the work of General Grant, to whom 
 General Sherman awards all the credit. In a letter dated the 
 29th of May, 1863, he says: 
 
 "General Grant is entitled to all the merit of its conception and 
 execution." 
 
 But General Grant, with chivalrous kindness, insisted that 
 he was indebted to General Sherman, General McPherson, and 
 other leading officers for the success of that campaign. 
 
 In a letter of the date of March 24, 1864, at about the time 
 General Grant was ordered to Washington, General Sherman 
 writes to me : 
 
 " Give Grant all the support you can. If he can escape the toils 
 of the schemers he may do some good. He will fight, and the Army 
 of the Potomac will have all the fighting they want. He will expect 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 43 
 
 your friendship. We are close friends. His simplicity and modesty 
 are natural and not affected." 
 
 It would be interesting to follow General Sherman from 
 Vicksburg to the sea, but the story is familiar to all. General 
 Sherman always regarded his march from Memphis to Chatta- 
 nooga and the battle of Chattanooga as among the most im- 
 portant incidents of his life. The march from Chattanooga to 
 Atlanta was an almost continuous battle for near one hundred 
 days, and was most difficult and dangerous. The general pub- 
 lic have regarded the march from Atlanta to the sea with greater 
 interest from the novelty of the movement, but in fact it was 
 an easy task, with little resistance or loss. During two weeks 
 of this march, when nothing was heard from General Sherman, 
 there was a feeling of anxiety and alarm. The accounts from 
 Confederate sources described him as being attacked and de- 
 feated, and there was deep anxiety. Sharing this feeling I went 
 to Mr. Lincoln, hoping that he had some intelligence. Upon 
 my inquiring he said : " Oh, no, we have heard nothing from 
 him. We know what hole he went in, but we don't know what 
 hole he will come out of." It was a joyful Christmas Day in 
 the North when General Sherman was safe on the shores of the 
 Atlantic, and announced that Savannah is ours." The march 
 from Savannah to Goldsboro was a much more difficult under- 
 taking. It was in the winter and spring, when the country was 
 flooded and the roads were difficult. It was then that your 
 Commander, who hears me, lost his leg. With the approach of 
 General Sherman towards Richmond, it was manifest that the 
 last days of the Confederacy were drawing near. When he 
 reached Goldsboro he received word that the President desired 
 to meet him at Hampton Roads. He went, and held the 
 famous interview with President Lincoln, Grant, and Porter. 
 There was then absolute confidence of the overthrow of the Re- 
 bellion. Lincoln, full of charity and loving-kindness, was study- 
 ing over the best mode of closing the war and restoring the old 
 Union. General Sherman telegraphed me at Washington to 
 accompany him on his return to Goldsboro. I did so, taking 
 
44 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 with me young Mr. Stanton, the son of the Secretary. On the 
 steanaer and on the railroad General Sherman was continually 
 speaking of his interview with Mr. Lincoln, and of his plans for 
 reconstruction. There was no secrecy or doubt about them. 
 They had been openly avowed in the presence of the chief 
 actors in the war. When General Johnston proposed to sur- 
 render, the conversation with Lincoln was fresh in the mind of 
 General Sherman, and I know that he believed that in agree- 
 ing to the terms of surrender he was carrying out the policy 
 outlined by Mr. Lincoln. He could not know, however, that 
 the brutal murder of Mr. Lincoln had aroused in the minds of 
 the Northern people a deep feeling of resentment, which would 
 not tolerate the liberal terms granted to Johnston and the rem- 
 nant of the rebel forces. The fatal bullet shot by Booth had 
 changed the whole situation. A strong belief existed that Davis 
 and other leaders in the Rebellion were implicated in the mur- 
 der. No one but Lincoln could have secured to the revolting 
 States the terms of surrender and reconstruction that he was 
 willing to grant. But for this desperate act the whole history 
 of reconstruction would have been reversed. General Sherman 
 believed in and sought to carry out the policy of Mr. Lincoln. 
 The terms of surrender were tentative, and the conditions were 
 entirely subject to the supervision of the executive authorities, 
 but instead of being submitted to the generous and forgiving 
 patriot who had fallen, they were passed upon in the shadow 
 of a great crime, by stern and relentless enemies, who would 
 not have consented to the conditions imposed by General Grant 
 upon General Lee, and who would have disregarded them had 
 not General Grant threatened to resign upon their refusal to 
 carry out his terms. When the arrangement with General 
 Johnston was submitted to President Johnson and Mr. Stan- 
 ton, it was rejected with the insulting intimation that it pro- 
 ceeded from either cowardice or treachery. The old cry against 
 General Sherman was again started. It was even imputed that 
 he would attempt to play the part of a Cromwell or military 
 usurper. The generous kindness of Grant came to his relief, 
 new terms were agreed upon, and the war closed. 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 45 
 
 It seeined to be the fate of General Sherman that when he 
 was most clearly right, tested by subsequent events, he was 
 deemed to be clearly wrong. His services were rejected when 
 he urged prompt action. He was adjudged insane when his 
 mind was most clear, and was deemed false to his trust at the 
 close of the war, when he endeavored to carry out the policy 
 and instructions of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 I close this brief and imperfect reference to the military 
 services of General Sherman with the pageant that will be for- 
 ever engraved upon my memory, and be preserved in history as 
 one of the most imposing military demonstrations of all times. 
 A review of the Union armies was ordered on the 24th and 
 25th days of May, 1865. Then were gathered in Washington 
 over two hundred thousand real soldiers, thoroughly disci- 
 plined, and equal to any that ever marched in a Roman tri- 
 umph, composed of two armies, who, fighting in the same cause 
 in distant fields of operation, had never met before, and who 
 were about to be reviewed by vast masses of their country- 
 men in commemoration of the closing scenes of a memorable 
 war. 
 
 General Sherman took a deep interest in this pageant, 
 especially in the appearance and conduct of the troops he 
 had so long commanded. The only cry of exultation I ever 
 heard him utter was when he mounted his horse to take his 
 place at the head of the line on the second day of the review. 
 Speaking for himself and his army, he said, This is our day." 
 He was then in the prime of manhood, forty-five years old, and 
 felt that his place in history and in the hearts of his country- 
 men was secure. He proudly rode along the length of Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, receiving 
 the acclamations of, and covered with flowers by, a grateful 
 people, and was received by the President and General Grant 
 surrounded by an enthusiastic multitude of patriotic citizens. 
 
 After the war General Sherman quietly resumed the em- 
 ployments of peace. By the election of General Grant as 
 President he became General; but the General of the Army in 
 peace is the Secretary of War, who is presumed not to know 
 
46 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 anything about war, but something about contracts for sup- 
 plies. General Sherman had but little to do, and chafed for 
 want of employment. He became deeply interested in the 
 Grand Army of the Republic and the Loyal Legion. He at- 
 tended their meetings, and soon formed the habit of making 
 short speeches to soldiers, and thus developed a talent for 
 speaking. This was natural, for he was always an interesting 
 talker, but I do not remember his ever making a speech before 
 the war. In his later years, while residing in this city, he spoke 
 often and well upon many subjects. Politics he carefully 
 avoided. He was urged to accept a nomination for President, 
 but he would not listen to it. When I had an inclination that 
 way, he remonstrated : " Why, John, they will kill you ; they 
 killed Harrison, they killed Taylor and Lincoln and Garfield, 
 and will kill you." It was useless to tell him that some people 
 were killed in war, and that the Presidency was not necessarily 
 fatal. To him political life had no pleasing aspect ; but all 
 forms of social life, conversation, travel, theatres, cards — with- 
 out gambling, which he abhorred, — dancing, lectures, reading, 
 literary and scientific pursuits, all forms of study and amuse- 
 ment, gave him pleasure and occupation. His presence was 
 demanded at weddings, funerals, and reunions. His whole life 
 since his retirement was under the public gaze, and when at 
 the age of seventy-one, after a brief illness, he died in this city, 
 its whole population in silence and sadness watched his funeral 
 train, and a countless multitude in every city, town, and hamlet 
 on the long road to St. Louis expressed their sorrow and sym- 
 pathy. His mortal remains were received by the people of 
 that city, among whom he had lived for many years, with pro- 
 found respect, and there he was buried by the side of his wife 
 and the children who had gone before him. 
 
 And here I might end, but there are certain traits and 
 characteristics of General Sherman upon which I can and ought 
 to speak with greater knowledge and confidence than of his 
 military career. He was distinguished, first of all, from his 
 early boyhood for his love and veneration for and obedience to 
 his mother. There never was a time — since his appointment 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 47 
 
 as a cadet to her death — that he did not insist upon sharing 
 with her his modest pay, and gave to her most respectful hom- 
 age and duty. It is hardly necessary in this presence to refer 
 to his devotion to his wife, Ellen Ewing Sherman. They were 
 born in neighboring households, reared from childhood in the 
 same family, early attached and pledged to each other, mar- 
 ried when he reached the grade of captain, shared in affection 
 and respect the joys and sorrows of life, and paid the last debt 
 to Nature within a few months of each other. The same 
 affection and care were bestowed upon his children. Many of 
 his comrades will recall the visit of his wife and his son Willie, 
 a lad of thirteen, at his camp on the Big Black, after the sur- 
 render of Vicksburg. Poor Willie believed he was a sergeant 
 in the 13th United States Infantry. He sickened and died at 
 Memphis on his way home. No one who read it but will re- 
 member the touching tribute of sorrow his father wrote, a sor- 
 row that was never dimmed, but was often recalled while life 
 lasted. 
 
 General Sherman always paid the most respectful attention 
 to women in every rank and condition of life — the widow and 
 the orphan, the young and the old. While he was often stern 
 and abrupt to men, he was always kind and gentle to women, 
 and he received from them the homage they would pay to a 
 brother. His friendship for Grant I have already alluded to, 
 but it extended in a lesser degree to all his comrades, especially 
 those of West Point. No good soldier in his command feared 
 to approach him to demand justice, and every one received it 
 if in his power to grant it. He shared with them the hardships 
 of the march and the camp, and he was content with the same 
 ration given to them. Simple in his habits, easy of approach, 
 considerate of their comfort, he was popular with his soldiers, 
 even when exacting in his discipline. The name of " Uncle 
 Billy," given to him by them, was the highest evidence of their 
 affection. 
 
 He was the most unselfish man I ever knew. He did not 
 seek for high rank, and often expressed doubts of his fitness 
 for high command. He became a warm admirer of Abraham 
 
48 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 Lincoln as the war progressed, and more than once expressed 
 to him a desire for subordinate duty. He never asked for 
 promotion, but accepted it when given. His letters to me 
 are full of urgent requests for the promotion of officers who 
 rendered distinguished services, but never for his own. When 
 the bill for the retirement of officers at the age of sixty-three 
 was pending, he was excepted from its operation. He tele- 
 graphed me, insisting that no exception should be made in his 
 favor, that General Sheridan should have the promotion and 
 rank of General, which he had fairly earned. This was granted, 
 but Congress with great kindness continued to General Sher- 
 man the full pay of a General when he v/as placed on the 
 retired list. 
 
 In his business relations he was bound by a scrupulous 
 sense of honor and duty. I never knew of him doing any- 
 thing which the most exacting could say was dishonorable, a 
 violation of duty or right. I could name many instances of 
 this trait, which I will not, but one or two cases will suffice. 
 When a banker in California, several of his old army friends, 
 especially from the South, trusted him with their savings for 
 investment. He invested their money in good faith in what 
 were considered the very best securities in California, but when 
 Page, Bacon, & Co., and nearly every banker in San Francisco, 
 failed in 1855, all securities were dishonored, and many of them 
 became worthless. General Sherman, though not responsible 
 in law or equity for a loss that common prudence could not 
 foresee, yet felt that he was in honor" bound to secure from 
 loss those who had confided in him, and used for that purpose 
 all, or nearly all, of his own savings. 
 
 So, in the settlements of his accounts in Louisiana, when 
 he had the entire control of expenditures, he took the utmost 
 care to see that every dollar was accounted for. He resigned 
 on the i8th of January, and waited until the 23d of February 
 for that purpose. The same exact accountability was practised 
 by him in all accounts with the United States. In my per- 
 sonal business relations with him I found him to be exact and 
 particular to the last degree, insisting always upon paying fully 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 49 
 
 every debt, and his share of every expense. I doubt if any 
 man living can truly say that General Sherman owes him a 
 dollar, while thousands know he was generous in giving in 
 proportion to his means. He had an extreme horror of debt 
 and taxes. He looked upon the heavy taxes now in vogue as 
 in the nature of confiscation, and in some cases sold his land, 
 rapidly rising in value, because the taxes assessed seemed to 
 him unreasonable. 
 
 While the war lasted, General Sherman was a soldier intent 
 upon putting down what he conceived to be a causeless re- 
 bellion. He said that war was barbarism that could not be 
 refined, and the speediest way to end it was to prosecute it 
 with vigor to complete success. When this was done, and the 
 Union was saved, he was for the most liberal terms of concili- 
 ation and kindness to the Southern people. All enmities were 
 forgotten ; his old friendships were revived. Never since the 
 close of the war have I heard him utter words of bitterness 
 against the enemies he fought, nor the men in the North who 
 had reviled him. 
 
 To him it was a territorial war, one that could not have 
 been avoided. Its seeds had been planted in the history of 
 the Colonies, in the Constitution itself, and in the irrepressible 
 conflict between free and slave institutions. It was a war by 
 which the South gained, by defeat, enormous benefits, and the 
 North, by success, secured the strength and development of 
 the Republic. No patriotic man of either section would will- 
 ingly restore the old conditions. Its benefits are not confined 
 to the United States, but extend to all the countries of Amer- 
 ica. Its good influence will be felt by all the nations of the 
 world, by opening to them the hope of free institutions. It is 
 one of the great epochs in the march of time, which, as the 
 years go by, will be, by succeeding generations of freemen, 
 classed in importance with the discovery of America and our 
 Revolutionary War. It was the good fortune of General 
 Sherman to have been a chief actor in this great drama, and 
 to have lived long enough after its close to have realized and 
 enjoyed the high estimate of his services by his comrades, by 
 
50 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 his countrymen, and by mankind. To me, his brother, it is a 
 higher pride to know and to say to you that in all the walks of 
 private life — as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a soldier, 
 a comrade, or a friend — he was an honorable gentleman, with- 
 out fear and without reproach. 
 
 The Commander : — The Constitution of this Military Order 
 afHrmatively shows that we believe in the resurrection of the 
 dead. The saddest aspect of this meeting are these commem- 
 orative services. I trust we may cherish the thought that the 
 love we have enjoyed in knowing General Sherman o'ercasts 
 us now ; God bless his memory ! 
 
 I have a little pamphlet at home, which General Sherman 
 wrote mainly for the use of the cadets at West Point. There 
 is written on it, in his handwriting, beneath my name : " I 
 think you will find this will repay perusal. W. T. S." I have 
 marked inside this paragraph : Of the qualities which adorn 
 the human character, that which is easiest of accomplish- 
 ment, and most certain of reward, is fidelity to trust." When 
 it was my lot, a year or two before he died, to travel with 
 him for a time, at his request, I marvelled to see that he never 
 came into contact with any man in whom he did not take an 
 interest, and thinking over it to reach the root of it, I came to 
 see, or thought I saw, that he regarded his whole relation to 
 mankind as one great trust ; and so it was that beginning with 
 the trust of his relation to his mother, and ending with the 
 trust of his relations to his friends, like us, through all and in 
 all he was fidelity to trust, to the great trust of the great 
 Truster of mankind, who has left in our hands, as a great 
 trust, the destiny of one another here, to prepare for the wel- 
 come that we may one day share with him, I trust. 
 
 And now. Companions, " Bring the good old bugle, boys, 
 we '11 sing another song." 
 
 The Commandery thereupon sang with great enthusiasm, 
 " Marching through Georgia." 
 
 On the motion of Companion Lieutenant-Colonel A. M. 
 Clark, a vote of thanks was tendered to Senator Sherman, for 
 his paper upon General Sherman, and he was requested to fur- 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. $1 
 
 nish a copy of the address for preservation among the records 
 of the Commandery. 
 
 Companion Second Lieutenant Charles Roberts recited the 
 following poem : 
 
 WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 (Died February 14, 1891.) 
 
 BY CHARLES DE KAY. 
 
 Rumble and grumble, ye drums, 
 Shrill be your throat, O pipes ! 
 Writhe, blood-red flag, in your mourning band, 
 Serpent of harlequin stripes ! 
 But — stars in the banner's blue ! 
 Smile, for the war-chief true 
 Up from the myriad hearts of the land 
 Comes — to your haven comes. 
 
 Guns that sullenly boom, 
 
 Mourn for the master's hand. 
 Dreadful, uplifting the baton of war, 
 While your hurricane shook the land. 
 
 Marching, marching, thro' battle and raid, 
 Gay and garrulous, unafraid, 
 Sherman drove, with his brilliant star, 
 A dragon of eld to its doom. 
 
 Pass, O shade without stain ! 
 Sunsets that grimly smile, 
 Shall paint how your signal flags deploy 
 Battalions mile on mile — 
 
 Horsemen and footmen, rank on rank, 
 Sweeping against the foemen's flank, 
 Howling full of the strange, mad joy 
 Of slaughter, and fear to be slain. 
 
 Orators, thunder and rave ! 
 
 Chant ye his dirge, O bards ! 
 Ho, cunning sculptors, his charger design, 
 Grave ye his profile on sards ! 
 
52 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 But to picture the hero's brain — 
 Shall ye ever thereto attain ? 
 Can ye utter the soul of the long blue line, 
 And the tongue-tied love of the slave ? 
 
 Rumble and grumble, ye drums ! 
 Strain in your throat, O pipes ! 
 Last of the warriors of oak, that were hewn 
 Into strength by failure and stripes. 
 Last, not least, of the heroes old. 
 Smoke begrimed, fervid, crafty, bold — 
 Sheridan, Grant, your comrade boon, 
 Comes — to your haven comes. 
 
 The Commandery thereupon sang the Song of the Legion, 
 to the music of Lauriger Horatius. 
 
 The Commander: — It perhaps illustrates the evolution of 
 morality that when I was a boy there was a German drinking 
 song about wine and pretty girls. Hence, if at any part of the 
 meeting I should betray symptoms of ebriety, you will consider 
 my bringing up and the power of Apollinaris. 
 
 I have called your attention to the fact that though the 
 keystone of the arch is gone, there remain with us, on my 
 right and left, the commanders of the right and left wing, and 
 that the builder of General Sherman's railroad, from Chat- 
 tanooga to Atlanta, has survived to carry out General Sher- 
 man's pet project, to which he gave so many years, — a railroad 
 which should unite the Atlantic and Pacific. We have beside 
 those gentlemen, another distinguished hero of those days, 
 I rejoice to think that there is growing up with the age of 
 this country a corresponding growth of hereditary loyalty. 
 The Porters were valiant soldiers in the Revolution, and once 
 more to avoid the travesty of introduction, I bring before you, 
 with joy and pleasure, a survivor of that hereditary loyalty, 
 General Horace Porter. 
 
 REMARKS OF GENERAL HORACE PORTER. 
 
 Mr. Commander and Companions : This has been a banner 
 night for the Loyal Legion. It is supposed that there are 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 53 
 
 periods of an evening when veteran soldiers occasionally have 
 to be removed from the tables, but to-night the tables have 
 been removed from them. Movements are always rapid when 
 things are passing to the rear, and the strategic movement by 
 which those tables were taken from the room was eminently 
 successful until they reached a point near the door, when a 
 corner of one of those tables collided with the manly bosom 
 of Horatio King, and, for a brief moment, I feared that he 
 was about to go into the hands of a receiver. 
 
 We have been honored here to-night by the members of 
 that sex which originally in the Garden of Eden was created 
 out of the crookedest part of man, and is now principally en- 
 gaged in straightening man out. As we sat here gazing upon 
 them in the gallery, we have religiously obeyed that injunction 
 of Scripture which commands us to set our affections upon 
 things above, and in our unmeasured vanity we have been con- 
 sidering ourselves only a little lower than the angels. I wish 
 to say that I yield to no one in the pleasure with which I have 
 listened to that manly tribute of a brother to a brother. It 
 seems all like a dream that General Sherman is dead ; we seem 
 still to hear his cheery, manly voice lingering in this hall where 
 we heard it so often, and yet it is more than a year since we 
 found ourselves standing within the profound shadow of a 
 manly grief, oppressed by a sense of sadness which is akin to 
 the sorrow of a personal bereavement, when we heard that our 
 old Commander had passed away from the living here, to join 
 that other living, commonly called the dead, when the echo of 
 his guns had given place to the tolling of cathedral bells, when 
 the Flag of his Country which had never once been lowered 
 in his presence dropped to half-mast, as if conscious that his 
 strong arm was no longer there to hold it to the peak. His 
 loss has created a gap in this particular community, which 
 neither time nor men can ever fill. No social circle was com- 
 plete without him ; where he sat was the head of the table. 
 We can heap no further honors upon him by any words of 
 ours; he had them all. He had been elevated by his country 
 to the highest position in the army, tendered votes of thanks 
 
54 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 by Congress, made a member of distinguished societies abroad, 
 had medals struck in his honor. We can add nothing to his 
 earthly glory ; we can only gather as we assemble here to-night 
 to recount the hours of pleasant intercourse we have had with 
 him, to show our esteem for the soldier and our love for the 
 man, for our hearts always warm to him with the glow of an 
 abiding affection. He seemed to possess every characteristic 
 of the successful soldier. Bold in conception, vigorous in exe- 
 cution, and unshrinking under grave responsibilities, he demon- 
 strated by every act that " Much danger makes great hearts 
 most resolute." In battle, wherever blows fell thickest, his 
 crest was in their midst. The magnetism of his presence trans- 
 formed routed squadrons into charging columns, and snatched 
 victory from defeat. Opposing ranks went down before the 
 fierceness of his onsets never to rise again ; he paused not un- 
 til he saw the folds of his banners wave above the strongholds 
 he had wrested from the foe. I shall never forget the first 
 time I saw him. Much discussion had been going on at Gen- 
 eral Grant's headquarters at City Point in regard to the con- 
 templated march to the sea. One officer of our staff thought 
 that if that army cut loose from its base, it would be led only to 
 destruction. I had a firm conviction that if ever Sherman cut 
 loose and started through that country, he would wipe up the 
 floor from one end of the Confederacy to the other, and pul- 
 verize everything he met into dust. General Grant said to me 
 after he had had a good deal of correspondence by letter and 
 telegraph with Sherman : " Suppose you go out and meet the 
 General, you can repeat to him my views in detail, and get his 
 ideas thoroughly, and I have no doubt a plan can be arranged 
 which will provide for his cutting loose and marching to the 
 sea." I went to Atlanta, very curious to see this great soldier 
 of the West. I arrived there one morning soon after he had 
 captured Atlanta ; I found him sitting on the porch of a com- 
 fortable house on Peachtree Street, in his shirt sleeves, without 
 a hat, tilted back in a big chair reading a newspaper. He had 
 white stockings and low slippers on his feet. He greeted me 
 very cordially, wanted to hear all the news from the East, and 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 55 
 
 then he began a marvellous talk about his march to the sea. His 
 mind, of course, was full of it. He seemed the very personifi- 
 cation of nervous energy. During that talk the newspaper 
 was torn into a thousand pieces ; he tilted backward and for- 
 ward in his chair until everything rattled ; he would shoot off 
 one slipper, then stick out his foot and catch it again, balance 
 it on his toe, draw it back and put it on. He struck me as a 
 man of such quick perceptions, as one who knew so well in 
 advance precisely what he was going to do, as a person who 
 seemed to have left nothing unthought of, or uncared for, re- 
 garding the contemplated march to the sea, that I felt confi- 
 dent that with him at the head of the movement it could not 
 help being an absolute, a triumphant success. I went back ; 
 General Grant was much interested in my account of the inter- 
 view, telling in detail General Sherman's views, and the ar- 
 rangements he was making for the movement. Soon after that 
 Sherman cut the wires and railroads in his rear, and struck out 
 from Atlanta to the sea. I next saw him when he came, after 
 his marvellous march had been completed, to meet General 
 Grant at City Point. We were sitting in camp one day, when 
 some one said to General Grant : " The boat has arrived, 
 Sherman is on deck." The General dropped everything, ran 
 hurriedly down the long flight of rude steps leading to the 
 landing on the river, and, as he reached about the last step, 
 General Sherman came off the boat rushing to meet him, and 
 there they grasped each other's hands. It was How are you, 
 Sherman ? " " How do you do. Grant ? God bless you ! " 
 There they stood and chatted like two schoolboys on a vaca- 
 tion. Then came that memorable conference of intellectual 
 giants. Just think of the group that sat together in the cabin 
 of the President's steamer that afternoon — Lincoln, Grant, 
 Sherman, and Admiral Porter, the four men who seemed to 
 hold the destinies of the country in their grasp. There Sher- 
 man related, as only he could relate, that marvellous march 
 to the sea. It was in itself a grand epic, and recited with 
 Homeric power. People will never cease to appreciate the 
 practical workings of the mind of the great strategist, who, in 
 
56 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 his wonderful advance, overcame not only his enemy, but con- 
 quered Nature itself. But above and beyond all this, people 
 will see much in his career which savors of the imagination, 
 which excites the fancy, which has in it something more of 
 romance than of reality ; they will be fond of picturing him as 
 a great legendary knight, moving at the head of conquering 
 columns, whose marches are measured not by single miles, but 
 by thousands ; as a general who could make a Christmas gift to 
 his President of a great sea-board city ; as a commander whose 
 field of operations extended over half a continent, who had 
 penetrated everglade and bayou, whose orders always spoke 
 with the true bluntness of the soldier, whose strength con- 
 verted weaklings into giants, who fought from valley's depth 
 to mountain height, and marched from inland river to the sea. 
 His friends will never cease to sing paeans to his honor, 
 and even the wrath of his enemies may be counted in his 
 praise. No man can rob him of his laurels, no one can lessen 
 the measure of his fame. He filled to the very full the largest 
 measure of military greatness, and covered the land with his 
 renown. His distinguished brother has well said that he and 
 General Grant were a Damon and a Pythias. Fortunate for 
 us that those two illustrious commanders had souls too great 
 for rivalry, hearts untouched by jealousy, and could stand as 
 stood the men in the Roman phalanx of old, and lock their 
 shields against a common foe. We are going to build a great 
 monument to him now, but busy and vigorous as our hands 
 may be, we can never expect to build it high enough to reach 
 the lofty eminence of his fame. 
 
 The Commander : — It was always characteristic of veterans 
 that they could turn the tables quickly, and even if they are a 
 little lower than the angels, we have supreme sanction for the 
 proposition that man was made a little lower than the angels to 
 crown him with glory and honor, as we have been this evening 
 by the distinguished persons present. 
 
 Now there is, in what General Porter has said, something of 
 wider scope than appears without reflection. If you go to Rich- 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 57 
 
 mond, for example, there is a prodigious monument to Lee. On 
 the public square of Richmond is a monument to Stonewall Jack- 
 son, inscribed as ''A Monument to the Soldier, the Christian, and 
 the Patriot. Gratefully Accepted by Virginia in Behalf of the 
 Southern People." On the other hand, you may take the volume 
 of the Commonwealth Series, entitled the History of Virginiay 
 published in Boston, and in it you will find Lee and his fellow- 
 rebels described as representative Virginians, and you may 
 read it from beginning to end, and never know that there was 
 such a man as George H. Thomas. These things are making 
 futures, and the future they are making has its perils for our 
 children. 
 
 I will now call upon General Howard. 
 
 REMARKS OF GENERAL O. O. HOWARD. 
 
 The institution of our world, touching the divine, in my 
 judgment, is the family, and from an extended observation in 
 different parts of the world, I have come to the conclusion to 
 make no exceptions against the family in this our own land, 
 the American family. I have been thinking over it to-night, 
 that the family where the father and mother are loyal to the 
 children, and the children are loyal to the parents, is certainly 
 divine. While listening to the brother of General Sherman, I 
 felt that I could thank God that he gave us the Sherman 
 family. It is too late for anj^ extended remarks. My mind 
 goes back like that of General Porter. I wish I had his diction 
 to express myself, and give you a picture of the first time that 
 I met General Sherman, in the presence of Generals Grant and 
 George H. Thomas. The scene is indelibly fixed upon my 
 mind and heart. I will not attempt a description. I re- 
 member, just a little later, as you, sir, remember, Chattanooga, 
 Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. I was delegated to 
 meet General Sherman, to go on the enemy's side of the river, 
 while he was throwing a bridge across, opposite the end of 
 Missionary Ridge, and I did go, accompanying Steinwehr, 
 having one of his brigades, an escorting brigade. We moved 
 along, skirmishing with the skirmishers of the enemy (they, 
 
58 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 though friends now, were enemies then), until we came near 
 where the bridge was to be. The men that had gone to the 
 other side were building their part of the bridge, as our part 
 was being extended from the side on which we were, and the 
 two parts were rapidly approaching. As soon as possible I got 
 on that bridge and walked out as far as I could, while Sherman 
 came from the other side, extending his hands, and saying, 
 " How are you, Howard ? " I answered, " I am well, I am glad 
 to see you there." In a few minutes he sprang across like a boy 
 to my side, caught me by the hand, and from that time we 
 were friends to the close of the war; yes, from that time until 
 the close of his life it was a delight to me to meet General 
 Sherman. It is no use to speak of operations, or even of other 
 things historic. One scene, where General Slocum was in- 
 volved, might be mentioned in one minute. At Atlanta, after 
 that wonderful dispatch, Atlanta is ours, and fairly won,'* 
 Hood, the indomitable Hood, — I knew him at West Point, 
 undertook to tow us back, after we had seen more than a 
 hundred days of daily fighting, with three days* exception, to 
 get to Atlanta. A very hard road that had been to travel, and 
 yet Hood was coming back again and going around our flank. 
 I went in to see if General Sherman was not just a little dis- 
 turbed ; and I sat down with him. He said: Howard, if he 
 goes across a certain point I am going to turn the whole force 
 on him, and leave Slocum here to defend Atlanta." Slocum 
 was left there, and defended Atlanta, and the rest of us went 
 back as you all know. We chased Hood off, drove him away 
 so far that the only thing he could possibly do was to cross the 
 Tennessee River to get out of our way. Then afterwards the 
 indomitable Thomas met Hood and his army, and annihilated 
 him. That was after we had started to the sea. 
 
 On the 1st of January, '65, and this indicates General Sher- 
 man's method with his officers, they were having a good time 
 on that first day of the year, in one house and another, and 
 Sherman sent for me. I supposed he would be with Blair or 
 some other officers on that day, but he was thinking about the 
 future. He said : " Howard, I want you to take your army 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 59 
 
 and go over to Beaufort, South Carolina, cross Beaufort Island, 
 and be at Pocotaligo on the fifteenth of this month. Rather a 
 short time. Slocum is going up the river and across the 
 Sister's ferry, and he is going to Robertsville, and he will be 
 there about the same time." It took us a little longer to get 
 together, but the work was done. I was very glad to hear to- 
 night that his brother so very thoroughly appreciated the hard 
 work of that last campaign ; the glory has been " The March 
 to the Sea," but the real solid work, and that which contributed 
 more than perhaps anything else to the grand result of the war, 
 was the march through Columbia, across through Averysboro, 
 and our battle at Bentonville. General Carlin here to-night 
 remembers his part in that. On and on we toiled, until we 
 came to the very points that Sherman had previously predicted 
 as the end of his hopes ; these were Goldsboro, and then 
 Raleigh, North Carolina. You know they said there was 
 nothing like discipline in Sherman's army, because the men 
 would do just whatever Sherman said, and all the depredations, 
 and all the misconduct of the bummers before that was laid to 
 General Sherman's charge. To prove it, they said, after passing 
 beyond Raleigh on to Washington, not a chicken was killed 
 nor a sheep taken. That is true, but the only reason is that 
 the Confederates had got home, and they co-operated with us 
 in trapping our bummers. 
 
 In connection with the grand review at Washington, to 
 which you have referred, is one of the sweetest recollections 
 of my life. I had been relieved from duty with the Army of 
 the Tennessee, or was about to be relieved, having been by 
 the request of Mr. Lincoln allotted to another work, and I 
 wanted to march at the head of the Army of the Tennessee, 
 which I commanded. General Sherman took me into the War 
 Department, sat down with me, and said : " Howard, I want 
 you to surrender that, to give that up to General Logan ; it 
 will be everything to him." I demurred, but he very easily 
 put another reason, and I consented. 
 
 Next day I came to General Sherman, and I said : " Gen- 
 eral, let me ride with your staff." No," he said, "you shall 
 
6o GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 not ride with my staff, you shall ride with me." And so I had 
 the honor and the great pleasure at the end of that long cam- 
 paign of riding side by side with General Sherman himself, past 
 the President of the United States. 
 
 There is just one more incident that I will speak of, one I 
 think I have never spoken of in public. I was sitting in my 
 office on the hill, near Seventh Street, in Washington, and a 
 friend of mine came in. He said: You seem to be happy." 
 I said : I don't see why I should not be happy." — " Have you 
 seen the New York papers ? " — " No." — " I have a good mind 
 not to show them to you." Finally he pulled out of his pocket 
 the New York Tribune and handed it to me. There, recorded 
 against me, was a column and a half of the hardest charges that 
 I had ever faced, and the blood stopped at my heart. A few 
 moments afterward a poor colored woman came in with some 
 petition for her distressed circumstances, and I was able after 
 a little to listen to what she said. That somehow relieved me, 
 and I went to the house and showed my wife the charges pre- 
 ferred by the Secretary of War which had been published in all 
 the papers of the country before anything had been furnished 
 to me. I wrote three letters, one to the Secretary of War, one 
 to General Sherman, and one to General Grant. It had been 
 said that I did not want to be tried. I demanded to be tried 
 by any court of my countrymen inside or outside of the army. 
 My letter to General Sherman was this : *' Is not a good record 
 of some account? Help me to defend it." When the court 
 was made up finally, of seven general officers. General Grant 
 sent for me. I went into the White House, and when I came 
 in he said : " Here is the Court [it was a Court of Inquiry], be- 
 fore which the investigation of your matters will be had. Are 
 there any officers to whom you object ? " I looked over the 
 list. I said : " I have the right of challenge." It was empha- 
 sized. General Grant said : I would rather, if you are willing, 
 that you should tell me now." Then I told him, and he looked 
 up suddenly to me and said : " Howard, Sherman is President 
 of the Court." I said : " That ought not to be ; he is too much 
 my friend." He said : Never mind that " ; and Sherman was 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 6l 
 
 the President of the Court. The first finding was : We find 
 this ofificer is not guilty of any of the offences charged," and I 
 owe it as much to his friendship as to anything else that I had 
 so fair and so thorough an investigation. God bless the mem- 
 ory of General Sherman ! General Slocum and myself were 
 together a short time since in Brooklyn, and while we were 
 talking together some one spoke about death and about the 
 death of General Sherman. I said, suddenly and feelingly, and 
 I say it again :, " General Sherman will never die." General 
 Slocum said to me with some severity : " What do you mean ; 
 my body will die." I said : Yes, but your body is not you " ? 
 and so to-night, thinking of General Sherman, I think of him 
 not as dead, but as living. 
 
 The Commander : — We are not going to close before we 
 hear from General Slocum. 
 
 REMARKS OF GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM. 
 
 I feel impressed with the idea that at this late hour it would 
 be discreet on my part to simply thank you for the compliment 
 of calling upon me, and take my seat. I know the custom of 
 the Commandery, and I am not going to make any extended 
 remarks. I will, however, tell you a single incident of General 
 Sherman's career that you have perhaps never heard, and you 
 will pardon me for detaining you. General Porter said very 
 truly that Sherman's campaign from Atlanta to the sea was 
 thoroughly prepared beforehand. There was not an intelligent 
 officer in all of Sherman's command who did not know just 
 what his wagons were to carry, just where the materials and 
 tools for destroying railroads were to go in the column, just 
 where in the column were to be found the bridges for use in 
 crossing streams, just the amount and kind of rations to be 
 used each day. Every one knew beforehand, even before we 
 left Atlanta, the exact duty of the men subsequently known as 
 Sherman's bummers. They were the men who were to do the 
 foraging for the army. They were detailed every morning to 
 start out into the country to do certain work. This work was 
 
62 
 
 GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 
 
 to gather provisions, to secure maps, books, newspapers, letters, 
 and bring them all into camp together, with all the live stock 
 they could gather. When night came the letters and papers 
 that they had taken from post-offices and from mail carriers 
 were carefully read by men detailed for that purpose, to see 
 what information could be gleaned from them. The maps 
 taken from the different county court-houses or other places 
 were passed over to the engineer officers to be used in making 
 maps for the next day's march. Every night, a large number 
 of letters and papers were sent to my headquarters. They 
 were examined by a body of young officers. We often got 
 letters conveying information from Lee's army, about the 
 demoralization that was setting in. One night the officers at 
 my headquarters upon whom this duty devolved sent me a 
 newspaper, published in one of the Confederate States, which 
 contained the startling information that a body of the ablest 
 military men in Europe had been discussing the probability of 
 Sherman's success, and that these most highly respected 
 military men, assembled in London, were unanimously of the 
 opinion that General Sherman was attempting a very foolhardy 
 thing, which was certain to result in the destruction of his 
 army. These military gentlemen in Europe said that it was 
 utterly impossible for an army to go ten days from its base of 
 supplies, and that this man Sherman was committing a most 
 egregious blunder. I took the newspaper in my pocket and 
 carried it to General Sherman that evening. I told him there 
 was something in it which might interest him. I recollect he 
 was sitting by a bright camp fire. He took the paper, read it 
 carefully, and laughed heartily over it. His situation at that 
 time reminded me of the anecdote told of a fellow who was 
 arrested in New York City, taken before a police magistrate, 
 and consigned to the Tombs to be held for trial. He sent for 
 a Tombs lawyer, stated his case to him, and the lawyer said, 
 Why, my friend, they can't put you in jail for an offence of 
 that kind in the State of New York." The fellow said, " But 
 Squire, according to my notion of it, I am already in jail." 
 Sherman was then twenty days away from his base of supplies, 
 
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 63 
 
 *^ smashing things," as he termed it, on his way to the sea, and 
 here he had the pleasure of reading the unanimous verdict of 
 the ablest officers in Europe to the effect that his great cam- 
 paign was to prove an entire failure. It was one of those exquis- 
 ite treats that few generals have enjoyed. He was then at the 
 very height of his glory, sure of success, and had the satisfaction 
 of reading the predictions of the ablest military authorities 
 abroad that it was all going to prove a total failure. This was 
 not the only treat of this nature enjoyed by him. Another 
 has been alluded to this evening, which Sherman must have 
 enjoyed quite as much. It was said he was insane because he 
 told half the truth when he said we must have one hundred 
 thousand men to conquer the enemy in the West. He was to 
 meet the men who pronounced him insane for that assertion, 
 and to point to the fact that more than double the number 
 had to be called out. It must have afforded him great 
 pleasure. 
 
 General Sherman's victories over his detractors at the 
 North were not more marked or more striking than those over 
 his armed foes at the South. 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 A Paper Read by Captain Geo. H. Starr, 104th N. Y. Vol., May 3, 1892. 
 
 T SHALL be gratified, if this paper serves not merely to 
 beguile a passing hour, but, by referring to scenes familiar 
 to some of you, to awaken recollections of dear friendships 
 and associations, now sacred to memory. 
 
 I was born at Rochester, N. Y., in 1840. My mother was 
 from Berkshire County, Mass., my father from Litchfield 
 County, Conn., and my first ancestor in this country, on his 
 side, was Comfort Starr, a physician, who in 1634 came from 
 Ashford, a village near Canterbury, in County Kent, England, 
 and joined the Massachusetts Colony. He practised his 
 profession in Cambridge, and his will, in quaint old style, 
 was among the earliest admitted to probate at Cambridge. 
 
 At Ashford he had been a vestryman of St. Mary's Epis- 
 copal Church, but being a non-conformist, like many others 
 who loved liberty in creed as well as in political affairs, he was 
 unwilling to submit to the intolerant prescriptions of Arch- 
 bishop Laud in the Church, and Thomas Wentworth (Lord of 
 Strafford) in the State. He therefore took ship for the land of 
 the free. 
 
 The old stone church of St. Mary's, with its tower and four 
 turrets, partly overgrown with ivy, is still standing at Ashford 
 in a good state of preservation. 
 
 In the spring of 1861, when Sumter was fired upon, I was 
 of the senior class at Hamilton College, N. Y., and graduated 
 there in July, 1861. 
 
 At Rochester I began to read law, but the liberty-loving 
 blood of old Doctor Comfort flowed strong within me, and 
 
 64 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 65 
 
 finding it impossible to study to any good purpose, in view of 
 the exciting news daily coming from the front, I laid down 
 Blackstone, took up a musket, and enlisted November, 1861, 
 for three years, as a private, in Company D of the 104th New 
 York Volunteers, in consideration of $13 per month and clothes 
 and board and lodging, with a promise of $100 bounty at the 
 expiration of term of service. 
 
 During December, 1861 and January, 1862, as sergeant on 
 recruiting service among the snow-covered hills of Steuben, 
 Livingston, and Monroe counties, N. Y., I secured upwards of 
 forty recruits, filling up the company, then stationed at Gene- 
 seo, Livingston County, N. Y., and before reaching Meridian 
 Hill, at Washington, in February, 1862, I was promoted to a 
 second lieutenancy. I served continuously with the regiment, 
 without a break, from the time of enlistment until the day I 
 was captured. At Kalorama Heights, Washington, the regi- 
 ment was assigned to the brigade of General Abram Duryea 
 (formerly colonel of the 7th New York Militia), and the bri- 
 gade moved into Virginia early in March, 1862, where it was 
 attached to Ricketts's division of McDowell's corps. It was 
 kept on detached duty most of the time until August, 1862, 
 and roved around the country to the east of the mountains, 
 ostensibly to guard Washington. 
 
 For ten days in May, 1862, the regiment was temporarily 
 detached from the brigade, and did service with Geary's 
 brigade, guarding Thoroughfare Gap at the time Banks 
 retreated to Harper's Ferry. At the Gap it was so unfortu- 
 nate as to lose its tents and officers' baggage, they being de- 
 stroyed by General Geary, under orders from Washington, to 
 prevent capture by the enemy. So we were without a wagon 
 train when orders came to retreat from the Gap. Duryea's 
 brigade was among the first to capture Warrenton, Va., and 
 we celebrated the 4th of July there, but, unlike Vicksburg, the 
 rebels were not present to defend the place. 
 
 On the evening of the 9th of August, 1862, the brigade par- 
 ticipated in the closing scenes of the battle of Cedar Mountain, 
 
 when Banks's force fell back to the rear of McDowell's corps ; 
 5 
 
66 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 and it was then a wonder to us, and has been since to students 
 of that affair, why that corps, as well as Sigel's, both of which 
 lay hard by, were not ordered in at an earlier hour to Banks's 
 assistance. If that had been done, probably Jackson would 
 have had one less victory to his credit. 
 
 The regiment did picket duty along the Robinson River at 
 the extreme point of Pope's advance, and during the subse- 
 quent retreat in August we lay for three days on the left bank 
 of the Rappahannock, guarding the railroad bridge and the 
 fords, to prevent the rebels from crossing; the brigade being 
 for all three days under constant fire from the rebel batteries 
 on the right, or west, bank. 
 
 With Ricketts's division we bravely marched up to Thor- 
 oughfare Gap, to try to stop Longstreet from coming through 
 toward the east to join Jackson, who was then near Manassas, 
 but after a sharp brush with his advance, we just as bravely 
 marched back by night to Gainesville, Longstreet following. 
 The historian is invidious, fo the story of the night retreat of 
 Ricketts's division, and how it lay closely penned between 
 Longstreet's advance and Jackson's rear, and how it secretly 
 decamped before daylight, dragging its guns, partly by hand, 
 through streams and woods, is lost in oblivion ; whereas Long- 
 street's march has become famous, mainly because of a con- 
 troversy between Generals Pope and Porter, regarding what it 
 is claimed was a good opportunity lost, to strike an effective 
 blow upon Longstreet's right flank. 
 
 The regiment was at the second Bull Run fight, from start 
 to finish. I was out for three or four hours in command of 
 Company B, which served on the skirmish line, and by reason 
 of a loss of killed and wounded that was proportionately 
 heavy, considering the small number engaged, Lieutenant 
 Rudd with Company G, was sent out to reinforce my com- 
 mand. He was killed only a few moments after coming out, 
 but the skirmish line thus reinforced was enabled to and did 
 hold its place until it was driven back to the line of the regi- 
 ment by the general advance of Jackson, which occurred later 
 in the day, when all hands beat a retreat on Centreville, six 
 miles away. 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 67 
 
 Ricketts's division lay in close reserve to Reno's and Kear- 
 ny's divisions during the night battle at Chantilly, which 
 occurred at the closing hours of the 2d of September, in the 
 midst of a storm so terrific that the roar of heaven's artillery 
 above almost drowned the voices of the guns below, although 
 the fighting while it lasted was of the fiercest. It was there, 
 at Chantilly, that the lamented Kearny and Stephens rode to 
 their last battle. 
 
 Early in September, 1862, McClellan having resumed com- 
 mand of his old army lately from the Peninsula, reinforced by 
 the army formerly under General Pope, we crossed the Poto- 
 mac into Maryland, and hastened northwestwardly to meet 
 the rebels and drive them out of the State. At South Moun- 
 tain on a beautiful Sabbath afternoon (General Hooker being 
 in command of the First Corps, which held the right wing, and 
 which then consisted of Reynolds's, Ricketts's, and King's di- 
 visions), we swept up the slope of South Mountain, in a long 
 extended line of battle ; and in spite of a severe fire of mus- 
 ketry, we drove the rebel force from its summit, and the First 
 Corps made its bivouac there that night with the rebel dead 
 and wounded lying thick about it. 
 
 During the early hours of the bloody 17th of September, 
 1862, on the field of Antietam, the First Corps under Hooker 
 drove back the rebel left wing for about a third of a mile, and 
 General Reynolds then taking command (as General Hooker 
 had been disabled by a shot in the foot), the corps held its 
 ground till about mid-day, when it was relieved by Sumner's 
 corps. 
 
 On the day following, being a day of truce, the rebels re- 
 moved their wounded, but left our army to bury their dead. 
 When we did so two days later, the sight of the long ranks of 
 the rebel dead, their bodies black and swollen to repulsiveness 
 by the heat, was the most sickening and appalling sight I ever 
 witnessed. My commission as captain dates from the battle of 
 Antietam. At Warrenton, Va., some weeks later, the whole 
 army was drawn out in line to bid farewell to its old com- 
 mander. General McClellan, and greet his successor, General 
 Burnside. 
 
63 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 On December 13, 1862, at Fredericksburg, the First Corps 
 under General Reynolds held the left, and our brigade followed 
 Meade's division in a charge over the railroad, and up a wooded 
 ridge held by General Jackson's troops, through a storm of 
 bullets, shot, and shell, only to be driven out with severe 
 loss. 
 
 Upon Burnside's "mud march" in February, 1863, the 
 boys of our brigade and division buckled to pontoon wagons, 
 after all the mules available had given out or become mired ; 
 and upon that march we saw hundreds of carcasses of mules 
 that had been shot in their tracks, having become so deeply 
 mired that they could not be extricated. We witnessed and 
 assisted in many efTorts to pry them out of the mud, by the 
 use of fence rails and small pine saplings, but often to no 
 purpose. 
 
 The First Corps crossed the Rappahannock, and reached the 
 battle-field at Chancellorsville, in May, 1863, after an all-day 
 forced march up the left bank of the river from near Falmouth, 
 and it helped to stay the partial rout that had ensued, when 
 Jackson's force fell upon the Eleventh Corps, and later in the 
 evening the corps formed a line of battle, at or near the ground 
 held by the Eleventh Corps but a few hours before, the regi- 
 ment going out half a mile beyond to do picket duty. It was a 
 memorable night, owing to the excitement of its earlier hours, 
 but we had no encounter except with a small squad of cavalry, 
 that riding inadvertently upon our picket line was driven off 
 with some loss. 
 
 The First Corps lay at Emmettsburg, Maryland, on the 1st of 
 July, 1863, only eight or nine miles distant from Gettysburg, 
 and it was while there, and shortly after reveille, that we first 
 heard the faint sounds of the light artillery attached to Buford's 
 dauntless little cavalry force, that betokened the beginning of 
 that fierce battle, now so memorable. 
 
 After a march of ten miles, at first at quick, and later at 
 double-quick time, through the sweltering heat of that fearfully 
 hot morning, the First Corps under General Reynolds came up 
 to the support of Buford. It crossed the fields before reaching 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 69 
 
 Gettysburg, taking a northwesterly course to a point near the 
 rear of the brick seminary, and from that point, with scarcely 
 time to load, its three divisions were swung round into line of 
 battle upon the crest of Seminary Ridge, facing northwesterly; 
 Buford's cavalry falling back, and re-forming on our flanks and 
 rear. General Hill with a force more than double our own was 
 pushing eastwardly toward Gettysburg, by both the Chambers- 
 burg and Mummasburg pikes, which converged at the town, 
 and our force being thrown across both, and having Seminary 
 Ridge for a vantage ground, it effectually blocked his way, and 
 for hours we successfully resisted his repeated attempts to dis- 
 lodge us and turn our right flank. It was just at the outset of 
 the battle, that our dearly esteemed General Reynolds met his 
 death ; he being killed in a thicket a little to the left of the 
 brigade front, and from that point, in view of perhaps one 
 third of his corps, his body was borne back through the lines. 
 General Reynolds held a very exalted place in the esteem of 
 the whole army, and, in the opinion of the writer, was as well 
 qualified for the chief command as any general officer who 
 was ever connected with the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Within an hour afterwards. General Paul (who commanded 
 our brigade) was disabled, by a severe but not fatal wound. 
 
 The loss in killed and wounded among us was very great in 
 proportion to our numbers. First Lieutenant Thomas John- 
 son was shot dead at my side, and Second Sergeant LefBeth 
 had his leg torn off by a round shot. A staff officer from Gen- 
 eral Doubleday, who rode up near to the line of battle, and 
 shouted to us to hold the position, had his horse shot from un- 
 der him and was thrown to the ground at the very moment of 
 giving the order. Except for a low stone wall in our front it 
 would have been impossible to have stood, as we did, against 
 the fierce attempts of General Hill's corps to dislodge and out- 
 flank us. This condition continued for several hours, until 
 General Ewell's corps, coming from the north and northeast, 
 and overpowering two divisions of the Eleventh Corps on his 
 way, swept around our right wing, and gaining a position in 
 the village in rear of us, was thus enabled to capture almost 
 
70 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 bodily such portion of our brigade, including our regiment, as 
 then remained in line. 
 
 The monuments of the 104th N. Y. Regiment, with that of 
 the 13th Massachusetts of our brigade, are the first to be seen 
 on Oak Ridge, as one now approaches from Gettysburg, when 
 coming by rail from the north. The rebels on the first day of 
 the battle took as prisoners about three thousand men and 
 two hundred and fifty officers, the larger part being from the 
 First and the remainder from the Eleventh Corps. The Na- 
 tional Tribune (commenting on a recent article by Mr. Roose- 
 velt in the Century Magazine^ wherein he compares and 
 contrasts the battles of Gettysburg and Waterloo) says : 
 " There was no fighting at Waterloo equal to the heroic 
 defence of Oak Ridge on the first day by the First Corps, 
 which lost the greatest number of killed and wounded ever 
 lost by so small a body of men on the field of battle ; and it 
 inflicted even a more terrible loss upon its assailants." 
 
 The picture may be slightly over-drawn, but it was a very 
 hot day and a very hot place. Excluding those of my regi- 
 ment who were wounded and left on the field, or who, being 
 borne back to the village that day, were retaken by our own 
 forces on the third day, there were of my regiment about ten 
 officers and one hundred men captured, on that first day of the 
 battle, and they, with such other prisoners as were then and 
 afterwards captured, were kept under guard immediately in rear 
 of the rebel line of battle, until the 4th of July, when they 
 were marched toward the south, with Lee's retreating army ; 
 the number taken south aggregating nearly four thousand. 
 
 On the morning of the second day of the battle, General 
 Lee with some of his staff officers rode into the field near Wil- 
 loughby Run, where the captured officers were kept under 
 guard, and proposed to us, that all the officers, with the men 
 who were held under guard in a separate field near by, should 
 then and there accept a parole, in which case he said that he 
 would at once pass us through to the Union lines, and we 
 could return to our homes. 
 
 This offer after a brief conference was declined, by reason 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 7 1 
 
 of a late stringent order of the War Department forbidding 
 prisoners to accept of paroles on the field, and directing that 
 they should submit to be held as prisoners until exchanged in 
 due course. 
 
 Without reflecting upon the justice of such an order, or the 
 wisdom or good policy of our refusal to accept the proffered 
 parole (ignorant as we were, of the fate that awaited us), yet 
 that moment is never recalled without a thought as to what a 
 vast amount of suffering, disease, and death might have been 
 averted from those four thousand prisoners, and how many 
 perhaps of those who became the victims of long imprison- 
 ment might be still living and enjoying the delights of happy 
 homes, had we only accepted that offer of parole. For had w6 
 done so the War Department might, and most likely would, 
 have overlooked the technical violation of the order, in view 
 of the peculiar emergency of our case. 
 
 Having refused the parole, the only prospect before us was 
 a long march to Richmond, and imprisonment there, for how 
 long a period we could not foretell. 
 
 Being just in rear of the rebel lines, we were well apprised 
 of the fighting on the second and third days, as the rebel guns 
 during the terrific cannonading were close at hand, and the 
 round shot and shell from our own batteries on Cemetery 
 Ridge, and Round Top, came plunging about where we lay, 
 quite careless of our proximity. 
 
 The 4th of July began with a heavy rain-storm that 
 lasted four or five days, during which we were continuously 
 soaking wet. We celebrated the " Fourth " by a march toward 
 the Potomac, under guard of the remnant of the divisions of 
 Pickett and Heth that made the famous charge on the 3d, 
 and about the loth of July we were ferried over the Potomac 
 on a raft, in squads of about thirty. Between Hagerstown and 
 the river, we passed several of the bodies of our cavalrymen, 
 who had been killed while encountering Lee's advance, and at 
 the time we crossed, the rebel army lay in a semicircle upon 
 the left bank, or Maryland side, of the river ; its wagons, 
 ammunition and ambulance trains being parked on the flats 
 
72 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 near the river, the water being then too high to permit of 
 recrossing. 
 
 The fierce General Imboden, with a feather in his hat, fire in 
 his eye, and profanity in his mouth, with an irregular mounted 
 force, dressed like brigands, formed a vigilant guard on the long 
 march, up the valley of the Shenandoah, to Stanton. 
 
 Near Strasburg we passed a long pontoon train, hastening 
 to the aid of Lee's army in recrossing into Virginia. Pressed 
 by hunger, and not foreseeing a long imprisonment, we dick- 
 ered with the poor whites and darkies along the way, trading 
 valuable articles of raiment for dirty ash cakes, cornbread, 
 blackberry pies sour for lack of sugar, or for other edibles. 
 These were veritable dainties, for the regular rations upon that 
 march were raw flour or meal, raw skinny beef or poor bacon, 
 and we had no facilities for cooking except such few utensils as 
 we happened to have when captured, or had bartered for on 
 the way. 
 
 On reaching Richmond, the enlisted men were sent to Belle 
 Isle, an island in the James River, and the officers to Libby. 
 
 We passed the portals of Libby, or the American Bastile, 
 on the 23d of July ; its begrimed denizens greeting us with 
 their usual cries of " Fresh Fish," " Where were you cap- 
 tured," " How were you captured," " Ring the bell for dinner," 
 " Let me check your baggage," Louder, old pudding-head," 
 Give that calf more rope," etc. The shady side of life in 
 Southern prisons has been so often depicted with harrowing 
 pathos that I will dwell for the most part upon some of the 
 features that tended in some degree to relieve its miseries. 
 
 During the first week in July, upwards of ten thousand 
 rebels were taken prisoners at Gettysburg, and upwards of 
 twenty-six thousand at Vicksburg, and until that time ex- 
 changes of prisoners under the cartel had continued, although 
 at irregular intervals. At about the time, however, of the 
 arrival of our party in Richmond exchanges were totally sus- 
 pended, by reason of a controversy between the belligerents. 
 They were not resumed during the war, except some special 
 exchanges of small parties on a few occasions, and a special 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 73 
 
 exchange of several thousand sick and wounded, made, as it 
 was claimed, for humanity's sake, in the winter of 1864 and 
 1865. 
 
 Although the ratio of death to the whole number of Union 
 soldiers incarcerated, increased at a rapidly accelerating pace, 
 from the month of July, 1863, when the cartel was suspended, 
 until the close of the war, still the gain by further captures so 
 far exceeded the loss by death, that at the close of the war the 
 rebels held, as nearly as I can ascertain, upwards of fifty 
 thousand prisoners, including about two thousand commis- 
 sioned ofificers. 
 
 Among the other prison pens, wherein on and after July, 
 
 1863, large bodies of our private soldiers were kept for long 
 periods, were Belle Isle, in the James River at Richmond, 
 several warehouses in the city of Richmond, Andersonville 
 and Millen in Georgia, Florence in South Carolina, and Salis- 
 bury in North Carolina. Beginning with July, 1863, the offi- 
 cers were kept together and in one body for the most part, 
 but were moved about from one point or prison to another. 
 From July, 1863, until May, 1864, they were held at Libby 
 prison in Richmond ; in May, 1 864, they were removed in a body 
 to a stockade in Macon, Georgia; in July, 1864, by reason of 
 General Stoneman's raid from Sherman's army (which was 
 designed for the release of the officers from Macon and the 
 men from Andersonville), the officers were removed from Ma- 
 con, Ga.,to Savannah, Ga., and in a few days were taken thence 
 to Charleston, S. C. At Charleston they were kept in the four 
 buildings known as the Roper and Marine Hospitals, the Peni- 
 tentiary, and the Nigger jail, until the first week in October, 
 
 1864, when, by reason of yellow fever breaking out in Charles- 
 ton and in the prisons there, they were removed to Columbia, 
 S. C, and there were placed in a stockade located near the 
 right bank of the Saluda River, at a point a little northwest of 
 the city. This prison we dubbed " Old Camp Sorghum," and 
 this was the end of the pilgrimage, or the excursions, so to 
 speak, made by the body of Union officers from prison to 
 prison throughout Dixie. Of the officers, to the number of 
 
74 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 seventeen hundred or eighteen hundred who reached Camp 
 Sorghum in October, 1864, all remained there until they were 
 sent North by way of Wilmington, N. C, at the close of the 
 war, except such as were earlier released by death, or the few 
 who effected their escape. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this paper to enter upon the merits 
 of the controversy concerning exchange, or to comment upon 
 the justice of that policy of our own government that per- 
 mitted so large a number of its volunteer soldiers to languish 
 and die in Southern prisons, but it may not be amiss to ask why 
 some of the writers upon the history of the Rebellion, have 
 not set forth all the facts attending the suspension of exchange 
 of prisoners, or disclosed more clearly the real reasons why ex- 
 changes were not resumed and why the prison doors were not 
 opened at an earlier day. 
 
 The call of humanity was just as loud on behalf of the able- 
 bodied, soon to yield to disease, as it was on behalf of those 
 who had already succumbed. 
 
 Among others, more or less noted, whom we found in 
 Libby prison, were Col. A. D. Straight of Indiana, Colonel 
 Louis di Cesnola and Captain Charlier of New York, Albert 
 D. Richardson, correspondent of the New York Tribune, and 
 Chaplain McCabe, and they with about two hundred and fifty 
 others, occupied four rooms in the second and third stories ; 
 our party bringing up the number to over six hundred. We 
 little suspected that the most of us had come to remain in 
 that prison-house until May, 1864. The saying, that "hope 
 springs eternal in the human breast," as applied to its inmates 
 during that period, should be coupled with that other saying, 
 that " hope deferred maketh the heart sick." During all that 
 time the subject of exchange was the chief topic. Rumor 
 with a thousand tongues " was constantly rife, and new rumors 
 came in with each new batch of prisoners. 
 
 Hope would rise to high tide on one day, while on the next 
 it would sink to depths of despair. The subject of exchange 
 became to many a veritable craze, and to such, " Trifles light 
 as air were confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ." 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 75 
 
 Money taken from us, or sent to us from the North, was 
 placed to our credit on the prison books (so it was said), but 
 the bulk of it was never restored ; a few small installments in 
 Confederate currency being all that was allowed us. 
 
 Some of us were beguiled into writing North for remittances 
 to be sent to Major Turner, and I thus became and remain a 
 creditor of the Confederacy, to the extent of about sixty dol- 
 lars in gold, and accrued interest. Blank brick walls divided 
 the three-story building into three sections, passage ways being 
 cut through the walls on the second and third floors, after it 
 was put to use as a prison. Fronting on Carey Street, the 
 5lope of the ground gave it four stories in the rear, and door- 
 ways opened from each of the three cellars on to the street in 
 the rear. Each of the lodging rooms was about forty-five feet 
 wide by one hundred and ten feet deep ; and shortly after our 
 arrival the two additional upper rooms were brought into use, 
 making six such rooms in all. In October following, the 
 middle room of like size on the Carey Street level, which was 
 connected with the lodging rooms above by a stairway, was 
 thrown open for a cook-room, and half a dozen stoves were 
 placed in it for the use of the prisoners, three at each of the 
 two chimney-places. 
 
 On the 1st of October, 1863, about four hundred officers 
 arrived who were captured at Chickamauga, and from that 
 time until the 1st of May 1864, the number of inmates aver- 
 aged from one thousand to over eleven hundred, the sixty who 
 made good their escape through the tunnel in February, 1864, 
 being more than replaced by new comers. Surgeons and 
 chaplains to the number of perhaps forty, captured at Gettys- 
 burg and Chickamauga, were not released until November, 
 1863. By one of them, the Rev. John Hussey of Ohio, I 
 smuggled out a letter, by means of which greenbacks reached 
 me later concealed in a box of provisions. Citizens and petty 
 tradesmen who got into the prison were eager to barter rebel 
 money for greenbacks. A one dollar greenback commanded 
 $5 in rebel currency in July, 1863, but the rate of exchange 
 rapidly increased, until at the ist of October, 1864, a one 
 
76 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 dollar greenback would fetch $(2, and a dollar in gold would 
 fetch $20 to $22 in rebel currency. 
 
 On our arrival, Captains Sawyer of New Jersey and Flynn 
 of Indiana were confined in cells in the middle cellar as host- 
 ages, under threat of hanging, in retaliation for rebel officers 
 executed in Tennessee. They were released from the cells by 
 the rebels, when they learned that Uncle Sam had placed 
 young Captain Lee and Captain Winder in a similar kind of 
 durance, to be accorded just such treatment as should be 
 visited upon Sawyer and Flynn. But fear still so preyed upon 
 Sawyer's mind that, at the nightly quiz classes (exercises which 
 usually began after taps, when lights were out), it became quite 
 a common joke to hear the call, " Who wants to be hung?" 
 with the invariable answer, from several quarters perhaps, 
 Captain Sawyer." 
 
 These hilarious proceedings occurred after we had retired 
 to the floor for the night, and if any of the comrades displayed 
 irritation (because disturbed in vain attempts to get to sleep), it 
 only served to make matters worse, for there were others in 
 plenty determined to keep up a racket and banish sleep, and 
 they did it. Hardly any one escaped from some practical joke, 
 or from being dubbed with some slang name or epithet that 
 became a sort of prison appendage, and hung to him during 
 his term of prison service, like a tail to a kite. " Who shaved 
 the darky off the track ? " (referring to an officer acting as bar- 
 ber). Answer : Lieutenant L." Who surrendered for the 
 sake of humanity ? " " Who was captured outside the lines, 
 courting the widow ?" Who threw dried apples in the chimney 
 place ? " " Who plays the spy ? " " Who keeps a black list to 
 report at Washington ? " 
 
 Q. Why is Libby like a literary institution ? A. Because 
 it is a lyceum. Some slow thinker responds : I don't see 
 um." Another shouts : No, but you feel um, all the same." 
 Jokes of this kind made the evenings more or less merry. 
 
 At night we usually lay in rows, in close order ; two narrow 
 pathways leading from front to rear of each room, between 
 the rows of heads and feet. Woe to the man who made a 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 77 
 
 noise at the bath-tub during the night hours ! Sticks, old ham 
 bones, boot-jacks, chunks of old corn-bread hard as bricks, 
 would fly at his unprotected form. As numbers increased, 
 nightly wanderings through the lodging rooms became scarcely 
 possible, while in the cook-room there was but little space to 
 spare, not absorbed by the long, stationary pine tables with 
 their accompanying benches, and by the stoves and stove pipes. 
 The stoves and benches stood for a time as monumental bur- 
 lesques upon our empty larder and stomachs, until they became 
 so aggravating that we broke them up for firewood. 
 
 Occasionally a funny fellow among the sentinels who did 
 night duty about the prison, would sing out as he called the 
 hour, in that drawling high-keyed, peculiarly Southern tone 
 something intended to be facetious. For example: One 
 o'clock, and all 's well, old Beast Butler whipt like hell, and 
 all 's well." Two o'clock, Yankee gunboats up the river, all a 
 sell, and all 's well." 
 
 While restlessly tossing upon the hard floor softened only 
 by a single blanket, and dreaming of friends at home, tables 
 laden with home goodies, to be thus roused to dreary realities, 
 and then to lie awake perhaps for hours trying to peer through 
 the gloom into the future, was not a cheering situation, even 
 if a funny sentry did provoke an occasional laugh. 
 
 Minstrel performances were sometimes had in the kitchen, 
 burned cork being used to blacken the faces, and the rebels 
 furnishing apparel for the performers who took the ladies* parts. 
 These were announced by highly illustrated programmes stuck 
 about the walls. The Glee Club gave lively entertainments, 
 particularly at news of victory for our arms, or rumors of 
 speedy exchange. On such occasions, spirits rose high, and the 
 grand old war-songs, such as " John Brown's Body," We are 
 coming, Father Abraham, etc., awoke a rousing chorus ; the 
 rebels usually tolerating it for the sake of the music. 
 
 No clothing was furnished us by the rebels from their own 
 stores. Such as came from our Sanitary and Christian Com- 
 missions, for the most part, was delivered to our boys on Belle 
 Isle, and as that which came in private boxes designed for the 
 
78 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 officers was usually confiscated, the one suit worn by each of 
 us on arriving at the prison, soon degenerated from gentility 
 to extreme shabbiness, so that a light shirt and a thin pair of 
 trousers became the conventional mode for all occasions, even 
 for roll-call, when we were formed into line, in what was termed 
 " dress parade." 
 
 During the first few months, when skinny and livid beef, 
 rice, or beans were sometimes issued, groups of twenty or there- 
 abouts were formed into messes, so called, each member taking 
 his turn as cook. In those days a common cry was, Fall in, mess 
 number ten, for your wormy beans '* ; or, Fall in, mess two, 
 for your beef bones and rice," but the use of the same kettles, 
 for boiling meat and for boiling clothes, together with the 
 diminishing quantity of meat rations, soon made the big-mess 
 system intolerable and useless. 
 
 Afterwards, small messes of two or three came into vogue, 
 and then " riot " is the only word to properly describe the con- 
 dition of affairs in the cook-room below. The boiling and 
 baking utensils were mostly old oyster and tomato cans, or old 
 pans or cans of other descriptions brought in by friendly 
 darkies, and the efforts of several hundred cooks, each trying 
 to fight his way to a stove to get his little pan or can over the 
 fire, and to keep it there, caused a regular pandemonium ; 
 the noises from below at such times being like to voices com- 
 ing up from an infernal pit. 
 
 The earliest daily exercise was to strip off the shirt, and 
 make an excursion down the seams for the little animalculse or 
 microbes, and then to extinguish them between the finger nails. 
 
 These little fellows would stick closer than a brother. It 
 was not altogether poetic license on the part of the rhymer 
 who said 
 
 " Each little flea has smaller flea upon his back to bite him, 
 This smaller flea, still lesser flea, and so ad infinitum y 
 
 While engaged in this sanguinary pastime, " Old Smoke" 
 (a grizzled old darky with a skillet of charcoal) generally 
 made his rounds. Shortly after, "Old Ben," another darky 
 with a small supply of morning papers (lucky if he sold more 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 79 
 
 than one or two), would tramp about, crying : Wake up, all you 
 Yanks, grate news in de papers grate news from Virginty." 
 " All about the way General Bragg flinked the Yanks at the 
 grate battle ob Chickenmauger, far in the souf west." " Grate 
 news from de place whar de war is, grate news from eberywhar." 
 
 One morning some jokers in our room got Ben to sing out 
 at the head of the stairs above us, a joke specially aggravating 
 to the comrades in that room (directed against the army corps 
 to which most of them belonged), whereupon he was uncere- 
 moniously hustled down the stairs, and came tumbling down 
 in a great fright, his papers scattered about on the floor. 
 Picking them up, he said : " Dorg gone dose Yanks up dar. 
 Ise jist gwine to quit dat room up dar. Ise not gwine up dar 
 no mo ! no mo ! " 
 
 Fall in, sick, and go down," was the familiar drawling cry, 
 every morning, of the rebel sergeant when he came in to gather 
 up the sick and escort them to the hospital below. Those 
 who died, were carted away to graves in what was then a 
 Potter's field for Union soldiers, which was located beyond the 
 colored suburb known as " Rocketts." 
 
 Now it is one of our national cemeteries, but most of the 
 boys taken there for burial, from Belle Isle, from the hospitals 
 on the first floor of Libby, or from other warehouses in Rich- 
 mond used as prisons, have now no inscription over their graves 
 except the word Unknown." 
 
 Perhaps the most repulsive feature about Libby was the 
 lack of privacy. There was a constant jostle of one man 
 against another. Confinement in private cells for a few hours 
 of each day would have been a boon ! Hence Libby was of all 
 places a rare place for character study. The ruling traits of a 
 man could not be concealed, and if repulsive they stood out in 
 naked deformity. On the other hand, it was wonderful how 
 little such direful surroundings could depress one of a happy 
 and hopeful temperament. Nothing seemed to daunt him, and 
 his sanguine spirit seemed to rise superior to every emergency. 
 
 Illustrations were not wanting of the saying that " the ruling 
 passion is strong in death." 
 
8o 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 Some of the comrades were naturally jolly, and they were 
 bound to be jolly at all times and under all circumstances. 
 They were as pertinacious about it as the incorrigible punster 
 who, being informed when on his deathbed that his next-door 
 neighbor, a widow, had fallen into a well, raised his head sud- 
 denly from his pillow with the inquiry, Did she kick the 
 bucket ? " 
 
 The tunnel from which one hundred and nine officers escaped 
 early in February, 1864, was under way for about two months, 
 and was designed and carried out mainly under the directions of 
 Col. Thos. E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania Volunteers, cap- 
 tured at Chickamauga (who has since been a Major in the regu- 
 lar service), and Major A. G. Hamilton of the I2th Kentucky 
 Cavalry. They were aided by a working party, at first of about 
 twelve, afterwards increased to about twenty. The fact that 
 the work was in progress was known to perhaps less than two 
 hundred out of the whole number of prisoners. It was kept 
 as secret as possible, not so much from distrust of other com- 
 rades, but lest the jailers might get suspicious if the matter was 
 bruited about too generally. 
 
 The tunnel proper extended from under the east wall of the 
 east cellar about five feet below the surface of a vacant lot 
 some sixty feet wide next east of the prison, and had its exit 
 in a wagon shed which stood upon the north end of the second 
 lot to the east. This shed had its open side looking south 
 toward a small warehouse that stood on the rear of the lot, 
 which latter had a double-door gangway leading through it to 
 the street in the rear ; there being a space of about fifty feet 
 between the shed and the warehouse. By arrangement with a 
 friendly darky, the doors of the warehouse were left unfast- 
 ened. The most laborious and delicate part of the scheme, in 
 view of the risk of detection, was the cutting of a hole into the 
 back of one of the chimney-places in the cook-room and thence 
 diagonally down through the wall, so that it afforded access, 
 not into the middle cellar below the kitchen, but into the 
 most easterly of the three cellars, known in prison parlance as 
 Rat Hell."^ 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 8 1 
 
 This initial part of the work was done by night, by aid 
 of a trowel and case-knives ; the mortar being picked out 
 little by little and then the bricks one by one. Access was 
 had through that hole into the east cellar by means of a long 
 rope ; short sticks being knotted into it, to serve as a ladder. 
 After reaching the east cellar, the working party sank a shaft 
 to get below the foundations of the east wall, then cut away 
 the spiles supporting the foundations, and then burrowed out 
 the tunnel, which led through a gravelly and hard-pan soil,, 
 and was, when completed, about sixty-three feet long, and 
 twenty-two inches by twenty-four in diameter. It was carried 
 by an easy grade toward the surface, until it found its exit 
 under the shed before described. During the first few weeks 
 the work was carried on by night, but later, urgency required 
 a few of the party to remain in the cellar, and work by day. 
 The dirt scooped out was placed under piles of loose straw, 
 which abounded in large quantities at the back or north end 
 of the cellar. 
 
 The success of this whole plan, wonderful as it was for in- 
 genuity of design as well as pluck and perseverance in execu- 
 tion, was attributable to the fact that the north end of the east 
 cellar from which the tunnel led, was not used, and was but 
 rarely visited by any of the rebel officers or guards. It was a 
 dark, noisome place, partly filled with straw and abounding in 
 rats, while the south end of the cellar, which had a stairway 
 leading from the hospital above, and a doorway opening on the 
 street in the rear of the prison, was used by the officials as a 
 temporary morgue for dead Union soldiers brought from the 
 hospital above. So there was little occasion for the jailers to 
 go back into the dark northerly end of that cellar, from which 
 the tunnel led. 
 
 Although only a few remained in the cellar to prosecute 
 the work by day, it was necessary for their confederates in the 
 room above to deceive the rebel officials, so that whenever 
 a count was made it would show the same number present 
 each morning. 
 
 This was done by a process of what we called " repeating," 
 
82 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 which was a plan whereby some of the comrades in the tunnel 
 secret would get counted twice or more. But sometimes 
 this plan did not work, and then there was fun. 
 
 " Fall in, yer Yanks, in four rows," had been the usual order 
 for the roll-call, when conducted by little Ross, the prison 
 clerk, and for a time repeating was done by dropping out from 
 the right of the line after being counted and falling in again 
 on the left to be again counted. But this being at some times 
 impossible without detection, the result was that the total 
 number counted might vary somewhat from day to day. 
 
 When this occurred, Ross would get fearfully exasperated, 
 and his inability to make a correct count would seem at times 
 likely to dethrone his reason. On one occasion, having counted 
 and recounted the column perhaps a dozen times, with a 
 change each time in the result, he broke out with the cry, 
 ** Now I am suah there is more than a dozen of you damn 
 Yanks yer, who aint yer." At this sally, there was a roar of 
 laughter from the prisoners that shook the rafters. 
 
 This trick being discovered. Major Turner devised the plan 
 of driving the prisoners from the east room on the second 
 floor to the middle room on the same floor, counting them as 
 they passed through the doorway. But the boys were more 
 than equal to the occasion, for some of them, ascending to the 
 third floor and thence out through a scuttle hole on to the 
 roof over the middle section, would come down again through 
 another scuttle hole in the roof over the east section, and, 
 passing again through the same doorway, would be again 
 counted. If I mistake not, this device was never discovered, 
 at least not prior to the time of the escape, and subsequently 
 it was abandoned. 
 
 When you visit Libby at Chicago, and go onto the top 
 floor you can see the veritable scuttle holes, over what 
 are now, as the prison stands, the north and the middle 
 rooms. 
 
 In Richmond the prison stood facing the north, but as it 
 now stands facing the west, what was in our day the east end, 
 is now the north end. So that at Chicago you will find the 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 83 
 
 entrance to the tunnel in the northerly side of the present 
 north cellar. 
 
 The original plan was to have about one hundred and 
 fifty go out the first night in squads of ten to fifteen and 
 the tunnel was then to be closed at both ends, so that 
 another party could take leave on future occasions if prac- 
 ticable. But a notion that the jailers were getting suspi- 
 cious, led to the flight a night or two earlier than originally 
 planned. This led to disorder in the whole arrangement, 
 so that after a few of the working party had made their 
 way out, others who knew of the scheme seized the oppor- 
 tunity, and it became practically a strife between seventy-five 
 and one hundred of us, to see if we could force our way out 
 and who could get out first. As one of this crowd that had 
 gathered in the kitchen from the lodging rooms above, I was 
 pushing and squeezing forward and was pushed and squeezed 
 very slowly, towards the hole in the fireplace. It was long 
 after " taps," but before midnight, when an alarm was shouted 
 from the stairway to indicate that the guard was coming into 
 the prison. This proved to be a false alarm, but it caused a 
 fearful racket and a scattering of many from the cookroom, 
 toward the stairway, and thence up the stairs; the rush in the 
 darkness being accompanied by much stumbling and falling 
 upon or over the stoves, stove-pipes, tables, or benches that 
 crowded the room, or over the prostrate forms of other com- 
 rades, for some of the comrades, including myself, had dropped 
 upon the floor, and there we lay for a time to await develop- 
 ments. The suspicion of the guards, wonderful to tell, seemed 
 not to be excited by such a tremendous midnight episode, noisy 
 as it was, so that within half an hour those of us remaining in 
 the cookroom roused up one by one, and began again to crowd 
 toward the hole in the chimney, and work down through it 
 feet foremost into the cellar. I crawled through that sufl"ocat- 
 ing underground hole at about 2 A.M., and being joined in the 
 shed by the comrade who emerged next in order from the hole 
 (Lieutenant Pierce), we passed through the yard, and thence 
 over the gangway of the warehouses to the doorway opening 
 
84 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 into the street in the rear. There we stood for a brief moment^ 
 watching and waiting until the sentinel who paced the beat at 
 the rear of the prison should face about and retrace his steps. 
 As he turned to the westward we crept along stealthily under 
 the shadow of the warehouses in the opposite direction, until 
 turning the first corner and going north, we were at length at 
 large in the public streets. 
 
 We took an easterly course toward the Chickahominy, avoid- 
 ing the highway to Bottoms Bridge, because of the risk of be- 
 ing intercepted by rebel pickets, and keeping the way for the 
 most part, through woods or thickets, and sometimes through 
 swamps. 
 
 Being exhausted the next morning, and much too weak ta 
 attempt then to cross the Chickahominy River, we put back 
 shortly after daylight to a point perhaps a mile and a half to 
 the west of the river, and there got into a dense thicket of 
 scrub pines where we sought a place for rest and hiding, under 
 a low and wide-spreading tree. 
 
 Shortly after noon we were aroused from sleep to look into 
 the muzzle of an old-fashioned Colt's revolver held by a Con- 
 federate scout, who ordered us out and put us on the march 
 before him. Unarmed, and enfeebled by long imprisonment we 
 could not very well resist, and were thus led southward to the 
 highway leading to Richmond. There we came up with a party 
 of about thirty others who had been recaptured in much the 
 same way, and being put in charge of a band of troopers at about 
 nightfall we again beheld the grimy face of grim old Libby. 
 
 As we stood upon the pavement of Carey Street and gazed 
 up at our late comrades peering out at us through the bars, it 
 was indeed a gloomy, heart-sickening moment. At the first 
 entrance to that dungeon, what might be in store for us was. 
 only conjecture, but at this, our second entrance, we knew that 
 a slow process of starvation awaited us, for we knew that we 
 must again struggle from day to day, to preserve health and 
 life without food or drink sufficiently nourishing to aid us in 
 the struggle, and it was a prospect gloomy enough to appall 
 any one ! 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 85 
 
 It seems as if the sense of humor would not desert some 
 men, even when in the jaws of death, so to speak. 
 
 This was illustrated in our case in a very pointed way when 
 some of the boys at the barred windows overhead, shouted out 
 at us, " Fresh fish ! Fresh fish ! When were you captured ? " 
 
 How were you captured ? " I told you so," etc. From the 
 street we were conducted to the middle cellar, and there placed 
 in cells, and others recaptured during the next three days were 
 put with us, bringing up the number to about fifty. Each cell 
 was about ten feet by twelve in size and was partitioned off 
 with boards from the cellar proper, and had no light except 
 such as was derived from the dark cellar, through a small hole 
 in the door ; they were veritable dungeons. Here to the num- 
 ber of about a dozen in a cell, we sat and slept upon the damp 
 ground of the cellar bottom, rendered peculiarly damp and 
 mouldy, because the cellar was subject at times to overflow 
 from the canal, which ran about sixty feet distant from the 
 rear of the prison. At the end of a week we were restored to 
 former privileges ; that is to say, to the parlor floor above. 
 During the incarceration in the cells, rations were even more 
 meagre than usual, as each of us had but one loaf per day of 
 hard corn-bread, and this, with muddy water from the James 
 River, constituted the entire supply of food and drink. 
 
 On horror's head, horrors accumulate/* In March, 1864, 
 at the time of the Kilpatrick and Dahlgren raid on Richmond, 
 when the latter was killed. Major Turner provided us with 
 two sleepless, nerve-trying nights, by advising us that the 
 prison had been mined with kegs of powder placed in the 
 cellar, and that should any attempt be made to escape, when 
 the Union cavalry force assaulted the town (as it was believed 
 that it would do), the prisoners should go out by way of the roof. 
 
 Confederate records discovered since the war have dis- 
 closed that he told the truth as to the mining business. 
 
 Several officers captured on this raid, were placed in close 
 confinement for two months, in cells built in the cook-room ; 
 some colored soldiers captured from our army being confined 
 with them. 
 
86 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 In April, 1864, through the intervention of friends, I was 
 one of about twenty officers chosen to be sent north in ex- 
 change for a like number of rebel officers brought up to Fort 
 Darling (near Richmond) by the flag-of-truce boat. We de- 
 scended to the first floor and had all signed the parole, when 
 little Ross, the prison clerk, came out of the office announcing 
 that " Major Turner says that all you 'uns who was in yer 
 tunnel business can't go nohow, and must get back out of 
 yer to your quarters." Of the three unfortunates then returned 
 to the lodging rooms above, I was one. To be thus deprived 
 of libert)r, when it was almost within grasp, was a renewed 
 disappointment, too keen for description. 
 
 At about this time General John Morgan, the rebel cavalry 
 leader who had escaped from confinement at Columbus, Ohio 
 (where he was confined after capture upon his raid through 
 Ohio), visited Libby, and we listened to his vivid account 
 of his escape and adventures before he regained the rebel 
 lines in Tennessee. 
 
 It was not an unusual thing for rebel officers of rank to stroll 
 through the rooms of the prison under escort of some of the 
 prison officials, but as a rule they had little to say. 
 
 The prison was not visited during my imprisonment, that 
 I was aware of, either by Jeff. Davis or by any of his Cabinet, 
 or by General Winder, the official who was chief in charge of 
 the prisoners, nor by Mr. Ould, the Commissioner for Exchange 
 of Prisoners. I saw President Davis, however, on several occa- 
 sions driving past the prison in a one-horse Jersey wagon, 
 accompanied by members of his family, on his way to the 
 steamboat at " Rocketts," a landing place on the James River, 
 a little below, or to the east of, Libby. I have his appear- 
 ance in my mind's eye at this moment. He sat very erect 
 upon the front seat, wore a high silk hat and high collar, and 
 drove along in a leisurely way with an old plug of a horse, but 
 never so much as cast an eye toward the prison, to see how his 
 wards were getting along. 
 
 Before dawn on the second day of May, the rebel sergeant 
 shouted through the prison, " Pack up, all ye Yanks, and fall in 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 8/ 
 
 to go south." We were shortly marched out to the railroad 
 depot, and there packed into box freight cars, and shipped to 
 Danville, Va. There we remained five days, quartered in some 
 old cotton warehouses, and from thence were marched on foot 
 about twenty-five miles to Greensboro, N. C. The day was 
 very stormy and the pathway a very muddy one, being part of 
 the way upon a newly built embankment for a railroad to 
 connect Danville, Va., with Greensboro, N. C. 
 
 The fact that a gap of that length was permitted to remain 
 till May, 1864, in a trunk railroad line between Richmond and 
 the south, in fact the most direct route for bringing troops 
 and supplies to Richmond, affords a good idea of the lack of 
 business methods that prevailed in the rebel quartermasters' 
 department. 
 
 Arriving at Macon, Georgia, we were put into an enclosure 
 of about one and a half acres that had been set off from an 
 old State fair grounds by a high board fence, or stockade. A 
 stream of water crossed its lower end, and a low picket fence, 
 about ten feet inside the stockade, served as a dead line, so 
 called. 
 
 About seventy-five ofificers had preceded us to this place, 
 who had been captured in April at Plymouth in eastern North 
 Carolina. 
 
 At about this time, also, our bo5^s to the number of about ten 
 thousand were sent down from Belle Isle at Richmond, where 
 they had spent the winter, to Andersonville, Georgia, located 
 about seventy-five miles to the southwest of Macon. Within 
 our stockade were rough sheds consisting mainly of a roof, 
 with two or three widths of siding tacked on to the supporting 
 posts, near to the roof. These afforded some shelter when the 
 storms were directly overhead, but none to speak of against 
 driving storms of wind and rain, when we suffered greatly. 
 Under these sheds we constructed rough bunks of boards, 
 raised from the ground upon short stakes. Beneath the floor 
 timbers of an old structure standing within this stockade was 
 a space about three feet in height, where for the first few days 
 some of the ofificers found lodgings, and there, to afford more 
 
88 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 room vertically, they burrowed out long grave-shaped trenches, 
 having slopes leading down into them from the surface of the 
 ground at the sides of the building. 
 
 By the aid of these sloping trenches they could get under 
 the sills supporting the sides of the building, and once under- 
 neath they would use the ground at either side of the trenches 
 for bedroom at night and as sitting-places by day ; the trenches 
 serving for leg and foot room. But at the first hard storm the 
 trenches became full of water, and the human rats being thus 
 drowned out, they forsook the trenches and sought for spare 
 lodgings in the sheds. 
 
 Two tunnels, a large and a small one, were soon under way, 
 entrance shafts thereto being opened under bunks in the sheds, 
 the work of digging being zealously pushed at night, and the 
 entrance ways being covered up by day ; the earth therefrom 
 being taken in bags by night, to the stream at the foot of the 
 grounds. A party of ten, to which I belonged, worked at the 
 smaller of the two tunnels, which was designed to be about 
 thirty feet long. It was near completion, when the existence 
 of both becoming known to Captain Davis, the rebel official in 
 charge, he one morning sent in a guard, drove the prisoners to 
 a rem.ote corner of the stockade, and bringing in a squad of men 
 with picks and shovels caused the shafts of both tunnels to be 
 filled up. On entering the stockade he led the squad directly 
 to the entrance of both tunnels, indicating that he knew the 
 precise location, and that we had been " betrayed in the house 
 of our friends." 
 
 A cavalry officer was paroled shortly after, to whom this 
 treachery was generally attributed. His parole probably saved 
 his neck, as suspicion had already been excited respecting him. 
 He was a native of Missouri but a member of an Illinois cav- 
 alry regiment. 
 
 Captain Powell, of the 146th New York, and myself made 
 little ladders, loosened some pickets, and watched for a chance 
 to get through the fence, or dead line, and to scale the stock- 
 ade, but the guards were too vigilant for us. 
 
 The Captain (afterwards Major Powell) has lately written a 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 89 
 
 letter which is attached to this paper, referring to this attempt, 
 and also to my escape from the column a few weeks later, when 
 the prisoners were marched out from the Macon stockade. 
 
 Some malicious shooting was done ; a lieutenant from New 
 York being killed, and several others wounded, for touching or 
 approaching the picket fence. In the case of the lieutenant, 
 he had washed his clothes at the stream, and hung some of 
 them upon the picket fence, when a sentinel without provoca- 
 tion shot him dead. 
 
 Fourth of July was celebrated with speeches and songs, one 
 officer producing and waving a tiny United States flag. This 
 ceremony the rebs threatened to interfere with, but we per- 
 severed and gave them some hearty Union songs. 
 
 Fifty officers were sent from Macon to Charleston, and 
 placed under range of our shells there, in hopes that it would 
 compel Uncle Sam to forego shelling that city, — but this seem- 
 ing misfortune proved to be a blessing in disguise, for we 
 learned that the party was shortly after specially exchanged in 
 return for a like number of rebels. 
 
 A committee came to Macon from the boys at Anderson- 
 ville prison early in July, 1864, and they with many of the offi- 
 cers joined in a petition, which was sent to President Lincoln, set 
 ting forth their condition and our own, and praying in the name 
 of God and Humanity for immediate exchange, but it was never 
 heard from. Another special object of this visit of the boys, was 
 to take counsel with the officers regarding the punishment of 
 certain bad ones among the boys at Andersonville, who were 
 robbing and maltreating their comrades, and General Winder 
 was said to have permitted the visit for this special purpose. 
 
 ** Fresh fish " were constantly arriving from our army in 
 Virginia, from Sherman's army then north of Atlanta, and 
 from other points along the contending lines, some even from 
 Louisiana, so that the number of prisoners at Macon on the 28th 
 of July, 1864, reached upwards of seventeen hundred, all com- 
 missioned officers. The fact that so many Union officers were 
 ever held as prisoners at any one time has invariably excited 
 surprise, when stated, but it is not tlic less a fact. Indeed, the 
 
go 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 number increased from that time on, and was somewhat larger 
 when we were removed to Charleston, and rose to upwards of 
 eighteen hundred early in October, 1864, when we reached 
 Columbia, S. C. 
 
 Because of rumors that a cavalry force was coming from 
 Sherman's army, six hundred ofificers were on the night of the 
 27th of July marched out of the stockade at Macon, through 
 the city streets, to the railroad station, and thence were sent in 
 box freight cars to Savannah, and a similar party was brought 
 out the next night, for the same destination. Captain Powell 
 and myself were in this latter party. 
 
 Passing along in column of fours with Captain Powell and 
 other friends, through a densely shaded street, and noting a 
 want of vigilance on the part of the old men and boys acting 
 as guards, who walked at each side of the column at irregular 
 intervals of from twenty to forty feet, I skipped from the col- 
 umn, at first to a place behind one of the large trees at the side 
 of the road, then across the sidewalk and over the fence, and 
 then through gardens and dooryards to the next street. 
 
 It was a mystery, as Captain Powell says, that I was not 
 fired upon, but it must remain so, for I can't explain it. 
 
 With an old slouch hat, the original top replaced with a 
 piece of bagging, and a blanket pinned with a stick that served 
 to conceal my blue coat, I made a presentable regulation rebel, 
 well disguised, except for the blue pants, which however were 
 faded, ragged, and dirty. 
 
 A lead-pencil tracing of a map of Georgia, a diary and 
 pencil, and a few hard tack, baked in anticipation of escape 
 through the tunnel, comprised my entire possessions, except a 
 stern determination, if Providence would permit, to reach the 
 Union lines, which were then on the Chattahoochee, south- 
 west of Atlanta, and about seventy-five miles distant. 
 
 At Vineville, at the north end of Macon, I passed a group 
 of hospital tents, where the attendants were moving about with 
 lights, some of them torches of pitch pine. These torches, 
 flaring here and there in the darkness, seemed to my excited 
 nerves to have an unearthly glare, as if borne by demons just 
 up from the pit. 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 9I 
 
 A little farther out, but a little in advance of me, I dis- 
 covered guards picketing the highway, who were so stationed 
 evidently in anticipation of a raid from Stoneman's cavalry. 
 I came near running right up to them, but discovered them in 
 time to make a detour through the fields. 
 
 Tramping mostly by night and keeping the woods by day, I 
 was watchful at all points where roads intersected, and also at 
 bridges, and took special care to avoid passing through settle- 
 ments, usually going entirely around a settlement by the fields 
 or woods, rather than run the risk of meeting anyone on the 
 highway. 
 
 The season was dry and water very scarce. Once at about 
 midnight when I was thirsty beyond endurance, I climbed over 
 into a tank that stood upon a high platform at a railway sta- 
 tion, in which I found but little water, and that very stale, but 
 I took deep drafts of it, foul as it was. It was with great diffi- 
 culty that I got out of the tank, and succeeded in doing so only 
 by finding a place where I got a bearing for the toe of my foot. 
 For a few moments when standing in the water in that tank, I 
 thought the game was up ! The water was so nauseous that I 
 became deathly sick shortly after, and had not only to forego 
 marching but lay by in the woods for the rest of the night, and 
 the better part of the next day, having no food but dry crack- 
 ers and no water. 
 
 My course was at first northwesterly toward Atlanta along 
 the line of the Georgia railroad and near to Barnesville and For- 
 syth, but from north of the latter place I took a more westerly 
 course, along or near a highway leading westerly from Griffin 
 towards Noonan, Georgia, to and across the Chattahoochee 
 River. Before leaving Macon, I had learned that cavalry from 
 Sherman's army was stationed at the fords along the right 
 bank of the Chattahoochee, for twenty to thirty miles below, or 
 to the southwest of, Atlanta ; and my purpose was to reach and 
 cross the river, and find the cavalry. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fourth or fifth day out from Macon, 
 I was aroused from my sleep by a white man driving two cows 
 out of the wood, but as he seemed to be about as much fright- 
 
92 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 ened as I was, we got together and had a talk. He claimed to 
 be a Union man, and said that he had been pressed into the 
 rebel service for a time, but got out because of disability. We 
 finally struck a bargain, whereby he was to give me a rebel 
 jacket, something to eat, and $25 in Confederacy currency, in 
 exchange for my blue officer's coat, to which he took a fancy, 
 although it was worn quite threadbare. I was suspicious of 
 him, but went with him to the edge of the " clarin," where I 
 watched him while he went to his house and returned with the 
 goods. The jacket proved to be a dangerous acquisition. The 
 same day I sat down and wrote with a pencil, on a slip of paper 
 from my diary, what purported to be a furlough to a rebel 
 soldier who had been an inmate of a hospital at Griffin, which, 
 as I learned from the man who got my blue coat, was a place 
 near by, to which the sick and wounded from Hood's army at 
 Atlanta were brought for treatment. 
 
 At about six o'clock in the morning of the next day, having 
 kept the highway till too late an hour (in haste to reach the 
 Chattahoochee River, then about ten miles distant to the west), 
 a rear scout of three, one of whom was a commissary sergeant 
 came riding towards me from the west, around a bend in the 
 road ; and the road being fenced, with cleared fields at each 
 side, there was no chance to avoid them. I pleaded that I was 
 a soldier on furlough. They asked me for my " showance," 
 and remarked that the surgeon was a damn fool to write a 
 showance with a lead pencil. Another noted my blue pants, 
 and said, " You all aint none of we uns. Peers like yer one of 
 these Yankee spies, got over the river yer, and lost yer horse," 
 and he proposed to hang me to a tree, to make me disclose who 
 I was. The sergeant made a suggestion more acceptable to me, 
 and said that he would take me to the captain, who it seemed 
 was with the company a few miles distant back toward Griffin. 
 His view prevailed, and I mounted his horse behind him ex- 
 plaining to him on the way who I was. 
 
 Coming up with the company, and accepting a temporary 
 parole, I joined its officers in a square meal at a farmhouse. A 
 large bowl of apple butter, and piles of good corn-bread, smok- 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 93 
 
 ing hot, loom up to mind to-day as the big features of that 
 delicious, not-to-be-forgotten — meal, the first veritable square 
 meal for over a year. 
 
 Arriving at Griffin and parole withdrawn, I was placed that 
 night with a party of rebel deserters held as prisoners, on the 
 second floor of a small dwelling then used as a guard-house ; 
 one guard constantly in the room, and others below at the 
 entrance. 
 
 One of the guards who came on duty in the guard-room 
 getting to sleep after midnight, I made an attempt to drop 
 from a side window, but was detected and thrust forcibly back 
 to my bench, and the next day I was sent back by rail under 
 guard to Macon, leaving Griffin quite full of sick and wounded 
 rebels, from the battles at Atlanta. 
 
 Arriving at the stockade, I gave Captain Davis the most 
 entertaining description possible regarding the escape, to get 
 him in good humor, lest, instead of being returned to the 
 stockade he might order me to be lodged in the local jail, a 
 kind of afterclap not infrequent upon recapture, but one much 
 to be dreaded. The danger of being lodged in some local jail, if 
 recaptured, was one of the things that deterred many from 
 making any attempt to escape, on the principle of " Better let 
 well enough alone." 
 
 Returning to the stockade, I found that the remainder of 
 its former occupants, except a few hospital rats," had also 
 been sent on to Savannah or Charleston. 
 
 It is not kind to speak of our sick or convalescing comrades 
 in such a way, but it was common to the prison vernacular, 
 and it is used here for that reason. 
 
 General Stoneman, and about forty officers of his command 
 who had been captured near Macon two or three days before 
 (while on a raid designed for the release of the officers from 
 Macon and the boys from Andersonville), were among the new 
 arrivals, and being well dressed and in vigorous health and 
 good spirits, were quite a contrast to the few dirty and ragged 
 ** old fish " present to greet them. 
 
 This little party of " old fish " and " fresh fish " was de- 
 
94 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 spatched from Macon about the I2th of August to Charleston, 
 by the usual freight-car method — guards at the side doors and 
 on the top. 
 
 There we were placed in the " Penitentiary " adjoining the 
 burned district, and there we found that the seventeen hundred 
 officers who had preceded us from Macon by way of Savannah 
 two or three weeks before were already in occupation, and that 
 they filled to repletion the Penitentiary," the adjacent Nig- 
 ger Jail," and the " Roper " and " Marine Hospital " buildings ; 
 and that the fifty officers who had been first to leave Macon 
 for Charleston six weeks before had meanwhile been specially 
 exchanged. 
 
 During our six weeks' stay at Charleston the booming of 
 the Swamp Angel " and other big guns of the Yankee bat- 
 teries on Morris Island, and the singing of the big shells through 
 the air, with the noises when bursting, and the crash and rattle 
 of the fragments as they struck in the town, relieved the nights 
 from monotony. 
 
 Late in September yellow fever prevailed in the city, and 
 invaded the prisons, about ten officers from our building having 
 been removed to hospitals and on the 4th of October Captain 
 Grier, the rebel officer in charge, fell a victim, so at the demand 
 of the citizens the prisoners were all despatched by rail to 
 Columbia, S. C. Arriving there, we were placed under a 
 strong guard in an open field about two miles west of the 
 city, near the Saluda River, the field being bordered on the 
 south by a piece of woods. 
 
 The story of my third, and successful attempt at escape 
 deserves treatment in a separate paper to do it justice, as the 
 thirty-four days' journey we took from the prison pen at " Old 
 Camp Sorghum," Columbia, to the Union lines in Tennessee, 
 were brimful of thrilling incidents, escaping recapture as we 
 did on two occasions only by most merciful providences. Of 
 this escape, I will give but a brief outline. 
 
 I premise with the statement that about eighteen hundred 
 Union officers were then confined at Old Camp Sorghum at Co- 
 lumbia, S. C, and that our party of five was the first to escape 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 95 
 
 from that prison, and that the total number who escaped 
 from there subsequently, and prior to the spring of 1865, 
 when the officers were taken from Columbia to Wilmington, 
 N. C, for final exchange, was about fifty. 
 
 Lieutenant George S. Hastings of the 23d New York Bat- 
 tery, a long-time friend of mine, and three officers of the 85th 
 New York Volunteers, all four of whom were comparatively 
 fresh fish " (as they had been captured at Plymouth, N. C, in 
 the April previous), together with the writer, an " old fish," 
 lay out for several nights near to the dead line at a point 
 opposite and near to a piece of woods, watching for an oppor- 
 tunity to cross the dead line and guard line. 
 
 The others had money, and with it had purchased of the 
 sutler some corn-meal, salt, and matches, and of a friendly 
 darky, some garlic and a bottle of turpentine. The dead line 
 was marked by a row of stakes and was about thirty feet inside 
 the line for the guards, who were stationed less than one hun- 
 dred feet apart. On the fourth night the guards built little fires, 
 and we took note of the fact that gazing at the fire had the effect 
 of making the surrounding darkness seem more dense. Occa- 
 sionally they halted at the fires to converse. Seizing the 
 opportunity presented when two guards were conversing at 
 one of the fires, and another was sitting at the next, and moved 
 by a common impulse, we crouched down, and stealthily 
 crossed the space between the dead line and guard line, cross- 
 ing the latter about midway between the fires, and thence 
 crept forward into the woods. That we were not detected, or 
 heard, or fired upon, was something little short of miraculous. 
 
 Losing our bearings, we made but little progress that night, 
 and lay in the woods next day at a point dangerously near, 
 for we could hear the music of the guard mounting at the 
 camp. 
 
 We trusted to friends in camp, by the process of repeating 
 at roll-call, to keep our exit from the knowledge of the jailers. 
 
 Avoiding the highways, wc struck off next night in a north- 
 westerly direction, following the general course of the Saluda 
 River. Having stopped to dig at a sweet-potato patch, and 
 
96 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 going perhaps two miles beyond, we heard behind us the yelp- 
 ing of dogs, and were soon convinced that we were followed. 
 Then began a race for life and liberty for five or six miles,, 
 dashing through the woods and brush and crossing ravines and 
 streams. 
 
 Finally, the dogs gaining rapidly upon us, we struck a broad 
 " clarin '* used as a ^cornfield, where the corn stood in stacks. 
 Here we put turpentine and garlic on our pants and shoes, and 
 on the far side of this clarin " we fortunately struck a deep 
 stream, bordered beyond by dense woods. This we crossed 
 in water waist deep, and plunged into the woods. At or 
 about the stream the dogs entirely lost the trail, as we soon 
 became convinced by a loud chorus of disappointed yelping, 
 that gradually became less and less distinct as we advanced, 
 and pushing forward for two or three miles farther, the whole 
 party sank to the ground completely exhausted. 
 
 We kept the trail at night, lying by during the day, and as 
 hunger and privation did not entirely extinguish the spark of 
 sentiment and romance within us, we attached to each day 
 camp some appropriate name, symbolic to some extent of our 
 special experiences there. 
 
 So, on the third day out, having encountered a tall lean white 
 woman, by name Mrs. Cook, with two daughters still more 
 attenuated, who were gathering corn in a field near by (the 
 old lady promising out of sympathy not to betray us, as she 
 had two darling boys in the rebel army, who might get into 
 like danger), we called that spot " Camp Cook." 
 
 The next was Camp Saluda," and the next " Scrub Oak 
 Camp," and the next about fifty miles from Columbia, where 
 we secured sweet potatoes, and where we had a fine bath and 
 a good rest, we termed Camp Repose." 
 
 The next camp near to the railroad leading to Greenville 
 we called Railroad Camp," and the next, where we found 
 Uncle Charles, who supplied us at nightfall with corn-bread, 
 bacon, and a bottle of sorghum (with our blessings upon the 
 old darky), we called Camp Mercy." 
 
 A camp in a thicket was " Camp Laurel," and another 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 97 
 
 near the railroad leading from Columbia to Greenville we 
 called " Camp 98/' it being not far from a station of that 
 name. Near there I had the great misfortune to lose a diary 
 containing daily notes of a year-and-ten-months* camp and 
 prison service; the record of the ten months of 1864 being 
 written across the pages of the record for the previous year. 
 
 So on, from point to point, skirting Greenville, we ap- 
 proached Jones's pass, which is a very deep defile through the 
 Blue Ridge, made by a stream which, flowing southeasterly 
 through the mountains into South Carolina, from the higher 
 tablelands of North Carolina joins the Saluda at a point near 
 Greenville, S. C. 
 
 A merciful Providence again protected us at this point, for 
 exhausted we turned into the woods long before night, whereas, 
 had we gone but a few rods farther, we would have come upon 
 a group of men acting as sentries at a picket post, guarding 
 the entrance to that deep defile. 
 
 We had just fallen into a deep sleep when we were quickly 
 roused by hearing distinctly and quite near to us the loud call : 
 " Corporal of the guard. Post No. i." 
 
 Startled beyond expression, we picked up our duds and 
 crept back into the woods, where we shortly afterwards fell in 
 with Uncle John Turner," a free colored man, who supplied 
 us with provisions, and the next night, under his guidance, we 
 made a big circuit of that picket post and struck up into the 
 pass. This, our last stop in South Carolina, we called Camp 
 Deliverance." It was a dangerous and long defile, and we 
 dreaded lest we should be intercepted, for once in it, there 
 was no way out except to go clear through, as we did, without 
 any adventure except a terrific storm of rain. The pass was 
 so lengthy and the situation so perilous, because of the pre- 
 cipitous walls that precluded any escape by its sides, that we 
 held a council of war, with the result that two voted to go 
 back and find another way, and three to go on, so we pro- 
 ceeded, and travelling partly by day, we reached higher ground 
 in North Carolina the next evening. 
 
 Here, having a rebel jacket, I acted as scout for the party, 
 7 
 
98 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 and in quest of information followed a light into the woods, 
 where I discovered in a low hovel a white woman and three 
 or four daughters, living in the very depths of destitution ; the 
 only food in the place being corn on the ear, and two stones on 
 the hearth their only means for grinding or crushing it. 
 
 In the guise of a rebel soldier home on furlough, I learned 
 from them the route to the house of Uncle Billy Case," a 
 white man, whom " Uncle John Turner " had described to us 
 as " a froo Union man, who libs a right smart walk fro' the 
 mouf of de pass, way up yer on de mountain-side, in Norf 
 Carolina." " I knowed him," he said, from way back afo' de 
 war." And I learned from the women also that we would 
 meet with a picket post a right smart bit down de road, 
 whar de road splits up, and whar de fire is." 
 
 Trudging along through the storm we found the picket 
 post at the crossroads sure enough, the men sitting at the 
 door of a shanty, around a low fire ; and giving it a wide range 
 we pressed on several miles till we reached Uncle Case's. 
 Learning who we were, he roused his wife, little son, and two 
 colored women, put up blankets at the windows, and the boy 
 outside as sentry, and we had a sumptuous meal. Under the 
 guidance of the lad we trudged on that night, still in the storm, 
 and upon a miry road, at many points intersected and flooded 
 by a bordering stream, till we brought up at daylight at the 
 home of a Union woman, whose husband was serving as a con- 
 script in the rebel army, but who had two faithful blacks at 
 home. They led us to a secluded den in the woods on the 
 mountain-side, and supplied us with food, and there we lay for 
 the day. During the day we had a near view of a squad of 
 rebel cavalry that rode up to the house and barns in quest of 
 forage, and had a visit at our den from a Union white man, 
 well armed, who was lying out in the mountains, fearing for 
 his life if he remained at home. 
 
 Next night the two blacks led us on by by-paths and mount- 
 ain-trails till we reached, just before daylight, a house away up 
 in a ** clarin' " in a bowl on the wooded mountain-side, where 
 lived Uncle Bob Hamilton, late Sheriff of Transylvania County. 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 99 
 
 On the way there, and to obtain a brief shelter from the driv- 
 ing storm, our guides led us up by a narrow mountain-trail to a 
 hut in a gulch, where a few colored people had gathered who 
 had been apprised of our coming. It was lighted with a single 
 tallow dip, and with the storm roaring without and the dim 
 light within, it seemed indeed a ghostly place. As soon as we 
 arrived they fell to praying, and prayed *' dat de good Lord 
 might see dese blessed Yankees safe, all de way froo, to de 
 promised land of freedom." " Uncle Bob " was tall and gaunt 
 in stature and big of heart, and his text-books were the Bible 
 and a worn copy of the History of the United States. At the 
 close of the war we sent " Uncle Bob," God bless him, a goodly 
 box of things needful for body and mind. 
 
 After five days here, lying in a cove in the mountain by 
 day, and for meals going to and from the house by night, and 
 our sojourn being enlivened by a supper party at Sherifif 
 Neals, two miles away (when Neals's family caught their first 
 sight of genuine Yankees, the women admitting that they had 
 verily believed we had horns), we started to cross the Alle- 
 ghanies towards Knoxville, Tenn. 
 
 Strange to relate, another party of five, officers of Pennsyl- 
 vania and New York troops, that had escaped from the cars 
 while en route from Charleston to Columbia, was brought over 
 to us from Buncombe, the adjoining county, coming by what 
 was called down there the underground road," but in fact 
 by abandoned trails along near the tops of the mountains and 
 mountain ridges. This party had struck directly north into 
 North Carolina from the point of escape on the railroad in 
 South Carolina, and had made their journey mostly in North 
 Carolina, and had met with fewer obstacles than we did. We 
 were also joined by a nondescript party of nineteen and a 
 guide, some of them Union men and others deserters from the 
 rebel army, who had been lying out in the neighboring mount- 
 ains, and they eagerly caught at the chance of getting through 
 with us to our lines. Five or six of this party were indiffer- 
 ently armed, but their presence with us heightened the danger. 
 
 A home guard of rebel militia got after us as we were leav- 
 
100 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 ing the Mills River valley, near Ashville, wounded one of those 
 with us and captured him with two others, but the rest of us, 
 striking at once up the wooded side of the mountain, and avoid- 
 ing all trails, by the aid of favoring darkness and a drenching 
 storm, eluded pursuit. The guide proved of little service, as 
 our presence in the mountains being known, to avoid being 
 intercepted we left the main trails and followed chiefly the 
 leading ridges and obscure paths, remote from the valleys, and 
 around and near the peaks of the mountains. 
 
 For six days and nights we continued in the Alleghany 
 Mountains, without sight of a human being, before reaching 
 the low lands in Tennessee. It was a time of extreme hard- 
 ship, for the bread rations that we got at Hamilton's were soon 
 exhausted, having become soaked by the rain that prevailed 
 for the first few days, so that for the last three we subsisted 
 mainly on chestnuts. 
 
 One night, when far up above the line of vegetation on the 
 side of Mount Pisgah, and when it was too dark and dangerous 
 to advance, we lay with the rocks for a bed, and the storm and 
 water from the crags above poured down upon us in copious 
 and in continual streams, some of us wellnigh perishing with 
 cold. 
 
 Upon the loth of November, a clear day, and the very day 
 when Lincoln was elected President for the second term, we 
 stood upon the highest ridge of the Smoky Range," when a 
 vision of natural beauty burst upon us, hardly to be equalled 
 upon this side of the Rockies. The whole of eastern Tennessee 
 lay before us, its picturesque rolling lands, intersected by the 
 French Broad, the Holston, and the Big and Little Pigeon 
 rivers, all flowing on toward Knoxville and forming the Tenn- 
 essee; and across the broad valley and far beyond, the blue 
 mountains of the Cumberland Range loomed up toward the 
 sky, bounding on the north that expansive and beautiful terri- 
 tory known as the valley of the Tennessee; 
 
 We were not yet free from dangers, as bands of rebel 
 troopers ranged throughout all the low lands of that section, 
 but we now strode on rapidly, avoiding main highways, and 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. lOI 
 
 at all camping spots, whether by day or night, we threw out 
 pickets. 
 
 We passed en route a small party of armed Union men, 
 <ligging a grave for an aged Unionist, who had been shot by 
 rebel brigands at his own doorway, only the day before. 
 
 The deserters being still with us, we formed a ragged and 
 unsightly party, and the gravediggers, believing us to be another 
 band of rebel cut-throats, on our approach dropped their spades 
 and fled to the hills, armed as they were, and we only got 
 speech with them after a long parley, and by sending forward 
 one of our number as a truce maker. 
 
 On a Sabbath morning, just after light, and thirty-four days 
 out from prison, we reached Strawberry Plains, twenty miles 
 east of Knoxville ; the guards upon the work suspecting us to 
 be a party of Johnnies, not permitting us to approach till after 
 summoning their officers. 
 
 Here the hospitable 4th Michigan Cavalry spread for us, 
 under the trees, a royal repast ; and here and at Knoxville 
 some of the refugees of our party enlisted in the Union Army. 
 
 We rode on that night to Knoxville under cavalry escort, 
 and being the first prisoners who had arrived from the south by 
 the mountain route, we were received with much enthusiasm by 
 the citizens, and by the large Union force then in occupation. 
 Some of us then enjoyed a hotel table, a bath in a tub, and a 
 sleep between sheets, for the first time in nearly two years. 
 
 A famous writer speaks of Liberty, eternal spirit of the 
 chainless mind, [as] brightest in dungeons." We found her 
 brightest and best, as we felt her breath in the mountains, as 
 we looked over the green fields and smiling, sunny valleys of 
 East Tennessee, beckoning us on still nearer to our goal ; and 
 the keen sense of Liberty was still more intense, as we lay 
 upon the grassy slopes at Strawberry Plains, gazing upon that 
 brightest emblem of Liberty the whole world over, " The Star- 
 Spangled Banner." 
 
102 
 
 IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 
 
 76 Jefferson Ave. Grand Rapids, Mich., 
 May 2d, 1892. 
 
 Mr. Geo. H. Starr : 
 
 My Dear Friend : Your letter has come almost too late for a 
 reply. I have hardly ten minutes before it must be mailed, and can 
 of course say but little and that very hastily. 
 
 Twenty-eight years is a long time to remember details. But 
 some things were so burned into memory that all eternity will not 
 erase the scars. Among them are many prison horrors and incidents ; 
 and 1 will also add many examples of heroism on the part of fellow 
 prisoners. I well remember that old Macon stockade with its dead 
 line of picket fence, and its brass cannon looking hungrily down 
 upon us, and its guard, some of whom were proud to shoot an 
 unarmed Yankee, and our 4th of July celebration, the memory of 
 which even now makes my blood tingle. We made a flag of such old 
 rags as we could get hold of, fastened it to a stick, and the stick to 
 the top of a tree that stood in the midst of the grounds. Then all who 
 were able to stand, and some who were not, gathered about the tree ; 
 such speeches, such songs, such cheers as went up from that company 
 were worthy of the birthday of Liberty. 
 
 The commandant of the camp was angry and ordered the flag 
 down. He was told to take it down if he could or dared. He 
 called out his guards, shotted his brass guns, and once more ordered 
 the flag down. Not a man flinched, but dared him to take it down 
 or even make the attempt. It was not taken down, and for aught I 
 know, floats there still. 
 
 And I also well remember planning an escape with one Captain 
 Geo. H. Starr, an old college friend with pluck enough for any emer- 
 gency. We made a little ladder with which we proposed scaling the 
 high fence outside the dead lines some dark night, and slipping be- 
 tween the guards while on duty. We also loosened a number of pickets 
 on the dead line " so as to be able to pass it without delay. This 
 was done by prying them off at the bottom, and was accomplished 
 with great risk, for to touch that fence was to become a target. 
 
 This plan would surely have been attempted had not the discov- 
 ery of a tunnel dug with great toil been made, which resulted in an 
 increase of guards as well as of watchfulness. 
 
 Our attempt was also made impracticable by the removal of a 
 number of us to Charleston, S. C. While that removal was being 
 
IN AND OUT OF CONFEDERATE PRISONS. 103 
 
 made, or when we were being marched under guard from the stock- 
 ade to the cars, I well remember how you slipped out of the ranks 
 and in some unaccountable manner made your escape. Just how 
 you dared must be told by yourself, and just why you were not per- 
 forated with bullet and bayonet is an unexplained mystery. 
 
 But I must stop or lose the mail. Excuse haste. I have not a 
 moment to revise, or to express myself save in the most hasty man- 
 ner. In haste. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 1. P. Powell, 
 
 Maj. 146th, N. Y. V. 
 
THE NAVY IN THE BATTLES AND CAPTURE 
 OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 A Paper Read by Lieutenant-Commander James Parker, late U. S. Navy, 
 October 5, 1892. 
 
 "X^^HO of US can, or would, ever forget the storm of patri- 
 otic indignation that swept over the land on the 13th 
 of April, 1 86 1, when the news was published that, for the first 
 time in its history, the flag of the Union had been lowered 
 in shame, at the demand of those who should have remem- 
 bered Sergeant Jasper and been its stoutest defenders. 
 
 In a moment all distinction of party, all differences of opin- 
 ion, that had swayed us in the past, were swept away ; and 
 the whole North stood forth as one, in the determination to 
 put that flag back again. And there it floats^ where a re- 
 united people may almost see upon its glorious folds the 
 legend inscribed by the eloquence of Webster : " Liberty 
 and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 I was then a young fellow in Cincinnati, trying to make a 
 living at the law for myself, my wife, and three children. 
 
 I was, as I still am, an ardent Democrat in politics. I had 
 married a Virginia girl. But Uncle Sam, at his naval school, 
 had educated me to be one of his defenders in any such strait 
 as then confronted him. I had already served him in the 
 Mexican War as a midshipman, under that greatest of all naval 
 commanders — who has honored this Commandery of the Loyal 
 Legion as its presiding officer — David G. Farragut. 
 
 My duty was too plain to admit of doubt or delay ; and I 
 on that day (two days before President Lincoln's call for vol- 
 unteers) sent my offer to resume my old place as an officer of 
 
 104 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 10$ 
 
 the navy. When I went home to dinner I told my Virginia 
 wife what I had done. All her family, friends, and relatives 
 were in the South. We talked the matter over, and then, 
 after a short silence, she said : " Well, my husband, you have 
 done what you thought was right, and though all I love, ex- 
 cept you and the children, will be on the other side, do you 
 do your duty and I will do all I can to help you do it," and, 
 God bless her ! she faithfully kept her word. 
 
 And here let me speak a few words for those whose devo- 
 tion and self-sacrifice are so much a matter of course that I 
 fear they are not always rightly appreciated. 
 
 To us men, performance of duty brings little rending of 
 heart-strings. Ambition, excitement, patriotic impulses, carry 
 us on and support us. If we are called upon to make the last 
 sacrifice, 't is but a pang ere 't is over ; but the women, with 
 streaming eyes and anguished hearts, saw their husbands, 
 fathers, lovers, and brothers march away ; and they lived, dur- 
 ing their whole absence through those dreadful years, in a 
 constant agony of apprehension lest they should see the faces 
 of their loved ones no more in this life. The self-sacrifice, 
 great as it was, of the men is not to be compared to theirs ; 
 and I say God bless the mothers, sweethearts, wives, and 
 daughters who blessed us as we stepped to the front in those 
 days of doubt and fear, of alternating hopefulness and despair ! 
 
 In the fall of 1864, it was evident that the end of the Civil 
 War was at hand. In July, 1863, the battle of Gettysburg, and 
 the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson (which had opened 
 the Mississippi from " Cairo to the sea ") had stayed the flood- 
 tide of Confederate hope : there were a few moments of slack- 
 water (so to speak), during which the armies at the East rested 
 preparatory to the final struggle that the opening of 1864 was 
 sure to bring ; but the reverses which the Confederates had met 
 with all through the campaign of the latter year, at the West 
 as well as in the East, had turned the tide into full, strong ebb. 
 
 It is true that the Confederates claimed every great battle 
 of that year as a victory for their arms (and if there is any 
 comfort to them in that belief I shall not endeavor to deprive 
 
Io6 THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 them of it) ; but the fact remains that, whether victorious in 
 detail or not, the doomed Confederacy had at last been 
 brought to bay." 
 Grant and Meade with the " Army of the Potomac" gripped 
 Lee and his half-famished battalions, as in a vice, before 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Sherman, after beating and scattering all that remained of 
 the Confederate armies of the Southwest, was about to set out 
 upon his march of fire and destruction through Georgia and 
 the Carolinas, and Lee's veterans from those States felt a 
 double twinge of despair as they added to their own distress 
 the certainty that their wives and children would soon be with- 
 out shelter or food. 
 
 Ever since the battle of the Alma the military world has 
 gazed with admiration at the thin line of red that stood to 
 receive the charge of Russian cavalry." Think as we may of 
 their cause, no grander example of devotion to any cause was 
 ever given than that by Lee's army during all that winter of 
 1864-5. Hopeless, ragged, despairing, it stood and stretched 
 out its thin line of defence, until at last it broke from very 
 weakness ; and when those veterans surrendered at Appomattox 
 they were without food, and almost the first of General Grant's 
 orders concerning them was to feed them. 
 
 Only two ports remained to them — Charleston and Wil- 
 mington. We knew that, as Sherman's army marched to its 
 rear, the birthplace of the rebellion must fall without blood- 
 shed ; but Wilmington could hold out until Johnston and Lee 
 joined forces, unless meantime it were taken by a combined 
 naval and military attack ; and, until so taken, through it the 
 dying Confederacy could be stimulated and its ebbing life pro- 
 longed by supplies of arms and military stores. 
 
 Its capture was determined upon by the Navy Department 
 as early as September, 1864 ; but it was not until the early part 
 of December that the expedition departed from Hampton 
 Roads for Beaufort, N. C, the place of rendezvous. 
 
 The command of the fleet was offered to Admiral Farragut, 
 but his arduous service in the Gulf and Mississippi River had 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. lO/ 
 
 worn him out, and he was reluctantly compelled to decline the 
 honor. Rear-Admiral David D. Porter was appointed in his 
 stead. That distinguished officer came of a fighting lineage. 
 His father, Commodore David Porter, after fighting every 
 British foe he could find in the War of 1812, fought with the 
 Navy Department and resigned his commission ; took service 
 with the Mexicans to fight the Spaniards ; after a Avhile fought 
 with the Mexican authorities and resigned from that service. 
 General Jackson then offered to restore him to the navy, but 
 he declined on a punctilio ; and was finally sent as Charg^ 
 d'Affaires to Constantinople. But he was never fairly con. 
 quered until death became his victor there ; and his body, even 
 then, was brought home in a fighting ship to lie peacefully at 
 last. I expect that when the last trumpet sounds, he will arise 
 in war paint, and insist upon fighting his fate (if he does n't 
 like it) before the judgment seat. 
 
 After some delays the fleet and the transports, with about 
 seven thousand soldiers, arrived off Fort Fisher on Dec. i8th. 
 A heavy gale set in and for three days " blew great guns." The 
 military contingent was commanded, as you know, by General 
 B. F. Butler, of whom, in my judgment, it may be truthfully 
 said, his pen was mightier than his sword." A new engine of 
 war was to be employed that, it was expected, would make the 
 work of the reduction of the fort comparatively easy. I allude 
 to the famous powder boat before which we expected its walls 
 to fall down as promptly as did those of Jericho before the 
 " trumpets of rams' horns " of the Israelites. But we could 
 not " compass the wall for seven days," as they did, and al- 
 though we did, with the opportune help of that gale of wind, 
 blow lustily," the thing proved a great failure. Who sug- 
 gested this powder-boat scheme is not now known. We all 
 believed in it, however, from the Admiral down ; but when it 
 proved so laughable a failure we of the navy lied its pater- 
 nity upon General Butler. It was exploded on the night of 
 Dec. 23d. It did n't make much of a noise ; and as to its effect 
 upon the fort, I am informed by a prominent lawyer of this 
 city, who was a Confederate midshipman in the fort, that a 
 
I08 THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 green North Carolina tarheel " sentinel reported, when his 
 relief came around, that he ^' reckoned one of them Yankee 
 gunboats off thar had done busted her biler." 
 
 The fleet moved in next morning to the attack. There 
 lay the fort, as grim as ever. The ironclads first took position, 
 and then the wooden ships followed, the frigate Minnesota (of 
 which I was executive officer) leading. It was my first experi- 
 ence in battle. The Minnesota was a slow-moving ship, drew 
 twenty-four and one-half feet of water, and great caution was 
 requisite lest she should get aground. The fort had received 
 the fire from the ironclads in silence; but as the Minnesota 
 passed into clear view a puff from the centre of the fort, fol- 
 lowed by others all along the line, showed that our time of 
 trial had come. 
 
 A few seconds later the shriek of the shells and their explo- 
 sion made music very disagreeable to my ear. I confess that 
 I did n't like the situation. Was I scared ? Well, no ; but I 
 did n't want my wife to become a widow, you know. 
 
 As fast as the ships came into line they anchored, until the 
 whole formed nearly a semicircle, distant about half a mile 
 from the fort. The Admiral in his flag-ship (with my friend, 
 our amiable companion, Aaron Vanderbilt, as his signal officer) 
 steamed up and down the line. The fire kept up all that day 
 was terrific. In a little while that from the fort ceased ; but 
 the ships kept it up until nightfall. After a consultation, it 
 was arranged that the troops should be landed next day, and 
 assault, under cover of the naval fire, in the afternoon. The 
 next morning the reserve vessels were sent in to protect and 
 assist in the landing; and the fleet moved up again to the 
 attack. By two or three o'clock about five thousand men had 
 landed and marched up toward the fort. The fleet kept up 
 the bombardment all day, momentarily expecting that the 
 assault would be made. It was Christmas Day — the birthday 
 of the Prince of Peace. At home the children were rejoicing 
 over the wealth that Santa Claus had bestowed ; and there, 
 many thousands of men, who would have felt insulted to be told 
 that they were not Christians, were engaged in fratricidal warfare. 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. IO9 
 
 About six o'clock it was seen that the troops were re-em- 
 barking, and upon inquiry it was learned that General Butler 
 had determined that the fort could not be taken and that the 
 military part of the expedition would be withdrawn to Fort- 
 ress Monroe. 
 
 All remonstrance addressed to him was in vain. In vain 
 our companion, brave General Curtis, begged to be allowed to 
 make an effort to capture the fort. Butler persisted in his 
 determination to take the troops away, and away they all 
 went that night accordingly. 
 
 This is neither the time nor place to discuss the propriety 
 of this action. We could only do as sailors are wont to do 
 (occasionally), and if that doughty warrior does n't find out 
 the full meaning of sheol," it won't be for want of the prayers 
 of the officers and men of that fleet in their behalf. 
 
 During the progress of the battle on Christmas Day I heard 
 a captain of a nine-inch gun say : " Boys, I 'm going to shoot 
 down that rebel flag on the left of that fort." He fired the 
 gun. I watched the flight of the shell and saw it cut the flag- 
 staff in two and the flag fall. It was, of course, a chance shot. 
 
 That flag was never raised again ; and one of General 
 Curtis's soldiers went into the fort, and, unmolested, brought 
 it away in safety. If this could be done, the uneducated 
 mind, not so profoundly versed in the military science as was 
 General Butler, may be pardoned a belief that more soldiers 
 might have followed that one into that fort. 
 
 We of the navy had come there to take Fort Fisher ; a 
 big growl went up to Washington, and when General Grant 
 learned of Butler's retreat he sent the same troops back rein- 
 forced, but under command of Major-General Alfred H. Terry, 
 and so promptly was action taken that, on Jan. 12, 1865, the fleet 
 and the transports reappeared off Fort Fisher. The Confeder- 
 ates had in the meantime not been idle, and the fort, as well 
 as its garrison, had been greatly strengthened. 
 
 Inasmuch as General Butler had insinuated that the navy 
 had not done all that had been expected of it in the previous 
 attack, Admiral Porter had determined that now we would not 
 
no THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 only do our duty, but that we would send an assaulting party 
 ashore, and help the soldiers do their work. Accordingly, 
 about two thousand three hundred officers and men had been 
 detailed for that purpose. 
 
 Colonel William Lamb, the Confederate commander of the 
 fort, and I had been acquaintances before the war. He has 
 described the fort thus, saying : 
 
 " The plans were my own, and the work, as it progressed, was 
 approved by French, Raines, Longstreet, Beauregard, and Whiting 
 (all eminent engineers). The total length of the two faces of the 
 work was about 2850 yards (about a mile and three quarters). The 
 land face (extending diagonally across the peninsula between the 
 Cape Fear River and the sea) mounted twenty of the heaviest sea- 
 coast guns and was 682 yards long. The sea face, with twenty-four 
 equally heavy guns, was 1898 yards long. The land face began on the 
 left and included Shepherd's battery, which I doubled in strength. 
 
 " Unfortunately, to save labor, I followed its lines for my left 
 salient — the weak point of the work. The land face extended from 
 this battery to the N. E. redan, the line being a series of isolated 
 gun chambers with revetments five feet nine inches high, parapet 
 thirty feet thick, and traverses sixty by fifty and twenty-five feet 
 high. 
 
 " From the N. E. redan (which was forty feet high), the work 
 extended to the mound battery, which was sixty feet high, and 
 mounted two very heavy guns. A palisade was erected to prevent 
 a sudden landing and assault by a boat party and sub-terra batteries 
 were placed there for the same purpose." 
 
 At eight o'clock in the morning of the 13th the whole fleet 
 (except the ironclads which opened fire on the fort) anchored 
 in a semicircle around the transports, and our boats proceeded 
 to land the troops. At the Admiral's suggestion, no boats for 
 that purpose had been brought by the quartermaster. By three 
 P.M. we had landed eight thousand men, with their proper sup- 
 plies and military stores. 
 
 When this was done, our Admiral was heard to say {sotto 
 voce, of course) : " Now, if those soldiers want to get back to 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. Ill 
 
 their ships they '11 have to swim, for I '11 be d d if I '11 let 
 
 them have any boats to come off in." If he had known that 
 gallant and accomplished soldier and patriot, Terry, as well as 
 we know him now, he would have been saved the necessity of 
 any such remark, for he and all his men had determined to 
 take that fort this time, or leave their bodies for burial on that 
 beach. 
 
 After landing the troops, the fleet moved up to the bom- 
 bardment. All that day and night, and all the next, the fire 
 was kept up, during which the troops were taking position. 
 On the morning of the 15th, at eleven o'clock, the naval assault- 
 ing party landed. Imagine the beauty of the sight. As lovely 
 a day as ever brightened the earth ; a placid sea, whose waves 
 danced and shone like liquid silver ; fifty-eight ships, gaily 
 dressed with flags at each masthead and peak and bowsprit, 
 enveloped by the smoke from three hundred guns, whose roar 
 deafened the ear; more than a hundred boats of every size, 
 each carrying the flag of the Union, and loaded to the gun- 
 wale with men eager to do and dare to plant the flag in victory 
 upon the fort. Could there be a more magnificent spectacle ? 
 
 The military had naturally selected the left salient (described 
 by Colonel Lamb as the weakest part of the work ") for their 
 point of assault, and their approach was covered by woods and 
 sand hills to within a short distance of the salient. The order 
 of Admiral Porter directed the naval party to assault the centre, 
 which was located within about three hundred feet of the 
 water's edge. We were thus compelled to march from our 
 landing place for about a mile on a sandy beach as flat as the 
 floor of this room, without any trees or other protection. The 
 fire from the ships had been so effective that not a single gun 
 (except one small Napoleon field-piece) could be fired at the 
 army, while nearly all the guns on the sea face could be, and 
 were, used against us from the moment we began our march. 
 
 Of the effect of the naval fire from the ships. Colonel Lamb 
 has said : 
 
 " Before the assault fifty thousand shells had expended their fury 
 upon the work. Every gun was destroyed, except one ; every wire 
 
112 THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 leading to the mines plowed up, and the palisade made such a wreck 
 as actually to afford a protection to some of the assailants. The ter- 
 rific fire in front, rear, and enfilade from the fleet upon the land face, 
 rendering the salient practicable for assault, forced me to cover by 
 bombproof all the troops on the land face, except the sharpshooters 
 protected by the traverses. There were in the western salient about 
 two hundred and fifty men." 
 
 These were all that were to resist the attack of more than 
 six thousand veterans from the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 It had been arranged that we were to assault when we saw 
 the army rushing in, and, as they gave no sign, we lay down 
 (after moving up sufficiently near) on the shore, where the 
 shelving of the beach gave some shelter, to await their attack* 
 In this position the shells of the fleet flew over us on the way 
 to the fort, and the noise they and the guns made would have 
 done no discredit to pandemonium itself ; while, occasionally, 
 a shell would burst prematurely and scatter its murderous frag- 
 ments in our midst. About three o'clock the troops were seen 
 to emerge from the woods and rush to the assault. In an 
 instant the fire from the fleet ceased ; fifty-eight steam whistles 
 set up a dismal shriek (I verily believe that those trumpets 
 of rams' horns " were not such an absurd means of warfare 
 after all). We sprang up and made an effort to obey the 
 Admiral's order to " board the fort in a seamanlike manner.'* 
 It was an impossible task. The rush up was gallantly made, but 
 we found the fort to be forty feet high, and as nearly perpen- 
 dicular as a sand fort could be made. The enemy treated us 
 to liberal doses of grape (I never before fully appreciated the 
 force of General Taylor's order, A little more grape. Captain 
 Bragg "), while one thousand two hundred men were posted 
 on the ramparts to fire down upon us. Naval history may be 
 searched in vain for another such instance of assault by sailors. 
 There had been instances where sailors had landed close under 
 small batteries (Teneriffe, where Nelson lost his arm, is one 
 such case), but never before had such a force been landed, 
 without organization, or plan, or knowledge of the work to be 
 done, to attempt such an assault. I don't believe it will ever 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. II3 
 
 be tried again. The fire from the parapet was terrific and we 
 had pistols only to reply. It was a mere slaughter-house, and 
 after taking in the utter impossibilty of any further effort, 
 Jack sensibly concluded that the next best and most seaman, 
 like thing he could do would be to get out of that, and, suiting 
 the action to the word, the whole of the force that could do so 
 scudded away down the beach, like ships before the wind, as 
 fast as their legs could carry them. They were not panic- 
 stricken, not a bit of it, but they knew that nothing else could 
 save them from annihilation. 
 
 About sixty of us, including myself, took refuge behind the 
 stockade, and there remained until the fort surrendered. As 
 we lay there and looked at the beach, a woful sight was seen. 
 Four ofificers and seventy-four men had been killed ; fifteen 
 officers and two hundred and thirteen men had been wounded 
 — nearly one-seventh of the whole force. 
 
 After our repulse. Colonel Lamb drew his men away to 
 endeavor to dislodge the army. The fight was kept up most 
 gallantly on both sides ; the Ironsides, with her eleven-inch 
 guns firing upon the Confederates on their side of a traverse 
 and driving them out, and thus, when all the Confederate com- 
 manding officers had fallen, the fort was taken. About ten 
 o'clock at night we sailors (who had been all this time lying 
 under the stockade wondering which of the southern prisons 
 was to be our fate) learned from the joyous sounding of the 
 steam whistles of the fleet that the fort had surrendered. A 
 glorious full moon had risen and shed her soft light upon the 
 scene of the struggle ; the waves rippled gently upon the 
 strand ; the lights of the fleet were reflected brightly on the 
 almost calm sea ; the ships soon became resplendent with fire- 
 works burned in honor of the victory, and the whole scene 
 was as brilliant as the beach at Coney Island on a summer's 
 night, but the music was the groans of the wounded and dying, 
 whose blood had stained the white sand to a crimson. 
 
 There were four or five lives laid that day upon the altar 
 of duty, to which I would call attention. Two young lieu- 
 tenants, S. W. Preston and B. F. Porter, had been captured by 
 
114 THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 the enemy in the attempt that the navy made (Sept. 8, 1863) 
 to replant the flag on the ruins of Fort Sumter, were held in 
 southern prisons for a long time, were exchanged shortly before 
 the Fort Fisher expedition sailed, came North and remained 
 only long enough to recruit a little and fit themselves out with 
 gorgeous new uniforms, applied for service in that fleet, volun- 
 teered to take part in the assault, were both shot dead almost 
 at the same moment, and died within a few yards of each other. 
 Though nearly twenty-eight years have passed, I can see Porter's 
 quivering body stretching out in the last composing agonies of 
 death as I passed it lying on the white sand. He was a splen- 
 did specimen of young manhood ; and, acting in the chivalrous 
 spirit which, of old, required officers to dress for battle in full 
 uniform, he had attired himself in all his new glories of blue 
 and gold, and he formed a shining mark. 
 
 Before Preston went ashore to take part in the assault, he 
 expressed a presentiment that he would be killed, but he went 
 solemnly and unflinchingly to what he felt was to be his death 
 in the discharge of duty. Over such dead ones a mourning 
 country may well utter the pathetic lamentation which David 
 made over Saul and Jonathan : They were lovely and pleas- 
 ant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." 
 
 Assistant Surgeon William Longshaw, from the Minnesota 
 (who had greatly distinguished himself in battle off Charleston), 
 volunteered to go ashore to attend to the wounded. I found his 
 dead body on the beach the next morning with a bullet hole in 
 the back of his head, lying upon the body of another dead man, 
 whose needs he had evidently been ministering to when he was 
 killed. Both bodies had been stripped naked. Some ghouls 
 from our own forces had done this foul deed, for no Confeder- 
 ate had been near the spot. 
 
 Those members of this Commandery who had the pleasure 
 last year of listening to Companion J. M. Harlan, Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, will remember how vividly 
 he described the struggles through which those who lived in 
 the ''Border States" passed in 1861, how the line of duty 
 wound in and out through families, friends, lovers, separating 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. II5 
 
 those nearest and dearest into hostile camps to fight and die in 
 defence of hostile flags and principles. 
 
 When I came to the Navy Department at Washington, in 
 1861, I met there, in the corridor before the door of Secretary- 
 Welles, my old friend, wearing his uniform as lieutenant in the 
 navy, Joseph D. Danels. We cordially greeted each other, 
 and as we walked back and forth, talking of current events, I 
 animadverted pretty strongly upon the conduct of those officers 
 who had resigned their commissions to fight against the flag. 
 He listened in silence for a time, and then, calling me by my 
 old familiar name, said : You must not be too hard on us 
 poor devils." — " My God, Joe Danels, you have n't deserted 
 the flag! " said I, as I looked at him in amazement. He then 
 explained that, being a lieutenant on board the ship stationed 
 at Baltimore (which was his home and that of his wife and 
 children and all dear to him), and knowing that at any time he 
 might be called on to fire on that city, he felt that it was a 
 duty he could not perform, and so feeling, he thought that as 
 an honorable man he had no right to retain his commission ; 
 but he had no sympathy with the rebellion, and would never 
 raise his hand against the flag, and was there to try and get the 
 Secretary to permit him to withdraw his resignation. Mr. 
 Welles refused his request, and, dismissed him from the navy 
 in common with all others who had resigned. He had after- 
 ward been appointed in the volunteer navy, and when the 
 assault occurred was an " Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Com- 
 mander" and the executive oflicer of the Vanderbilt. He had 
 meanwhile contracted consumption and rose from his sick bunk 
 to come and lead his men. When he reported to me, I said to 
 him : Joe, why did you come here? You are too weak for 
 the work of to-day." " Parker," he replied, do you remem- 
 ber what you said to me in the Navy Department four years 
 ago ? " — Perfectly, Joe," — You did n't know how your words 
 stung me, though you did n't mean them for me. This is the 
 first chance I have had since then to redeem that fatal mistake 
 and demonstrate my love for the Union. Do you think I 
 could let it go by?" — No, Joe; you 're right. Go with your 
 
Il6 THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 
 
 men." As we marched to the front I saw him fall out of line. 
 I went to him, and he said, with the bitterness of an overwhelm- 
 ing disappointment : " My strength is gone, and with it my 
 last hope," and he laid his head on my shoulder and cried as 
 though his heart was breaking. I put my arm around him, and 
 we stood thus for a little while, I comforting him all I could, 
 and I said to him : Turn round, Joe ; keep your face to the 
 foe, and if I come out of this alive I '11 see that justice is done 
 you." 
 
 It was no fault of his that he was not in the front of the 
 fray. 
 
 He went from that field to his home and his dying bed at 
 Baltimore, from which he never rose again ; but such reports 
 were made about him, by myself and others, that he was re- 
 stored to his old place in the regular navy, and he died know- 
 ing that his fault, if it was a fault, had been forgiven him by 
 his country. He had been informed that he had been rein- 
 stated, and had been confirmed by the Senate. He died in the 
 morning about eight o'clock ; and half an hour later the post- 
 man brought his commission. His wife told me that she laid 
 it in his dead hand. It was a strange fatality which brought 
 him and me together on two such occasions, so widely sepa- 
 rated by time and place ; and I have never since been incredu- 
 lous about the pathetic sorrow that gives such power to Hale's 
 story of Philip Nolan^ the Man without a Country. May God 
 bless Joe Danels's memory and keep it ever green ! 
 
 A few days thereafter three blockade runners came over the 
 bar and anchored. The officers and passengers of one of them 
 had gone in the cabin to rejoice at their safe arrival. 
 
 In the midst of their congratulations, and the popping of 
 corks, there was a knock at the door. It was opened, and an 
 ofificer in the uniform of the navy stepped in. Gentlemen," he 
 said, I beg pardon for interrupting you to say that you are all 
 prisoners and this vessel a prize ; but if you 're willing I '11 join 
 you in a glass of wine." — "Prisoners? Prize?" — "Yes; Fort 
 
 Fisher was captured a couple of days ago." — " Well I 'm ! 
 
 But, Yank, here 's to you." 
 
THE NAVY IN THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER. 11/ 
 
 The battle of Fort Fisher was a " glorious victory." Of the 
 depressing effect of its capture upon the Confederates there 
 can be no question. 
 
 Two days after its fall, General Butler sat in the witness 
 chair before the "Committee on the Conduct of the War" at 
 Washington, explaining his failure to assault the fort on Christ- 
 mas Day. He had, to his own satisfaction, demonstrated the 
 impossibility of its capture. As he finished, the guns of the 
 Navy Yard began a salute ; a messenger entered and handed a 
 paper to the chairman, who read it and handed it to his associ- 
 ates, who, in turn read it and handed it to the General. 
 
 The paper bore these words : 
 
 " Navy Department, Jan. 17, 1865. 
 Fire a national salute in honor of the capture on the 15th instant 
 of the rebel works on Federal Point (Fort Fisher), near Wilmington, 
 N. C, by a combined attack of the army and navy. 
 
 " Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy." 
 
 The General gazed at it and said — nothing ; of his thoughts, 
 we have no record. Perhaps it gave him a new idea of the 
 meaning of the expression, The sword of the Lord^ and of 
 Gideon. 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT 
 HUDSON. 
 
 An Address Delivered by William T. Meredith (Late of the U. S. Navy), 
 December 7, 1892. 
 
 pELLOW members of the Loyal Legion, a friend of mine, 
 when he was a midshipman in the navy during the early 
 days of the war, was serving in an old-fashioned sailing frigate 
 under an old-fashioned commander, on the coast of Texas. It 
 was dreary work up and down the desolate coast, a great big 
 ship with a crew of three hundred men, and nothing to do but 
 sail a bit, take in sail, and anchor a bit, day after day and 
 month after month. Every one on board was cross and tired 
 of the monotonous life and anxious to get away from the coast 
 of Texas. The commodore kept himself busy maintaining 
 the strictest discipline. What a well disciplined ship he had I 
 The crew did nothing but exercise at the guns and scrub 
 and paint from morning till night. 
 
 One of the great delights of the old commodore was to 
 have the decks holy-stoned with sand ; and when the sand gave 
 out he would send a boat ashore along the coast to replenish 
 the sand lockers from the beach. My friend the midshipman 
 was always selected to command this sand boat. The coast of 
 Texas, you know, has a shoal shore. It was often a pull of 
 two miles and more for the boat's crew to get the sand. My 
 friend the midshipman grew accustomed to a pull of two miles 
 for sand. But one morning when the vessel lay at anchor four 
 miles off the beach, the commodore made up his mind sud- 
 denly that he would have some sand, and so he summoned the 
 midshipman and told him to take a boat's crew and go on the 
 
 118 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. II9 
 
 usual errand. My friend felt lazy that day and he said, " Com- 
 modore, I protest against going four miles and through a bad 
 surf for a boat load of sand." " Very good, Mr. Midshipman," 
 replied the commodore, " you can protest as much as you 
 please, but you will go after the sand." And he did go after 
 sand. 
 
 So it was with me, fellow members of the Loyal Legion : 
 when I was told I must spin a yarn on the war for the Loyal 
 Legion, I said it was a long time off to the war ; but my com- 
 manding officer said I must go after sand, and so here I am, 
 and I hope I have the sand to entertain you. 
 
 I want to tell you about the passage of Port Hudson on 
 the night of March the 14th, 1863, where I was on the flag-ship 
 Hartford, The recollection of that engagement has been a 
 little dimmed in our minds as time has passed on, but it really 
 forms a very important point in the history of our great Ad- 
 miral. The naval battle of Port Hudson was midway between 
 the capture of New Orleans and the battle of Mobile Bay, 
 about a year after New Orleans and about eighteen months 
 before the battle of Mobile Bay, and it marks the beginning of 
 the end of the Mississippi River fights — the battles that opened 
 the great river from source to mouth and broke the backbone 
 of the Rebellion. 
 
 P'arragut had long been anxious to open the river with his 
 fleet. In fact, he had fought his way up past Vicksburg not 
 long after the capture of New Orleans, but his land forces were 
 insufficient to hold any ground, and the attempt was given up 
 at that time. 
 
 But a year later General Grant had risen, the star of the 
 nation's hope, in the West — the greatest of our soldiers as 
 Farragut was the greatest of our sailors ; and at the time of 
 which I speak Grant was advancing down the river accom- 
 panied by the fleet of Admiral Porter, to attack Vicksburg. 
 Now was the time, Farragut thought (for he took the responsi- 
 bility himself ; the Navy Department had not the courage to 
 order him to go), — now was the time, he thought, to dash up 
 the river past Port Hudson and meet Grant and Porter at 
 
I20 ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 
 
 Vicksburg, and then by patrol of the Mississippi, from the 
 mouth of the Red River to Port Hudson, he would cut off the 
 Confederate supply boats bound to Vicksburg and Port Hud- 
 son while the armies laid siege to both places. 
 
 So it was all arranged to be carried out by Farragut, and 
 on the night of the 14th of March, 1863 (twenty-nine years 
 ago, think of it, members of the Loyal Legion, with gray 
 heads and large families), — it was on the night of the 14th of 
 March, 1863, I say, that Farragut lay at dusk with his fleet 
 just below Port Hudson on the west bank of the Mississippi, 
 two hundred miles above New Orleans, ready to attack ; while 
 in the rear of Port Hudson, General Banks had marched a 
 force intended to scare the garrison by making a show of a 
 land attack. But they did n't scare a bit. 
 
 It was dark and calm. The air was heavy and moist. 
 Beyond us stretched the black Mississippi, swirling down with 
 its tremendous current under the dark cliffs a hundred feet 
 high, where on the river's east bank the Confederate batteries 
 lay ready to redden the night with their guns. Anchored 
 near us were the Essex and six mortar schooners, ready at the 
 signal for our advance to open fire on Port Hudson with mor- 
 tars and long-range guns. 
 
 There we lay not far out of line, as the night fell. First 
 the Hartford^ with the gunboat Albatross lashed to her port 
 side ; then the Richmond with the Genesee alongside ; then the 
 Monongahela with the Kineo ; and last, without a consort, 
 the old frigate Mississippi with her big side-wheels, a grand old 
 ship that had sailed in every clime of the world, commanded 
 that night by the brave Admiral Melanchton Smith, who still 
 lives, one of the most distinguished members of this Com- 
 mandery. 
 
 Just after dark the Hartford ran up a red lantern, and 
 then came the low click, click of the capstans as the anchors 
 came up. It is as quiet as death. The men are standing at 
 their stations at the guns; slowly the screws of the big ships 
 revolve; slowly the fleet gets into line, lashed two and two, 
 with the Mississippi last. And now they are off under full 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 121 
 
 steam through the dark night ; every man waiting in his place 
 to play his part when the enemy shall open fire. On, on they 
 go, against the current under the frowning cliffs. Suddenly a 
 rocket springs high above the river from the bank ; and then 
 there is a vivid flash of light, with a deafening roar of guns 
 from the batteries ahead, with whistling of shot and bursting 
 of shells over the Hartford. A shell comes tearing and whiz- 
 zing through the hammock nettings and explodes over the 
 Albatross. Quick the Hartford replies with her whole star- 
 board battery, and as she steams ahead through the brilliant 
 flashes of battle, the whole squadron follows, and battery after 
 battery is ablaze. For a minute it is as light as day, but soon 
 the smoke settles down round the ships, and shore and fleet are 
 hidden. But the flashes of light pierce the smoke, and the 
 roar of the guns stuns the ear. Up in the sky you can see the 
 floating clouds that reflect the light from the battle and the 
 glare from an immense fire that the Confederates have lighted 
 on the low bank of the river opposite the batteries, to expose 
 the line of the attacking fleet. 
 
 And now on every ship there are dead men stretched side 
 by side and bloody decks and splinters and shattered boats. 
 The guns jump in as they are fired, quick they are loaded and 
 run out, and fired again. You do not hear the reports now. 
 The ear in the roar of battle has lost the power to distinguish 
 separate sounds. When a shell crashes through the ship, it is 
 all over with some poor fellow, but most of the shot fly over 
 us through the rigging, and every now and then a shower of 
 splinters from aloft comes tumbling down on deck. 
 
 Fellow members of the Loyal Legion, you all know by 
 experience that there is nothing that is rhetorical in a battle 
 while it is going on. It is the recollection of it that becomes 
 dramatic or poetical. A battle is a very practical piece of 
 business, where every brave man tries to do his duty, wishing 
 himself safe and sound with credit to himself, a whole skin, 
 and honor and victory for his country. So let us stop the 
 description of mere appearances and try to tell only what took 
 place that was of importance in bringing about : first, the pas- 
 
122 ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 
 
 sage of Port Hudson by the Hartford and Albatross ; second, 
 the loss of the grand old ship Mississippi ; and third, the fail- 
 ure of the Richmond and Monongaliela, with their consorts, to 
 follow Farragut. 
 
 Looking up the stream from the point where Farragut first 
 encountered the fire from the bluffs that night, the river is 
 straight for about a mile, with a high bluff of 80 feet on the 
 east side and a low flat plain on the west side. At the end of 
 this mile there is a sharp turn in the river to the west, almost 
 a right angle. Along the bluff and beyond the turn in the 
 river, the rebel batteries were scattered here and there for the 
 whole distance. There were no guns on the east bank of the 
 river; on that side of the shore, the Confederates had piled up 
 huge heaps of brushwood, and when the attack began these 
 were set on fire, the light from the burning brush plainly reveal- 
 ing the forms of the ships to the Confederate gunners on the 
 opposite bank. Of course the ships, having to meet the enemy's 
 guns from the east side of the river, would only fire their star- 
 board batteries. It was on this occasion that Farragut first 
 carried out his idea of lashing a gunboat alongside a large ship, 
 where the enemy's guns were only on one side. The gun- 
 boat, while thus receiving protection from her heavy consort, 
 could also be of use in pulling the big ship through if her 
 machinery should be disabled, and in case the larger ship 
 should run aground, the gunboat's timely assistance might get 
 her afloat. And, as a matter of fact, the Monongahela was act- 
 ually saved from destruction that night by her consort, the 
 Kineo, The little gunboat pulled the frigate off when she was 
 hard and fast aground, right under the shore batteries. Farra- 
 gut adopted this plan of lashing his vessels in pairs, at the 
 battle of Mobile Bay, where the guns of Fort Morgan were 
 also on the starboard hand of the fleet. 
 
 Along the east bluff of the river that we have been describ- 
 ing, the current sweeps down with a speed of about four miles 
 an hour, and the channel is close under the bluff. At the turn 
 in the river, just opposite the small hamlet of Port Hudson, a 
 bad shoal runs out from the west shore, and it was there. 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 1 23 
 
 right under the last batteries, that the Mississippi met her 
 doom. 
 
 It is plain to be seen that in an attempt to breast this swift 
 running stream in the dark night, made darker still by the 
 heavy smoke of one hundred and fifty guns, the most import- 
 ant man on a ship was the pilot. Every ship in the squadron 
 carried two of these men — civilians, professional river pilots 
 engaged by the Government at great cost. The pilot of the 
 Hartford was a cool, experienced fellow. Farragut had a very 
 high opinion of this man's skill and knowledge of the river, 
 and he always said he believed it was his ability and coolness 
 that kept the Hartford in the channel that night and pulled 
 us through. 
 
 But let us return to the description of the events of the 
 battle. It was twenty minutes after 11 P.M. when the first 
 battery opened on the Hartford, and in ten minutes the whole 
 fleet was engaged and pushing its way up the river. In the 
 darkness and smoke, the ships soon lost sight of each other. 
 The Hartford fought her way slowly but steadily on for an 
 hour, keeping clear of the shore and not once touching bottom 
 till she reached the turn in the river opposite the last battery. 
 There her bow just grazed the shore. But her head was turned 
 round, she was soon in deep water, and with a parting broad- 
 side at the Confederate battery, she bore up the river out of 
 range. Farragut had accomplished the passage of Port 
 Hudson. 
 
 But the old hero looked back in vain for his fleet to follow 
 him. Far down the stream, he saw the fire of the shore bat- 
 teries directed at a ship that was in flames. Now it was plain 
 to him that the Hartford and Albatross had alone been success- 
 ful in the battle ; the rest of his fleet had either been beaten 
 back or destroyed. What had been their fate, he could not 
 hope to know till news came to him through the enemy, for 
 the Hartford and Albatross were alone in the heart of the Con- 
 federacy, cut off from the brave fleet they had sailed with early 
 that night, by the guns of Port Hudson. 
 
 I remember well that just as the ship came to an anchor 
 
124 ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 
 
 after the battle, we were sending up rockets from the poop 
 deck, in the vain endeavor to open communication with the 
 fleet below. The light fell on Farragut's face as he stood there 
 looking anxiously down the river, with his arm on the shoulder 
 of Lieutenant Loyall Farragut, his son, now a member of this 
 Commandery, and I shall never forget the expression of anxiety 
 and woe in the old hero's face. If he could only know what 
 had happened to his fleet. But alas, he could not know, we 
 were in the enemy's country, and with daylight the Hartford 
 and Albatross must push on up the swift river, if Farragut 
 would wrest any advantage for his cause and his country from 
 that disastrous night. 
 
 Well, and what had happened to the rest of the fleet ? It 
 is soon told ; it was short and sharp. At the bend in the river, 
 a shot cut away one of the Richmond's steam pipes ; she could 
 no longer stem the river current, even with the aid of her con- 
 sort, the Genesee ; and she was compelled to turn and fight her 
 way slowly back past the batteries. Just before the Richmond 
 was disabled, Lieutenant Commander Cummings was mortally 
 wounded, and on the passage back a shot swept down nearly a 
 whole gun's crew of marines. 
 
 The Monongahela came close behind the Richmond^ with 
 the Kineo, both fighting gallantly ; but in the dense smoke she 
 ran aground under the batteries. Her captain (McKinstry) 
 was wounded. It was hard work for the Kineo to pull the 
 Monongahela oEf, but she did it. When they were afloat, it 
 was found that the Monoitgaheld s engines would not work, and 
 there was nothing to be done but to fight their way back, which 
 they finally succeeded in doing, all cut and torn. 
 
 Last of all came the Mississippi, commanded by our fellow 
 member. Admiral Melancthon Smith. She had no consort. 
 The old ship had to feel her way through a dense pall of smoke 
 that had drifted along the surface of the river from above. 
 She was struck many times, but gave it back to the Confeder- 
 ates with a will from her starboard guns. At last she had 
 fought her way up to the fatal shoal at the turn where the 
 Monongahela had grounded. On this shoal, right opposite the 
 
ADMIRAL FARRAGUT'S PASSAGE OF PORT HUDSON. 12$ 
 
 heaviest rebel battery, the Mississippi ran hard and fast 
 aground. She had no consort to pull her off. She fought her 
 guns hard, and backed and twisted her brave old keel in her 
 frantic efforts to get afloat, while the Confederate shot swept 
 her decks and mowed down her men. It was no use ; Admiral 
 Smith saw his ship was doomed. He must abandon her and 
 set her on fire. Under the heavy fire from the shore, with men 
 falling on every side, the wounded were embarked, and then 
 all that were left of the ship's company were crowded into 
 three boats, the only boats that had not been destroyed by the 
 enemy's shot ; and thus they escaped under cover of the dark- 
 ness down the river. Before abandoning the Mississippi, Ad- 
 miral Smith had fired his ship in four places. Soon she was on 
 fire from stem to stern. Fierce the flames ascended as her port 
 guns went off. And then with a roar that was heard a hundred 
 miles away, the Mississippi was no more. 
 
"IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 A Paper Read by Charles E. Sprague, February i, 1893. 
 HE true history of a nation is not merely the deeds of 
 
 kings and ministers, of parliaments and princes, but the 
 growth of the people ; the annals of the brilliant few are not 
 more important than the unrecorded movements of the obscure 
 many. So in an army, there are other points of view than 
 that of the commanding ofificer. Interesting as are our discus- 
 sions of grand tactics and strategy, it may also be profitable 
 to study the soldier himself, his thoughts and feelings, his 
 home-life in the big family of the company and in the big 
 neighborhood of the regiment ; to turn our attention from the 
 select circles of headquarters to the proletariat of the company 
 street. In short, as has often been remarked, the need is for 
 sketches of and by the obscure ; and this I can help to supply, 
 for in this brilliant organization I can lay claim to be con- 
 spicuous for my obscurity. 
 
 How some things appeared to a boy of nineteen, who lived 
 in a company street in the Army of the Potomac, is gathered 
 from his memory and from the letters he wrote to his mother. 
 
 One Monday late in November, over thirty years ago, our 
 company came pulling ourselves along, at the finish of about 
 fifteen miles of rather tough travel, and after dark turned into 
 a piece of woods, stacked arms, and were told to "bivouac in 
 rear of stacks, ready to march at daybreak." Now it was a 
 rule we soldiers learned to recognize, that if you camped down 
 at night with strict injunctions to be ready to march on at 
 daybreak, with advice from your officers that you 'd better 
 not waste any time in getting up comfortable shelter because 
 
 126 
 
"IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 127 
 
 this was the most temporary kind of a halt, then for a certainty, 
 if you followed this advice, you were going to be kept right 
 in that bivouac long enough to repent not going to work at 
 getting comfortably housed. So, after some experience, we 
 never took any stock in assurances of brief stay; we went 
 right to work at house building on the assumption that we 
 should stay a month ; if we marched next day no great harm 
 was done, but if we stayed a week, we were well paid for our 
 trouble. 
 
 The pine trees were thick around us that night, in the 
 morning we could scarcely see the nearest regiment ; but 
 instead of marching at daybreak we stayed and stayed and 
 went away and came back again and stayed again until the 
 company street first traced by our stacks of arms seemed like 
 a home, and till the thick woods had disappeared ; every tree 
 was cut down, first wastefully and extravagantly, at shoulder 
 height, then down to a decent stump, then this stump was 
 cut to the very quick, and finally we had no wood at all, hav- 
 ing grubbed up the very roots. We stuck up our shelter tent 
 that night and Eugene and Wilcox and I crawled under. The 
 next morning after reveille, the first business was, of course, to 
 settle bets on the sun. You see, in our company, when we 
 got to camp after dark, we usually had a debate as to which 
 way was north. Some of us were good at keeping in their 
 heads the points of the compass in spite of the meanderings 
 of Virginia paths ; the rest of us thought we were equally 
 smart, until the sun arose and we found our bets were lost. 
 As I have said, we knew we should probably stay some time 
 on account of the notification we had had, and sure enough 
 symptoms of the kind soon broke out, some agreeable, such 
 as the arrival of the sutler, others rather unpleasant, such as 
 the posting of a regular camp guard. 
 
 We soon had enough to do in complying with all that the 
 unceasing drum-beats suggested and compelled, but the im- 
 provement of our domestic architecture filled a large place in 
 our thoughts. We built, tore down, and rebuilt on the self- 
 same spot until our shanty seemed a part of ourselves, and of 
 
128 
 
 " IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 all the homes that I have ever loved and left there is none 
 which has left so deep an impression as that little hut of one 
 room, built of pine logs, sticks, sods, mud, and canvas. It was 
 built by days' work — a good many days, — and Eugene and I 
 (the third man having fallen out sick) were its architects, build- 
 ers, masons, carpenters, sanitary engineers, and walking dele- 
 gates. 
 
 This residence of ours was situated in the State of Virginia. 
 As nothing in that region is described by any closer geograph- 
 ical limit than a county, a Virginian would merely have said 
 that it was " Stahf'd " County, but we could define our location 
 more accurately. Our township was the Fifth Army Corps ; 
 our village was the Third Brigade, First Division ; our ward 
 was the 44th N. Y. ; and our street was Company E. As it 
 turned out we were not far from Falmouth and near the rail- 
 road at a point which thenceforward, and possibly to this day, 
 became known as " Stoneman's Switch." Stafford County never 
 had so large a population up to the night we arrived, and pro- 
 bably never will have again. In our regiment they were not 
 so strenuous for uniformity of architecture as in some com- 
 mands, and allowed scope for individuality ; as long as the 
 line of front doors was pretty straight down the company 
 streets, we could build our shanties of size and style to suit 
 our tastes. Ours in its final form was about as follows : There 
 was first, a cellar dug the full size of the ground plan, about 
 two feet deep. Next came a wall of split pine logs, resting 
 on the ground and held up by stakes, carrying up the cellar wall 
 to a height of five feet in all. Now, the roof was of canvas, 
 made of several of the little shelter tents, fastened together 
 and stretched over a ridge-pole, which was supported by two 
 stout uprights in front and rear. The front or door was also 
 of canvas until we got our chimney built later on. Our next 
 step was to caulk our wall with mud. Glorious Virginia mud ! 
 The one product of which there was always enough. Plastic 
 as butter, but tough as spruce gum when dried : for architect- 
 ural purposes, admirable ; for pedestrian uses, vile. We plas- 
 tered our wall pretty tightly with this natural stucco, and 
 
*'IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 129 
 
 banked up the lower edge. We ditched around our house, 
 and conducted the waters into the company gutter. Our bed, 
 which comprised all our furniture, being also chair, sofa, and 
 table, was our next care. It was a spring bed. We split long 
 straight pine saplings and laid them crosswise of the shanty 
 on supports which held them about level with the surface of 
 the ground. The bed was about three feet wide. Eugene 
 and I were both slender. When sitting on the edge of the 
 bed our feet rested against the front wall of our mansion. 
 Here we talked ; here we smoked ; here we read ; in pleasant 
 weather, with our front canvas fastened back, we conversed 
 with our neighbors, discussing every subject under heaven ; 
 and here we sat, Eugene and I, by our own fireside after the 
 chimney was built. 
 
 Our chimney was a picturesque structure of sods. The 
 mortar which held together these substitutes for brick was 
 the aforesaid mud. An open fireplace faced the right-hand 
 man of the two inmates who sat on the bed, and that man 
 did the cooking from that position. Our chimney was a large 
 one, covering more than half the front of the house and form- 
 ing our front wall. A wooden mantel defined the top of the 
 fireplace. Above this the chimney tapered somewhat and 
 ended in a barrel. Some of our comrades had double-barrelled 
 chimneys, but we found it hard enough to steal one barrel 
 at a time to supply those which caught fire ; total loss ; no 
 insurance. 
 
 This was our home in the company street, as finished, but 
 its evolution was gradual. It began as a mere tent ; it ended 
 in a house. To what further flights of architecture we might 
 ^aALe»^;one, cannot be known. 
 
 Our first exodus was to Fredericksburg. We had begun 
 to take root a little in our company street ; the trees were 
 pretty well thinned out, the street itself was graded and 
 drained, our drill was regained, and it was evident we were 
 now in camp. A sure sign was the fact that there was time 
 to waste in court-martials, for the adjutant read us, at day 
 
 parade, long stories of certain soldiers, who had on or about " 
 
 9 
 
I30 
 
 ''IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 such a time, "at or near" such a place, done or said some- 
 thing, or ''words to that effect." 
 
 But one Thursday, December nth, we broke camp, never 
 again, we supposed, to see the old street. The old shanty was 
 dismantled to the music of that long and solemn call which 
 every soldier knew as " Strike tents." First the brigade bugler 
 had given it to us, after twice repeating a preface, or heading 
 as it were, to his proclamation, which to every Third Brigade 
 man seemed to chant the name of our old commander thus : 
 
 Dan! Dan! Dan! Butterfield ! Butterfield ! 
 
 The angel Gabriel in his musical capacity is always as- 
 sociated with General Butterfield in the mind of any soldier of 
 our brigade. If the bugler was not at hand,, " Dan " could 
 even sound the call himself and blow his own trumpet. 
 
 Mike, the regimental bugler, next lifts his old battered 
 copper horn to his good-natured mouth, and easy as a bird out 
 floats his little song. His preliminary call was different and 
 addressed to the 44th alone. The buglers of the other regi- 
 merits had each sounded his own tune, and about the same 
 moment was ringing through the whole brigade the long- 
 drawn exhortation, 
 
 Come ! Come ! Come ! Come ! 
 Strike your tents ! Strike your tents ! Strike your tents ! Strike 
 
 your tents ! 
 
 Down came the ponchos, and the camp looked like the 
 skeleton of itself. We used to call our pieces of shelter-tent 
 " ponchos," through some confusion of terms, for really the 
 poncho was a rubber thing with a slit to put your head through. 
 Out first sergeant had made us pack up everything beforehand, 
 and now we sat around on our wordly possessions having de- 
 stroyed what we could not carry, for we never expected to see 
 that camp again. Pat Riley, our next neighbor in the street, 
 threw back his head and sang some ancient Irish lays in a voice 
 up near his skull, with never a pause till the end, when his 
 spare wind blew itself off like that of a bagpipe. Pat, being 
 
**IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 of bardic ancestry, was doubtless intoning a war-song, but it 
 was unpleasantly like a dirge and did not inspirit us, except to 
 throw things at Pat. The day was well advanced when we 
 finally got the assembly, which we welcomed with a shout, for 
 it meant doing something and not waiting in suspense. If I 
 wanted to take all the spunk out of a lot of soldiers, I should 
 get them all ready to go somewhere, or do something, and 
 then — not do it. We were marched down in sight of Fred- 
 ericksburg and spent two days as lookers-on, watching the 
 explosive puffs of smoke on both sides of the river. At night 
 we retired to the woods to sleep, regretting the old camp we 
 had just left, and the spare blankets that were there. Saturday 
 afternoon came a change. Our division headed for the pon- 
 toons and we knew where we were going, for we had seen a 
 good many cross but few come back. One of the first who 
 came back, a man from a new regiment, was well escorted. He 
 was supported by a comrade on each side and another behind 
 carried guns and knapsacks. The whole group of four must 
 have gone, not wishing to confuse their company by counting 
 off anew. The wounded man's injury was in one of his fingers. 
 Our company kept straight on, though, and not a man dropped 
 out. After getting through the town, Mike's bugle sounded 
 Lie down," and here I came to grief. The butt of my gun 
 slipped, and the whole lock went into a puddle and was 
 covered with wet mud. I felt sure that I could not fire it, and 
 I did not want a gun that would not shoot. My gun was 
 very bright outside and in ; so elegant looking, that I hoped to 
 get the vacant sergeancy soon on the strength of its exquisite 
 polish. Pretty soon we went ahead, and I was on the lookout 
 for another weapon. I found one alongside of a soldier among 
 some piled timber. He looked and acted as if he needed some 
 quinine and his gun was n't the kind that could bring promo- 
 tion, but I took it from him and went on. I might just as well 
 have had the old rifle into whose surface so much rubbing had 
 gone, for firstly, we had no chance to shoot at all, merely ex- 
 cellent facilities to be shot at ; secondly, when I investigated 
 his, I found a cartridge in it bottom side up. Finally, the 
 
132 
 
 ''IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 owner of the gun had cut his initials, which were T. M,, on the 
 left side of the stock, — a most flagrant crime against military- 
 propriety. I had afterwards to explain away those deeply cut 
 letters, to the first sergeant, to the captain, to the adjutant, to 
 the oflicer of the day, to the major, and to the colonel, each in 
 turn ; and at last when Inspector-General Webb inspected us 
 in person, I caught it again. By this time, I had become a 
 sergeant, in spite of the musket, which I had scoured up to a 
 pretty good shine, but the carving was there still. Of course 
 I was out in front, in plain sight, little finger on the seam of 
 the pantaloons, body erect on the hips, inclining a little for- 
 ward, eyes gazing into futurity with a stony stare. Expres- 
 sionless as I made my face, there must have been guilt in it. I 
 thought, ''Will he see it?" (If it were now, I should have 
 said, "Will he get onto it?" but in those days our language 
 was more correct.) See it ? Get onto it ? General Webb 
 looked right through that gun stock and saw the letters on the 
 opposite side. I stood at "inspection arms." He turned the 
 musket right over, read T. M.'s autograph, looked through my 
 eyes into my back hair, and proceeded to scrutinize every 
 inch of the piece, concluding by jingling the rammer up and 
 down and trying to soil his glove with the end of it, while I 
 was wondering how soon I should be the subject of the ad- 
 jutant's recital — "said Sergeant Sprague, wilfully, maliciously 
 at or near Falmouth, Va., on or about — letters T. M. or words 
 to that effect," and ending up with " Fort Wool, Rip Raps, 
 Hampton Roads, Virginia." But probably there was no ring 
 of rust on the glove. There was a rusty ring in his voice though 
 when he burst forth — " Sergeant, what do you mean by cutting 
 your name on your rifle?" I rattled ofi my now well learned 
 explanation : " Did not cut it, sir ; not my name, sir ; could not 
 fire my rifle at Fredericksburg, sir ; dropped it, and picked up 
 this one, sir." Then he threw it into my hand so that it stung, 
 with the advice, in a much lower tone, "Swop again, sergeant." 
 He did n't touch another gun in our company — no other man 
 had guilt in his eye. 
 
 But I am wandering. We got over the broken ground and 
 
"IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 out into a field in front of the enemy or of a place where sheet 
 lightning seemed to be playing. On we went, right towards 
 that lightning. Pat Riley came to the front, he jumped about 
 six feet forward and swung his rifle circularly above his head, 
 dropping in a moment all the manual that had been drilled 
 into him, and reverting to ancestral instincts. I think we were 
 now beyond the point where there was any distinction between 
 courage and cowardice ; we were thoroughly insane and would 
 have run right into that sheet lightning if little Major Knox 
 had let us. But instead, he wheeled the battalion to the right. 
 Why, I don't know, but I distinctly remember that our regi- 
 ment wheeled in line of battle at double-quick. I remember 
 how, in my delirium, with all the pedantry of a corporal who 
 has studied the tactics and knows it all, I said to myself, 
 "There's no such thing in Casay as 'Battalion, right wheel.' 
 It ought to have been, ' Change direction to the right.' " 
 
 It was not more than ten minutes from the time I swopped 
 guns, when we were lying behind a hill and Captain Larrabee 
 of Company B was saying in his cheery voice, " Major, these 
 two left companies are under an enfilading fire." Major Knox 
 replied, " Move them more to the right." Then, as I still had 
 a touch of insanity, I said to myself : " Enfilading. Never 
 heard that word pronounced before, though I have read it all 
 my life. Now, first time I hear it, I am enfiladed. Practical 
 example, like Squeers's teaching at Dothebo5^s Hall." 
 
 Now we were in a queer box, but we did not know it till 
 morning. We slept a little during the night, not knowing but 
 that we were in a very desirable location. It turned out at 
 sunrise that we were just barely hidden from the rebels, who 
 could just graze the air a few feet above us. It was possible 
 to get your head blown off by standing up ; it was possible to 
 remain alive by close contact with the earth. We chose to 
 spend a very quiet Sunday. Twenty-four hours we lay there 
 until it was as dark as it had been when we came. Then we 
 put our tin cups in our haversacks, and fixed everything so it 
 would not rattle. We departed very unostentatiously, not 
 with the pride, pomp, and circumstance with which we came 
 
^34 
 
 ''IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 there Saturday afternoon. That night we slept on the side- 
 walk of Fredericksburg ; the next night, oh, most joyful 
 change, we went to bed in a house. The house had been ven- 
 tilated with some cannon balls, but some of the roof was there 
 still and it could not be denied that we were sleeping in a 
 house. It did not quite meet our anticipations, but it sounded 
 well. At midnight we were waked up again, and very quietly 
 taken out of the town to a place very much like our Sunday's 
 lodging, relieving the 66th N. Y. Before daylight, we crept 
 back to the town even more quietly, and in the grey of the 
 morning, recrossed the pontoons with the usual cold rain in 
 our faces. Although it seemed too good to be true, we were 
 headed for the old camp — home again. We prodigal sons 
 could now appreciate the comforts of a home, and were willing 
 to dispense with the veal cutlets. 
 
 We had picked up a good deal of plunder at Fredericks- 
 burg, but all I had brought back was a bad cough. Eugene 
 and I went into the house-building again. We had our logs 
 cut and in position, when about the last day of the year 1862, 
 there was another pulling up of stakes — no, we did n't pull up 
 many stakes this time. We may come back, thought we, or 
 else some other fellow may, and we '11 leave these sticks and 
 things as they are. Our departure this time was part of a 
 movement I never have seen mentioned in any history. We 
 marched up the river about fifteen miles and camped in the 
 snow, spending New Year's Day in a bitterly cold place, and 
 then tramped back again. The manoeuvre of getting back to 
 the old camp was one we could now perform without tunes or 
 motions. Again, after this interruption, we settled down to 
 our regular professional work as architects. 
 
 Our next trip was the famous stick-in-the-mud," that 
 mixture of mud, misery, pack-mules, and profanity, where 
 wretchedness was carried to such a point that it became over- 
 whelmingly funny. This time we left all standing and soon 
 came back to find several inches of water in the cellar of our 
 shanty. Things were soon got to rights, however, and our 
 dwelling made more comfortable than before. The street was 
 
**IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 jolly, gossipy, buzzing with jokes, full of rumors readily be- 
 lieved. Boxes from the north, letters from home, soft bread, 
 and furloughs for a favored few brightened us up, and before 
 we knew it we felt cheery and hopeful ; it was no longer fash- 
 ionable to growl. Fashion had a good deal to do with the 
 prevailing tone of the street ; we were bullish or bearish like 
 other streets. After Antietam, the correct thing was to say, 
 " Well, you just let me get out of here once and you '11 never 
 see me a soldier again." After we had left Warrenton, this 
 change to the " bold, bad man " style, Oh, I 'm so used to 
 this sort of thing, that Uncle Sam can't spare me ; if I felt like 
 it, I could lick anything." After Fredericksburg, " I 'm a sad- 
 eyed, unappreciated martyr." Now, a few weeks after the 
 mud campaign, optimism was in the ascendant again, especially 
 after we found that Joe Hooker was working for us soldiers, 
 was thinking of us. That is what the soldier appreciated — 
 not so much what was done for him, as the fact that some one 
 was interested in him, was sympathizing with him. So our 
 sullenness disappeared and Joe Hooker might have quoted the 
 proverb, Soft bread turneth away wrath." As it was under- 
 stood that a clean and handsome camp was a credential for 
 furloughs, we policed our street so that you would have 
 thought Tom Brennan expected a Tammany parade to pass 
 that way. Cleanliness, in camp, was 'way ahead of godliness. 
 The regiment had a pretty good guard-house and resolved to 
 erect a creditable church. I suppose the idea was, instead of 
 enlarging the guard-house, to cut off its supply of material. 
 This was a grand lark for some of the boys, going off with the 
 quartermaster's mules into the thick woods and hauling logs 
 for the church. Then we started another enterprise ; the boss 
 flag-staff of the Army of the Potomac. There was a tall tree 
 standing right on the parade ground ; some of our best axe- 
 men went out and cut another pine, the tallest and straightest 
 they could find. This was trimmed down to a mast, dragged 
 in to camp, fitted with halliards, hoisted up through the 
 branches of the standing tree, lashed to its top ; then its 
 branches were cut away, leaving a flag-staff of two lengths, the 
 
136 
 
 "IN THE COMPANY STREET.' 
 
 lower part rooted in the ground. Our zouave uniforms were 
 sent down from Washington where they had been stored for 
 many months, and with white leggings and gloves, dress parade 
 became a thing of beauty. These measures restored our spir- 
 its, and the company street became cheery, chatty, and chaffy. 
 
 We had only one heavy snowstorm that I remember. Just 
 at reveille one morning in February, I opened my eyes upon a 
 cone-shaped mound of white snow in our fire-place, tall and 
 slender, extending upward till its apex was invisible. At the 
 same instant I became conscious that fine snow was sifting 
 through the cracks, and that Eugene would soon be snowed 
 under. Just then, boom went a cannon somewhere in the dis- 
 tance, and boom, boom, was repeated in a lively cannonade. 
 
 This was disgusting. To get up in a snowstorm was bad 
 enough, but here was somebody inconsiderate enough to start 
 a fight in such uncomfortable weather, and doubtless the Fifth 
 Corps would be turned out in a few minutes. The language 
 used up and down our company street did not at all agree in 
 temperature with the snow. In a minute, some fellow who 
 was an expert on the almanac, shouted out, Washington's 
 birthday." What a groan of relief echoed along the street 
 when we remembered that it was February 22d. If it had 
 been in these latter days, we should have enquired what was 
 the matter with Washington, and explained who he was; but 
 in those times, we merely said, " Bully for George," and " How 
 are you, Washington ? " These two formulas, together with 
 ^'big thing," and ''can't see it," were about the only witticisms 
 we knew in 1863. 
 
 We did have a fight before that snow vanished, but it was 
 with snowballs, and the 17th New York was the enemy. 
 
 So the days passed till the middle of April, when it was 
 evident that something was going to happen. Our fancy uni- 
 forms were sent away and we lightened in advance the loads 
 we were to carry through the summer. About two weeks 
 were passed in suspense, losing something of the good feeling 
 which had been so skilfully cultivated. Then off to Chancel- 
 lorsville, making the fourth time we had assembled in the com- 
 
"IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 pany street for a final departure, to the sound of the " Dan 
 Butterfield " bugle. Each time, the line in front of the first 
 sergeant had shortened by a few miles, and we knew that if 
 we ever fell in on that ground again, more of us would be ab- 
 sent. As we stood in line in marching order, we were a fair 
 specimen of an American regiment. We stood about three 
 hundred, rank and file. Few regiments had anything like the 
 nominal strength which a regiment should have. We were a 
 very sun-burned, hearty-looking set of fellows ; we looked as if 
 we could eat a square meal whenever we got one. In fact, we 
 were a set of boys. The ages of our company averaged twenty- 
 four, and probably there were more men about twenty-two 
 than of any other age. We were not punctilious about the 
 regulations as to dress. Our regimental uniforms of semi- 
 zouave pattern had been turned in, and we had frock-coats, 
 blouses, or jackets, just as it happened — anything blue would 
 do. In hats and caps there was also much variety ; the hide- 
 ous regular army cloth cap, with slanting peak, which some 
 turned up and some turned down — each way it looked worse ; 
 or the more nobby French shape, with straight visor ; or the 
 McClellan cap, with top falling forward, — these had been sent 
 on from home or purchased when on furlough ; or the army 
 black felt, which was generally worn with the crown depressed 
 in the centre ; or other varieties of black soft hats, which were 
 worn in spite of regulations. But every one had on his cap or 
 hat a red Maltese cross, the badge of our division. Some had 
 leggings, some had not ; some old hands were in favor of stuff- 
 ing the trousers into the stockings and tying them there with 
 strings. The broad shoes furnished by the Government and 
 usually called " gunboats " were the most fashionable foot 
 wear ; this was a part of the uniform which private enterprise 
 did not much improve on. Only one thing about our get-up 
 would have pleased a military critic, — our guns were clean and 
 bright. 
 
 We were well keyed up to do anything Hooker asked, and 
 I think that up to the very last of that discouraging campaign 
 we were ready to make tremendous efforts for him. But the 
 coming home was the worst yet. We had been the rear-guard 
 
138 
 
 " IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 as usual, and in the rain as usual ; we had struggled through 
 a wilderness and waded knee-deep in mud ; and when we had 
 crossed the pontoons again, all semblance of discipline seemed 
 suspended and the only thing was to get back to the old camp 
 anyhow. Right glad we were to find ourselves there again. 
 It was wisdom to let us rally on the old camp ; in no other way 
 could we so readily have been brought back to our accustomed 
 condition. I find that I wrote this to my mother : 
 
 " We got back to the old camp, Wednesday, soaked with mud 
 and rain. We had not enough ponchos to cover our foundations, as 
 we only carried one apiece and the extra ones we had left had been 
 taken by the contractor for paper rags. So we had to huddle together 
 about twice the number in the miserable wet holes. We were at 
 about the lowest depth of misery and demoralization, which was not 
 alleviated by being ordered to be ready to march next afternoon. 
 But on Friday morning we were ordered to commence policing the 
 street and make other preparations for a. stay. This, with the more 
 favorable news we received and a ration of soft bread, got us into 
 better spirits, and now (Sunday) we are in the old routine of camp 
 duty." 
 
 It began to seem as though that old camp ground was our 
 predestined habitat for all time. It was impossible for us to stay 
 away, and each attempt had resulted in disaster. It was an 
 unlucky place to start from evidently. Therefore our next 
 campaign must start from somewhere else. Whether this was 
 the line of argument or not, we finally broke up the old camp 
 without waiting for the campaign to open. The brigade fell in 
 in the old company street and this was, actually, the last time. 
 We marched off to a new camp-ground and made preparations 
 enough to stay there several years. As a result, we soon left 
 it and never saw it again. 
 
 I have never talked about the company street and about 
 the best way to fix up a shanty with but one major-general, — 
 until to-night. I had some conversation on the subject with 
 the corps commander on the last day I revisited the old camp. 
 Some half-dozen of our company asked permission to go over 
 to the old ground and bring away some of the bric-a-brac left 
 behind, and I was with them. We were tramping cheerily 
 
"IN THE COMPANY STREET." 
 
 across the country (I think we had a pass to go through the 
 picket Hne) and crossed a road just as the General was riding 
 by, accompanied by an officer and followed by a headquarters' 
 wagon. He reined up and evidently had something to say. 
 
 Who is in command of these men ? " I modestly replied 
 that " I was, sir," and explained that our captain had permitted 
 us to go back to get some boards and things. Boards and 
 things ! a soldier has no business to have anything but what he 
 can carry on his back." I involuntarily rolled my eyes to the 
 left, where the big headquarters wagon had halted ; perhaps 
 this hint that soldiers of high degree need not carry all their 
 possessions on their backs, hurt General Meade's feelings, for 
 he rode on with a " Humph ! " Evidently General Meade did 
 not agree with General Hooker's ideas as to the treatment of 
 the soldiers. Probably he thought that from a dead level of 
 discomfort we could easier bear any additional suffering, but 
 that was not Hooker's theory. He believed in compensation, 
 and thought the higher the pendulum swung on one side, the 
 higher it would go on the other ; that a soldier would, and 
 could, endure more when called upon, if he had been made 
 contented and comfortable up to that time. 
 
 As I seldom have a chance to address an audience mostly 
 of major-generals, I will take the opportunity to give them 
 some advice on the conduct of the next war. 
 
 Tho' the soldier 's attached to his hard-tack, 
 
 He could eat Delmonico's bread ; 
 Tho' he sleeps on the ground when he has to, 
 
 Don't think he despises a bed. 
 
 We settled it down by the camp-fire. 
 
 As a principle well understood : 
 For men who are willing to face the worst, 
 
 The best is n't any too good. 
 
 So, General, up at headquarters, 
 
 Bear in mind the advice I repeat : 
 Take good care of the man that carries the gun. 
 
 And lives in the company street. 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 A Paper Read by Major Alexander K. McClure, April 6, 1893. 
 HE supreme law makes the President the Commander-in- 
 
 chief of the military and naval forces of the nation. 
 This is a necessity in all well-regulated governments, as the 
 sovereign or highest civil ruler must have supreme command 
 of the forces of the country for the public defense. During 
 the revolutionary war the universal confidence that General 
 Washington inspired made him practically the supreme director 
 of our military operations. The supreme civil authority then 
 was the Colonial Congress, and no one of that body could 
 assume this high prerogative. During the war of 18 12, with 
 England, I find no instance in which President Madison ex- 
 ercised any authority in the direction of campaigns as Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army. There was no formal Command- 
 er-in-chief. Major-General Dearborn, the ranking major- 
 general, was assigned as acting Commander-in-chief, although 
 retained in active command in the Northern district. The 
 President was conferred with very freely as to military 
 movements, but I do not find any instance in which he assumed 
 the responsibility of issuing orders for military movements in 
 the field. The Mexican war presents a somewhat different 
 phase of history. President Polk assumed the responsibility 
 as Commander-in-chief by ordering General Taylor to march 
 from the Nueces to the Rio Grande and thus precipitated the 
 Mexican war without either the authority or knowledge of 
 Congress ; and later in the war, when it became necessary to 
 enlarge the army to make an aggressive compaign on the city 
 of Mexico, General Scott was summoned by the President to 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 141 
 
 propose a plan of campaign that he should command in person. 
 He did so, and, after its approval by the President, the troops 
 were provided and General Scott was permitted to prosecute 
 the campaign from Vera Cruz to the Mexican capital, without 
 interference by orders from Washington. 
 
 When civil war confronted us in 1861, General Scott was the 
 hero of two wars and recognized by the country and the world 
 as the great captain of the age. Although a son of Virginia 
 he was thoroughly loyal to the Government and all turned to 
 him as the bulwark of safety for our threatened country. He 
 was believed to be the most accomplished general then living, 
 and President Lincoln, the Cabinet, and the country had 
 absolute faith in his ability to discharge the duties of Command- 
 er-in-chief, even in the extreme and appalling necessities of 
 civil war, with consummate skill and success. It was not until 
 active, practical operations had to be commenced for the 
 protection of the capital and for the defense of the Govern- 
 ment, that those closest to General Scott learned the sad lesson 
 of his utter incompetency for the new duties forced upon him. 
 He had entirely outlived his usefulness. He had never com- 
 manded over 12,000 men in all his lustrous record, and the magni- 
 tude of our civil war, coming upon him when the infirmities of 
 age enfeebled him mentally and physically, made him wholly 
 unequal to the task. President Lincoln, always unobtrusive 
 when he could be so consistent with his sense of duty, deferred 
 to General Scott and his military associates. He had no plan 
 of campaign ; he sought only to attain peace with the least 
 bloodshed and disturbance. 
 
 The first star that shed its lustre on the Union arms was 
 that of General McClellan, the young Napoleon of the West, 
 whose victories in Western Virginia made his name a household 
 word. He was the first to propose a comprehensive plan for 
 aggressive movements against the rebellion, and coming from 
 one of the youngest soldiers of the army it is not surprising 
 that General Scott, with his sensitiveness as to advice from 
 those of less experience, rejected it and presented a compre- 
 hensive plan of his own, then known as the Anaconda 
 
142 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 method of crushing the rebellion. In this dispute Lincoln took 
 no part and probably gave little attention to it. He then clung 
 to the hope that no such general military movements might be 
 necessary to attain peace. His belief was that shared by most 
 of the prominent men of the Cabinet, that a successful battle 
 and the capture of Richmond would mean peace. He had no 
 occasion, therefore, to exercise his authority as Commander-in- 
 chief beyond conferring with General Scott and the Secretary 
 of War. Had he understood the issue then as he understood 
 it a year or more later, I hazard little in saying that the first 
 battle of Bull Run would have been differently fought and with 
 almost a reasonable certainty of the defeat of the insurgents. 
 The care with which he watched the diffusion of military 
 forces and the keen sagacity and tireless interest he ever 
 manifested in the concentration of our military forces in every 
 campaign, forbid the assumption that had he understood the war 
 then as he soon learned to understand it, there could have 
 been a division of the Union forces in the Bull Run campaign 
 to fight the united forces of the enemy. General McDowell 
 fought the battle of Bull Run with \'jfij6 effective men and 
 twenty-four guns, when he should have had some 15,000 
 additional from General Patterson's command and from 15,000 
 to 20,000 of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps then fully 
 organized and ready for the field. I feel quite sure that had 
 Lincoln then assumed the authority as Commander-in-chief 
 that he ever after maintained until Grant became Lieutenant- 
 General, McDowell would have commanded fully 50,000 men 
 at Bull Run and would have overwhelmed the enemy and 
 marched into Richmond. It is possible, indeed quite probable, 
 that such an achievement would have ended the war, but it 
 was not to be. Slavery, the author of the war, would have 
 survived such a peace and the great conflict of thirty years 
 ago would have been handed down to another generation. 
 
 Lincoln was quickened to the exercise of his full authority 
 as Commander-in-chief by the multiplied misfortunes of his 
 generals. He accepted as commanders the men in the army 
 most conspicuous in military service, and it was one of the sad- 
 
LIMCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 dest lessons of the war that not one of the commanders then 
 prominent before the country and most trusted, became chief- 
 tains as the conflict progressed. The contrast between the 
 Union and the Confederate commanders is indeed painful. 
 The Confederate officers who started out as military leaders in 
 the beginning of the war, as a rule were its chieftains at the 
 close. The Johnsons, Cooper, Lee, Beauregard, Jackson, 
 Longstreet, Hill, Kirby Smith, Early, Bragg, Hood, Fitz Hugh 
 Lee, Stuart, and others either fell in the flame of battle lead- 
 ing high commands, or emerged from the war with the highest 
 distinction. On the other side, not one of the men who came 
 out of the war with the grateful plaudits of the country as 
 chieftains of the Union was known to military fame when 
 Sumter was fired upon. One by one Lincoln's commanders 
 fell by the wayside and he was constantly perplexed with the 
 sense of the fearful responsibility he was compelled to assume 
 in the assignment of commanders to the different armies. This 
 necessity naturally called for the employment of his supreme 
 powers and compelled him to exercise the soundest discretion 
 time and again, as failure followed failure in his great work of 
 overthrowing the rebellion. Lincoln had learned the painful 
 lesson of Scott's inability to perform the duties expected of 
 him by the country, and on the 29th of June, 1861, he called 
 the first council of war that embraced his Cabinet, Scott, and 
 other military men. It was there that McDowell's plan for the 
 advance on Manassas was decided upon. Lincoln did not ad- 
 vise but assented to it, and Scott gave a reluctant assent only 
 when he learned that it was a public necessity for the army to 
 advance, as the term of the three-months men would soon ex- 
 pire. The history of that battle is known in all its details to 
 this intelligent audience of experienced military men. 
 
 It is not surprising that a man of Lincoln's sagacity and 
 trained practical methods should consider his responsibility as 
 Commander-in-chief after the defeat of Bull Run. He felt 
 that he had no one to whom he could turn for counsel that he 
 could implicitly accept, and he was equal to the occasion. On 
 the night after the battle of Bull Run Lincoln sought no sleep, 
 
144 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 but after gathering all the information that he could as to the 
 situation, he devoted the hours of early morning to formulat- 
 ing a plan of military operations, and it is marvellous how 
 closely that programme was followed in the long and bloody 
 years through which the war was fought to its consummation. 
 This was Lincoln's first distinct assumption of the duties of 
 Commander-in-chief. He wrote out in pencil, with his own 
 hand, memoranda directing that a blockade should be made ef- 
 fective as soon as possible ; that the volunteer forces at Fortress 
 Monroe be constantly drilled and disciplined ; that Baltimore 
 should be held with a firm hand ; that Patterson's forces be 
 strengthened and made secure in their position ; that the 
 forces of West Virginia continue to act under orders from 
 McClellan ; that General Fremont should push forward his 
 work in the West, and especially in Missouri ; that the Army 
 of the Potomac should be reorganized as rapidly as possible on 
 Arlington Heights ; and that new volunteers should be brought 
 forward speedily into camps for instruction. This memorandum 
 bears date July 23, 1861, and on the 27th of July he added to 
 it that, when the foregoing should have been substantially at- 
 tended to, Manassas Junction and Strausburg should be seized 
 and permanently held with an open line from Harper's Ferry 
 to Strausburg, and a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis 
 and from Cincinnati on East Tennessee should be promptly 
 organized. This was Mr. Lincoln's first acceptance of the ne- 
 cessity that called him to exercise his duties as Commander-in- 
 chief, and it will be observed that his plan of campaign fully 
 comprehended the situation and the military necessities which 
 arose thereafter. 
 
 The mental and physical feebleness of Scott, together with 
 the infirmities of temper which age and disease had logically 
 wrought, made it a necessity to have a new commander for the 
 army. McClellan was then the only one who came with 
 achievement to enforce his title to the general command, and 
 he was called to Washington as commander of the Army of 
 the Potomac. Volunteers were offered in abundance, and the 
 one man of any country best fitted for the organization of a 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 great army was fortunately there to organize the army that 
 was ever undaunted by defeat and that in the end received the 
 sword of Lee at Appomattox. There was early friction be- 
 tween Scott and McClellan, and all the kind offices of Lincoln 
 failed to soothe the old veteran or to make the young com- 
 mander submissive to the alleged whims of his superior. It 
 became a supreme necessity to have Scott retired, and it was 
 finally accomplished after much effort, but fortunately it has 
 no detailed record in the annals of the country. The true 
 stor}7 of Scott's retirement from the command of the army 
 could have been written by but three men, viz : Lincoln, Cam- 
 eron, and Assistant Secretary Thomas A. Scott. They have 
 all joined the veteran soldier in the ranks of the great majority 
 beyond, and none will ever write the chapter on the change of 
 the military Commander-in-chief in 1861. 
 
 From the time that Lincoln called McClellan to Washing- 
 ton he tenaciously exercised his high prerogatives as Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army and navy until the 8th of March, 
 1864, when he handed to General Grant his commission as 
 Lieutenant-General ; and he was very often in conflict with 
 his department commanders as to their operations or failure to 
 prosecute them. His first serious trial arose with General 
 McClellan in the fall of 1861, and that conflict was never en- 
 tirely closed until McClellan was finally relieved from the com- 
 mand of his army after the battle of Antietam in the fall of 
 1862. The late fall months of 1861 were peculiarly favorable 
 for military operations and the Administration and the entire 
 country became impatient to have the army advance. Just 
 when Lincoln expected a movement toward Manassas, Mc- 
 Clellan became seriously ill and continued so for several weeks ; 
 and after his recovery, obstacles seemed to multiply each day 
 until the aggressive movement was universally commanded. 
 On the 1st of December, 1861, Lincoln requested of McClellan 
 a plan of campaign in which he asked how soon the army 
 could be moved and how many men would be required to 
 make the advance direct to Richmond. To this McClellan re- 
 plied that he could move from the 15th to the 25th, and sug- 
 10 
 
146 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 gested that he had another plan of campaign soon to present 
 to the President. During McClellan's illness Lincoln assumed 
 the responsibility of summoning Generals McDowell and 
 Franklin in conference with him as to the movements of the 
 army, and on the 27th of January, without consulting with 
 any of the commanders, or even the Cabinet, he issued Gen- 
 eral War Order No. i," directing that on the 22d of February 
 there should be a general movement of the land and naval 
 forces against the insurgents, of the Army of Fortress Monroe, 
 the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the 
 Army of Kentucky, the Army and flotilla of Cairo and the 
 naval forces from the Gulf of Mexico. That was followed four 
 days later by a special order from the President to General 
 McClellan, directing him that all the disposable forces of the 
 Army of the Potomac, after providing for the defense of Wash- 
 ington, be moved immediately upon Manassas Junction ; that 
 all details be in the discretion of McClellan, and the movement 
 was to begin on the 22d of February. This was a direct order 
 to McClellan ; but believing as he did that it was not a wise 
 one, he urged his objections earnestly upon the President. It 
 was to those objections that Lincoln wrote a somewhat cele- 
 brated letter to McClellan, in which he so tersely but suggest- 
 ively discussed the difference between the Peninsula campaign, 
 then preferred by McClellan, and the movement upon Manassas. 
 Lincoln did not arbitrarily command ; he sought to be con- 
 vinced as to whether he was right or wrong, and all who knew 
 him would bear testimony to the fact that no public man was 
 more easily approached when his own convictions were to be 
 questioned by sincere, intelligent men. These are his incisive 
 inquiries to McClellan : 
 
 Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of 
 time and money than mine ? 
 
 Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than 
 mine ? 
 
 Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than 
 mine ? 
 
 In fact would it not be less valuable in this, that it would 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 break no great line of the enemy's connections while mine 
 would ? 
 
 In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by 
 your plan than mine ? 
 
 I cite these inquiries of Lincoln, not to show that he was 
 either right or wrong in his judgment, but to convey a just ap- 
 preciation of Lincoln's careful study of the military situation 
 at that early period of the war ; his intelligent knowledge of 
 the proposed results of campaigns, and his entire willingness 
 to gain the best information to revise his judgment if in error. 
 McClellan was so tenacious as to the correctness of his Penin- 
 sula campaign that Lincoln, after much deliberation, reluct- 
 antly yielded his convictions, and from the day that he did so 
 he certainly sought in every way that he could, consistently 
 with the safety of the capital, to aid McClellan in his move- 
 ment. About this time Lincoln was much perplexed by an- 
 other grave dispute with McClellan. Lincoln believed that it 
 would be wise to organize the Army of the Potomac into army 
 corps with responsible commanders, while McClellan was un- 
 willing to accept that method of organization, for reasons which 
 need not here be discussed. The order of the President for 
 the movement of the armies on the 22d of February was not 
 obeyed, and on the 8th of March, Lincoln assumed the re- 
 sponsibility of issuing an order to McClellan to divide the 
 Army of the Potomac into four army corps to be commanded 
 by McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes, with a reserve 
 force for the defense of Washington, under command of Wads- 
 worth. A fifth corps was also ordered to be formed, with 
 Banks as commander. On the same day he issued President 
 General Order No. 3," directing that no change of base of 
 operations of the Army of the Potomac should be made with- 
 out leaving for Washington defenses a sufficient force to make 
 the capital entirely secure. 
 
 This order went to the very marrow of what is yet an 
 unsettled dispute between the friends of Lincoln and of 
 McClellan, but this is not the occasion to discuss the merits of 
 that controversy. It necessarily withheld from direct co-oper- 
 
148 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 ation with McClellan, a considerable portion of the army that 
 could have been utilized in the effort to capture Richmond if 
 it had been deemed safe to uncover Washington. With the 
 details of that memorable and heroic campaign this audience 
 is thoroughly familiar. McClellan advanced upon Manassas 
 only to find it abandoned by the enemy. A council of war 
 was held at McClellan's quarters, Fairfax Court-House, on the 
 13th of March, at which it was decided to proceed against 
 Richmond by the Peninsula. The only diversity of sentiment 
 at that council was as to whether 25,000 or 40,000 men should 
 be detached for the defense at Washington ; Keyes, Heintzel- 
 man, and McDowell favoring the smaller number, and Sumner 
 the larger number. I should here note a circumstance that I 
 think is not generally understood. On the nth of March^ 
 when McClellan was advancing with his army on Manassas, 
 Lincoln issued an order practically removing him from the 
 office of Commander-in-chief by limiting his command to only 
 the Army of the Potomac operating with him against Rich- 
 mond. This order has been variously discussed from the differ- 
 ent standpoints held by the friends of Lincoln and McClellan, 
 and with the merits of the controversy I do not propose to 
 deal. I want to say, however, that those who assume that 
 Lincoln limited McClellan's command because of any personal 
 prejudice against him are in error. He appointed no successor 
 as Commander-in-chief, but obviously left the place open for 
 him who should win it. It is evident that his difficulties with 
 McClellan about advancing upon Richmond, and about the 
 organization of his army, had somewhat impaired Lincoln's 
 confidence in McClellan as Commander-in-chief, but I speak 
 advisedly when I say that he sincerely hoped that McClellan 
 would succeed in his Richmond campaign by the capture of 
 the Confederate capital, and thus prove his right to be restored 
 as Commander-in-chief. I know that Lincoln cherished that 
 hope and meant that the captor of Richmond should be made 
 the Commander-in-chief of the army. Nor is this statement 
 without strong corroboration from circumstance. The posi- 
 tion of Commander-in-chief was not filled by Lincoln until 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 149 
 
 precisely four months after McClellan had been relieved from 
 it, namely, on the iith of August, 1862, and just four days 
 after McCellan's letter to the President, written at Harrison's 
 Landing, severely criticising not only the military, but the 
 political policy of the Administration. 
 
 That was a fateful letter for McCellan. It did not resolve 
 Lincoln against the further support of McClellan, nor do I 
 believe that it seriously prejudiced McClellan in Linclon's 
 estimation, as was shown by his restoration of McClellan to 
 command after Pope's defeat soon thereafter, but it so 
 thoroughly defined partisan lines between McClellan and the 
 supporters of the Administration, that when Lincoln called 
 McClellan to the command of the defenses of Washington he 
 had to do it against the united vote of his Cabinet, and against 
 the protests of almost, if not quite, a united party in Congress 
 and in the country. However earnestly Lincoln may have de- 
 sired to support McClellan thereafter, he was greatly weakened 
 in his ability to do so. His letters to McClellan during the 
 Peninsula campaign are an interesting study. All of them are 
 singularly generous and never offensive, and exhibit the sincer- 
 est desire of the President to render McClellan every support 
 possible without exposing Washington to reasonable peril of 
 capture. Only a week before this political letter was written, 
 McClellan had addressed Stanton a long letter, in which he 
 said : If I save this army now I tell you plainly that I owe 
 no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. 
 You have done your best to sacrifice this army." That 
 McClellan, like Lincoln, did everything and said everything 
 with the most patriotic purposes, and with intended loyalty to 
 every duty, I do not doubt, but the issue remains now nearly 
 a generation after the dispute began, and is likely to continue 
 throughout all the pages of future history. 
 
 Four days after the Harrison Landing letter was delivered 
 to the President, Halleck was appointed Commander-in-chief. 
 The office remained vacant precisely four months, during which 
 time there never was a doubt that Halleck would be called to 
 the position unless McClellan should be restored. Soon after 
 
I50 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 Lincoln returned from his visit to McClellan on the Peninsula^ 
 at which time McClellan's letter was delivered in person ta 
 Lincoln, Halleck urged the removal of McClellan from com- 
 mand, but Lincoln overruled him, and instead of ordering the 
 Army of the Peninsula back to the support of Pope, McClellan 
 was ordered to come with his forces. How McClellan ceased 
 to have a command when his army was brought within the 
 jurisdiction of General Pope is well understood by this as- 
 sembly. Pope was defeated and routed and driven back into 
 the entrenchments of Washington. In this emergency Lincoln 
 braved the unanimous hostility of his Cabinet and all his 
 political friends by calling upon McClellan in person in Wash- 
 ington and asking him to take command of the defenses of the 
 capital, which practically gave him command of the entire 
 army while it was defending Washington. It was not a diffi- 
 cult matter to defend the capital with the complete system of 
 entrenchments constructed by McClellan. There were a score 
 of generals in the army who could have done that, but what 
 the army needed most of all was reorganization. It was 
 broken, dispirited, almost hopeless, and Lincoln knew that no 
 man approached McClellan as a military organizer. To use 
 his own language on the occasion, as quoted by Mr. Hay in 
 his diary : " There is no one in the army who can command 
 these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape 
 half as well as he [McClellan] can." In this severe trial Lin- 
 coln was not forgetful of his duties of Commander-in-chief. 
 On the 3d of September, the day after assigning McClellan to 
 the command of the defenses of Washington, he issued an 
 order to General-in-chief Halleck, directing him to proceed 
 with all possible dispatch to organize an army for active opera- 
 tions to take the field against the enemy. The Antietam cam- 
 paign logically followed as Lee advanced into Maryland, and 
 McClellan, without any especial assignment, took the field 
 against Lee, resulting in the battle of Antietam and the re- 
 treat of Lee back to Virginia. 
 
 As early as the 28th of June Lincoln addressed a letter to 
 Seward in which he outlined the policy of the war in all the 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 different departments. This was after the failure of the Penin- 
 sula campaign. It proved how thoroughly Lincoln kept in 
 view his comprehensive strategy for the prosecution of the 
 war. After the battle of Antietam there was continued dis- 
 pute between Lincoln and McClellan, arising from what Lin- 
 coln believed to be tardiness on the part of the commander of 
 the army to pursue the enemy. The Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion speedily followed McClellan's victory at Antietam, and 
 that rather intensified the opposing political views of the 
 friends of Lincoln and McClellan. In a private letter, written 
 by McClellan on September 25th, and given in his own book 
 (page 615), McClellan said: "The President's late proclama- 
 tion, the continuation of Stanton and Halleck in office, rendered 
 it almost impossible for me to retain my commission and self- 
 respect at the same time," and McClellan did not soften the 
 asperities of the occasion by an address to his army, issued on 
 the 7th of October, defining the relations of those in the mili- 
 tary service toward the civil authorities. He said: The remedy 
 for political errors, if any are committed, is to be found only 
 in the action of the people at the polls." I give these quota- 
 tions to show under what grievances, whether real or assumed, 
 McClellan suffered during this controversy, and it is not sur- 
 prising that the chasm between the President and his General 
 gradually widened because of the constantly increasing intens- 
 ity of party prejudice against McClellan. During all this 
 dispute Lincoln never exhibited even a shadow of resentment 
 in anything that he said or did, so far as we have any record, 
 and on the 13th of October he wrote an elaborate letter to 
 McClellan, in which he temperately but very thoroughly dis- 
 cussed all the strategic lines of McClellan's prospective advance 
 into Virginia, showing the most complete familiarity not only 
 with the country that the army was to occupy, but with all 
 the accepted rules of modern warfare. This controversy cul- 
 minated in McClellan's removal from his command on the 5th 
 of November, 1862, and that dated the end of his military 
 career. He was ordered to report at Trenton for further 
 orders, where he remained until the day of the Presidential 
 
152 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, 
 
 election in 1864, when he resigned his office, and Sheridan's 
 appointment as his successor was announced in one of Stanton's 
 characteristic bulletins on the following day, along with the 
 news of McClellan's disastrous defeat for the Presidency. 
 
 I have given much time in this address to Lincoln's rela- 
 tions with McClellan because they present, in the strongest 
 light, Lincoln's positive exercise of the high prerogatives of 
 Commander-in-chief of the army. Whether he did it wisely or 
 unwisely in his protracted controversy with McClellan cannot 
 be here discussed, but the case of McClellan stands out most 
 conspicuously as showing how completely Lincoln accepted 
 and discharged the duties of the office of Commander-in-chief, 
 The most disastrous battle in which the Army of the Potomac 
 was engaged soon followed McClellan's retirement when Burn- 
 side was repulsed at Fredericksburg. At no stage of the war 
 was the Army of the Potomac in such a demoralized condition 
 as during the period from the defeat of Fredericksburg until 
 Hooker was called to the command. Lincoln believed that 
 some of Burnside's corps commanders were unfaithful to him, 
 but where was he to get a commander ? It is an open secret that 
 Sedgwick, Meade, and Reynolds each in turn declined it, and 
 the President finally turned to Hooker as the only man whose 
 enthusiasm might inspire the demoralized army into effective- 
 ness as an aggressive military power. That Lincoln was much 
 distressed at the condition then existing is evident from many 
 sources, but he makes it specially evident in a characteristic 
 letter addressed by him to Hooker on the 26th of January, 
 1863, telling him of his assignment to the command of the 
 Army of the Potomac. In this letter he says to Hooker : 
 
 " I think that during General Burnside's command of the army 
 you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much 
 as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to 
 a most meritorious and honorable brother officer, I have heard, in 
 such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the 
 army and the government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not 
 for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only 
 those generals who gain success can set up as Dictators. What I 
 now ask of you is military success and I will risk the Dictatorship.'* 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 Hooker accepted this pointed admonition like a true soldier. 
 His answer was : He talks to me like a father. I shall not 
 answer this letter until I have won a great victory." On the 
 nth of April Lincoln again left a record of his views as to the 
 proper movements of the Army of the Potomac, in which he 
 pointedly declared the true policy of making the army of Lee 
 the objective point instead of the Confederate capital, and from 
 that theory he never departed. In this memorandum, he said : 
 " Our prime object is the enemy's army in front of us, and not 
 with or about Richmond at all, unless it be incidental to the 
 main object." 
 
 I need not give in detail the result of Hooker's campaign 
 to Chancellorsville. It was one of the most brilHant strategic 
 movements of the war in the beginning and one of the most 
 strangely disastrous results at the close. On the day after 
 Hooker's retreat back across the Rapidan, the President wrote 
 him a letter, in which there is not a trace of complaint against 
 the commander, but clearly conveying Lincoln's profound sor- 
 row at the result. He asked Hooker whether he had any plans 
 for another early movement, concluding with these words : 
 If you have not, please inform me, so that I, incompetent as 
 I may be, can try and assist in the formation of some plan for 
 the army." When Lee began his movement northward to- 
 wards Gettysburg, Hooker proposed to attack Lee's rear as 
 soon as the movement was fully developed, to which Lincoln 
 promptly replied, disapproving of the plan of attacking the 
 enemy at Fredericksburg, which was Lee's rear, because the 
 enemy would be in entrenchments, and, to use Lincoln's lan- 
 guage, so man for man worst you at that point, while his 
 main force would, in some way, be getting an advantage of 
 you northward." He added : " In one word, I would not take 
 any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped 
 half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear 
 without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." 
 Hooker's next suggestion was to let Lee move northward and 
 make a swift march upon Richmond, but this was also rejected 
 by Lincoln because, as he says, Richmond, when invested, 
 could not be taken in twenty days, and he added : I think 
 
154 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 Lee's army and not Richmond is your sure objective point." 
 This was on the loth of June, 1863. On the 14th of June he 
 again telegraphed Hooker urging him to succor Winchester, 
 which was then threatened by the advance of Lee's army, in 
 which he made the following quaint suggestion : " If the head 
 of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank 
 road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal 
 must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?" 
 On the 1 6th of June he addressed a private letter to Hooker 
 in which he spoke to him with the kind frankness so character- 
 istic of him, gently portraying his faults and kindly pointing 
 the way for him to act in harmony with Halleck, and all others 
 whose aid was necessary to success. On the 27th of June 
 Hooker was relieved from command at his own request, and 
 Meade charged with the responsibility of fighting the decisive 
 battle of the war at Gettysburg. I need not discuss any of the 
 details of that campaign. The defeat of Lee at Gettysburg 
 decided the issue of the war. Many bloody battles were fought 
 thereafter, but from the 4th of July, 1863, the cause of the 
 Confederacy was a lost cause, and the man who won that 
 battle should have been the chieftain of the war. 
 
 I may here properly introduce two dispatches received by 
 Lincoln from the battle-fields of Antietam and Gettysburg, 
 which, I personally know, did much to make Lincoln distrust 
 the capacity of both McClellan and Meade to appreciate the 
 great purpose of the war. When Lee had retreated across the 
 Potomac from Antietam on the 19th of September, 1862, Mc- 
 Clellan telegraphed : " Our victory was complete. The enemy 
 is driven back into Virginia. Maryland and Pennsylvania are 
 now safe." Meade's congratulation to the army on the field 
 of Gettysburg, July 4, 1863, closes as follows: "Our task is 
 not yet accomplished, and the commanding general looks to 
 the army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige 
 of the presence of the invader." The fact that both these 
 commanders seemed to assume that their great work was to 
 drive the enemy from northern soil, impressed Lincoln pro- 
 foundly. In Mr. Hay's diary Lincoln is quoted as saying, 
 upon the receipt of this dispatch : " Will our generals never 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 get that idea out of their heads ? The whole country is our 
 soil." His theory of the war was that the enemy could be 
 fought much more advantageously on northern soil than in 
 the South, as it enabled concentration of northern forces, and 
 diffused southern forces in maintaining lines of supply ; and 
 before either of these battles was fought he had publicly de- 
 clared his theory that Lee's army was the heart of the re- 
 bellion and that Richmond and other important military centres 
 would be valueless while Lee's army was unbroken. It is known 
 that Lincoln was at first strongly inclined to censure Meade 
 for not fighting another battle at Williamsport. I saw the 
 President soon after that battle and was amazed at his thorough 
 familiarity with every highway and mountain pass which the 
 armies had open to them. As it was near my own home I 
 knew how accurate his information was, and he questioned me 
 minutely as to distances and opportunities of the two armies 
 in the race to Williamsport. When I asked him the direct 
 question whether he was not satisfied with what Meade had 
 accomplished, he answered in these words : Now don't misun- 
 derstand me about General Meade. I am profoundly grateful 
 down to the bottom of my boots for what he did at Gettys- 
 burg, but I think if I had been General Meade I would have 
 fought another battle." He was extremely careful to avoid 
 injustice to any of his commanders, and after fully considering 
 the whole subject, he excused rather than justified Meade for 
 not delivering battle to Lee at Williamsport. Had Meade 
 done so and succeeded he would have been the great general 
 of the war, but there are few generals who would have fought 
 that battle with the forces of both sides nearly equal and Lee 
 entrenched. Had he fought it and failed, he would have been 
 severely censured ; but failing to fight, he lost his one oppor- 
 tunity to be the lieutenant-general of the war. 
 
 I need not refer in detail to the Pope campaign of 1862. It 
 is known to all present that the appointment of Pope and 
 the creation of his department were entirely Lincoln's own 
 acts. Without the knowledge of his Cabinet he slipped off 
 quietly to West Point to confer with General Scott, but what 
 transpired between them no one ever learned from Lincoln. 
 
156 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 Indeed so much were Lincoln and the country perplexed about 
 military commanders in 1862-63 that Senator Wade conceived 
 the idea of making himself lieutenant-general and commander 
 of the armies, and had many supporters. In this he followed 
 the precedent of Senator Benton during the Mexican war, who 
 then made an earnest effort to be appointed generalissimo to 
 supersede both Scott and Taylor in the direction of military 
 operations in Mexico. 
 
 The campaign for the relief of East Tennessee was one of 
 Lincoln's early conceptions, and in September, 1862, he went 
 to the War Department personally and left a memorandum or- 
 der for a campaign into that State. Many reasons combined 
 to prevent early obedience to his orders, but from that time 
 forward there was not a movement made in the West that 
 Lincoln did not carefully examine and revise to hasten the re- 
 lief of Tennessee, and his letter to Halleck, February 16, 1862, 
 when Fort Donelson was about to be captured, outlined a 
 policy of campaign to reach the heart of Tennessee. While he 
 thus carefully revised every strategic movement, he always 
 scrupulously avoided giving instructions which might embar- 
 rass a general fighting in the field. After the defeat and vic- 
 tory at Shiloh, he called Halleck to the field to shield General 
 Grant from the grossly unjust opposition that was surging 
 against him, and in a letter to Halleck he said : " I have no 
 instructions to give you ; go ahead, and all success attend you." 
 
 The failure of the iron-clads at Charleston in 1863 was one 
 of the sore disappointments of the war, and Lincoln's instruc- 
 tions, sent jointly to General Hunter and Admiral Dupont, are 
 explicit as to what they shall attempt to do. When General 
 Banks was assigned to the Department of the Gulf in 1862, 
 with a command of twenty thousand men, Lincoln's letter to 
 him, dated November 22d, pointedly illustrates his complete 
 familiarity with the purposes of the campaign, and his admoni- 
 tions to General Banks present a singular mixture of censure 
 and charitable judgment. When we turn to his letter to Gen- 
 eral Grant, written July 13, 1863, after the surrender of Vicks- 
 burg, we will remember how carefully Lincoln observed all 
 strategic movements and also how he judged them. He was 
 
LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 glad to confess error when the truth required it, and in his let- 
 ter of thanks to Grant, after the capture of Vicksburg, he told 
 him that he believed that Grant should have moved differently, 
 but added — I now wish to make the personal acknowledg. 
 ment that you were right and I was wrong." Early in the 
 year 1864 Lincoln directed the movement into Florida, which 
 resulted in the disastrous battle at Olustee, but he intended it 
 as a political rather than as a military expedition. He in like 
 manner directed combined military and political movements in 
 Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri. While Halleck 
 was nominally Commander-in-chief of the army he had gradu- 
 ally ceased to be anything more than the chief of staff. Lin- 
 coln is quoted in Mr. Hay's diary as saying that, although 
 Halleck had stipulated when he accepted the position, it should 
 be with the full powers and responsibilities of the office, after 
 the defeat of Pope, Halleck had shrunk from responsibility 
 whenever it was possible." 
 
 This brings us to the 8th of March, 1864, when Lincoln 
 and Grant met for the first time in the White House, and Lin- 
 coln personally delivered to Grant his commission as Lieu- 
 tenant-General. Immediately thereafter he was assigned as 
 Commander-in-chief of the army. From that day Lincoln 
 practically abdicated all his powers as Commander-in-chief, so 
 far as they related to army movements. He had found a com- 
 mander in whom he had implicit faith, and one who was fully 
 in accord with his theory that the overthrow of Lee's army 
 would be the overthrow of the rebellion, and Lincoln did not 
 conceal his purpose to impose the entire responsibility on 
 Grant. In a letter written to Grant April 30, 1864, just before 
 Grant's movement in the Wilderness campaign, Lincoln said : 
 The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to know. 
 You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with these, I 
 wish not to intrude any constraint or restraint upon you." 
 Lincoln not only meant what he said, but he fulfilled his prom- 
 ise to the end. How heartily he was in accord with Grant is 
 known to all. There was never a military or personal dispute 
 between them, and Lincoln felt more than satisfied with the 
 wisdom of his appointment of Grant when he received from the 
 
158 
 
 LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 desperate carnage of the Wilderness the inspiring dispatch : 
 I propose to fight it out on this Hne if it takes all summer." 
 He had like faith in Sherman, and after his capture of Atlanta 
 was more than willing to assent to Sherman's march to the 
 Sea, because he trusted the man who was to lead the army in 
 that heroic movement. In his letter of congratulations to 
 Sherman at Savannah, December 26, 1864, he told how anx- 
 ious and fearful he was when Sherman left Atlanta, but added : 
 Remembering that ' nothing risked nothing gained,' I did 
 not interfere. Now the undertaking being a success the honor 
 is all yours, for I believe none of us went further than to 
 acquiesce." 
 
 Soon after Sherman's march into North Carolina, Lincoln 
 met Grant and Sherman at City Point, where the whole aspect 
 of the war was fully discussed, and where he gave his last sug- 
 gestions as Commander-in-chief. They did not relate to the 
 movements of armies but to the question of peace. The gen- 
 erous terms given by Grant to Lee at Appomattox were the 
 reflex of Lincoln's suggestions at City Point, although doubt- 
 less in hearty accord with the great warrior's convictions ; and 
 Sherman, in his original agreement with Johnston for the sur- 
 render of his army, simply executed Mr. Lincoln's directions 
 or suggestions as he understood them. The assassination of 
 Lincoln suddenly brought a changed condition upon the coun- 
 try, and with it developed the intensest passions of civil war, but 
 of these Sherman was ignorant, and he obeyed the orders of 
 the Commander-in-chief in accepting terms of surrender that 
 became at once impracticable after Lincoln had fallen by the 
 assassin's bullet. Thus ends the story of Abraham Lincoln as 
 Commander-in-chief in the most bloody and heroic war of 
 modern times. I have simply presented facts, leaving for 
 others the task of criticism ; but this one fact will ever stand 
 out conspicuously in the history of our civil war, that Lincoln 
 was, in fact, Commander-in-chief from the first defeat at Man- 
 assas in July, 1 86 1, until March, 1864, when the Silent Man of 
 the West brought him welcome relief from that high preroga- 
 tive and gave the Republic unity and peace. 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 Read by General M. T. McMahon, May 3, 1893, 
 
 F the many soldiers of high rank who have made their 
 
 names familiar to the people, and sanctified by sudden 
 death upon the field the cause of the nation, there is not one 
 who held a higher place in the popular regard as an officer of 
 skill and a gentleman of honor than the commander of the 
 Sixth Army Corps — Major-General John Sedgwick. 
 
 He was a thorough soldier, a man of unbending will, cool 
 and well-disciplined in mind, quick in the inception and silent 
 in the execution of plans ; undisturbed in all the changing 
 phases of a battle ; intensely eager for success during the 
 struggle, and yet neither elated overmuch by victory, nor un- 
 reasonably depressed by defeat. He was exacting in discipline, 
 requiring of all beneath him prompt and unquestioning obedi- 
 ence, and yielding to the orders of his superiors all that he 
 demanded of his subordinates. 
 
 As a soldier he had few equals ; for in all the duties of his 
 profession, whether they involved the fate of great armies or 
 concerned the merest question of etiquette or routine, he was 
 wholly faithful. This scrupulous fidelity and unbending 
 strength of purpose in emergencies were the salient points of 
 his professional character. For these he has been publicly 
 honored in the army, and among the people ; for these and for 
 the great deeds through such qualities accomplished, has the 
 nation mourned his irreparable loss. 
 
 Yet those who only knew Sedgwick as a soldier of high 
 repute and blameless in all official acts, were ignorant of the 
 noblest traits of his character, and of those splendid and touch- 
 
i6o 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 ing attributes which, in the minds of many, were almost suffi- 
 cient to eclipse his military fame. It was on account of that 
 tenderness of disposition, that sensitive regard for others, that 
 exact justice to all, the quiet sense of humor, and heartiness 
 of friendship which marked him among his associates, that his 
 death came like a great personal sorrow — calling forth tears 
 from eyes " unused to the melting mood," and spreading over 
 the gallant army with which he was connected a gloom which 
 defeat could not deepen nor the flush of victory dissipate. 
 
 These things however were written of him, when the sad 
 intelligence of his fall was first made public, in a thousand 
 presses ; and it is not the object of this article to attempt a 
 narrative of his life or a description of his character, but simply 
 to recall a few incidents of his career, which those who served 
 under or with him delighted in telling over and over again to 
 while away the monotony of camp life in front of Petersburg, 
 and in the changing bivouacs of the Shenandoah Valley. 
 
 From the little village of Cornwall Hollow, in Connecticut, 
 he entered the military academy in the year 1833. Upon 
 graduating he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the 2d 
 Artillery, and served on the plains against the Indians, until 
 the brilliant and romantic episode of the Mexican war. At 
 Contreras and Churubusco he commanded his company, was 
 complimented in orders, and brevetted Captain. At Molino 
 del Rey he was again especially commended, and was brevetted 
 Major for Chapultepec. He especially distinguished himself 
 at the attack of the San Cosmo gate of the city of Mexico, 
 and was especially commended in the reports. He was made 
 full Captain in 1849, when the new regiments were created 
 in 1855 he was appointed Major of the 1st Cavalry. This 
 appointment, wholly unsolicited and unexpected by him, was 
 made, I may say, almost by the unanimous request and desire 
 of the higher officers of the army. While in this position, he 
 figured in the miniature civil war in bleeding Kansas, contend- 
 ing alternately against the disciples of John Brown and the 
 border ruffians of Missouri. In March, 1861, he was made 
 Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2d Cavalry, and in April of the 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 i6i 
 
 same year Colonel of the 4th Cavalry. In August, 1861, he 
 was made Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and the following 
 year received the full rank of Major-General. 
 
 On many battlefields, therefore, from his boyhood onward, 
 he had ample opportunity of learning what an American sol- 
 dier could do, and this, like all else that came under his obser- 
 vation, he laid away for future use, and made available in the 
 greater operations in which it was his fortune to be subse- 
 quently engaged. 
 
 On the plains, as a commander of cavalry in the monoto- 
 nous, difficult, dangerous, and inglorious contests against the 
 Indians, he simply did his soldierly duty, always winning the 
 commendation of his superiors, the love of his associates, and 
 the respect of his men. 
 
 During this period of his service at Jefferson Barracks the 
 cholera swept through his command, striking down officers and 
 men alike. Sedgwick was spared throughout it all, and a great 
 part of each day he spent in the hospitals, cheering the sick 
 and consoling the dying. 
 
 He was little known outside of army circles, but in the 
 army there was no one, from the general commanding down to 
 the private soldier, better known or more warmly regarded. 
 
 When the civil war commenced he was duly ordered from 
 the plains to the east, duly promoted to higher commands, 
 and found himself in 1861 Brigadier-General of Volunteers, 
 commanding a brigade in the army then being organized near 
 Washington to retrieve the disaster of Bull Run, and to carry 
 the colors of the Union and the authority of the United States 
 into and through and ovei the revolted States. 
 
 His selection for this command, like that of many of the 
 greatest of our soldiers who were similarly selected, was due to 
 the wise foresight and intimate knowledge of the army pos- 
 sessed by the first organizer and great commander of the Army 
 of the Potomac, George B. McClellan. 
 
 When there was a vacancy in the command of a division 
 upon the Upper Potomac by the strange and unaccountable 
 arrest, never explained, of Gen. Charles P. Stone, Sedgwick 
 
l62 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 was sent to the command of this division, then described as a 
 corps of observation. But when at last the Army of the Po- 
 tomac was completed and took the field in organized corps, 
 Sedgwick's division became a part of the Second Army Corps. 
 
 Down the broad waters of the Potomac in that early day 
 in spring, amid the thunders of artillery from fleet and fort, 
 with waving flags and streamers gaily decked, hundreds of 
 vessels sailed day after day, conveying the great Army of the 
 Potomac to its destination at Fort Monroe, to begin the grand 
 advance on Richmond. 
 
 Sedgwick's connection with these important events reveals 
 one magnificent episode. 
 
 At Fair Oaks, on the 30th of May, when the treacherous 
 river rose and seemed to sweep all hope of succor from the 
 left wing of the Army of the Potomac, on which the whole 
 force of the rebellion was suddenly hurled ; when bridge after 
 bridge so carefully constructed had given way, and there re- 
 mained but one, over which the water poured in a mighty 
 torrent, and which was held in place by ropes attached to the 
 trees upon either bank, Sedgwick's great will and iron nerve 
 rose to the occasion higher than the waves, stronger than the 
 mad river ; and over the trembling bridge, through the surging 
 waters, he led his men, dragged his artillery, and accomplished 
 a passage marvellous in its achievement, magnificent in its 
 results. 
 
 With his arrival on that field all danger to the army and 
 the cause for that day was removed. The enemy were re- 
 pulsed and driven back at all points, and the following day 
 defeated on every portion of the field. This affair illustrated 
 one peculiar trait of Sedgwick's character and life. He was 
 always at the right spot at the right time, and he seemed to 
 get there or be there with such quiet precision that there ap- 
 peared nothing strange in it until you critically examined the 
 obstacles overcome. This feature fitted him peculiarly for the 
 command of the Sixth Corps, which he attained somewhat 
 later, for throughout the history of that corps repeated in- 
 stances on important occasions are to be found when its 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 163 
 
 prompt and timely arrival accomplished decisive results. It is 
 not to be wondered at, therefore, that when such a commander 
 succeeded to such a corps, the reputation of both should stand 
 high through the army. 
 
 At Antietam, under the blue September sky in the early 
 dawn, the reorganized Army of the Potomac, under its old 
 commander, confronted upon a single field its old opponent. 
 Hitherto all our great battles had been fought upon one side or 
 the other in detail. Sedgwick commanded his division under 
 the gallant Sumner, pushed forward on the right, leadinghis men 
 with that earnest determination which always implied that the 
 thing that he set out to do must be accomplished in spite of hu- 
 man resistance. His men melted away under the steady and de- 
 structive fire, yet he pressed the enemy back through the woods 
 and the cornfield, beyond the memorable Dunker Church. He 
 was bleeding from a painful wound, to which he referred petu- 
 lantly as being merely an annoyance and awkward just at that 
 time. At last, again struck by an enemy's bullet, he fell from 
 loss of blood and exhaustion, and was carried from the field. 
 His adjutant-general, the gallant Major Wm. D. Sedgwick, 
 fell mortally wounded at his side. The contest at this point 
 had been severe beyond description, and when Sedgwick's 
 bleeding body was borne away, and the hearts of the men were 
 drooping, it was the old Sixth Corps that pressed forward 
 under Franklin and Smith and Slocum to restore our broken 
 ranks, to save the remnant of Sedgwick's division, and assist in 
 completing the glorious work of the day, and one of the 
 greatest victories of the war. Sedgwick's wounds were very 
 painful, but long before they were fully healed he was back in 
 the field, and assigned to the command of the Ninth Corps. 
 Referring to the pain and annoyance of his wounds, he once 
 said laughingly : If I am ever hit again, I hope it will settle 
 me at once. I want no more wounds." 
 
 When the customary and expected change was made in the 
 command of the Army of the Potomac after the first Freder- 
 icksburg, an interchange of commanders was ordered between 
 the Ninth and Sixth Corps, which placed General Baldy " 
 
l64 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 Smith in command of the one and General Sedgwick as the 
 chief of the other. He joined the corps at the camp on the 
 Rappahannock known as White Oak Church. When he came 
 he was kindly received, even enthusiastically, notwithstanding 
 the corps greatly mourned its late commanders, both Franklin 
 and Smith. 
 
 The winter passed monotonously enough. It was a dismal 
 camp, and the days went by right heavily until at the opening^ 
 of spring our ancient labor was resumed, and once more the 
 faithful old Army of the Potomac found itself upon the hated 
 pontoons, crossing the river of death preliminary to the battles 
 which made up the sad record of the Chancellorsville campaign. 
 Inasmuch as this campaign and the events connected with it 
 constitute perhaps the most important part of Sedgwick's 
 history, I shall devote more of my time to it than to any other 
 of the actions in which he was engaged. 
 
 The movements of General Hooker at that time were 
 singularly well planned. Our army, occupying the Falmouth 
 Heights and the left bank of the Rappahannock, was confronted 
 by the army of General Lee occupying the opposite bank, the 
 city of Fredericksburg, Marye's Heights, and the river above 
 and below the city, a distance of some miles. 
 
 Hooker's plan consisted of transferring the greater part of 
 the army rapidly and secretly some twenty miles above Lee's 
 position, crossing the river in force, marching to the flank and 
 rear of the rebel line, and compelling the enemy to evacuate a 
 strongly fortified position, and come out and give battle outside 
 his works in order to save his communication with Richmond. 
 
 While the movement was in progress, Sedgwick was left 
 near his original camp a few miles below Fredericksburg in 
 command of three corps of the army composing the left wing. 
 These were his own, the Sixth Corps, the First, under com- 
 mand of General John F. Reynolds, and the Third, under 
 command of General Daniel E. Sickles. With this strong 
 force he was to cross the river, threaten the enemy's fortified 
 position below Fredericksburg, and, without bringing on, if he 
 could avoid it, a general engagement, so conduct himself as to 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 165 
 
 make the enemy believe that it was his intention to do so at 
 any moment. In other words, he was left to create a formid- 
 able diversion, but still strong enough to fight if necessary. 
 The crossing of the river was accomplished in the night-time. 
 The enemy's pickets occupied the opposite bank and were 
 within easy talking distance of our men. The rumble of heavy 
 wagons carrying the pontoon boats could be heard across the 
 river, and it was therefore determined that the boats should be 
 carried down upon the shoulders of the men. The light brigade 
 under Gen. Calvin E. Pratt was assigned to this important 
 duty. After much delay, trouble, and vexation, the boats were 
 at last launched before the enemy had any full realization of 
 what was about to occur. The night was dark and foggy, but 
 sounds could be heard at an unusual distance. Two or three 
 times from the opposite bank the rebel pickets hailed with the 
 usual " Hallo there, Yank, what 's going on over there? What 
 are you doing? " Our pickets occasionally replied, ''Johnnie, 
 we 're coming over after you." This style of conversation 
 occurred at intervals during the night as some unusual sound at- 
 tracted the enemy's attention. When the boats were launched 
 and manned by soldiers of the engineer brigade as oarsmen, 
 the troops of General David A. Russell were embarked, sixty 
 men in a boat ; and in silence, the oars no more than making a 
 ripple in the water, forty boat-loads slowly pushed from the 
 shore side by side, and were lost in the fog before they had 
 gone twenty feet from land. The dead silence still continued 
 while those upon the shore watched with beating hearts, and 
 listened with anxiety not to be described. It seemed an ever- 
 lasting time while each one peered through the fog which fell 
 like a pall upon the gallant band that had left us for the other 
 shore. The river is not more than eighty or one hundred yards 
 wide at this point, but the progress of the boats, owing probably 
 to the necessity of going with great silence, was unusually 
 slow. There was ominous stillness on the other bank. There 
 seemed to be no movement of troops ; we could hear no 
 rumbling of artillery. 
 
 Suddenly upon the night air there rang from the enemy 
 
i66 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 one single clear word distinctly heard in all the boats, and 
 across upon our bank, and well understood, " Fire ! " The 
 blaze of musketry in the fog along the whole river bank for 
 two hundred yards seemed like the sudden opening of one 
 great mouth of flame. The crash that followed took away 
 some of the scenic effect of this brilliant display, and was of 
 itself robbed of its effectiveness by the uncomfortable accom- 
 paniment of rattling bullets which, fortunately for those in the 
 boats, were aimed too high to do much harm, except upon the 
 * innocent spectators who had not yet embarked. The rebel 
 yell, familiar as it was to all of us, never seemed so ominous and 
 disagreeable. Nothing was heard from the boats except here 
 and there a word of command or encouragement, and after- 
 wards, as the fire from the farther bank continued and grew, after 
 the first volley, more straggling, the anxiety for one word from 
 Russell became grave and great. In a few seconds a boat was 
 seen returning, and our hearts grew chilled, believing that the 
 attempt to land had been abandoned. As the boat, however, 
 came out of the fog, it was seen that it was empty except as 
 to the oarsmen. Then in another instant a clear, loud, exult- 
 ant cheer, followed by another and another, told us that the 
 works on the other bank were ours. The boats made another 
 trip, carrying other regiments, and then the bridges were rap- 
 idly laid down and completed soon after daylight. In the 
 meantime, a second crossing was effected about one mile far- 
 ther below on the river, where Reynolds threw across one of 
 his divisions. For three days we remained in this position 
 skirmishing every day, keeping two divisions on the enemy's 
 side of the river, the rest of the command in readiness to cross. 
 Meanwhile Hooker, with the rest of the army, had rapidly and 
 admirably accomplished the crossing of the river and the great 
 flank march which formed the essential feature of his plan of 
 action. With Slocum in advance he was sweeping down upon 
 the enemy's flank, capturing even their outlying pickets. 
 Upon Hooker's arrival on the field, for reasons never fully 
 explained or understood, he checked Slocum's farther advance 
 in the direction of Fredericksburg, contracted his own lines^ 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 and seemed to assume the defensive, and maintained it during 
 the rest of those unfortunate operations. Meanwhile he with- 
 drew from Sedgwick's command first Sickles's corps and then 
 Reynolds's, which had to march to join him by way of one of 
 the upper fords ; and Sedgwick was left at Franklin's Crossing, 
 three miles below Fredericksburg, with the Sixth Corps alone, 
 which numbered at that time about twenty-two thousand men. 
 On Saturday night Sedgwick had one division of his command 
 across the river deployed in front of the enemy's work, extend- 
 ing about four miles below the city. 
 
 An order from General Hooker received at half-past eleven 
 at night directed him to take up his bridges, march to Fred- 
 ericksburg upon our side of the river, relay the bridges, cross 
 with his command, take the heights which dominated the town, 
 known as Marye's Heights, capture the city, march out on the 
 plank road in the direction of Chancellorsville, and join Gen- 
 eral Hooker's command at daylight. The distance of Chancel- 
 lorsville from Fredericksburg is about eleven miles, the distance 
 to be accomplished by withdrawing to our side of the river 
 and marching by the Falmouth Heights to Fredericksburg, 
 about five miles. Inasmuch as it would have been totally im- 
 possible in the time allowed for the whole march, to take up 
 the bridges, transport them to Fredericksburg, and relay them 
 there. General Sedgwick decided not to remove them, but to 
 cross with his whole corps on the bridges as constructed, and 
 move by the flank on the enemy's side of the river into Fred- 
 ericksburg. By doing this he would save some hours of time. 
 He moved at once to cross the river with his remaining 
 division. 
 
 Brooks, who was in position, fronting the enemy's works, 
 was sharply pressed by their pickets in the darkness, as if they 
 desired to know whether we were withdrawing. Newton's and 
 Howe's division, with the light brigade, marched in the direc- 
 tion of Fredericksburg. They were pressed as they advanced 
 by the enemy's skirmishers, who were on the alert, and their 
 progress, resisted in this manner, was necessarily cautious and 
 slow. 
 
i68 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 It was the opening dawn, therefore, when the first brigade 
 of Newton's command reached the town of Fredericksburg, 
 moved out, and as soon as the deployment could be effected, 
 assaulted the stone wall made memorable by the slaughter of 
 our troops, under Burnside, in the previous December. This 
 stone wall or line of rifle-pits, presented to us at the beginning 
 of the slope which led up to Marye's Heights a smooth face of 
 solid masonry, about six feet high, behind which, but on higher 
 ground, was a strong line of the enemy's infantry. As our 
 men advanced gallantly to the attack, supported by one or 
 two batteries, the first in position, the enemy reserved their 
 fire until our line was close at hand. The batteries at Marye's 
 Heights crowning the crest behind the stone wall opened with 
 terrible effect. It was impossible to withstand the fire ; the 
 men were ordered to fall back, and did so in good order, and 
 without panic. When they reached favoring ground affording 
 shelter, the line was ordered to lie down, and did so without 
 confusion. Sedgwick rode out near the left of the line, and as 
 he witnessed the repulse he remained watching the enemy's 
 position with an expression on his face that I had never 
 observed before. All the merry lines about his eyes had dis- 
 appeared ; his lips had settled into a fixed expression of deter- 
 mination, and the genial face which I had never seen before 
 except in camp, seemed at that moment to be made of iron. 
 A few of his staff were scattered in the vicinity ; the others 
 were along the line of the retiring troops, to indicate the posi- 
 tion where the line was to halt, re-form, and lie down. When 
 this was accomplished, the enemy from the rifle-pits perceiving 
 a commanding officer whose presence indicated authority, 
 directed their fire upon General Sedgwick. After a few sec 
 onds of delay I ventured to suggest to him to retire from his 
 exposed position. At first he did not seem to hear me. Upon 
 my repeating the suggestion as the bullets became more nu- 
 merous, he turned to me with a rapid gesture, pulling down 
 his old slouch hat as if to conceal the intense expression of his 
 eyes, and said with strange emphasis : By Heaven, sir, this 
 must not delay us." 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 169 
 
 He slowly turned his horse, and rode back into the streets 
 of the town. 
 
 During the few moments that he stood gazing at the 
 enemy's works his plans were completed, and were carried out 
 without the loss of a single instant. 
 
 Gibbon's division, which had crossed over on a bridge 
 newly laid directly in front of the town, was ordered to move 
 forward on the right to develop what could be accomplished 
 by an attack in that direction. Howe was ordered to execute 
 a similar move on the left. In the meantime, from Newton's 
 division and the light brigade, assaulting columns were organ- 
 ized to carry the heights directly in our front if the flank 
 movements should prove impracticable. Gibbon found him- 
 self confronted by the canal running parallel to the enemy's 
 position and under the full fire of all their batteries. This he 
 could not cross in line of battle ; to cross it in column on a 
 bridge constructed for the purpose under the fire which would 
 be concentrated on him was destruction. Hazel Run on our 
 left with its deep and precipitous bank rendered a similar good 
 service to the enemy as a part of their defensive line and 
 checked for the time the advance of Howe. The regiments 
 for the main assault from the centre on Marye's Heights were 
 collected as quickly as possible. These regiments were drawn 
 from the various divisions of the corps. Our extreme left was 
 still back at the position held on the previous day and strongly 
 skirmishing with the enemy in their front. It was therefore 
 ten o'clock before the assaulting columns were formed and 
 ready to attack. 
 
 From the main street of Fredericksburg, running at right 
 angles to the river, the plank-road leads up to the centre of 
 the enemy's position. 
 
 From the limits of the city to the crest of Marye's Heights 
 the distance is about half a mile. A toll-gate stands about 
 half way up the slope. The heights on both sides of the road 
 were crowned with batteries. A little above the toll-gate and 
 at the commencement of the steeper slope to the left of the 
 road as we faced the enemy's position, was the stone wall oc- 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 cupied still by a strong line of infantry. In front of the stone 
 wall, about three hundred yards below and near the outskirts 
 of the city, was our line of battle, repulsed at daylight. The 
 enemy plainly saw our preparations for the assault and evi- 
 dently did not wish to interfere with them. They seemed per- 
 fectly confident of the result ; when they saw that we intended 
 to attack their direct front and centre, they scarcely disturbed 
 our intentions by a single shot. At last it was my duty to 
 report to the General that everything was in readiness. His 
 instructions were that one column formed on the street leading 
 to the plank-road should march directly up the plank-road ; 
 that another and parallel column formed on a street about 
 sixty yards to the right should march up through the fields 
 towards the toll-gate. At this point he knew that they would 
 receive the heaviest of the enemy's fire. He directed that the 
 line of battle still lying in front of the stone wall and rifle-pits 
 to the left of the plank-road should rise up at that instant and 
 go forward with a cheer, and at a double-quick. 
 
 In this plan there was an admirable calculation and combi- 
 nation of what may be called the moral effects, and which are 
 of much importance in a movement of this kind. The advance 
 of our left column on the plank-road he knew would be a 
 tempting target for the rifle-pits on their left, and by the time 
 the head of the column approached the toll-gate they would 
 no doubt draw the entire fire from the rifle-pits, that both 
 columns would attract the full attention of the batteries on the 
 heights, that the fire would reach its highest intensity as the 
 heads of the columns reached the toll-gate, and then, if at all, 
 they would commence to waver, and a single cheer from an 
 advancing line of American soldiers, delivered as the Sixth 
 Corps knew how to deliver it, would not only put new heart 
 into the men composing the columns, but strike dismay to the 
 defenders of the rifle-pits who would have already discharged 
 their volley fire. 
 
 The result was as he expected. The men went forward 
 gallantly at trail arms." The artillery tore through our 
 ranks ; the men neither halted nor hesitated. The right 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 171 
 
 column, by the very force of the fire on its front and flank, 
 bent towards the plank-road, and the heads of the two columns 
 came together at the toll-gate. There, for an instant, as when 
 a strong, quiet stream moving in a new channel meets with 
 some sudden obstacle, there was a momentary pause, and the 
 men clustered around the frame building at the toll-gate 
 seemed to hesitate, and, for an instant, it was doubtful whether 
 they could advance. Out upon the clear summer air rang the 
 cheer of Newton's men. Up at double-quick they sprang. 
 The men in the rifle-pits, who had forgotten the line of battle 
 in their zeal to destroy the advancing columns, saw their dan- 
 ger. The men of the columns burst like a mountain torrent 
 over all barriers. Taking up the cheer of the line of battle 
 they pressed forward magnificently, victoriously, and before 
 the enemy was aware of the fact, still firing from their batteries 
 on the hill, their attention distracted by the smoke of their 
 own guns, by the cheering of the line of battle and its advance, 
 the flag of the Sixth Maine Volunteers, supported by that 
 regiment and its sister regiment, the Fifth Wisconsin, was 
 planted, standing out upon the breeze between the guns of 
 the Washington Light Artillery of Louisiana as their last dis- 
 charges were made. 
 
 The morning dew was yet fresh upon the grass upon that 
 pretty slope which led from the city limits to this crest of 
 death ; the blood of one thousand gallan-t men was mingled 
 with it, many of them cold in death, many of them writhing 
 in the agony of painful wounds. There were distant homes, 
 where expectant wives were looking forward to the unknown 
 agony yet to come. There were distant hearths where little 
 children played, who knew not that at that moment on a grassy 
 slope in far Virginia a cloud had fallen on their young lives 
 never to be lifted again. There were hearts in many homes 
 that day that were ready to break as they wearily waited for 
 news from the front. Nevertheless the war went on, and the 
 twenty thousand gallant men who swept that crest, less the 
 one thousand bleeding on its slope, went forward under John 
 Sedgwick. 
 
1/2 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 Our advance was spitefully resisted. At Salem chapel, 
 midway between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the 
 enemy, strongly reinforced from the main army under Lee 
 confronting Hooker, reinforced also by the troops who lined 
 the river above Fredericksburg and who fell back upon the 
 carrying of Marye's Heights, made a final stand. Brooks — 
 God bless him ! old commander of the Vermont Brigade, true- 
 hearted gentleman, unequalled soldier, rough and ready, be- 
 loved of men, robust, strong, and prompt — went forward with 
 his division of the red cross through the thick undergrowth 
 that covered the mild ascent that led to Salem Heights. The 
 sunken road across the crest at right angles to our line of 
 march, filled with the rebel infantry, checked for the moment 
 his advance, but he swept forward gallantly and well, pierced 
 their line, and for a moment held the crest. 
 
 His flank and rear were assailed by the enemy, who over- 
 lapped him, and he was forced back through the undergrowth 
 out into the clearing, followed closely and viciously until he 
 was enabled to re-form under cover of our batteries, which, 
 with grape and canister, rapidly served, checked the enemy 
 under the personal supervision of Sedgwick. The next di- 
 vision, as fast as it arrived, was put into action, and the whole 
 again advanced, steadily forcing its way up the crest, until at 
 last night set in and there was the silence of death. All night 
 long those two armies lay in the position in which they had 
 fought during the closing hours of the day. There was no in- 
 terchange of soldier's badinage ; there was not a picket-shot to 
 disturb the silence. No fires were lighted on either side, and 
 the men lay down coffeeless on their grassy beds. Here and 
 there the stretcher-men moved around silently bringing in 
 their wounded or gathering in the dead. There was but one 
 sound that disturbed the stillness. From the direction of 
 Chancellorsville we could hear the low rumble of artillery, 
 telling of marching columns. Strange but not unexpected 
 rumors reached us from our rear that the city of Fredericks- 
 burg and Marye's Heights, which we had carried so gallantly 
 at such a cost, were reoccupied by the enemy, reinforced from 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 the direction of Richmond. The situation of the corps was 
 critical. Howe's division was formed in line of battle facing 
 to the rear and toward Fredericksburg to resist an attack from 
 that direction. Brooks and Newton remained on the field 
 facing toward Chancellorsville, and the two lines thus formed 
 in opposite directions, about two miles apart, were connected 
 by a skirmish line of troops supporting frequent batteries. 
 Everything indicated that the Sixth Corps would be over- 
 whelmed by an attack from all sides at early daybreak. Gen- 
 eral Sedgwick, when all his arrangements were completed, lay 
 down in the wet grass with his head pillowed on his saddle ; 
 but he slept not. Three times during the night he telegraphed 
 to General Hooker, sending the dispatch to the river at Banks's 
 Ford, a few miles above Fredericksburg, with which point we 
 still held communication. There was a certain pathos in those 
 dispatches that none who do not realize the situation can 
 appreciate. 
 
 I have reached this point," he said, " in obedience to 
 orders. My advance is checked. The enemy is strongly 
 reinforcing from your direction. I can plainly hear the rumble 
 of their artillery. My losses are heavy. I will be, no doubt, 
 attacked in strong force at daylight. Can you help me? " 
 
 This was the burden of the dispatches three times repeated 
 during that still and anxious night. No answer came until 
 eight o'clock of the following day. In the meantime the enemy 
 wasted the hours in preparation. 
 
 The long hours went by, and at eight o'clock came a 
 strange message from the commanding general. 
 
 "You are too far away for me to direct. Look to the 
 safety of your corps. Fall back on Fredericksburg or cross 
 the river at Banks's Ford as you deem best." 
 
 But to the strong and earnest appeal, Can you help me 
 strongly if I am attacked ? " there was no reply. In the direct- 
 ion of Chancellorsville there was the silence of death. Not an 
 answering gun replied to the crash of our artillery which echoed 
 from every battery. The enemy on our front, in fact I may 
 say our three fronts, replied. The commanders of the other 
 
174 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 corps who stood inactive near Chancellorsville heard the in- 
 cessant roar of the artillery near Salem chapel. They chafed 
 almost to mutiny, because while this gallant little band, less 
 than one-fifth of the army, was contending against these des- 
 perate odds, six corps stood idle within the sound of their guns. 
 Sedgwick and Hooker have passed away, and have undergone 
 that final judgment from which there is no appeal. I am not 
 here to say one word in disparagement of the dead, much less 
 of a gallant soldier like General Joseph Hooker; but I do 
 stand here to vindicate the memory of one of the purest men, 
 one of the truest patriots, one of the best and bravest, aye, 
 and greatest soldiers that ever honored any land by a life of 
 honorable service and a glorious death upon the field of battle. 
 It has been stated before a committee of the national Con- 
 gress, whose sole business seemed to be, during the several 
 years of their continuance, to dishonor the names of the best 
 and truest of our soldiers, that Sedgwick's failure to obey the 
 orders of Hooker was one of the chief causes of the failure of 
 the Chancellorsville campaign. This statement was principally 
 made by a man who still lives and whom, therefore, I am at 
 full liberty to answer. He has stated before this committee 
 that General Sedgwick's delay and failure to obey his orders 
 was the primal cause of the failure. The order to General 
 Sedgwick to advance to Chancellorsville and be there at day- 
 light, included another and more important commission. He 
 was directed to make this march, impossible in itself in the 
 time allowed, impossible if the march was unresisted. He was 
 ordered to capture Fredericksburg and everything in it, which 
 he did. He was ordered to carry Marye's Heights, which he 
 did magnificently. He was ordered to advance upon the plank- 
 road, which he did. He was also ordered to destroy any force 
 that might intervene between him and the general command- 
 ing. This he gallantly attempted, and did as much in the line 
 of destruction as it was possible to do with the force at his 
 command. The same dispatch which ordered him to destroy 
 any intervening force informed him that the army commanded 
 by General Robert E. Lee was between him and the position 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 he was ordered to occupy at daylight. Now, an order to de- 
 stroy General Lee and his army was very easy to issue. Its 
 execution, as some of you gentlemen will perhaps remember, 
 was attended with considerable difficulty ; and when it is con- 
 sidered that during the forty-eight hours that Sedgwick was 
 struggling to execute this part of the order, the main body of 
 our army, consisting of six corps, never fired a shot, although 
 within sound of Sedgwick's guns, I submit that any man who 
 says that the failure could in any degree whatever be attrib- 
 uted to Sedgwick, insults every soldier of his command, and 
 defames the memory of the dead. 
 
 When the day came, Lee overestimating, as appears from 
 his report made subsequently, the extent of Sedgwick's forces, 
 failed to make his attack in force until about five o'clock in 
 the afternoon. He believed that Sedgwick was accompanied 
 by Reynolds's corps, and he hesitated to attack until he could 
 withdraw a sufficient force from Hooker's front to make his 
 victory certain. The main attack was made in the afternoon 
 about five o'clock, from the direction of Fredericksburg, and 
 made gallantly and with vigor. One brigade of Howe's di- 
 vision, strongly posted, received the assault and was broken. 
 The Vermont brigade was on the flank of Neill's, holding the 
 woods which flanked also the rebel advance ; it was com- 
 manded by General L. A. Grant, now Assistant Secretary of 
 War, a gallant soldier whose name and fame are inseparably 
 connected in many battles with this great brigade, which, with- 
 out disparagement to others, I may say was never surpassed in 
 valor or achievement by any similar body of men, in any army 
 of the world. It poured in its steady contribution of well- 
 directed bullets on the advancing masses of the rebellion, and 
 the Sixth Corps and the army were saved. The night came 
 down upon anxious hearts. The battle was over, nor gun nor 
 color was lost. But the position of the old corps was still as 
 critical as ever. I pass over the melancholy history of the 
 hours that followed, filled as they were with contradictory 
 orders, one revoking the other, and a third renewing the first. 
 The Sixth Corps crossed the river that night, making their 
 
176 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 passage over the pontoons lighted by the bursting shells which 
 the enemy, with very creditable practice, were dropping in the 
 vicinity of the bridges, and the next day Hooker, far above, 
 re-crossed the river, and this campaign was over. Sedgwick 
 lost five thousand men in his honest endeavor to execute the 
 part of the order which directed him to destroy the army com- 
 manded by General Lee ; the combined loss of all the other 
 corps scarcely exceeded this. Then came the regular and 
 periodical change in commanders, the annual picnic into Mary- 
 land and Pennsylvania, the panic in Washington, and at last, 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 On Cemetery Ridge, amid gravestones shattered by shot 
 and shell, behind hasty earthworks, our gallant brothers of 
 the Second Corps, under the fire of one hundred and eighty 
 guns and against the very flower of the invading army, made 
 this Union an immortal thing and the name of Hancock a 
 cherished memory that will live forever in the hearts of the 
 American people. 
 
 The long night march of the Sixth Corps from Manchester 
 to the field of Gettysburg and its timely arrival to retrieve 
 the disaster that Sickles had suffered, were principal features 
 of our Maryland campaign. 
 
 We had many marches that were prolonged and tedious ; 
 many that were forced by day and night both before and after 
 the great deciding battle. On many a day he watched them 
 as the troops moved out of camp in the morning or closed 
 the long dusty march of the day, and when on one occasion 
 in the Wilderness, after the Sixth Corps had suffered a serious 
 disaster on the day previous, when the Vermont brigade re- 
 turning after heavy losses, from their march to the assistance 
 of the Second Corps, saw the General ride along the lines as 
 they were coming into bivouac, they burst forth in a hearty, 
 spontaneous cheer that touched him to the very heart ; and 
 when the cheers subsided one of them stepped to the front 
 and called out with a comic and yet touching emphasis, " Three 
 more for old Uncle John ! " The General's bronzed face 
 flushed like a girl's, and as the staff laughed at his embarrass- 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 177 
 
 merit it spread along the lines and the whole brigade laughed 
 and cheered as if they were just returning from a summer's 
 picnic and not from a bloody field, weary, worn, and with 
 decimated ranks. Nor had they rest that night ; all night 
 long they labored with the pick and shovel, and the next 
 morning came the long, weary march, with fighting and 
 intrenching, again night marches or labor in the trenches ; 
 and through it all there was neither rest nor shelter. There 
 was no word of complaint ; there was no murmur of discon- 
 tent ; and the steady yeomanry that made up this old brigade 
 indulged in occasional flashes of humor scarcely to be expected 
 from the solid citizens of conservative New England. 
 
 The colored troops, who had joined us at the outset of this 
 campaign for the first time, were green and inexperienced. 
 They were, therefore, withheld from an active part in it ; not, 
 I suppose for any tenderness for them, but simply because 
 the work then to be done could only be committed to veteran 
 soldiers. When, therefore, one hot and dusty summer morn- 
 ing, Vermont was digging in the earthworks, the colored divi- 
 sion of Burnside's corps passed through our lines, they looked 
 very well in their new uniforms, but they seemed to fret and 
 be discontented even under the burdens of their knapsacks. 
 Thus far they had not fired a shot nor turned a shovel of 
 earth. A stalwart citizen of Vermont, leaning upon his spade 
 as the division went by, solemnly removed his hat and, bow- 
 ing low with great dignity, said : " Good-morning, gentlemen ; 
 you must find this work exceedingly fatiguing." 
 
 The troops of the corps, owing to the long and trying 
 marches which they had been compelled to make, acquired 
 the habit of calling themselves Sedgwick's foot cavalry," 
 and maintained that they were kept on the gallop all the 
 time. It was a joke among them that Sedgwick never stopped 
 until his horse gave out, and on one occasion, in Virginia, when 
 he had dismounted by the roadside and stood on a little bank 
 leaning on the fence watching the troops as they went by, 
 men in the ranks constantly called out : Come on, we '11 wait 
 for you. Get another horse ; we are in no hurry." 
 
178 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 For some time the General did not notice these cries nor 
 understand their significance. At last he turned to me and 
 said, " What do they mean by ' Get another horse ; we '11 wait 
 for you ? * " I explained to him the significance of the language, 
 and as I did so he laughed heartily, whereupon in the ranks 
 they cried out, " See the old fellow laugh," and immediately 
 the whole column took it up with enthusiastic cheers. 
 
 These things I mention chiefly to show the relationship 
 between the commander and his troops. He could appreciate 
 their humor, knowing that no thought of disrespect ever 
 entered it, and a single smile from him went like a sunbeam 
 through long columns of tired men until it broadened into a 
 laugh, and culminated in cheers that came from the true 
 hearts of as gallant soldiers as ever served a patriot cause. 
 
 After the Gettysburg campaign, Warrenton, and Hazel 
 River, a winter of delights ! when the Sixth Corps lived and 
 revelled for six long months. There were horse-races and 
 cock-fights, and balls attended by fair women from home. 
 There were festivities such as only an army knows how to 
 organize and enjoy. Everywhere picnics by day, and danc- 
 ing by night. Each corps vied with the other as to the extent 
 of its hospitalities. Each corps claimed to have the fastest 
 horse, the best fighting cock, to be visited by the prettiest 
 ladies, and to be altogether the best corps in the army. This 
 extravagant claim, of course, was only true as to one corps, 
 the Sixth, although I am free to say, as some of you may 
 remember, that in the matter of horse-racing the Second Corps 
 got the best of us on one memorable occasion and reduced the 
 speculative officers of the Sixth to absolute penury until the 
 next arrival of the paymaster. A last desperate effort to 
 redeem our fortunes by sustaining at large odds a favorite 
 chicken imported from the good city of Boston only added 
 to our disasters ; and when that unfortunate bird was laid 
 away with funeral honors after only one round, the Sixth Corps 
 decided almost unanimously that all this style of dissipation 
 was highly immoral and should therefore be discouraged. 
 
 Through all this winter those who had occasion to live near 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 1 79 
 
 and around John Sedgwick saw the sweeter and more touching 
 traits of his character. Modest as a girl, unassuming, gentle, 
 just, pure in heart and in word, he endeared himself to the men 
 who followed him and was loved by all with a love surpassing 
 the love of woman. No picture that I can draw can give to 
 you who knew him not an adequate conception of how lovable 
 that man was. 
 
 Through all this winter of delights no man looked forward 
 to the future except to plan amusements for the ensuing win- 
 ter ; for, strangely enough, we had got the idea that this war 
 was to be continued indefinitely and during the rest of our 
 lives. 
 
 We were not prophets nor the sons of prophets. What 
 knew we then of the lurid fires that would lighten the Wilder- 
 ness within a few short months? The angel of death hovered 
 over many, but no prophetic shadow fell from his wings. Al- 
 ready was his mark upon the great centre of our circle, and yet 
 in all our plans for the following winter, in all our discussions 
 as to what we were to do to amuse ourselves and our visitors, 
 Sedgwick was the central figure. Amid the rain and snow, and 
 the mud, and the frost, among our canvas cities our fires 
 burned cheerily and our hearts were light. Letters came and 
 went from home and visitors by the thousand shared our 
 hospitalities. The Sixth Corps headquarters, because it was 
 Sedgwick's, was a central point of interest. Nothing disturbed 
 us except the occasional report that our chief was to be taken 
 from us to command the Army of the Potomac. This com- 
 mand, however, although not formally offered, he had still on 
 several occasions most persistently declined. It was a winter 
 of delights, but nevertheless the day came when from major- 
 general to drummer boy there was not a dry eye in the Sixth 
 Corps of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 On our line of battle at Spottsylvania, where on the day 
 previous we had made an unsuccessful attack and suffered 
 heavily, near a section of artillery at a fatal angle in our works, 
 General Sedgwick stood with General Hyde, General Whittier, 
 General Tompkins, and myself, directing the movement of our 
 
l80 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 men then occupying the rifle-pits. It was in the early morn- 
 ing, and a certain feeling of gloom pervaded the army. Sedg- 
 wick had slept the previous night unsheltered by tent or 
 blanket. He seemed in excellent spirits although a little dis- 
 couraged by the slow progress of the campaign, which seemed 
 to be desperate fighting, day after day, with indecisive results. 
 A few minutes before, he had spoken of some of the young 
 officers of his staff in tender and kindly terms of affection. 
 
 He said a few jesting words to some of the men who passed 
 before him as they moved into the rifle-pits. His manner^ 
 attitude, and gesture, as he stood, indicated to the enemy that 
 he was an officer of rank and authority. He wore no uniform, 
 not even a sword. From across the little valley which sepa- 
 rated us from the enemy's line, from one of their sharp-shoot- 
 ers concealed in the woods in front of us, came the swift 
 messenger of death. Slowly, without a word, with a sad smile 
 upon his lips, John Sedgwick fell and his great heart ceased to 
 beat. 
 
 His life blood, pouring in a strong, steady stream from the 
 wound, spirted over me. I made an effort to sustain him as he 
 fell and in doing so fell with him. 
 
 He uttered no word and made no sign. It seemed to me 
 if I could but make him hear and call his attention to the 
 terrible effect his fall was having on our men he would by 
 force of his great will rise up in spite of death. I called vainly 
 in his ear — he made no answer. 
 
 His favorite aide. General Charles A. Whittier, bent over 
 him with streaming eyes. General Tompkins, the chief of the 
 artillery, and his surgeon. Dr. Ohlenschlager, raised him partly 
 from the ground, and the pale and anxious faces of the men in 
 the long line of rifle-pits were bent eagerly toward the group ; 
 but such was the force of discipline that although these men's 
 hearts were filled with a great sorrow, although they knew that 
 a terrible blow had fallen upon them, none left the ranks, and 
 the silence which follows a great tragedy fell upon the summer 
 woods of Spottsylvania on that morning of saddest memories. 
 
 It was my duty to report at general headquarters that the 
 
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. l8l 
 
 Sixth Corps was without a commander, for General Ricketts, 
 who was next in rank, understanding that it had been the de- 
 sire of General Sedgwick that his old associate, General Horatio 
 G. Wright of the First Division, should succeed him, had in- 
 formed me that he declined to assume the command. When 
 I reached general headquarters and dismounted in front of the 
 tent of the adjutant-general of the army, the gentle and much 
 loved Seth Williams, there were in that tent General Williams, 
 and General Hunt, the chief of artillery, and Colonel Piatt, the 
 judge advocate-general of the army, and other veteran officers 
 who had served through many years of warfare. 
 
 As they saw me covered with blood. General Williams 
 started forward and said but one word, " Sedgwick ? " 
 
 I could not answer. Each one in that tent, old gray-bearded 
 warriors, burst into tears and for some minutes sobbed like 
 children mourning a father. 
 
 They built a bower of evergreens among the pine woods 
 and laid him out upon a rough bier made for him by soldier 
 hands, and all day long there were strong men weeping by this 
 funeral couch. They came from all parts of the army, the old 
 and the young, the well and the wounded, officers and men, to 
 take their last look at the beloved chieftain. Many thousands 
 of brave men who composed that army were familiar with 
 death in all its forms. Not once nor twice only had they seen 
 strong men stricken into sudden death, and men of high rank, 
 in high command, fall amid contending hosts. They had, per- 
 haps, grown hardened and indifferent to what was necessarily 
 of frequent occurrence and the common expectation of all. 
 But when the news went that day, like an electric shock, along 
 the lines of the Army of the Potomac that John Sedgwick was 
 dead, a great loneliness fell upon the hearts of all, and men that 
 scarcely ever heard his voice, many that scarcely knew him by 
 sight, wept bitter tears as if they had lost an only friend, and 
 all recalled how on many occasions, hearing on right or left or 
 rear the thunder of hostile guns, all anxiety passed away from 
 the minds of men at the simple remark, " It must be all right 
 — Uncle John is there." 
 
1 82 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK. 
 
 The Sixth Corps went on and served through the war. It 
 stood all day long at the bloody angle under a fire that cut 
 down the great trees in our front. It stood up in the withering 
 slaughter of Cold Harbor. It crossed the great river to the 
 dismal contest before Petersburg. It swept the valley under 
 Sheridan as with a broom, and, massed in a mighty column of 
 brigades, it broke through the stubborn lines of Petersburg, and 
 snapped this rebellion in twain. But not all the glories that 
 succeeded the 9th of May, not all the triumphs achieved by 
 their valor in the later fields of the war, not all the tame years 
 that have followed since, have effaced the memories of that 
 one day in Spottsylvania when we all realized the fact that all 
 our marches yet to be made, all our battles yet to be fought, all 
 our deeds, whether good or ill, would never again win word of 
 praise or censure from the silent lips of the great man that we 
 loved and honored as only soldiers know how to love and honor 
 leaders like Sedgwick. 
 
 Back to the quiet churchyard of Cornwall Hollow, which 
 the boy had left so many years ago, came, accompanied by all 
 the evidences of a nation's sorrow, the lifeless body of that 
 great and simple-minded hero. 
 
 He sleeps beneath a plain monument erected by a sister's 
 love ; but his memory will never die among men who love 
 their kind and who believe that 
 
 " A country's a thing men must die for at need." 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 A Paper Read by Brevet Brigadier-General Peter Michie, U. S. Vol., Oct. 4, 1893. 
 
 T FIND that it is very difficult to clothe personal reminis- 
 cences in written language. To be most effective, they 
 need the wider latitude of the spoken word and the friendly 
 assistance of the roving eye, as well as the kindly nod of acquies- 
 cence and the occasional inter-ejaculations of gratification from 
 one's listeners. I remember, on one occasion, General Sherman 
 tried to read an address to the graduating class at West 
 Point. But with his happy faculty of telling reminiscences in a 
 charming conversational way, he could not be tied down to 
 the beaten track of a written discourse. New thoughts would 
 leap like rabbits at every turn of his path, — he lost his place, — 
 his eye-glasses dropped off, and then he tossed his manu- 
 script impatiently aside and proceeded to talk to the boys, 
 scoring a magnificent success. 
 
 Now, under the stimulating influences of fraternal compan- 
 ionship in gatherings like these there is a wealth of personal 
 experience lying close to the surface, ready to be turned up 
 in the furrow, — stories of raid and skirmish, of bivouac and 
 battle, that would illuminate and vivify the dry details of every 
 official history. We know that these reminiscences cannot be 
 strictly true, and it is not essential that they should be. The 
 greatest heroes of the war are still in the land of the living, for 
 they are ourselves, and in telling our stories we generally so 
 proportion the details with each repetition as to magnify more 
 and more our personal prowess and tone down our errors until 
 with frequent telling we end with actually believing ourselves 
 to be the very heroes our stones make us out to be. But what, 
 
 183 
 
1 84 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 after all, is the true story? Is it not, in reality, a mosaic of 
 innumerable bits of personal experience, each artfully appor- 
 tioned to its own peculiar place so that both in form and color 
 the finished picture may be in the completest harmony with 
 our inherent love of truth and sense of justice ? 
 
 So, likewise, we find narratives of all shades of color ; some 
 dull and prosaic, others vivid and lifelike, and some so embel- 
 lished by a fertile imagination as to be ever refreshing. As an 
 illustration of the latter let me offer a few quotations from the 
 official reports of the celebrated Colonel J. O. Shelby of the 
 Missouri Confederate cavalry, found in Volume 22, War 
 Records. 
 
 " General : On the last day of December, 1862, when the old year 
 was dying in the lap of the new, and January had sent its moaning 
 winds to wail the requiem of the past, my brigade was on the 
 march for foray on the border's side. The day was auspicious ; a 
 bright red sun had tempered the keen air to pleasantness, and 
 cheered the mounted soldiers with the hopes of a gay and gallant 
 trip. The first two days' march was long and comfortable ; the third, 
 the rain commenced, cold and chilling, and continued without inter- 
 mission for three days, the grand old mountains standing bare 
 against the dull and sombre sky, their heads heavy with the storms 
 of centuries. The men suffered much, but keeping the bright goal 
 of Missouri constantly in sight, spurred on and on quite merrily. 
 
 The sun came up on the morning of the 8th like a ball of fire, 
 and the day was gloomy and chill ; but Springfield loomed up before 
 us in the distance like a beautiful panorama, and the men, catching 
 the inspiration of the scene, forgot all their trials and hardships and 
 were eager for the rough, red fray. 'T was a bright and beautiful 
 scene. There lay the quiet town, robed in the dull gray hue of the 
 winter, its domes and spires stretching their skeleton hands to heaven, 
 as if in prayer against the coming strife, and drawing nearer and 
 nearer, long black lines came gleaming on, while the sun shone out 
 like a golden bar, uncurling its yellow hair on earth and sky, stream 
 and mountain, and lent the thrilling picture a sterner and fiercer 
 light. My skirmishers advanced steadily, and now continual shots 
 in front tell that the enemy are found and pressed sorely. I saw 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 1 85 
 
 the crisis, and ordered Lieutenant-Colonels Gilkey and Gordon to 
 charge with their regiments, to support MacDonald. Gallantly it 
 was done, and as gallantly sustained. At the command, a thousand 
 warriors sprang to their feet, and, with one wild Missouri yell, burst 
 upon the foe ; officers mix with men in the mad melee, and fight 
 side by side ; some storm the fort at the headlong charge, others 
 gain the houses from which the Federals had just been driven, and 
 keep up the fight, while some push on after the flying foe. The 
 storm increases and the combatants get closer and closer. 
 
 " I heard the cannon's shivering crash, 
 As when the whirlwind rends the ash ; 
 I heard the musket's deadly clang, 
 As if a thousand anvils rang : 
 
 " The contest rages, and the wild death-dance goes merrily on. 
 
 " Still Collins plies his lurid torch, 
 Where balls will rend or powder scorch ; 
 Still Shanks and Gordon, side by side, 
 Like veteran heroes stem the tide." 
 
 Again speaking of the loss of three of his officers, he says : 
 
 " They form an illustrious trio, — three of the grand immortal 
 names that were not born to die. Peace to their ashes ! When the 
 warfare of the world is over, when time strikes records with eternity, 
 and mortality is paling beyond the sunset shore, and the billows of 
 dissolution are white with the wrecks of the universe, these death- 
 less spirits will rise beautiful from their urns of death and chambers 
 of decay, and join the noble band of Southern martyrs that have 
 fallen 'with their backs to the field and their feet to the foe.' " 
 
 In another report, we find : 
 
 " Upon the eventful morning of the 7th, long before the full round 
 moon had died in the lap of the dawn ; long before the watching 
 stars had grown dim with age, my brigade was saddled, formed, and 
 their steeds champing frosted bits in the cold keen air of a Decem- 
 ber morning, ready and eager for the march. After advancing rap- 
 idly and without intermission for several hours, I struck their trail, 
 hot with the passage of many feet, reeking with the footprints of the 
 invader. After riding hard for about an hour, my advance came full 
 
1 86 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 upon the foe, and with the mad, fierce whoop of men who have 
 wrongs to right and blood to avenge, they dashed on and away at the 
 pas de charge^ — driving the frightened Federals before them like chaff 
 before the winds of heaven. Still the rout continues. 
 
 " Tramp, tramp, along the land they ride, 
 Splash, splash, along the lea ; 
 The scourge is red, the spur drops blood, 
 The flashing pebbles flee." 
 
 Now had I at command the wealth of words, the poetic fancy, 
 and the soul-stirring power of expression of the brave and 
 gallant Shelby, I would have selected some scene of battle and 
 carnage for your entertainment to-night. But knowing full 
 well my own limitations, I am going to ask your indulgence 
 while I relate some reminiscences that will tax both your time 
 and patience, for I hope to begin at the commencement of the 
 war and to end four years thereafter. 
 
 West Point I found to be particularly democratic in its 
 tendencies. There was no distinction between rich and poor ; 
 Cadets being without money had no pockets and such adventi- 
 tious aids to popularity were therefore eliminated. Men were 
 rated according to those qualities that youth worships as ideals. 
 The grade of good-fellowship was fixed by the unwritten laws 
 of honor, charity, and all that is summed up in the word manli- 
 ness. Though ability in studies and aptitude for the enforced 
 military exercises were the official means of grading the young 
 men in class rank, he who was fearless, outspoken, generous, 
 and self-sacrificing became the leader among his fellows. The 
 system of responsibility and methods of self-government in- 
 troduced as far back as 1819, proved to be admirable means to 
 develop individual character without sacrificing the unity of 
 purpose of the establishment. Strict obedience and just sub- 
 ordination when controlled by the helm of considerate justice 
 forced the advance toward the desired goal by the most direct 
 course. 
 
 Illustrative of the methods of instruction, I recall the story 
 of a young plebe, new to the vernacular of military propriety, 
 who having put his mathematical work on the black-board, 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 1 8/ 
 
 with the utmost exactness, carefully conned it over till he was 
 certain that he was fully prepared to make a max. Turning 
 towards his instructor, a gruff but kindly old army officer, he 
 assumed the proper position of a soldier and thus began : I 
 am requested to demonstrate the binomial theorem." — " No, 
 sir,'* replied the grim soldier; ''you are not requested, you 
 are required^ to do so, sir ; go on." 
 
 Another, the son of a prominent general officer of the Irish 
 Brigade, when asked by his instructor, '' Why is this so, sir ? " 
 replied in his rich brogue : '' The book says so, sir." " That is 
 not a reason," answers the officer. '' Well, sir," said he, '' this 
 is the first place I Ve ever been where a man is required to 
 doubt the author." 
 
 It is always a very touching as well as an instructive sight 
 to see the entering class, or plebes as they are called, when 
 they first report for duty. No one would then think that West 
 Point is a hot-bed of aristocracy, as has often been charged. 
 Coming as they do from every Congressional district of the 
 United States, they are not by any means homogeneous, neither 
 in dress, facial characteristics, culture, nor intellectual develop- 
 ment. The strict discipline, hard study, and close confinement 
 demanded of them after admission are entirely unexpected by 
 the greater number of those who think they would like to be- 
 come military heroes. But it speaks well for the average pluck 
 of the American youth, that most of the failures to succeed 
 in graduating after once being admitted, are due to inability to 
 master the course of studies, and not to the restrictions of the 
 military service. Many years ago, before the present methods 
 of the entrance examination were adopted, it was the custom 
 to give the new cadets some preliminary instruction before 
 they were examined by the academic board for admission. 
 This instruction was entrusted to cadets under the supervision 
 of the professors, who made frequent visitations to the differ- 
 ent section rooms, and thus became acquainted with the doubt- 
 ful cases before the oral investigation. When the professors 
 were present, or when an army officer visited the section room 
 to see that everything was going on all right, every detail was 
 
1 88 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 conducted with the strictest military propriety ; what some- 
 times occurred on other occasions I shall briefly relate. 
 
 Having been selected in 1862 as a cadet instructor for a 
 dozen or so of the new cadets, I devoted myself with earnest- 
 ness to the task of making them proficient in all the subjects 
 of their examination for admission, and I was so successful 
 that I found that I still had a few days at disposal, which I 
 thought could not be put to a better use than in instilling into 
 them some of the principles of military subordination and 
 methods of analytical reasoning. In this latter determination 
 it is needless to say that I did not have the requisite authority 
 from my superior officers, nor do I believe they were ever aware 
 of my delinquency in this respect. At the designated hour, 
 the young gentlemen were marched to the section room by 
 one of their number, where they were received according to 
 strict military propriety. They were seated at the word of com- 
 mand, all going down together promptly. Upon calling one by 
 name, he was taught to spring with life into the centre of the 
 room and assume the position of a soldier, to answer with 
 brevity any and all questions asked him, and after the enuncia- 
 tion of his subject was given, to make an " about face," go to 
 the black-board, and get to work. We will now illustrate one 
 of these extraordinary sessions which belong to the past and 
 will certainly never return. 
 
 The cadet instructor sharply scrutinizes the eager faces be- 
 fore him and in a sharp military tone calls, Mr. King." Up 
 jumps Mr. King and reaches the middle of the floor in an 
 instant. Altogether too slow, Mr. King. You must always 
 anticipate the word of command, sir. Now try again and be 
 alert, sir." So Mr. King, expecting to be called again, is sit- 
 ting on the edge of his seat, all his muscles in tension, ready 
 
 to spring as soon as the instructor opens his lips. ^' Mr. 
 
 Smith," shouts the instructor, and, as a consequence, both 
 King and Smith colHde in the centre of the room. What 
 do you mean, Mr. King, by trying to deprive your comrade of 
 the opportunity of being instructed. Such selfish conduct, 
 sir, is not that which should characterize the relations of 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 1 89 
 
 brothers in arms. But owing to your inexperience I am con- 
 strained to overlook your conduct at this time, and will there- 
 fore inquire of you whether you have ever studied the rule of 
 three." — " Yes, sir." — " Then, sir, you may go to the black- 
 board and solve this problem : // three men^ one of them be- 
 ing a female and the other a nigger, start out simultaneously ^ 
 which will get there first, and why ? " 
 
 Mr. King having been disposed of, then come in turn 
 Smith, Brown, and Jones, who, after the instructor has learned 
 all he desires to know of their previous condition, hopes, aims, 
 etc., are set to work in this fashion. 
 
 " Mr. Smith, have you ever studied zoology ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 But surely, sir, you have observed the habits of some 
 species of the animal kingdom — certainly those of the do- 
 mestic quadrupeds, such as the horse, cow, dog, or cat ? At 
 all events, sir, you may illustrate this important branch of hu- 
 man knowledge by the solution of this problem : ^ If a hard 
 knot be tied in a cat's tail^ which way, how long, and with what 
 success will she run after it, and who tied the knot ? " 
 
 " Mr. Brown, presuming, sir, that you have studied the 
 classics anterior to the epoch when the President of these 
 United States, in the exercise of his wise discretion, selected 
 you from among all the embryonic military geniuses of your 
 Congressional district and honored both you and himself by 
 giving you a warrant to proceed to West Point, bringing with 
 you not only the hopes, aspirations, and expectations of your 
 friends and relatives, but what is much more important, the 
 determination to graduate with the highest honors of your 
 class and thus emulate the example of your predecessor ; and 
 now, since by reporting to the Superintendent of the United 
 States Military Academy, you have caused him to experience 
 that peace and happiness that come from the prompt and satis- 
 factory execution of legitimate orders, you may proceed to 
 the black-board with the dignity of true military bearing and 
 inscribe your name with your accustomed chirography in the 
 right-hand upper corner of the rectangular space allotted to 
 
igO REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 you, remembering that a grateful country in anticipation of 
 your future valuable services in upholding its honor and glory 
 has generously bestowed upon you the means of obeying these 
 instructions without any personal expense to you or your 
 friends ; and now to test the extent of your acquirements in 
 classic lore you will write with deliberation this memorable 
 sentence, once uttered by Caesar as he was about to cross 
 the Rubicon, to wit : ' Tenipus fugit' — One moment, Mr. 
 Brown, be not impatient. What is the meaning, sir, in our 
 vernacular, of the sentence I have given you ? " — " Time flies, 
 sir." — Well, Mr. Brown, what are you standing there for 
 wasting this valuable commodity of the military art ? Are 
 you not aware that it is gone forever never more to return ? 
 Under the circumstances, sir, since you have lost the first half 
 of the sentence you may discuss the last half only and give a 
 full description of the flies there referred to, including their 
 origin, habits, markings, and their relation to the butterfly." 
 
 " Mr. Jones, you are all at sea in regard to the subject which 
 I am about to assign to you, and therefore I infer that you are 
 well up in the subject of navigation." — " No, sir, I have 
 never studied navagation." — " Well ! well ! what a misfortune ! 
 You see that I had marked you down for the next subject 
 on my list, and it is a maxim in military operations that the 
 next man for detail has to have the next duty to perform. 
 It is not material nor pertinent to the issue whether he likes 
 the duty or not, or whether some one else is better fitted by 
 nature or abilities to perform this duty ; he, alone, must be 
 assigned. In the exercise of this perfect impartiality which 
 peculiarly characterizes the military profession, it will happen 
 in the future that you will be assigned to be the judge advo- 
 cate of a court-martial, though you know no law, and in the 
 exercise of this office you will be able to advise many officers 
 older in years and superior in rank to yourself, and you will 
 derive no little gratification in having them hauled over the 
 coals by the reviewing authority should they act on your legal 
 advice. Now in order that you may display your knowledge 
 both of law and of navigation you will solve this problem : 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. I9I 
 
 ''If a canal-boat heads west -north-west by the horse's tail and 
 a flaw is coming up from the souths would the captain be justified^ 
 according to the rules of maritime warfare^ in taking a reef in 
 the stove pipe without asking the cook f " 
 
 Having engaged the other members in similar investiga- 
 tions, such as whether a house burns up or down'' whether a 
 stove should have a door,'' and why the mouth of a river should 
 not be in its head," I had on the floor a bright intelHgent young 
 fellow whose reticence and ready obedience saved me from the 
 serious consequences of my love of mischief. A knock was 
 heard at the door of my recitation room, indicating the imme- 
 diate inspection of an army officer. It was the soldierly Bay- 
 ard, afterwards killed at Fredericksburg. My heart sank clear 
 down, for I knew that the slightest investigation would reveal 
 subjects of instruction and methods of teaching not specified 
 in the schedule. With quick wit, however, I rose to the oc- 
 casion. " That 's wrong, sir ; try it again. Spell legible." — " Leg- 
 i-ble, legible." — That is quite correct now. Remember that 
 one is apt from the pronunciation of the word to think that it 
 is spelled leg-a-ble. Try cataract," and so I continued to give 
 out words to spell until the officer left the room. I watched 
 him narrowly out of the corner of my eye lest he should be in- 
 clined to inquire as to what the young fellows were doing at 
 the black-boards, but my good fortune and heretofore good 
 reputation saved me for the service. One of these young fel- 
 lows was Captain Charles King, now well known as the agree- 
 able writer of army stories, and I am sure he bears me no 
 malice for the means I employed in giving him his first lessons 
 in military subordination. 
 
 When I entered the Military Academy in 1859, country 
 was enjoying the blessings of a profound peace, but when I 
 graduated in 1863, it was overwhelmed by the miseries of a 
 stupendous war. When the mutterings of the rebellion first 
 reached the quiet banks of the Hudson, its diverse influences 
 were acutely felt by the cadets and officers. Gathered as they 
 were from every section of the country they reflected the pe- 
 culiar views of the many communities from which they came. 
 
192 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 The sovereignty of States, the right of Secession, Slavery, and 
 all the burning questions of the hour were fiercely combated 
 by partisans on both sides. The same temperaments that were 
 afterwards so distinctly accentuated by men from the South 
 and the North, when they were arrayed against each other in 
 armed conflict, were here displayed in wordy controversies, 
 until at last each had settled the matter in his own mind and 
 determined his future course of action. The Southern men had 
 a much more difficult question to decide than their Northern 
 comrades. For they could clearly foresee that the march of 
 events would soon sever their connection with the beloved 
 academy, that the closest friendships would soon be disrupted, 
 and they would be engulfed in a struggle whose end no man 
 could predict. I have always believed that while a few of the 
 more hot-headed were carried away by the passionate influences 
 of the hour, there were many who in their hours of solitude felt 
 the deepest anxiety and the bitterness of the sacrifice they 
 found forced inexorably upon them. On the one hand, loyalty 
 to the flag, obligation to the Government, strict interpretation 
 of duty, the strongest associations of friendship, and love for 
 the dear old academy ; on the other, inherited fealty to their 
 native States, family ties, home associations, and all the strong 
 influences that were brought to bear upon them from their 
 sections of the country ; such were the anchors that held them 
 and such the stresses that ruptured them. One by one, as the 
 States seceded, so did their cadet representatives withdraw by 
 resignation. Many were the sorrowful partings among com- 
 rades ; hands were clasped, bitter tears shed, and good-bye 
 greetings given as the separations came. But there were some 
 also who after the severest of mental conflicts decided to re- 
 main true to the constituted authorities of the country. They 
 had to endure the taunts, sneers, and averted countenances of 
 their former bosom-friends, as well as that isolation which arises 
 from a misconception of their status by those who would have 
 been glad to have given them their warmest support and sym- 
 pathy. I recall a grand and manly fellow, loyal to the core, 
 who, through all entreaties, expostulations, and threats of ostra- 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. I93 
 
 cism, and finally even having the recognition of blood relation- 
 ship denied him, stood his ground manfully and, after graduation, 
 fought bravely through the whole war, and at Olustee I saw 
 him grievously wounded in battle, a martyr to his firm can- 
 victions of duty. 
 
 Among my comrades were many who afterwards did good 
 service during the war. When the days of their instruction 
 ended they were hurried off to the field, and it was not long 
 before reports of their gallant deeds came back to the academy 
 to inspire the rest of us with the hope of emulation. There 
 was Harry Wilson, of sanguine temperament and active brain,, 
 whose magnificent services, culminating in the successful Selma 
 campaign, demonstrated that he was a born leader of men ; 
 Wesley Merritt, a renowned cavalry leader, became one of 
 Sheridan's most trusted and efficient lieutenants ; Horace Por- 
 ter, the adjutant of the class, even then distinguished equally 
 for his delightful wit and humor and high scholarship, pos- 
 sessed those qualities of personal courage, prudent foresight, 
 and quick judgment which were so admirably adjusted in 
 his composition as to qualify him in an eminent degree for the 
 position of confidential aide-de-camp to our great captain — 
 General Grant ; Adelbert Ames, the fighting hero of Fort 
 Fisher, whose famous division, under his own personal super- 
 vision, drove the enemy successively from traverse to traverse 
 until after the bloodiest of struggles the work was taken ; 
 Emory Upton, the author of tactics, came to West Point a raw 
 country lad, patiently plodded through his course, improving 
 his standing year by year, and was generally considered to be 
 a quiet, peaceful, negative fellow, but developed into a mag- 
 nificent leader of assaulting columns and a fighting general of 
 the first magnitude ; Kilpatrick, Mackenzie, and Custer be- 
 came great leaders of cavalry ; Randol, Pennington, Henry, 
 artillerists of exceptional skill ; and many others of equal or 
 lesser fame too numerous to mention here. Besides these 
 famous men there were those who early gave their young lives as 
 sacrifices to their country. Alonzo Gushing, no less gallant than 
 
 his famous brother of the navy the hero of the Albemarle^ who at 
 13 
 
194 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 Gettysburg, though severely wounded, refused to leave his guns, 
 but continued to pour grape and canister into the advancing 
 columns of the rebels until they had reached the very muzzles 
 of his pieces, where he was killed — a mere youth of the age of 
 twenty-two. Here also fell O'Rourke and Hazlitt, while other 
 fields claimed as their sacrifice Kingsbury and Cross and Kirby 
 and Jones and Button, all of whom less than two years before 
 were bright and happy boys at West Point, animated with 
 loyal ambition to serve their country in her extremity. 
 
 In recalling these eminent men as they appeared to me in 
 the familiar intercourse of student life, I do not remember that 
 they impressed me as possessing exceptional military talents — 
 such talents as their after-career showed must have been un- 
 doubtedly latent. They were all good fellows, about the same 
 as are now found in every class : some careful in behavior and 
 attentive to discipline, and others, on the contrary, quite the 
 reverse. Custer, for example, was always in trouble with the 
 authorities. He never saw the adjutant in full uniform that he 
 did not suspect that he was the object of his search for the pur- 
 pose of being placed in arrest, and to have five minutes more 
 freedom he would cut and run for it, to delay if possible the 
 well-known formula: " Sir, you are hereby placed in arrest and 
 confined to your quarters by direction of the superintendent.'* 
 He had more fun, gave his friends more anxiety, walked more 
 tours of extra guard, and came nearer being dismissed more 
 often than any other cadet I have ever known. Custer said 
 that there were but two positions of distinction in a class, — 
 head and foot ; and as he soon found that he could not be 
 head he determined that he would support his class as a solid 
 base, and though it required great circumspection and much 
 ticklish work he succeeded in his lofty ambition. When Cus- 
 ter, the foot man of his class, stood before the superintendent 
 to receive his diploma, the latter looked at him steadily for a 
 moment, no doubt immensely relieved that his task of disci- 
 plining this spirited youth was happily ended ; while Custer, 
 on the other hand, was equally happy, as with a very low and 
 apparently humble bow he received the coveted prize for 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. I95 
 
 which he had endured four years of a very precarious exist- 
 ence. It is related of this superintendent, who was a very 
 rigid disciplinarian, that a conversation was overheard between 
 two very humble slop-carriers, after the news of his being re- 
 lieved from duty was made public, in this wise : " Well, Pat, 
 the Major 's gone." — '*Yis, thrue indade, the Major 's gone; 
 and many a dhry eye followed him." 
 
 In the earlier days of my cadetship it was a rare sight to 
 behold a general officer. General Scott, a frequent visitor to 
 West Point, was the beau ideal of all the cadets. A veteran 
 of 1812 and hero of the Mexican war, his commanding stature 
 was made still more imposing when dressed in the full uni- 
 form of his rank. His eagle eye seemed to pierce the very 
 thoughts of the cadets as he inspected our ranks when he gave 
 us the honor of a review, and we did strive to the utmost to 
 merit the approbation of this splendid soldier. I also recall 
 seeing General Philip St. George Cooke, but as he wore a tall 
 silk hat with his dress uniforn, this incongruity somewhat 
 militated against his military standing in our estimation. But 
 there were also on duty at the academy many subaltern officers 
 who were destined to become famous generals, though we did 
 not then suspect it. There was Lieutenant John M. Schofield 
 of the artillery, with fewer rings of annual growth around his 
 middle section than now, who was a splendid instructor in 
 natural philosophy. Endowed with great analytical mental 
 powers, he was devoting himself to the study of the higher 
 mathematics and to scientific investigation. Had not the war 
 demanded his services in the wider sphere of public usefulness 
 he would have become famous as a scientific investigator and 
 author, for he had resigned his commission in the army in 
 August, i860, to accept the chair of Physics in the Washington 
 University at St. Louis. Lieutenant G. K. Warren of the 
 Topogs taught us conic sections, surveying, and the calculus ; 
 a keen, alert, and fascinating teacher. Even then he had 
 gained a most distinguished reputation as an explorer of our 
 western territory, so that in addition to winning our admira- 
 tion by his soldierly bearing and scientific ability, he also com- 
 
196 REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. 
 
 pelled our heartiest affection by his many endearing qualities 
 as a manly man. As my personal affection for him, my ad- 
 miration of his splendid military capacity, and my sympathy in 
 his unmerited censure have grown with my years, I will always 
 cherish the belief that his countrymen will in time do full jus- 
 tice to the memory of this noble soldier and patriot. Lieu- 
 tenant O. O. Howard relieved Warren as our mathematical 
 instructor. He was a most kind and courteous gentleman, 
 very forbearing with all our many shortcomings, and exceed- 
 ingly considerate of our faults. He was then, as now, known 
 to be intensely interested in his Master's work, and was sup- 
 posed to be studying for the ministry. Without impugning 
 the motives of the members of his immortal section in mathe- 
 matics it seemed a very curious circumstance that every one 
 of them was a frequent attendant of the cadets' prayer-meet- 
 ing, in which Howard took a very active interest, and each 
 seemed to be as actively eager to be found worthy of that 
 immortality which is to come, as to escape the just judgment 
 of the academic board in the approaching examination. We 
 had for commandant that magnificent soldier, John F. Rey- 
 nolds, who afterwards fell at Gettysburg ; Lieutenant George 
 D. Bayard, convalescing from wounds received in the Indian 
 wars, taught us equitation, and who, as major-general, was 
 killed at Fredericksburg. Comstock, Weitzel, and Craighill, 
 all of whom afterwards became distinguished military engin- 
 eers, taught civil and military engineering ; McCook, Saxton, 
 Garrard, and Williams instructed us in military discipline and 
 the tactics of three arms of the service ; Webb, Benet, and 
 many others equally distinguished afterwards in the great war^ 
 taught us, as lieutenants, in other studies. But when the war 
 broke out these gallant and accomplished men could not rest 
 easy in these peaceful pursuits ; they sought active service and 
 persistently renewed their solicitations for authority to join 
 their regiments in the field ; they were replaced by others 
 equally impatient, and by the fall of *6i some of the convales- 
 cent wounded became available for this duty. While we 
 could not foresee the splendid career that many of these un- 
 
REMINISCENCES OF CADET AND ARMY SERVICE. I97 
 
 tried lieutenants were destined to achieve, we knew that they 
 would do whatever was assigned to them with unselfish de- 
 votion and undaunted courage, and we followed their daily 
 record with the most eager interest and professional pride. 
 
 That it was a very difficult thing for us to attend strictly 
 to our theoretical studies while battles were being fought 
 and laurels won by our former comrades, goes without saying. 
 Indeed, we fondly hoped that the War Department would 
 immediately release us from academic duty and order us to 
 the field, so that even the little we had learned might be made 
 available. But wiser counsels prevailed, and we were not 
 graduated until our academical course was completed. The 
 four years of strict discipline, hard study, and simple habits 
 had developed in each of us such a spirit that we were ready 
 to undertake any duty, to go upon any service, or assume any 
 responsibility ; for we had been trained to do our thinking and 
 not to shirk the consequences of our decisions. 
 
 But time relentlessly brought forward the longed-for mo- 
 ment, even to the most impatient. The last day of our cadet 
 life arrived. A hurried visit to the homes we had not seen for 
 two years, a speedy departure to the front, and the class of '63 
 was soon absorbed in the vast volunteer armies that had already 
 learned the art of war by the efficient methods of active serv- 
 ice in the field. Of my experience in this new field of duty I 
 had hoped to be able to say something to-night, but the limits 
 of your forbearance are already reached. But I may be per- 
 mitted to say in conclusion that in West Point our beloved 
 country has a living spring of nationality, whence flows a clear 
 crystal stream of undoubted patriotism, unsullied integrity, and 
 unselfish devotion. Its past record is part of the nation's 
 history, and that it will bear its part well in whatever the 
 future may have in store for this grandest of all countries, is a 
 sentiment which, I am sure, you who so actively participated 
 in the events of the great rebellion, will cordially endorse. 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 Address by Archbishop Ireland, before the New York Commandery of the 
 Loyal Legion, New York, April 4, 1894. 
 
 /^OMMANDER, Companions : To speak of patriotism is 
 my evening's task. An easy and a gracious one it ought 
 to be. Patriotism is personified in my audience. The honor 
 is mine to address the country's heroes, the country's martyrs. 
 At country's call you quickly buckled your armor on, and, 
 rushing where battle raged, you offered for country's life the 
 Hfe-blood of your hearts. Many of you bear upon limb and 
 face the sacred stigmata of patriotism. Your tried hands are 
 doubly pledged in purest unselfishness and bravest resolve to 
 uphold in the reign of peace the loved flag which in days of 
 war they carried over gory fields above stain or reproach. I 
 could not, if I would, close the portals of my soul to the 
 rich and sweet inspirations which come to me from your 
 souls. 
 
 I shall define patriotism as you understand and feel it. 
 Patriotism is love of country, and loyalty to its life and weal 
 — love tender and strong, tender as the love of son for mother, 
 strong as the pillars of death ; loyalty generous and disinter- 
 ested, shrinking from no sacrifice, seeking no reward save 
 country's honor and country's triumph. 
 
 Patriotism ! There is magic in the word. It is bliss to re- 
 peat it. Through ages the human race burnt the incense of 
 admiration and reverence at the shrines of patriotism. The 
 most beautiful pages of history are those which count its deeds* 
 Fireside tales, the outpourings of the memories of peoples, bor- 
 row from it their warmest glow. Poets are sweetest when they 
 
 198 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. I99 
 
 re-echo its whisperings ; orators are most potent when they 
 thrill its chords to music. 
 
 Pagan nations were wrong when they made gods of their 
 noblest patriots. But the error was the excess of a great truth, 
 that heaven unites with earth in approving and blessing patri- 
 otism ; that patriotism is one of earth's highest virtues, worthy 
 to have come down from the atmosphere of the skies. 
 
 The exalted patriotism of the exiled Hebrew exhaled it- 
 self in a canticle of religion which Jehovah inspired, and which 
 has been transmitted, as the inheritance of God's people to the 
 Christian church : " Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat 
 and wept, when we remembered Sion. — If I forget thee, O 
 Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue 
 cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee, if I do not make 
 Jerusalem the beginning of my joy." 
 
 The human race pays homage to patriotism, because of its 
 supreme value. The value of patriotism to a people is above 
 gold and precious stones, above commerce and industry, above 
 citadels and war ships. Patriotism is the vital spark of national 
 honor ; it is the fount of the nation's prosperity, the shield of 
 the nation's safety. Take patriotism away, the nation's soul 
 has fled, bloom and beauty have vanished, from the nation's 
 countenance. 
 
 The human race pays homage to patriotism, because of its 
 supreme loveliness. Patriotism goes out to what is among 
 earth's possessions the most precious, the first and best and 
 dearest — country, and its effusion is the fragrant flowering of 
 the purest and noblest sentiments of the heart. 
 
 Patriotism is innate in all men ; the absence of it betokens 
 a perversion of human nature : but it grows its full growth 
 only where thoughts are elevated and heart-beatings are 
 generous. 
 
 Next to God is country, and next to religion is patriotism. 
 No praise goes beyond its deserts. It is sublime in its heroic 
 oblation upon the field of battle. " O glorious is he," exclaims 
 in Homer the Trojan warrior, who for his country falls ! " 
 It is sublime in the oft-repeated toil of dutiful citizenship. 
 
200 
 
 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 " Of all human doings," writes Cicero, none is more hon- 
 orable and more estimable than to merit well of the common- 
 wealth." 
 
 Countries are of divine appointment. The Most High 
 divided the nations, separated the sons of Adam, and ap- 
 pointed the bounds of peoples." The physical and moral 
 necessities of God's creatures are revelations of His will and 
 laws. Man is born a social being. A condition of his exist- 
 ence and of his growth to mature age is the family. Nor does 
 the family sufifice to itself. A larger social organism is needed, 
 into which families gather, so as to obtain from one another 
 security to life and property, and aid in the development of the 
 faculties and powers with which nature has endowed the child- 
 ren of men. The whole human race is too extensive and too 
 diversified in interests to serve those ends : hence its subdivis- 
 ions into countries or peoples. Countries have their providen- 
 tial limits — the waters of a sea, a mountain range, the lines of 
 similarity of requirements, or of methods of living. The limits 
 widen in space according to the measure of the destinies which 
 the great Ruler allots to peoples, and the importance of their 
 parts in the mighty work of the cycles of years, the ever-ad- 
 vancing tide of humanity's evolution. The Lord is the God 
 of nations, because He is the God of men. No nation is 
 born into life, or vanishes back into nothingness without his 
 bidding. I believe in the providence of God over countries as 
 I believe in His wisdom and His love, and my patriotism to 
 my country rises within my soul invested with the halo of my 
 religion to my God. 
 
 More than a century ago a trans-Atlantic poet and philo- 
 sopher, reading well the signs, wrote : 
 
 " Westward the star of empire takes its way. 
 The first four acts already past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day : 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 
 Berkeley's prophetic eye had descried America. What 
 shall I say in a brief discourse of my country's value and 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 201 
 
 beauty, of her claims to my love and loyalty ? I will pass by 
 in silence her fields and forests, her rivers and seas, the bound- 
 less riches hidden beneath her soil and amid the rocks of her 
 mountains, her pure and health-giving air, her transcendent 
 wealth of nature's fairest and most precious gifts. I will not 
 speak of the noble qualities and robust deeds of her sons, 
 skilled in commerce and industry, valorous in war, prosperous 
 in peace. In all these things America is opulent and great : 
 but beyond them and above them is her singular grandeur, to 
 which her material splendor is only the fitting circumstance. 
 
 America born into the family of nations in these latter 
 times is the highest billow in humanity's evolution, the crown- 
 ing effort of ages in the aggrandizement of man. Unless we 
 take her in this altitude, we do not comprehend her ; we be- 
 little her towering stature, and conceal the singular design 
 of Providence in her creation. 
 
 America is the country of human dignity, and human 
 liberty. 
 
 When the fathers of the republic declared that all men 
 are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
 certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness," a cardinal principle was enunci- 
 ated, which in its truth was as old as the race, but in practical 
 realization almost unknown. 
 
 Slowly, amid sufferings and revolutions, humanity had 
 been reaching out toward a reign of the rights of man. Ante- 
 Christian paganism had utterly denied such rights. It allowed 
 nothing to man as man ; he was what wealth, place, or power 
 made him. Even the wise Aristotle taught that some men 
 were intended by nature to be slaves and chattels. The sweet 
 religion of Christ proclaimed aloud the doctrine of the common 
 fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of men. 
 Eighteen hundred years, however, went by, and the civilized 
 world had not yet put its civil and political institutions in ac- 
 cord with its spiritual faith. The Christian church was all this 
 time leavening human society, and patiently awaiting the 
 promised fermentation. This came at last, and it came in 
 
202 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 America. It came in a first manifestation through the Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; it came in a second and final manifesta- 
 tion through President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emanci- 
 pation. 
 
 In America, all men are civilly and politically equal ; all 
 have the same rights ; all wield the same arm of defense and 
 of conquest, the suffrage ; and the sole condition of rights and 
 of power is simple manhood. 
 
 Liberty is the exemption from all restraint save that of the 
 laws of justice and order ; the exemption from submission to 
 other men, except as they represent and enforce those laws. 
 The divine gift of liberty to man is God's recognition of his 
 greatness and his dignity. The sweetness of man's life and 
 the power of growth lie in liberty. The loss of liberty is the 
 loss of light and sunshine, the loss of life's best portion. Hu- 
 manity, under the spell of heavenly memories, never ceased to 
 dream of liberty, and to aspire to its possession. Now and 
 then, here and there, its refreshing breezes caressed humanity's 
 brow. But not until the republic of the West was born, not 
 until the star-spangled banner rose toward the skies, was 
 liberty caught up in humanity's embrace, and embodied in a 
 great and abiding nation. 
 
 In America the government takes from the liberty of the 
 citizen only so much as is necessary for the weal of the nation, 
 which the citizen by his own act freely concedes. In America 
 there are no masters, who govern in their own right, for their 
 own interests, or at their own will. We have over us no Louis 
 XIV., saying: '•^ L'^tat, est moV ; no Hohenzollern, announc- 
 ing that in his acts as sovereign he is responsible only to his 
 conscience and to God. Ours is the government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the people. The government is our 
 own organized will. There is no state above, or apart from 
 the people. Rights begin with, and go upward from, the peo- 
 ple. In other countries, even those apparently the most free, 
 rights begin with and come downward from the state ; the 
 rights of citizens, the rights of the people, are concessions 
 which have been painfully wrenched from the governing powers. 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 203 
 
 With Americans, whenever the organized government does 
 not prove its grant, the liberty of the individual citizen is 
 sacred and inviolable. Elsewhere there are governments called 
 republics : universal suffrage constitutes the state : but once 
 constituted the state is tyrannous and arbitrary, and invades 
 at will private rights, and curtails at will individual liberty. 
 One republic is liberty's native home — America. 
 
 The God-given mission of the republic of America is not 
 only to its own people : it is to all the peoples of the earth, 
 before whose eyes it is the symbol of human rights and human 
 liberty, toward whom its flag flutters hopes of future happi- 
 ness for themselves. 
 
 Is there not for Americans a meaning to the word country? 
 Is there not for Americans reason to live for country, and, if 
 need there be, to die for country? Is there not joy in the 
 recollection that you have been her saviors, and glory in the 
 name of America's " Loyal Legion " ? Whatever the country 
 patriotism is a duty : in America the duty is thrice sacred. 
 
 The duty of patriotism is the duty of justice and of grati- 
 tude. The country fosters and protects our dearest interests 
 — our altars and hearthstones— /r^* aris et focis. Without it 
 there is no safety for life or property, no opportunities of 
 development and progress. All that the country is, she makes 
 ours. We are wise of her wisdom, rich of her opulence, re- 
 splendent of her glory, strong of her fortitude. At once the 
 prisoner Paul rose to eminence, and obtained respect from 
 Palestinian Jews and Roman soldiers, when he proudly an- 
 nounced that he was a citizen of Rome — Civis Romanus, And 
 to-day how significant, the world over, are the words : I am 
 a citizen of America — Civis Americaniis ! 
 
 Duty to country is a duty of conscience, a duty to God. 
 For country exists by natural divine right. It receives from 
 God the authority needful for its life and work : its authority 
 to command is divine. The apostle of Christ to the gentiles 
 writes : " There is no power but from God, and those that are, 
 are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resisteth the power, 
 resisteth the ordinance of God." The religion of patriotism 
 
204 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 is not sufficiently considered : and, yet, it is this religion which 
 gives to country its majesty, and to patriotism its sacredness 
 and force. 
 
 As the part to the whole, so is the citizen to the country; 
 and this relation is the due measure of patriotism. The coun- 
 try and its interests are paramount to the citizen and his inter- 
 ests. A king of France, St. Louis, set to his device this 
 motto : DieUy la France^ et Marguerite^ It told the order 
 of allegiances : God first, next to God country, next to country 
 family, oneself the last — the willing and generous chevalier, 
 even unto death, of family, country, and God. 
 
 Allegiance to country is limited only by allegiance to God. 
 God and His eternal laws of justice and righteousness are su- 
 preme, and hold first claims upon conscience. A country 
 which exacts the violation of those laws, annuls its own moral 
 authority, becomes an aggregation of human wills which physi- 
 cal force alone sustains. " To God, that which is God's ; to 
 Caesar, that which is Caesar's.** In olden paganism the state 
 arrogated to itself supremacy in ethics as in temporals, and 
 ruled consciences. Under this tyranny of the soul, freedom's 
 last ray vanished ; the last vestige of human dignity was 
 effaced. Christ made men free ; He brought back the state to 
 its proper orbit ; and, restoring truth upon earth. He restored 
 manhood to man, and to country the effulgence of the skies. 
 
 It is fortunate for a people that from time to time supreme 
 emergencies arise testing its patriotism to the highest pitch. 
 If patriotism remains dormant for a long period, it may lessen 
 in strength, while the reflection and self-consciousness which 
 resolute action awakens result in a fuller estimate of the value 
 of the country and institutions which it is the duty of patriot- 
 ism to defend. 
 
 A supreme emergency did arise for the people of America. 
 There had been, indeed, patriotism intense and sublime in 
 the revolutionary war, when 
 
 " In their ragged regimentals 
 Stood the old Continentals, 
 Yielding not." 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 205 
 
 But had this patriotism survived ? Notable changes had 
 come over the country. The population had been made much 
 more eclectic ; commerce and industry, usually unpropitious 
 to sentiment and exaltation of soul, had engrossed the public 
 mind ; the spirit of democracy, in its workings toward individ- 
 ualism of character, might have unfitted the citizen for sacri- 
 fice in behalf of the general weal. I was in Europe when the 
 civil war broke out, and I well remember the tone of the pub- 
 lic press regarding the American situation. It was asserted 
 that patriotism was unknown to Americans, and that a free 
 government like ours, compelled to rely upon volunteer serv- 
 ice, could not muster a large army of defenders. The pro- 
 clamation of President Lincoln calling for 75,000 soldiers was 
 received as the venturesome act of despair, and a quick disso- 
 lution of the Union was prophesied. At home there were not 
 a few whose thoughts were those of the unfriendly Europeans. 
 
 On the morning of the twelfth day of April, in the memor- 
 able year of 1861, a cannon-ball swept over the waters of 
 Charleston harbor, aimed with deadly intent at the star-span- 
 gled banner, floating above the walls of Sumter. War was de- 
 clared against the country. 
 
 How much there was at stake ! Scarcely can we at this 
 moment recall without trepidation the awful significance of the 
 contest. 
 
 At stake was the Union of the States, the strength and the 
 life of the nation. What constitutes each State, from the 
 Atlantic waters to those of the Pacific, strong, hopeful, palpi- 
 tating with giant life and ready for giant progress ? This only 
 fact, that the States are one nation, and that, at home and 
 abroad, one flag symbolizes them. A northern republic, a 
 southern republic, a western republic — the nations would de- 
 spise them. The republic of the United States — the nations 
 fear and honor it. 
 
 At stake was the plenary recognition of human rights in 
 our own conutry. In contradiction to the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, men were held as slaves — forsooth, because of 
 color ; in practice, America had failed as yet to be the ideal 
 
2o6 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 country of manhood and human dignity. Had rebellion tri- 
 umphed, slavery should have been confirmed, and the Dec- 
 laration of Independence solemnly and permanently belied. 
 
 At stake was liberty for the world, the stability of a gov- 
 ernment of the people, for the people, and by the people. 
 The Union disrupted, its shattered fragments prostrate over 
 the land, as the broken and desolate columns of once famous 
 temples in Grecian and Roman regions, liberty shrieking over 
 the ruins should have hastened back to caverns of gloom, her 
 friends abandoning hope, her enemies rejoicing and confident. 
 The death of the Union impHed a century of retrogression for 
 humanity. 
 
 Deep and soul-rending was the ceaseless anxiety of free- 
 dom's sons during the dreary years of America's civil war. At 
 every rising of the morning sun, the heavens were questioned — 
 
 " O say, can you see by the dawn's early light, 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ? 
 
 ' ' O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? " 
 
 O God of nations, we, this evening, thank thee : all was 
 well : American patriotism was on guard : and the day came 
 when, at Appomattox, one flag unfurled its beauteous folds 
 over both contending armies : 
 
 " 'T is the star-spangled banner : O long may it wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! " 
 
 Two things in our civil war amazed the world : one, the 
 number and courage of our volunteer soldiers ; the other, the 
 ability of the commanders. In other countries large standing 
 armies, years of careful training for men and officers are the 
 prerequisites of successful warfare. In America the chief ex- 
 ecutive of the republic waves his wand, and armies spring 
 up as by incantation. One motive rules them, the saving of 
 the country ; they are most daring in deed ; the leadership is 
 most skilful. The records of their battles are studied in won- 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 20/ 
 
 derment by famed warriors of Europe. Especially, did the 
 skilled leadership of our armies astonish Europeans. I met 
 recently in Paris a well-known general of Russia. He said : 
 
 War is a science of high degree ; at the commencement of the 
 contest the Government of the United States had at its disposal 
 only a handful of trained officers ; the war, moreover, was to offer 
 in its varied operations unusual difficulties ; and yet, the command 
 throughout the vast army was admirable in skill of planning and 
 execution." 
 
 Great the sacrifices which the war in defense of the country 
 demanded ! But great the results ! No one now doubts that 
 America is patriotic, and that a free people may be relied upon 
 to defend its country. The United States is respected by the 
 nations of the world ; they remember what it was capable of 
 when divided ; they understand what it is capable of when 
 united. The victory of the Union brought peace and pros- 
 perity to conquerors and to conquered ; to-day the conquered 
 rejoice no less than the conquerors that the old flag has not 
 lost one star from its azure ground. The seal of finality has 
 been set upon the Union, the God of battle ending disputes, 
 and deciding that we are a nation, one and indestructible. 
 Slavery has been blotted out, and the escutcheon of free 
 America is cleansed of blemish. Liberty is without peril in 
 her chosen home, and from America's shores she sends her 
 fragrant breathings across seas and oceans. The quickened 
 march of republicanism and democracy which the present 
 times witness through the Southern continent of America, and 
 through Europe, goes out from the great heart of the triumph- 
 ant republic of the United States. 
 
 The sacrifices ! Each one of you. Companions, says in 
 truth : Quorum pars magna fui'' The results ! They are 
 yours, since the sacrifices were yours which purchased them. 
 This great nation is your especial belonging : you saved it by 
 the libation of your blood. By you the star-spangled banner 
 was guarded, at the peril of your life, in its hour of trial : let 
 others love it and seek its smiles : they cannot have for it your 
 
208 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 passion, and, were speech allowed it, accents of sweetness 
 would flow out to you which others should not hear. 
 
 The days of peace have come upon our fair land : the days 
 when patriotism was a duty have not departed. What was 
 saved by war must be preserved. 
 
 A government of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people, as proposed by the founders of the republic, was, in 
 the light of the facts of history, a stupendous experiment. 
 The experiment has so far succeeded. A French publicist, 
 De Maistre, once dismissed with contempt the argument 
 drawn from the United States in favor of free institutions in 
 Europe, remarking : " The republic of the United States is in 
 its swathing-clothes ; let it grow : wait a century and you shall 
 see." The republic has lived out a century ; it has lived out a 
 mighty civil war, with no diminution, assuredly, of vigor and 
 promise. Can we say, however, that it is beyond all the stages 
 of an experiment ? The world at large is not willing to grant 
 this conclusion : it tells us, even, that the republic is but now 
 entering upon its crucial crisis. New conditions, indeed, con- 
 front us : new perils menace us, in a population bordering on 
 the hundredth million and prepared quickly to leap beyond 
 this figure, in plethoric and unwieldy urban conglomerations, 
 in that unbridled luxury of living consequent on vast material 
 prosperity, which in all times is a dreaded foe to liberty. It 
 were reckless folly on our part to deny all force to the object- 
 ions which are put to us. 
 
 Meanwhile, the destinies of numerous peoples are in the 
 balance. They move toward liberty, as liberty is seen to reign 
 undisturbed in America ; they recede toward absolutism and 
 hereditary regimes, as clouds are seen darkening our sky. 
 Civil, political, social happenings of America are watched, the 
 world over, with intense anxiety, because of their supposed 
 bearings upon the question of the practicability of popular 
 government. A hundred times the thought pressed itself upon 
 me, as I discussed in foreign countries the modern democracy, 
 that, could Americans understand how much is made to depend 
 upon the outcome of republican and democratic institutions in 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 209 
 
 their country, a new fire of patriotism, a new zeal in the wel- 
 fare of the republic, would kindle within their hearts. 
 
 For my part, I have unwavering faith in the republic of 
 America. I have faith in the providence of God and the pro- 
 gress of humanity : I will not believe that Hberty is not a 
 permanent gift, and it were not, if America fail. I have faith 
 in the powerful and loyal national heart of America, which 
 clings fast to liberty, and sooner or later rights wrongs, and up- 
 roots evils. I have no fears. Clouds cross the heavens : soon 
 a burst of sunlight dispels them. Different interests in society 
 are out of joint with one another, and the society organism 
 is feverish : it is simply the effort toward new adjustments ; 
 in a little while, there will be order and peace. Threatening 
 social and political evils are near, and are seemingly gaining 
 ground ; the American people are conservatively patient ; but 
 ere long the national heart is roused and the evils, however 
 formidable be their aspect, go down before the tread of an 
 indignant people. 
 
 The safety of the republic lies in the vigilant and active 
 patriotism of the American people. 
 
 There is a danger in the ignorance of voters. As a rule, the 
 man who does not read and write intelligently, cannot vote 
 intelligently. Americans understand the necessity of popular 
 instruction, and spare no expense in spreading it. They can- 
 not be too zealous in the matter. They need to have laws 
 in every State, which will punish, as guilty of crime against 
 the country, the parent who neglects to send his children to 
 school. 
 
 There is a danger — and a most serious one — in corrupt 
 morals. A people without good morals is incapable of self- 
 government. At the basis of the proper exercise of the suffrage 
 lie unselfishness and the spirit of sacrifice. A corrupt man is 
 selfish ; an appeal to duty finds no response in his conscience ; 
 he is incapable of the high-mindedness and generous acts which 
 are the elements of patriotism ; he is ready to sell the country 
 for pelf or pleasure. Patriotism takes alarm at the spread of 
 
 intemperance, lasciviousness, dishonesty, perjury ; for country's 
 14 
 
210 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 sake it should arm against those dire evils all the country's 
 forces, its legislatures, its courts, and, above all else, public 
 opinion. Materialism and the denial of a living, supreme God 
 annihilate conscience, and break down the barriers to sensuality ; 
 they sow broadcast the seeds of moral death : they are fatal 
 to liberty and social order. A people without a belief in God 
 and a future life of the soul will not remain a free people. 
 The age of the democracy must, for its own protection, be an 
 age of religion. 
 
 Empires and monarchies rely upon sword and cannon ; 
 republics, upon the citizen's respect for law. Unless law be 
 sacred a free government will not endure. Laws may be re- 
 pealed through constitutional means, but while they are in- 
 scribed on the statute-book they should be observed. The 
 lowering of the dignity of law, by deed, teaching, or connivance, 
 is treason. Anarchical explosions, mob riots, lynchings, shake 
 the pillars of the commonwealth ; other violations of law, the 
 determined defiance of municipal and State authority by the 
 liquor traffic, the stealthy avoidance of payment of taxes and 
 of customs duties, sear consciences, and beget a fatal habit of 
 disobedience. A law-abiding people only is worthy of liberty 
 and capable of guarding its treasures. 
 
 What shall I say of the purity of the ballot, of the integrity 
 of the public ofificial ? I touch upon the life-threads of the 
 republic, and words fail to express the solemnity of my 
 thoughts. The poet Virgil places amid horrible torments in 
 his hell the man who sold his country for gold, and imposed 
 upon it a master ; who made and unmade laws for a price : " 
 
 " Vendidit hie auro patriam, dominumque potentem 
 Imposuit ; fixit leges pretio, atque refixit." 
 
 The poet had a righteous sense of the enormity of the crime. 
 The suffrage is the power of life or death over the state. The 
 one licit motive in its use is the pubHc weal, to which private 
 and party interests should be always sacrificed. The voter mak- 
 ing misuse of the trust deserves to be disfranchised ; the man 
 who compasses the misuse, who weaves schemes to defraud the 
 
THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 211 
 
 popular will, deserves to be proscribed. The public official is 
 appointed for the people's good, and is sworn to work for it ; 
 if he prostitutes his office, legislative or executive, to enrich 
 himself or his friends, he has " sold his country for gold," and 
 he is a traitor. The distribution of office, or of administrative 
 power, must be based on fitness ; the spoils system in politics 
 inevitably leads to public corruption, treacherous and unsafe 
 administration, and the ultimate foundering of the ship of 
 state. 
 
 Storms are passing over the land, arising from sectarian 
 hatred, and nativist or foreign prejudices. These are scarcely 
 to be heeded : they cannot last. Day by day the spirit of 
 Americanism waxes strong ; narrowness of thought, and un- 
 reasoning strife cannot resist its influences. 
 
 This country is America : only they who are loyal to her can 
 be allowed to live under her flag ; and they who are loyal to her 
 may enjoy all her liberties and rights. Freedom of religion is 
 accorded by the Constitution : religion is put outside State ac- 
 tion, and most wisely so ; therefore, the religion of a citizen 
 must not be considered by voter or executive officer. The 
 oath of allegiance to the country makes the man a citizen ; if 
 that allegiance is not plenary and supreme, he is false to his 
 profession ; if it is, he is an American. Discriminations and 
 segregations, in civil or political matters, on lines of religion, of 
 birthplace, or of race, or of language, — and, I add, or of color, 
 — is un-American and wrong. Compel all to be Americans, in 
 soul as well as in name ; and then let the standard of their 
 value be their American citizenship. 
 
 Who will say that there is no work for patriotism in days 
 of peace ? If it need not to be so courageous as in war, it 
 needs to be more watchful and enduring: for the evils against 
 which it contends in peace are more persevering, more stealthy 
 in the advance, more delusive in the attack. We can easily 
 imagine that a country, invincible in war, may go down to its 
 ruin amid the luxuries and somnolence of prolonged peace. 
 Hannibal won at Thrasymene, but he lost the fruits of vic- 
 tory in the vineyards and orange groves of Campania. 
 
212 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 The days of war, many hope, are passing away for good, and 
 arbitration is to take its place. This may be desirable : for 
 war is terrible. Yet, it is not easy to see what is to be so serv- 
 iceable, in electrifying the nation's patriotism, and communi- 
 cating to it an ardor which refuses during many years to dim 
 its glow. Certain it is that under the reign of peace we must, 
 in season and out of season, look to the patriotism of the coun- 
 try, that it suffer no diminution in vigor and earnest work. 
 
 American patriotism is needed — patriotism intense, which 
 speaks out in noble pride, with beating heart : Civis Ameri- 
 canus^ I am an American citizen " ; patriotism active, which 
 shows itself in deed and in sacrifice ; patriotism public-spirited, 
 which cares for the public weal as for the apple of the eye. 
 Private personal civic virtue is not uncommon among us ; more 
 uncommon is public civic virtue, which watches the ballot and 
 all approaches to it, which demands that public officials do 
 their duty, which purifies public opinion on all matters where 
 country is concerned. This patriotism will save the republic. 
 
 From whom primarily does the republic expect the patriot- 
 ism ? From her veteran soldiers. 
 
 This patriotism, America, thou shalt have. I speak for vet- 
 erans. I speak for their brother citizens. 
 
 Noblest ship of state, sail thou on over billows and through 
 storms, undaunted, imperishable. Of thee, I do not say : 
 Ccesarem vehis — " thou earnest Caesar." But of thee I say : 
 Libertatemv ehis — " thou carriest Liberty." Within thy bul- 
 warks the fair goddess is enthroned, holding in her hands the 
 dreams and hopes of humanity. O, for her sake, guard well 
 thyself! Sail thou on, peerless ship, safe from shoals and 
 malign winds, ever strong in keel, ever beauteous in prow and 
 canvas, ever guided by heaven's polar star. Sail thou on, I pray 
 thee, undaunted and imperishable. 
 
SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSA- 
 COLA, FLORIDA, JANUARY 12, 1861. 
 
 A paper read by Rear Admiral, Henry Erben, U. S. Navy, Dec. 5, 1894. 
 . BOUT three years ago, I read before the United Service 
 
 Club a paper upon a subject which I consider of impor- 
 tance, the time and correct date of the commencement of hostil- 
 ities on the part of the South against the Union, and when the 
 flag of the Union was first lowered, to make way for another. 
 The paper was favorably received, and our Commander has 
 asked me to read it before the Commandery. My papers are 
 stowed away, and it is impossible for me to find it. I have pre- 
 pared another, which, while it is not as full as the first, I take 
 great pleasure in reading to you bearing in mind, your desire 
 for brevity. In Dec, i860, I was a lieutenant on board the 
 U. S. Ship Supply, We had been for nearly a year with our 
 squadron at Vera Cruz, watching the movements of the French 
 fleet, which shortly afterwards landed its forces to prepare 
 the way for Maximilian. It was hard service, so the Commo- 
 dore sent us to Pensacola, to give the crew a run on shore as 
 well as to get stores. We arrived December 7, i860; the 
 Presidential election had taken place, South Carolina was 
 going out of the Union, and Major Anderson was hemmed in 
 at Charleston. We found the people at Pensacola in a state of 
 great excitement. Conventions had been called to secede the 
 State ; town meetings were being held every evening, where the 
 most violent speeches were made to fire the Southern heart ; 
 men, women, and children seemed to have gone mad. Boats 
 passing in gave us some choice greetings, informing us several 
 times a day that wc would all be blown to another place within 
 
214 SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 
 
 three months. We made fast to the Navy Yard wharf. The 
 yard was commanded by Commodore James Armstrong, an 
 old officer of very great distinction, who had stood by his colors 
 for fifty years. The other officers of the yard were mostly 
 Southerners, the executive officer was a New Jersey man, 
 Commander Farrand, — we will hear more of him as we get on. 
 The Navy Yard was well stocked with all kinds of stores and 
 ammunition, to supply our large squadron in the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, watching the French. The ships at the yard were the 
 Fulton, the fastest steamer in the service ; the Crusader, com- 
 manded by John N. Maffitt, afterwards of the rebel cruiser 
 Florida; the Wyandotte, Commander Berryman of Virginia; and 
 the Supply, Captain Walke, also of Virginia. We attempted 
 to give leave to our crew, but soon found that would not do ; a 
 fight of large proportions occurred, and several men were in- 
 jured. Everybody was talking secession ; we heard nothing 
 else. Officers at the mess table, and at home, where the women 
 always took a strong hand, the workmen during their midday- 
 meal hour, even Jack took a hand, but his argument was all 
 on one side, for the Union. Nothing was thought of or talked 
 of but this infernal secession of the States. The excitement 
 grew day by day, our mails from the north were interfered 
 with, and toward the last cut off, I may say. The money 
 sent from Washington was held somewhere, in fact we felt 
 ourselves completely cut off, and that if we had a government,^ 
 it had deserted us. No one knew what to do, the people at 
 their meetings became more bold, open threats were made that 
 the yard and forts would be taken, and large numbers of men 
 were drilled in the open streets. Orders from Washington were 
 asked for, but most likely these requests never got out of the 
 State ; at all events, no replies were received, until the Commo- 
 dore got the ridiculous order to keep the Department advised 
 as to what was going on, and to be vigilant in protecting the 
 Government property. Another order came to Lieutenant 
 Slemmer, commanding the company of artillery in Fort 
 Barrancas, to move his command to Fort Pickens. This order 
 came through the mail in a small pink envelope and addressed 
 
SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 21 5 
 
 in a woman's hand. At last it was necessary to take some 
 action ; officers had to decide whether to go with their States, 
 or to remain with the Union. Of all the Southern officers 
 there, I will say I did not know one who wished to go out of 
 the service ; most of them were forced out by family pressure, 
 particularly by wives, mothers, or sisters. A classmate of mine 
 and our assistant surgeon went up to the city of Pensacola 
 for a day or so ; a secesh meeting took place at their hotel, the 
 only hotel in town. Both officers were strong Union men, 
 and thinking they could enter into a free discussion on the 
 merits of secession, they went into the meeting room, which 
 was of course the bar-room, but they soon found it was not a 
 free discussion at all, but that they had a free fight on their 
 hands. The next day they returned to their ships with black- 
 ened eyes and cut faces, a sorry-looking pair of defenders of 
 the Union. Within ten days my classmate had thrown up 
 his commission, taken himself off into Georgia, and fought all 
 through the war in the Confederate navy ; this was but one of 
 many similar cases. The Crusader wX^^ Maffitt got off to Mobile, 
 leaving only the Wyandotte and Supply, the Fulton being hauled 
 up for repairs. We in the Supply and Wyandotte got stores 
 aboard, which, I may add, were given to us with great reluct- 
 ance by the storekeeper, Mr. Gonzales ; even then, the amount 
 was far below what we should have had ; we made ready 
 to haul off from the yard, to defend it if ordered, at 
 all events, to be off when the surrender came. Two forts 
 stand at the entrance of Pensacola Harbor, Fort Pickens, 
 one of the largest in the country, and Fort McCrea, in which 
 a large quantity of ammunition was stored, which would be 
 used by the rebels against Lieutenant Slemmer, should an 
 attempt be made to occupy Fort Pickens. This fort com- 
 manded the fine harbor of Pensacola, which never fell into 
 Confederate hands. No one would order the removal or the 
 destruction of the ammunition, so I proposed to do it myself, 
 and with a boat's crew pulled down the harbor and up the 
 bayou to Fort McCrea. There was a sergeant in charge, but 
 he was away, in town ; his wife came out, but refused to give 
 
2l6 SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 
 
 me the keys of the fort. It only required one word to the 
 boat's crew, the doors were soon broken open and the work of 
 destruction began. Several thousand pounds of powder were 
 rolled out of the magazine, and the heads of the barrels were 
 knocked in, and the powder tumbled into the sea. The fuses 
 were thrown away, rope and other property destroyed, and 
 the guns facing on Fort Pickens partly spiked, as well as we 
 could do it ; and when we left Fort McCrea, it was in no con- 
 dition to prevent the landing of our force of artillerymen and 
 sailors at Fort Pickens. Meanwhile the sergeant's wife got 
 word out to the small towns near by of what was being done 
 in Fort McCrea, and a party fully armed started in a boat to 
 prevent the destruction, or to intercept us on our way out. It 
 was dark when we got out of the bayou ; we were pulling 
 back to the ship when we met this boat. Those in it hailed 
 us in not polite language ; we rested on our oars, drifting with 
 the tide, keeping perfectly quiet. Then came several shots 
 from the boat ; we pulled as I believe no other boat ever pulled 
 before, reaching the ship, to find her away from the wharf in 
 case of her services being needed, and so as not to be included 
 in the impending surrender. I reported to Captain Walke 
 what I had done, and about eight o'clock went up to the Com- 
 mandant to ask permission to destroy everything in the Naval 
 Magazine and Ordnance Department so that no warlike mate- 
 rial might be found, which could be of service to the mob out- 
 side — threatening the Navy Yard. The Commandant had been 
 informed of what had been done at Fort McCrea ; he appeared 
 to be completely dazed at my proposal to destroy this mate- 
 rial ; he read to me his order, " To be vigilant in protecting 
 Government property," saying to me, Now you ask me to 
 destroy it." I did all I could to get his permission, but failed. 
 He went to the parlor door, called his orderly, and sent him 
 for Commander Farrand ; then I knew it was all up. There 
 was some violent talk after Farrand came ; he asked the Com- 
 modore to put me under arrest, and send me back to the ship, 
 that I was crazy, and had been disrespectful to him. The 
 Commodore refused to do this ; then Farrand rose, seized his 
 
SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 21/ 
 
 chair, threw it at my head, and left the room. I remained with 
 the old Commodore for a while ; his face was buried in a hand- 
 kerchief and he was crying like a child, I bade him good- 
 night, a.nd started for the ship. As I got out on the veranda, 
 just closing the door, Farrand stepped up to me and in the 
 most violent manner, shook his fist in my face, saying, D — n 
 you, I will teach you how to treat your superior officer." 
 Thinking he would strike me, I seized him by the coat collar, 
 shaking him off for a moment. He came at me again, we 
 clinched and rolled down the steps together. I held him and 
 said, " I will have you hung as a traitor." He called for as- 
 sistance and Lieutenant Renshaw stepped out from the hedge ; 
 my companion from the ship, the same man who got the black 
 eye in town, came out from his hiding-place also. Farrand ran 
 off in a state of rage, going to the officers' houses, saying, " Erben 
 is drunk and wants to blow up the yard." Towards midnight, 
 January nth, we dropped down with the Wyandotte to take 
 Captain Slemmer's command over to Fort Pickens. Lieu- 
 tenant Oilman was the only commissioned officer with Slem- 
 mer, who had urged upon Commodore Armstrong the necessity 
 of some plan to insure the safety of Government property, but 
 Armstrong, after consulting with Farrand, deemed it inexped- 
 ient to do so. After valuable time had been lost, the Com- 
 modore agreed to assist, but at the very last moment this 
 promised assistance was refused, then we knew we had to act 
 on our own responsibility. Farrand even had an order given 
 to the ships not to fire a gun unless the vessels were attacked, 
 but no assistance was to be offered if Slemmer was attacked. 
 I can say that no such order would have been obeyed, or even 
 thought of, had Slemmer been attacked. The command, with 
 all belonging to it, was put in boats, taken down the harbor in 
 tow of the ship and landed, and when daylight came the reb- 
 els found Slemmer and the ships gone, our flag flying from the 
 walls of Fort Pickens, and they knew they had lost control of 
 the finest harbor in the South. Our flag never came down 
 from that fort. The officers and men from the ships were 
 sent on shore to assist in putting Fort Pickens in a state of de- 
 
2l8 SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 
 
 fense, but it was a large place to be defended by so few men. 
 The troops of Alabama and Florida were marching on the 
 Navy Yard, — mind you the troops of Alabama had invaded the 
 sacred sand of Florida. We, in the ships, were ready and 
 anxious to defend the yard, as were the marines stationed 
 there. The Commodore thought a show of force might keep 
 the rebels back ; extra sentinels were placed and doubled 
 along the wall, with loaded muskets. A howitzer or two were 
 placed near the gate and a great display made to intimidate 
 the mob outside, but after nightfall Commander Farrand coun- 
 termanded the Commodore's order, the marines were returned 
 to their barracks, and the howitzers put away for further use in 
 the Confederacy. Nothing was done to meet the force march- 
 ing on the yard ; every man, woman, and child knew these 
 troops were coming, and for what purpose. Florida seceded 
 January nth — vote 62 to 7. A little before noon, this force 
 appeared before the Warrington gate, demanding the surren- 
 der of the yard, with threats of an assault in case of refusal. 
 Farrand met their commanding ofBcer, Capt. Victor M. Ran- 
 dolph, late of our navy, and conducted him to Commodore 
 Armstrong. Terms were made to surrender the entire depart- 
 ment, the officers, blue jackets, marines, and workmen to be 
 paroled as prisoners of war, not to serve again against Ala- 
 bama or Florida. At noon, on January 12, 1861, our flag was 
 lowered for the first time, and another, the flag of Florida, 
 hoisted in its stead. All the property, including vast quan- 
 tities of stores of all kinds, with the Fulton, the Marine Bar- 
 racks, and Naval Hospital with all in them, fell into the hands 
 of the rebels. Gentlemen, if this was not war, what is war ? 
 A great Government depot, its workshops, its million-dollar 
 dry dock, all seized under threat of a large armed force, its 
 people paroled, and sent off to the ships to be taken away, 
 must be considered as the first act of the Great Rebellion. It 
 was a fete day for Farrand, but a sad one to us, looking on 
 from the ships. Farrand ordered an old quartermaster, named 
 Conway, to haul down the flag. Conway refused, though 
 threatened with cutting down ; then Lieutenant Renshaw with 
 
SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 219 
 
 his own hands hauled down the flag and Conway was put in 
 irons. We heard a great deal about shooting on the spot any 
 man who hauls down the American flag, yet no one was ever 
 shot. This man Farrand most certainly should have been shot. 
 I tried my best to have him tried for treason after the war was 
 over, for while he was doing this rascally work he held a com- 
 mander's commission in the navy. Three commissioners from 
 the sovereign States of Alabama and Florida came to the ships 
 under a flag of truce, demanding their surrender as part of the 
 naval establishment ; this, of course, was refused, for with the 
 ships in rebel hands Slemmer would very soon have been 
 driven out of Pickens, and then the rebels would have held the 
 harbor; the same commissioners went to see Slemmer. On 
 January 13th, the Supply, under a flag of truce, went to the 
 anchorage off the yard, and received the paroled blue jackets, 
 marines, people from the hospital, in all numbering over one 
 hundred men, with all their effects. Captain Slemmer s com- 
 mand was very short of provisions — the three months' supply 
 should have arrived from New Orleans by January ist. We 
 could not give him much from our small stock, with our in- 
 creased number on board. We had noticed a schooner knock- 
 ing about outside the bar, evidently with the stores on board. 
 As soon as our flag was lowered she stood in for the harbor. 
 I took a boat, went on board her with the crew ; we seized the 
 helm put it hard a-port, running her on the beach under our 
 guns. She was the craft with the stores from New Orleans. 
 The skipper swore tremendously at being captured, but our 
 boatswain's mate, Walsh, knocked him overboard and so we se- 
 cured the three months' rations for the troops. The garrison 
 of Fort Pickens consisted of Company G, First Artillery, and 
 thirty men sent from the ships ; everything was done to help 
 put the fort in a state to resist the threatened attack. There 
 is no doubt this attack would have been made, had it not been 
 for the Supply and Wyandotte. It was the intention to attack 
 these vessels by boarding from protected river steamers, but 
 the attempt was not made. The Wyandotte had but one offi- 
 cer — and on the Supply we were very uncertain as to some of 
 
220 SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 
 
 ours. Of the lieutenants, I was the only one to remain in the 
 service. 
 
 The Supply sailed for New York with the warrant officers, 
 surrendered men, and the wives of the officers, their furniture 
 and baggage arriving on February 4, 1861. 
 
 For three months, this small force held this great fort, 
 which would require seven or eight hundred men to properly 
 man it ; they were supported only by the Wyandotte with her 
 crew, and the one officer, Captain Berryman, who, worn out 
 by constant watching and work, died at his post in Pensacola. 
 On February 6th, the Brooklyn, one of our new large sloops 
 of war, appeared off the harbor, with reinforcements for Slem- 
 mer ; these were not allowed to land, and the ship remained, 
 rolling outside the bar, for weeks. Her presence, no doubt, 
 gave courage, and relieved the little garrison of sailors and 
 soldiers, of anxiety. Just think of it, the Government did not 
 have backbone enough to order these troops, which had been 
 sent purposely to reinforce Pickens, to land. The few supplies 
 received by the garrison in some roundabout manner were 
 cut off. The frigate Sabine also arrived shortly after the 
 Brooklyn, but these vessels did not land their troops till April 
 13th, and then, as we understood it, the great responsibility of 
 landing them on their own soil was taken by the senior naval 
 officer present. This brought the strength of the garrison up 
 to several hundred men, yet this not being thought sufficient, 
 the celebrated Billy Wilson Zouaves were added. The Wyan- 
 dotte having left the harbor, the rebels ferried themselves across 
 the bay to Santa Rosa Island, where they landed, and made a 
 furious attack upon the fort, but were driven off. The forts 
 and Navy Yard were bombarded by Fort Pickens ; some months 
 later the yard, with buildings, dry dock, and all it contained, 
 were fired and destroyed, and we took possession of the 
 wreck. 
 
 It may be of interest to know what became of the officers 
 present at this time. Commodore Armstrong was tried by 
 court-martial for surrendering the yard, and was sentenced to 
 five years' suspension. When I went to Washington in Sep- 
 
SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 221 
 
 tember, 1865, to see if it was possible to have Farrand arrested 
 and tried as a traitor, I told the story of the surrender to the 
 Secretary of the Navy, and shortly after, Armstrong was 
 released, but Farrand was never tried ; he joined the Confed- 
 eracy, but never saw a battle, I am told. 
 
 Lieutenant Kell, of the Navy Yard, served on the Alabama 
 with Semmes, from first to finish. Captain Walke of the 
 Supply was tried by court-martial, for the Lord only knows 
 what, and was under suspension when the war began ; he made 
 a fine reputation as a fighting man under Admirals Foote and 
 Porter, on the Western rivers, and yet lives, a hale, hearty 
 old man. 
 
 Berryman, as I said, died at Pensacola. Maffitt com- 
 manded the cruiser Florida for two years. Our executive 
 officer resigned as a lieutenant in April, 1861, but did not join 
 the Confederacy; he re-entered the service in 1863, as a mate I 
 * think, fought the rest of the war, and at its end, his commis- 
 sion as lieutenant-commander was restored to him, on his 
 death-bed, by President Lincoln. One of the Supply's lieu- 
 tenants, Bradford, went from New York to Cuba, to be married. 
 I begged him to stay north, to go to China, or anywhere to 
 get out of the way, but he went to Cuba, spent all his money 
 and wrote home for more ; he was told it would be sent him, 
 provided he would go home to Alabama ; he went, the women 
 got hold of him, and he left the service ; the next time I saw 
 him, he was minus an arm, which he lost on the rebel ram 
 Tennessee at Mobile, Ala. ; his brother had commanded a com- 
 pany of troops from Alabama, at the surrender of Pensacola. 
 I remember, when I was a witness in both Commodore Arm- 
 strong and Captain Walke's trials, I made use of the word 
 " rebel " in my testimony. I was stopped, as the word was 
 considered objectionable. I persisted in using it, for I knew 
 no better one. The court was cleared, and the point deliber- 
 ated, and I was told not to use the term again. Good heavens ! 
 after what we had gone through, what were we to call them? 
 
 Courts-martial appeared to be in order. I did not know 
 but that my time might come to be tried for malicious mischief 
 
222 SURRENDER OF THE NAVY YARD AT PENSACOLA. 
 
 in destroying public property, so I hurried off to sea, to get 
 out of the way. 
 
 After serving on various stations during the war, it was my 
 good fortune to be in command of a ship at this same Pensa- 
 cola Navy Yard in June, 1865. A rather remarkable co-inci- 
 dent was that the Commandant then was James Armstrong, 
 but another man than the one surrendering the yard, — and I 
 was there to receive the rascals who drove us out four years 
 before. 
 
THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE, 
 MAY, 1865. 
 
 Read by Capt. W. L. Heermance, U. S. V., April 3, 1895. 
 
 T a dinner of the Sons of the Revolution there met James 
 
 E. Tucker, who, in 1863, was color-bearer of the 2d 
 Virginia Cavalry, a regiment in Fitzhugh Lee's brigade, and 
 the late Col. Floyd Clarkson, who had been a major in the 
 6th New York Cavalry. On the 30th of April, 1863, the 
 latter regiment was surrounded by Gen. L. Lee's brigade, 
 but, though outnumbered by a force treble his own, the gal- 
 lant Lieutenant-Colonel McVicar, who was in command of the 
 6th New York, ordered a charge with sabres, and the greater 
 number of those with him reached the main army at Chancel- 
 lorsville, leaving only dead and wounded behind ; among 
 the former the brave McVicar, who, had his life been spared, 
 would have made his record high among the dashing leaders 
 of the Union cavalry. 
 
 Colonel Clarkson was not with the regiment at the time. 
 Mr. Tucker, whose horse was shot under him in the engage- 
 ment, was anxious to meet those who had participated in it, 
 and Colonel Clarkson invited those who could be reached, 
 to meet Mr. Tucker at his house, to talk over this and other 
 engagements in which these two regiments had met each 
 other, for the " Old Sixth " was well known to all the Con- 
 federate cavalry serving in Virginia ; each having the respect 
 for the other that brave men feel towards those they meet in 
 battle where true manhood is shown. 
 
 It so happened that a short time before this, the writer 
 was told that, living in the same suburb of New York with 
 
224 THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 him, was a Confederate officer, who had been in this en- 
 gagement with the 6th New York, and received a sabre cut 
 that nearly severed his nose from his face, and thought that 
 his fellow townsman had been the offending party. And on 
 my meeting Captain Benjamin F. Medina of the 5th Virginia 
 Cavalry, it proved to be so. How strange it seemed that, 
 after a lapse of more than twenty-seven years, he should tell 
 me, in my own home, how in that wild charge in the woods of 
 Virginia, at night, the officer that gave him that " right cut 
 was shot by Captain Reuben Boston of his regiment, almost 
 at the same moment, and how Captain Boston was killed at 
 the last fight of the war, near Appomattox. As he told his 
 story it seemed there could be no mistake in his conclusion ; 
 for, as I was engaged with one on my right, before I could 
 turn my horse to give the left cut " to one who had a pistol 
 that I could feel pressed against me, he fired, the ball going 
 through my left arm and making a wound in my stomach ; at 
 the same time a blow on the head knocked me from my horse, 
 and I was left behind to be taken to Libby Prison. 
 
 Captain Medina participated with us in the re-union of the 
 ** Blue and Gray," and the reminiscences awakened then have 
 prompted me to write of this and other work done by the 
 cavalry at Chancellorsville. However, before leaving the sub- 
 ject of this little gathering, where so much good feeling was 
 shown by those who had often met in deadly strife, let me 
 mention how we called to mind that as General Lee stopped 
 at the little log-house where we were, the next morning, and 
 learning that the body of the gallant leader of the little band, 
 which had driven back his whole brigade, lay unburied on the 
 field of battle, he had it brought in, a coffin made from the 
 material that could be had, and buried it there, whence we 
 afterward had it removed to its final resting-place in Rochester, 
 New York. Such kindly feelings existing, with the loyalty 
 expressed for the Union by those who had once fought against 
 it, made all feel that sectional animosity would not have con- 
 tinued long had the men who did the fighting had the readjust- 
 ment of affairs when the South laid down her arms. 
 
THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 225 
 
 A newspaper correspondent once being asked why so little 
 mention was made of the work done by the cavalry in our 
 civil war, tersely replied, that they were generally so far 
 to the front, and so near the enemy, that it was rather danger- 
 ous and — unpleasant to be with them." And this was the 
 case at Chancellorsville. The reports of that engagement 
 written since the war give but little attention to the work 
 done by the cavalry at that time. 
 
 General Hooker, who was then commanding the Army of 
 the Potomac, says : The cavalry under General Pleasanton 
 saved the army from annihilation." Upon entering the Chan- 
 cellorsville campaign. General Hooker detached the cavalry, 
 with the exception of the brigade commanded by General 
 Pleasanton, and sent them under command of General 
 Stoneman to make a raid on the enemy's line of com- 
 munication. This command accomplished nothing. There 
 were left with Pleasanton the 6th New York, 8th and 17th 
 Pennsylvania regiments of cavalry, with Pennington's regular 
 and Martin's volunteer batteries. As Stoneman's column 
 moved out leaving us behind, we felt how unjust had been 
 the detail that kept us from sharing in what all thought 
 would bring so much glory to those who should ride with 
 them ; but the work done by our little brigade was the com- 
 mencement of what gave our cavalry the name which has 
 been unequalled by that of the cavalry of any other country. 
 
 In the advance to Chancellorsville I will follow only that 
 part of my own regiment that led the advance of the Twelfth 
 Corps, under General Slocum, which was the right wing of 
 the army ; the 8th Pennsylvania leading the advance of General 
 Meade's column and the 17th Pennsylvania doing the same 
 duty for General Howard, the remainder of the 6th New York 
 being assigned to the divisions, but joining the cavalry com- 
 mand before the battle was over. 
 
 On Wednesday morning about two hundred of the 6th New 
 York, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel McVicar, were 
 ordered to report to General Slocum ; we crossed the Rappa- 
 hannock River at Kelley's Ford, and soon after were engaged 
 
 IS 
 
226 THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 with a North Carolina cavalry regiment, driving them and tak- 
 ing some prisoners, among them a captain, whose lieutenant 
 commanded the guard that a few days later escorted me to 
 Richmond. The lieutenant remarked, when he found out that 
 it was the same command that had captured his captain, 
 " that the captain was in the habit of being taken without 
 much trouble." 
 
 We skirmished all that day with cavalry in our front, 
 reaching Germania Ford on the Rapidan late in the afternoon, 
 a heavy force in rifle-pits on the other side preventing our 
 crossing. We took possession of an old mill on the banks of 
 the river, exchanging shots with them until the infantry came 
 up, and a battery put in position shelled the rifle-pits, while 
 the infantry crossed and captured all the defenders of the 
 works. Crossing the ford we again took the advance, captur- 
 ing some prisoners and baggage of the famous Black Horse 
 Cavalry. We reached the Chancellorsville House Thursday 
 afternoon, having been engaged more or less all the time since 
 we started, with a loss of three men killed, one officer and five 
 men wounded. Having reported our arrival to General Slocum, 
 who was about three miles back, orders were received from 
 him to go to Spottsylvania Court-House. Colonel McVicar 
 knew full well from prisoners captured that the force we had 
 skirmished with since crossing Kelly's Ford was vastly superior 
 to ours, and that our advance, so far from support, would be 
 attended with great risk, but as he told the officers with him 
 what we were expected to do, he ordered the bugle to sound 
 " Forward." 
 
 " His not to make reply, 
 His not to reason why, 
 His but to do and die." 
 
 As we marched on a few of the enemy were seen, but they 
 fell back as we advanced ; about dark, after marching through 
 the woods, we reached a small clearing; the order to halt 
 and dismount was given ; a mounted guard was thrown out 
 to the rear, and Captain Bell, with a few men, was sent 
 
THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 22/ 
 
 towards the Court-House. The men had been on almost 
 continuous duty for forty-eight hours, and as they rested, 
 holding their horses' bridles, most of them were lying asleep by 
 the roadside. Captain Bell soon returned and reported that 
 there was a heavy force at the Court-House; about the same 
 time, the rear-guard was fired upon and driven in. The com- 
 mand sprang to their feet, and, mounting, very soon formed in 
 line in the open field. It was now very dark, and there was 
 some fear that some of our own troops had come up and, by 
 mistake, had fired upon the rear-guard. Colonel McVicar sent 
 Captain Goler back to ascertain the true state of affairs. Going 
 back to the junction of the roads to Todds' Tavern and the 
 Chancellorsville House, he was challenged, and on answering, 
 The 6th New York Cavalry," was fired upon and driven back 
 to the main body. Sergeant Carroll was killed by the volley. 
 As the enemy came down the road, which was only wide 
 enough for a column of fours, our men formed in line, fired 
 upon them, and checked their farther advance. Then Colonel 
 McVicar ordered the command to draw sabre, break by fours 
 to the right, and cut our way through. As our bugle sounded 
 the charge, it was at the same moment sounded by the 5th 
 Virginia, and the notes rang out clear and full in defiance of 
 each other, as we rode down to where they waited for us. In 
 the darkness, it seemed as though a sheet of fire belched forth 
 from their carbines, and at this first fire the brave McVicar 
 fell, and the rest of the command were mixed up with the 
 Confederates as we rode through them. Besides Colonel Mc- 
 Vicar, who was killed, three officers were wounded, and about 
 twenty men killed and wounded. These were left behind, 
 and the survivors drove the enemy until the cross-roads were 
 reached, where the Confederates took the one to Todd's Tavern, 
 and our men went on to our own lines at Chancellorsville. 
 The wounded were taken to a house near where they fell, and 
 after a few days were sent to Libby Prison. 
 
 I copy extracts from an article written for Blackwood's 
 Magazine, published in 1866, at Edinburgh, by Major Heros 
 Von Borche, who was chief of staff to General J. E. B. Stuart 
 
228 THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 at the time of the engagement, and received a bullet through 
 his hat and had his horse shot through the head as we rode 
 through the enemy's ranks. The extract commences at the 
 time of Captain Goler being challenged. 
 
 " General Stuart dispatched Captain White of our staff, to Fitz- 
 hugh Lee with orders to send on one of his regiments as soon as 
 possible and to follow slowly with the rest of his brigade. General 
 Stuart and his staff were trotting along at the head of the column, 
 when, at the moment of emerging out of the dark forest, we suddenly- 
 discovered in the open field before us, and at a distance of not more 
 than a hundred and sixty yards, a line of hostile cavalry, who received 
 us with a severe fire which concentrated on the narrow road. Fully 
 conscious of our critical position, Stuart drew his sword and with 
 his clear ringing voice, gave the order to attack, taking the lead him- 
 self. For once our horsemen refused to follow their gallant com- 
 mander ; they wavered under the thick storm of bullets ; soon all 
 discipline ceased, and in a few minutes the greater part of this 
 splendid regiment, which had distinguished itself in so many battle- 
 fields, broke to the rear in utter confusion. At this moment the 
 enemy's bugle sounded the charge, and a few seconds after we 
 brunted the shock of the attack, which broke upon us like a thunder 
 cloud, and bore our little band along with its vehement rush, as if 
 driven by a mighty wave, sweeping us along with it, in the darkness 
 of the forest." 
 
 During the night and next day, the scattered remnants of 
 the regiment were brought together and re-formed within our 
 lines. On Saturday afternoon. General Sickles, occupying a 
 position near the right of the line, seeing Stonewall Jackson's 
 flank movement, thought the Confederate Army was about to 
 retreat, and called for the cavalry to help in their pursuit. 
 What was left of the " Old Sixth " was deployed as skirmish- 
 ers. When the heavy fighting gave the first indication that 
 Howard's Eleventh Corps was being attacked, an aide-de-camp 
 from him galloped up to General Pleasanton and asked for 
 cavalry to check the enemy's advance until he could re-form 
 his lines. Major Keenan, commanding the 8th Pennsylvania, 
 was sent with his regiment to charge the head of the advancing 
 column, while General Pleasanton put his batteries in position^ 
 
THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 229 
 
 faced to the rear and double-shotted with canister, awaiting the 
 appearance of the enemy. The 17th Pennsylvania and 6th 
 New York were engaged in trying to arrest the wild flight of 
 the demoralized Eleventh Corps, who in the greatest confusion 
 were running over the batteries already in position ; while more 
 artillery was stopped and, with the help of the cavalry, given a 
 field for action. General Sickles, seeing the danger, told Gen- 
 eral Pleasanton to hold his ground at all hazard until he could 
 put his Third Corps in position to hold the ground which was 
 the key to the position of the whole Union Army, for with 
 Stonewall Jackson in possession of this elevation, he would 
 not only be able to throw his shells into the headquarters at 
 the Chancellorsville House, but from the rear pour an enfilading 
 fire upon the entire army. 
 
 While this was going on, the 8th Pennsylvania, with Keenan 
 riding at their head, charged on the advancing corps of Stone- 
 wall Jackson. Brave Keenan fell, sabre in hand, and scores of 
 gallant troopers with him, but the advance was checked until 
 Pleasanton and Sickles had completed the formation that 
 was to turn back that advancing host ; which without this 
 check would have continued on and swept all before them and 
 driven our army back to the Rapidan. 
 
 *' By the shrouded gleam of the western skies, 
 Brave Keenan looked into Pleasanton's eyes 
 For an instant, clear and cool and still ; 
 Then with a smile, he said : ' I will.' 
 
 " 'Cavalry, charge ! ' Not a man of them shrank, 
 Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank, 
 Rose joyously, with a willing breath, — 
 Rose like a greeting hail to death. 
 
 " And full in their midst rose Keenan, tall 
 In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall ; 
 While the circle-stroke of his sabre swung 
 Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung. 
 
 " They raised no cheer — 
 They have ceased, but their glory shall never cease, 
 Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace. 
 The rush of their charge is resounding still. 
 That saved the army at Chancellorsville." 
 
230 THE CAVALRY AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 As the enemy advanced, General Pleasanton gave the order 
 to fire, and those twenty-two guns carried death and destruc- 
 tion into the enemy's ranks. Three times they charged, but 
 they could not stand the hail-storm of shot, and fell back, leav- 
 ing their dead and wounded. General Sickles's line was formed 
 and the army saved. 
 
 From this time the cavalry played an important part in all 
 movements of the Army of the Potomac. A few weeks later 
 that tournament, with all of Stuart's cavalry in and about 
 Brandy Station, followed by the cavalry engagement at Gettys- 
 burg, established its reputation, which later, under the leader- 
 ship of General Sheridan, became known the world over. The 
 following general order was issued after Chancellorsville : 
 
 " General Order, No. 27. " Army of the Potomac, 
 
 May 10, 1863. 
 
 " The General Commanding takes this occasion to commend the 
 conduct of the * Second Brigade ' and Martin's 6th Independent 
 New York Battery in the late engagement near Chancellorsville. 
 The distinguished gallantry of the 8th Pennsylvania regiment in 
 charging the head of the enemy's column advancing on the Eleventh 
 Corps on the evening of the 2d inst. ; the heroism of the 6th New- 
 York regiment in cutting its way back to our own lines, through 
 treble its force of the enemy's cavalry, on the ist inst. ; and the 
 coolness displayed by the 17th Pennsylvania regiment in rallying 
 fugitives and supporting the batteries, including Martin's, — which 
 repulsed the enemy's attack under Jackson, — on the evening of the 
 2d inst., have excited the highest admiration. 
 
 " These noble feats of arms recall the glorious days of Middle- 
 town, Boonsboro, Antietam, Martinsburg, Upperville, Barber's, and 
 Amisville, where the First Brigade shared with us the triumphs of 
 victory, and they will now, while exulting in this success, join in 
 sorrow for the brave who have fallen. The gallant * McVicar,' the 
 generous ' Keenan,* with one hundred and fifty killed and wounded 
 from your small numbers, attest to the terrible earnestness that ani- 
 mated the midnight conflict of the ' 2d of May.* 
 " A. Pleasanton, 
 
 ** W. L. Heermance, " Brigadier-General Commanding. 
 
 " Late Lieutenant-Colonel, 
 
 " 6th New York Volunteer Cavalry." 
 
SOME PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE 
 NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 A Paper Read by Asst. Paymaster A. Noel Blakeman, late U. S. Navy, 
 May 12, 1885. 
 
 TDROBABLY no arm of the service during the Civil War 
 afforded the opportunity for greater variety of experience 
 than did the navy. Its ships were engaged in not a few great 
 sea-fights, its forces were frequently an important factor in 
 land operations, it maintained, with an efficiency that at first 
 many thought would be impossible, a blockade of hundreds of 
 miles of sea-coast, and it patrolled the high seas in chase of the 
 enemy's ships and in search of contraband cargoes both in- 
 ward and outward bound. The fight between the Monitor 
 and Merrimac was the beginning of a revolution in naval con- 
 struction and naval warfare. The heroic deeds of Farragut at 
 Mobile, of Porter at New Orleans and Wilmington, of Rowan at 
 Charleston, and of Foote upon the Mississippi have added a 
 lustre to the renown of the U. S. Navy that will never dim so 
 long as history is read and the great Republic stands. But while 
 these were the great naval engagements of the war ; there are 
 many of lesser renown where equally brave men and equally gal- 
 lant deeds led to important if not as great results. It is not my 
 purpose to enter upon a description of any of the great naval 
 events of the war in which I may have been a participant, or 
 of which I may have been a spectator, but rather to give a few 
 personal reminiscences in a vein that will perhaps afford more 
 entertainment than would a more serious effort to deal with 
 any of the great military achievements that characterized the 
 struggle from 'sixty-one to 'sixty-five. 
 
 231 
 
232 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 After serving three months with a militia regiment, in 
 August, 1861, I received an appointment in the Volunteer 
 Navy. Life on shipboard was not new to me. I had al- 
 ready spent two years before the mast and on the quarter 
 deck of a merchantman ; I had crossed the line, been properly 
 shaved under the direction of old Neptune and eaten my share 
 of hard tack and salt horse ; and when I returned home in 1859 
 was considered a pretty well-seasoned young salt, fully capable 
 of working up a day's reckoning, steering a trick at the wheel, 
 handing the bunt of a topsail or passing a weather earing, and 
 as handy with a palm as with a marline-spike. But, alas, steam 
 and iron are fast displacing wind and wood, and it would seem 
 that ere long the old shellback of thirty years ago will be a thing 
 of the past, and a new kind of sea-dog will take his place. 
 Only one thing is likely to remain the same, and that is 
 the weather. The ship of to-day will have to encounter and 
 battle with the same kind of weather, the same storms, the 
 same calms, the same provoking head-winds, the same fair 
 breezes. Old Ocean remains the same, but we will endeavor 
 to conquer her in a different way. 
 
 As I look back over those early days of the war, I am 
 reminded of the impressions I received of the gallant officers 
 with whom I came in contact, who long since have passed 
 away and are to-day numbered among our naval heroes. A 
 man's peculiarities make up his individuality, and that these 
 men had their's in any marked degree, not only goes to 
 prove their strength of character but their fitness to be lead- 
 ers among men. Let me briefly enumerate a few of those 
 distinguished names, and the first I recall is that of Admiral 
 Thos. K. Thatcher, then a captain, and in every sense a grand 
 old sailor. Stiff and starchy in his manner as the enormous 
 stock he always wore about his neck, quick in his enuncia- 
 tion yet always speaking with a commanding precision that 
 made one feel that he meant to be obeyed. Then there was 
 the benevolent and mild-mannered McKean, who at that time 
 commanded the (rig3.tQ Niagara. The big, big D was tabooed 
 from that ship by his express commands, and when an officer 
 
REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 233 
 
 felt the necessity of using even a little D he quietly went to 
 the ship's-side and out of respect to the flag-officer threw it over- 
 board as quietly as he could ; but not always as quietly as he 
 might have done, for echo often repeated it down on the lower 
 deck. The best pictures, we are told, are made up of the 
 strongest contrasts, and accordingly against these two men I 
 would next mention Captain Louis M. Goldsborough. When 
 I first came in contact with him he was in command of the old 
 frigate Congress, then at anchor in Boston harbor. He was 
 under orders to sail to Hampton Roads, but something had 
 occurred to delay his departure, which evidently caused him 
 much irritation. I happened to be in the office of the com- 
 mandant of the yard, Captain William Hudson, when the 
 ponderous Goldsborough came on shore for the purpose 
 of straightening out his difficulties. We heard him talking 
 to Commodore Hudson as though that officer had lost his 
 hearing, and whenever the office door opened the air seemed 
 tinged with the bluish tints of sulphurous smoke. We heard 
 big D's and little D's. After his departure, the Commodore's 
 secretary, the genial Jack Isaacs, quietly remarked that 
 Goldsborough seemed to be a little ruffled. It struck me that 
 the gallant old skipper was in a thundering rage, for he caused 
 the timbers of the little building to quake as he strode about the 
 office and hammered the floor with an unusually stout walking- 
 stick, that he always carried on shore, while his ejaculations 
 were to my mind neither calm nor peaceful ; but Isaacs assured 
 me that what I had witnessed was as but a summer shower 
 compared with what could be accomplished when the Golds- 
 borough craft had all its ports down for action. A few months 
 afterward, in Hampton Roads, I had an encounter with the 
 Admiral that fully convinced me that Isaacs was right. And yet 
 I have heard from those who knew him best that when so 
 minded, there was no more genial and entertaining companion, 
 with a keen sense of wit, and quick appreciation of a joke; but 
 my own experience never harmonized with any such description. 
 Associated in my mind with Goldsborough is the fiery and pep- 
 pery Max Woodhull, who never saw the funny side of anything, 
 
334 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 dealt with everything as an actual reality, was nervous, easily 
 excited, and seldom in a calm and collected frame of mind. 
 During the early part of the war he commanded the supply 
 steamer Connecticut, that made monthly trips, supplying with 
 fresh provisions the blockading fleet from Hampton Roads to 
 Galveston. On one occasion a paymaster for some reason had 
 disputed and refused to sign his account. The fact had been 
 reported to Woodhull, who thereupon began to prance about 
 his cabin, and finally came rushing out just as I was innocently 
 and respectfully opening the cabin door. Leave the ship, 
 sir! " he shouted, Leave the ship, sir! I shall report you to 
 the flag-ofificer." Quite unaware what all this meant, I was 
 
 about to say that I was paymaster of the . I don't care 
 
 who you are ! Leave the ship at once ! " and then apparently 
 exhausted, he retreated to his sanctum. The sight of a pay- 
 master that morning seemed to effect the Captain very much 
 as a red flag does a bull, for every pay-officer that attempted to 
 enter the cabin was taken to be the offender and treated 
 accordingly. There are circumstances when a man is justified 
 in losing his temper; as for instance when the afternoon 
 practice of the band becomes so deafening that he cannot 
 hear himself think, much less speak. Such a performance was 
 in progress one afternoon in the harbor of Key West, when 
 Admiral Lardner, after vainly endeavoring to communicate with 
 his secretary, sent out a peremptory order that the band with 
 their instruments should be thrown overboard. 
 
 I wish time permitted of my referring to the stately Du- 
 pont, the genial Spotts, the sea-sick Dahlgren, or that sturdy 
 old sailor Commodore Hudson. I consider it a privilege, as 
 well as an honor, to have served under them and to be able to 
 speak of those I have enumerated as having been my com- 
 manding ofificers. 
 
 Some of the men who received appointments to the navy 
 at the outbreak of the war had queer ideas upon the subject 
 of uniform. One young man from Wisconsin who received an 
 appointment as assistant paymaster marched into the Brooklyn 
 Navy Yard one fine morning clad in the uniform of a full-rigged 
 
REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 captain of the navy. The guard at the gate had been turned 
 out to salute him upon his entrance, and as he passed down the 
 main avenue caps were touched right and left. Fortunately, 
 before he reached the commandant's oflfice, whither he was ad- 
 vancing under full sail to report, a few of us found out who and 
 what he was, smuggled him into a side office, persuaded him to 
 take off his coat, and with penknives ripped off the three broad 
 bands of gold lace with which his sleeves were adorned. His 
 look of amazement when informed that he had narrowly escaped 
 the guard-house can be better imagined than described. He 
 confessed that he had never seen a man-of-war, much less a 
 naval officer. But his mistake was scarcely equal to that of a 
 man from New Bedford, who although brought up at sea, upon 
 receiving an appointment as acting master turned up at the 
 Boston yard attired in a cavalry uniform, which he afterward 
 informed me he purchased expressly for the occasion. 
 
 Before asking you to accompany me down upon the blockade^ 
 let me say a word respecting the gallant little craft in which we 
 are to cruise. The Kingfisher was a taut, trim little bark, with 
 the lines and sailing qualities of a yacht and the staunchness of a 
 regularly built warship. She had been constructed for whaling 
 in the artic seas, and was among the first and best purchases 
 made by the Government from the merchant marine. The after 
 achievements of the gallant Worden in his Yankee cheese-box 
 in Hampton Roads, and the revolution in naval architecture 
 which has made steam and armor-plating the essentials of an 
 efficient navy, impart a somewhat old-fashioned look to the 
 Kingfisher at this distance; nevertheless, she was, twenty-four 
 years ago, admirably adapted, with a battery of seven guns and 
 crew of one hundred and thirty men, to the cruising service for 
 which she was intended ; and whenever the opportunity offered 
 she never failed to give a good account of herself. In this taut 
 little craft we came very near taking part in the capture of Mason 
 and SHdell, but we did n't. The way of it was this. Bound for 
 the Gulf, we put into Key West to replenish our supply of 
 water, and found the steamer Huntsville commanded by Cicero 
 Price with " Bully " Erben for Executive officer, in port, caulk- 
 
236 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE, 
 
 ing ship, coaling, and repairing her boilers. While there the 
 San Jacinto, Captain Wilkes, steamed into harbor, ostensibly 
 for coal, but really in search of some one to assist him in the 
 projected capture of Mason and Slidell. The three skippers, 
 Wilkes, Price, and Couthouy, held a long conference on board 
 the San Jacinto, and Wilkes used all his powers of persuasion 
 to induce one or both to accompany him ; but the Huntsville 
 was not in a condition to go to sea and our captain was un- 
 willing to deviate from his orders, so the San Jacinto and 
 her officers had all the glory of that notable affair to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Blockading was not a very attractive service, but although 
 it was not so easy as it looks," it was far less monotonous 
 than was generally supposed. True, much of the time we 
 were in a condition of masterly inactivity, but then, like the 
 renowned Major de Boots, we were always in a warlike atti- 
 tude ; and then we were constantly watching and waiting 
 like Wilkins Micawber for " something to turn up," and 
 whether that something proved to be the appearance of a 
 blockade runner or a hostile demonstration from the enemy, 
 we were always ready to fight or run, as prudence or necessity 
 required. Our swords did not rust in their scabbards, nor were 
 we without opportunity to test the range of our guns. Never- 
 theless, the pleasures of blockade service had to be experienced 
 to be fully appreciated. There may have been an occasional 
 spot of monotony here and there, but upon the average station 
 the experience was as varied as it was exciting. An occasional 
 skirmish on shore with an outlying picket of observation ; a 
 midnight alarm, which sometimes resulted in a beat to quarters 
 merely to receive on board a boat-load of contrabands seeking 
 refuge under cover of darkness on the " Lincum " gunboat ; fre- 
 quent dashes after blockade runners that somehow or other so 
 often managed to elude our grasp ; a cutting-out expedition 
 that often resulted in the gallant capture of a very hostile fish- 
 ing-smack ; the destruction of salt works that increased in 
 number the more they were destroyed ; and, in the words of 
 Uncle Remus, "laying low " for the monthly visit of the beef 
 
REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 237 
 
 boat, that brought our supplies of fresh meat, ice, blockade 
 sherry, and our mail, made up a round of duty that could not 
 be fairly termed monotonous. Then it afforded a splendid 
 opportunity for the development and study of character as well 
 as for the exercise of qualities that under other circumstances 
 would not have been so prominently called into requisition. 
 If you want to find out what a man really is, go and spend a 
 year with him on the blockade and you will discover what kind 
 of stuff he is made of as well as what kind of a fellow you are 
 yourself. 
 
 One of the skirmishes we had on shore was a very neat little 
 affair. While stationed in St. Helena Sound, off the coast of 
 South Carolina, it was deemed necessary to capture a cavalry 
 picket that kept watch of our movements. Accordingly a 
 night expedition was organized. We landed about half a mile 
 from the house where the enemy was quartered, and under the 
 guidance of an old servant of the officer in charge, who had 
 run away and taken refuge with us, we crept stealthily up to 
 the point of attack. The picket numbered eighteen, our force 
 twenty-seven. The house was surrounded without our being 
 discovered. Three officers and the contraband walked up to 
 the veranda and there saw the guard fast asleep, seated upon 
 a chair. They took away his musket without awaking him, 
 pushed the door, which was unfastened, gently open, went into 
 the main room where the picket lay asleep upon the floor, and 
 without raising an alarm deprived every man of his piece and 
 carried them into the hall. As they were returning some one 
 cried out, Who 's that ? " The contraband promptly replied, 
 " Me, Massa James," but the premature discharge of one of our 
 muskets without, caused our whole force surrounding the house 
 to open fire, ignoring the fact that their own officers were 
 within. Fortunately the bullets did no harm, but the volley 
 awoke the heavy sleepers ; the man on the porch rushed in cry- 
 ing out that they were surrounded and his musket gone. Our 
 officers stepped to the door and called upon them to surrender. 
 Evidently dumbfounded at their position, they obeyed our 
 order to fall in without resistance, were marched out of the 
 
238 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 house and down to our boats, and were afloat before they fully 
 recovered their senses. 
 
 One of the midnight alarms of which I have spoken, although 
 a comical affair when viewed in the past, was no laughing matter 
 at the time. We were blockading off the Mississippi at Pass 
 Aloutre in company with the old side-wheel frigate Mississippi^ 
 commanded by the elder Selfridge. From day to day and 
 night to night we watched for the appearance of an expedition 
 that we understood was being fitted out in New Orleans for 
 our destruction ; but for days and weeks and months we 
 watched in vain. Suddenly, one night between twelve and 
 one o'clock, the much expected and welcome long roll of 
 the drum caused every man to spring to his post. The enemy 
 was upon us at last ! We saw the occasional flash of his lights 
 and distinctly heard the sound of his paddles, although they 
 seemed to be a good distance off. The boarding nettings were 
 triced down, and the Captain mounted the rigging to catch a 
 better view, for the blackest of darkness prevailed. Every 
 now and again he caught a glimpse of the light, but it did not 
 seem to approach. The Mississippi signalled us to slip our 
 anchor, and the splash of her paddles announced that she was 
 under weigh. Still our skipper held on and all hands peered 
 out into the darkness in breathless suspense. Both batteries 
 were cast loose, with the starboard side manned, as the force of 
 the tide laid that side next the shore. All at once there was 
 an ominous thump against the ship's side. " Run out and fire ! " 
 shouted the Captain to the officer in charge of No. i, and bang it 
 went, followed by a scratching and catching of boat-hooks and 
 a dozen voices shouting, O Massa, don't shoot, don't shoot," 
 
 Don't hurt this nigger," We wants to come aboard." We 
 breathed more freely but those ten nigger boys were never 
 more scared in their lives. Lanterns were brought, the net- 
 tings were raised, and ten sons of Ham scrambled over the side. 
 After hiding in the marsh for four days they had ventured to 
 pull off to the gunboat. The paddles we heard was the noise 
 of their oars, the light we had watched so closely must have 
 been a will-of-the-wisp, for they had neither lantern, candle, 
 
REMINISCENCES OF THE NAVAL SERVICE. 
 
 nor matches. The retreat was sounded, we sheathed our 
 swords and began to smile at our first encounter with the 
 enemy. Meanwhile the Mississippi had been steaming about, 
 expecting every minute to encounter an enemy. The discharge 
 of our gun gave the impression that we were engaged at close 
 quarters and accordingly she came to our assistance and 
 learned the full particulars of our bloodless victory and capt- 
 ure. That expected expedition from New Orleans never 
 came down, and when we left the station Porter, Farragut, and 
 Butler had gone up the river to try and discover its where- 
 abouts. The Kingfisher was not altogether unsuccessful in 
 capturing prizes, and several of her chases were not altogether 
 devoid of excitement, but a number of times she ran after those 
 that were enabled to show us a clean pair of heels and we real- 
 ized the truth of the adage that a stern chase is a long one." 
 But I am reminded that every good story must have an end 
 and this yarn would seem to have already spun its proper 
 length. What I have said may serve to inform you, compan- 
 ions, how we who were blockading employed the time. 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 Read by Major-General Grenville M. Dodge, May 8, 1895. 
 
 /^N the 17th of July, 1864, General John B. Hood relieved 
 ^-^^ General Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Confed- 
 erate Army in front of Atlanta, and on the 20th Hood opened 
 an attack upon Sherman's right commanded by General Thomas. 
 The attack was a failure and resulted in a great defeat to 
 Hood's army and the disarrangement of all his plans. 
 
 On the evening of the 21st of July, General Sherman's army 
 had closed up to within two miles of Atlanta, and on that day 
 Force's brigade of Leggett's division of Blair's Seventeenth 
 Army Corps carried a prominent hill, known as Bald or Leggett^s 
 Hill, that gave us a clear view of Atlanta, and placed that city 
 within range of our guns. It was a strategic point, and unless 
 the swing of our left was stopped it would dangerously inter- 
 fere with Hood's communications towards the south. Hood 
 fully appreciated this, and determined upon his celebrated 
 attack in the rear of General Sherman's army. 
 
 On the 22d of July, the Army of the Tennessee was occu- 
 pying the rebel intrenchments, its right resting very near the 
 Howard House, south of the Augusta railroad, thence to Leg- 
 gett's Hill, which had been carried by Force's assault on the 
 evening of the 21st. From this hill, Giles A. Smith's division 
 of the Seventeenth Army Corps stretched out southward on a 
 road that occupied this ridge, with a weak flank in air. To 
 strengthen this flank, by order of General McPherson I sent, 
 on the evening of the 21st, one brigade of Fuller's division, 
 the other being left at Decatur to protect our parked trains. 
 Fuller camped his brigade about half a mile in the rear of the 
 
 240 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 241 
 
 extreme left and at right angles to Blair's lines and command- 
 ing the open ground and valley of the forks of Sugar Creek, 
 a position that proved very strong in the battle. Fuller did 
 not go into line, simply bivouacked, ready to respond to any 
 call. 
 
 On the morning of the 22d of July, General McPherson 
 called at my headquarters, and gave me verbal orders in rela- 
 tion to the movement of the Second, Sweeny's, Division of my^ 
 the Sixteenth, Corps, which had been crowded out of line by 
 the contraction of our lines as we neared Atlanta ; and told me 
 that I was to take position on the left of the line that Blair had 
 been instructed to occupy and intrench that morning, and cau- 
 tioned me about protecting my flank very strongly. McPher- 
 son evidently thought that there would be trouble on that 
 flank, for he rode out to examine it himself. 
 
 I moved Sweeny in the rear of our army, on the road lead- 
 ing from the Augusta railway, down the east branch of Sugar 
 Creek, to near where it forks. Then turning west, the road 
 crosses the west branch of Sugar Creek, just back where 
 Fuller was camped, and passed up through a strip of 
 woods and through Blair's lines near where his left was 
 refused. Up this road Sweeny marched until he reached 
 Fuller, when he halted, waiting until the line I had se- 
 lected on Blair's proposed new left could be intrenched, so 
 that at mid-day, July 22d, the position of the Army of the 
 Tennessee was as follows : One division of the Fifteenth, across 
 and north of the Augusta railway facing Atlanta, the balance 
 of the Fifteenth and all the Seventeenth Corps behind intrench- 
 ments running south of the railway along a gentle ridge with a 
 gentle slope and clear valley facing Atlanta in front and 
 another clear valley in the rear. The Sixteenth Corps was 
 resting on the road described, entirely in the rear of the Seven- 
 teenth and Fifteenth Corps and facing from Atlanta. To the 
 left and left rear the country was heavily wooded. The enemy, 
 therefore, was enabled, under cover of the forest, to approach 
 close to the rear of our lines. 
 
 On the night of July 21st, Hood had transferred Hardee's 
 16 
 
242 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 corps and two divisions of Wheeler's cavalry to our rear, go- 
 ing around our left which reached Decatur, where our trains 
 were parked. At daylight, Stewart's and Cheatham's corps and 
 the Georgia militia were withdrawn closer to Atlanta, and in a 
 position to attack simultaneously with Hardee, the plan thus 
 involving the destroying of the Army of the Tennessee by 
 attacking it in rear and front, and the capturing of all its 
 trains corralled at Decatur. Hardee's was the largest corps 
 in Hood's army; and according to Hood, they were thus 
 to move upon the Army of the Tennessee about 40,000 
 troops. 
 
 Hood's order of attack was for Hardee to form entirely in 
 the rear of the Army of the Tennessee, but Hardee claims 
 that he met Hood on the night of the 21st ; that he was so late 
 in moving his corps that they changed the plan of attack so 
 that his left was to strike 'the Seventeenth Corps. He was to 
 swing his right until he enveloped and attacked the rear of the 
 Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps. 
 
 Hood stood in one of the batteries of Atlanta, where he 
 could see Blair's left and the front line of the Fifteenth and 
 Seventeenth Corps. He says he was astonished to see the at- 
 tack come on Blair's left instead of his rear, and charges his 
 defeat to that fact, but Hardee, when he swung his right and 
 came out into the open, found the Sixteenth Corps in line, in the 
 rear of our army, and he was as much surprised to find us there, 
 as our army was at the sudden attack in our rear. The driving 
 back by the Sixteenth Corps of Hardee's, made his corps drift 
 to the left and against Blair, not only to Blair's left, but his 
 front and rear, so that what Hood declares was the cause of his 
 failure was not Hardee's fault, as his attacks on the Sixteenth 
 Corps were evidently determined, and fierce enough to relieve 
 him from all blame in that matter. 
 
 The battle began exactly at 12 o'clock (noon) and lasted 
 until midnight, and covered the ground from the Howard 
 House, along the entire front of the Fifteenth (Logan's) 
 Corps, the Seventeenth (Blair's), and on the front of the Six- 
 teenth, which was formed in the rear of the army, and on to 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 243 
 
 Decatur, where Sprague's brigade of the Sixteenth Army 
 Corps met and defeated Wheeler's cavalry — a distance of about 
 seven miles. 
 
 The Army of the Tennessee had present on that day at At- 
 lanta and Decatur about 26,000 men ; 10,000 in the Fifteenth 
 Army Corps, 9000 in the Sixteenth Corps, and 7000 in the 
 Seventeenth. About 21,000 of these were in line of battle. 
 Three brigades of the Sixteenth Corps being absent, only 
 about 5000 men in a single line received the attack of the 
 three divisions of Hardee's corps. Hardee's left, Cleburne's 
 division, lapped the extreme left of Blair, and joined Cheat- 
 ham's corps, which attacked Blair from the Atlanta front. 
 According to Hood, they were joined by the Georgia militia 
 under Smith extending down the line in front of the Fifteenth 
 Corps. Stewart's corps occupied the works and held the lines 
 in front of the rest of Sherman's grand army. The Sixteenth 
 Army Corps fought in open ground ; the Fifteenth and Seven- 
 teenth behind intrenchments. 
 
 Where I stood, just at the rear of the Sixteenth Army 
 Corps, I could see the entire line of that Corps, and could look 
 up and see the enemies' entire front as they emerged from the 
 woods. I quickly saw that both of my flanks were overlapped 
 by the enemy. 
 
 Knowing General McPherson was some two miles away, I 
 sent a staff officer to General Giles A. Smith, requesting him 
 to refuse his left and protect the gap between the Seventeenth 
 Corps and my right, which he sent word he would do. Later, 
 as the battle progressed, and I saw no movement on the part 
 of General Smith, I sent another aide to inform him that the 
 enemy was passing my right flank, which was nearly opposite 
 his centre, and requested him to refuse his left immediately, or 
 he would be cut off. This officer (who, by the way, belonged 
 to the Signal Corps, and acted as my aide only for the time 
 being) found, on reaching Smith, that he was just becoming 
 engaged ; that he had received orders to hold his line, with a 
 promise that other troops would be thrown into the gap. 
 
 My second messenger, returning over the road upon which 
 
244 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 McPherson was a few minutes later shot dead, met the General 
 on the road with a very few attendants, turned to warn him of 
 his dangerous position, assuring him that the enemy held the 
 woods and were advancing. The General paying no heed to 
 his warning, and moving on, my aide turned and followed him. 
 They had proceeded but a short distance into the woods when 
 a sharp command, " Halt," was heard from the skirmish line of 
 the rebels. Without heeding the command. General McPher- 
 son and his party wheeled their horses, and at that moment a 
 heavy volley was poured in, killing McPherson and so frighten- 
 ing the horses that they became unmanageable and plunged 
 into the underbrush in different directions. My aide became 
 separated from the General and the rest of the party, was 
 knocked from his horse by coming in contact with a tree, and 
 lay for some time in an unconscious condition on the ground. 
 As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he returned on foot to 
 me, having lost his horse and equipments. Of General Mc- 
 Pherson he saw nothing after his fall. His watch, crushed by 
 contact with the tree, was stopped at two minutes past 2 
 o'clock, which fixed the time of General McPherson's death. 
 
 General McPherson could not have left his point of obser- 
 vation more than a few minutes when I detected the enemy's 
 advance in the woods some distance to my right, and between 
 that flank and General Blair's rear. Fuller quickly changed 
 front with a portion of his brigade to confront them, and push- 
 ing promptly to the attack, captured their skirmish line and 
 drove back their main forces. Upon the persons of some of 
 these prisoners we found McPherson's papers, field-glass, etc., 
 which conveyed to me the first knowledge I had of his death, 
 or rather, as I then supposed, of his capture by the enemy ; and 
 seeing that the papers were important I sent them by my chief 
 of staff with all haste to General Sherman. 
 
 General McPherson, it seems, had just witnessed the de- 
 cisive grapple of the Sixteenth Corps with the charging columns 
 of the enemy, and, as probably conveying his own reflections 
 at that moment, I quote the language of General Strong, the 
 only staff officer present with him at that critical moment. 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 245 
 
 " The General and myself," said Strong, " accompanied only by 
 our orderlies, rode on and took positions on the right of Dodge's line, 
 and witnessed the desperate assaults of Hood's army. 
 
 " The divisions of Generals Fuller and Sweeny were formed in 
 a single line of battle in the open fields, without cover of any kind 
 (Fuller's division on the right), and were warmly engaged. The 
 enemy, massed in columns three or four lines deep, moved out of 
 the dense timber several hundred yards from General Dodge's posi- 
 tion, and after gaining fairly the open fields, halted and opened a 
 rapid fire upon the Sixteenth Corps. They, however, seemed surprised 
 to find our infantry in line of battle, prepared for attack, and after 
 facing for a few minutes the destructive fire from the divisions of 
 Generals Fuller and Sweeny, fell back in disorder to the cover of 
 the woods. Here, however, their lines were quickly re-formed, and 
 they again advanced, evidently determined to carry the position. 
 
 " The scene at this time was grand and impressive. It seemed 
 to us that every mounted officer of the attacking column was riding 
 at the front of, or on the right or left of, the first line of battle. The 
 regimental colors waved and fluttered in advance of the lines, and 
 not a shot was fired by the rebel infantry, although the movement 
 was covered by a heavy and well-directed fire from artillery, which 
 was posted in the woods and on higher ground, and which enabled 
 the guns to bear upon our troops with solid shot and shell, firing over 
 the attacking column. 
 
 " It seemed impossible, however, for the enemy to face the 
 sweeping, deadly fire from Fuller's and Sweeny's divisions, and the 
 guns of the Fourteenth Ohio and Welker's batteries of the Sixteenth 
 Corps fairly mowed great swaths in the advancing columns. They 
 showed great steadiness, and closed up the gaps and preserved their 
 alignments, but the iron and leaden hail which was poured upon 
 them was too much for flesh and blood to stand, and, before reach- 
 ing the centre of the open fields, the columns were broken up and 
 thrown into great confusion. Taking advantage of this. Dodge with 
 a portion of Fuller's and Sweeny's divisions, with bayonets fixed, 
 charged the enemy and drove them back to the woods, taking many 
 prisoners. 
 
 " General McPherson's admiration for the steadiness and deter- 
 mined bravery of the Sixteenth Corps was unbounded. General 
 Dodge held the key to the position. 
 
246 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 " Had the Sixteenth Corps given way the rebel army would have 
 been in the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps, and would 
 have swept like an avalanche over our supply trains, and the posi- 
 tion of the Army of the Tennessee would have been very critical, 
 although, without doubt, the result of the battle would have been in 
 our favor, because the armies of the Cumberland and Ohio were 
 close at hand, and the enemy would have been checked and routed 
 farther on." 
 
 General Blair in his official report of the battle says: 
 
 I witnessed the first furious assault upon the Sixteenth Army 
 Corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse. It was a fortunate cir- 
 cumstance for that whole army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occu- 
 pied the position I have attempted to describe, at the moment of 
 the attack, and although it does not become me to comment upon 
 the brave conduct of the officers and men of that Corps, still I can- 
 not refrain from expressing my admiration for the manner in which 
 the Sixteenth Corps met and repulsed the repeated and persistent 
 attacks of the enemy. 
 
 " The Sixteenth Corps has a record in that battle which we sel- 
 dom see in the annals of war. It met the shock of battle and fired 
 the last shot late that night, as the enemy stubbornly yielded its 
 grasp on Bald Hill. It fought on four parts of the field, and every- 
 where with equal success ; it lost no gun that it took into the en- 
 gagement, and its losses were almost entirely in killed and wounded 
 — the missing having been captured at Decatur through getting 
 mired in a swamp. 
 
 " At no time during the Atlanta campaign was there present in 
 the Sixteenth Corps more than two small divisions of three brigades 
 each, and at this time these two divisions were widely scattered ; on 
 the Atlanta field only ten regiments and two batteries were present, 
 three entire brigades being absent from the corps. It was called 
 upon to meet the assault of at least three divisions or nine brigades, 
 or at the least forty-nine regiments, all full to the utmost that a des- 
 perate emergency could swell them, impelled by the motive of the 
 preconcerted surprise, and orders from their commander at all haz- 
 ards to sweep over any and all obstructions ; while, on the other 
 hand, the force attacked and surprised was fighting without orders. 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 247 
 
 guided only by the exigency of the moment. Their captures repre- 
 sented forty-nine different regiments of the enemy. How many 
 more regiments were included in those nine brigades I have never 
 been able to learn. The fact that this small force, technically, if 
 not actually, in march, in a perfectly open field, with this enormously 
 superior force leaping upon them from the cover of dense woods, 
 was able to hold its ground and drive its assailants, pell-mell, back 
 to the cover of the woods again, proves that when a great battle is 
 in progress, or a great emergency occurs, no officer can tell what the 
 result may be when he throws in his forces, be they 5000 or 20,000 
 men ; and it seems to me to be impossible to draw the line that gives 
 the right to a subordinate officer to use his own judgment in engag- 
 ing an enemy when a great battle is within his hearing. 
 
 " Suppose the Sixteenth Corps, with less than 5000 men, seeing 
 at least three times their number in their front, should have re- 
 treated, instead of standing and fighting as it did, what would have 
 been the result ? I say, that in all my experience in life, until the 
 two forces struck and the Sixteenth Corps stood firm, I never passed 
 more anxious moments. 
 
 " Sprague's brigade, of the same corps, was engaged at the same 
 time within hearing, but on a different field, at Decatur, fighting and 
 stubbornly holding that place, knowing that if he failed the trains 
 massed there and en route from Roswell, would be captured. His 
 fight was a gallant and, sometimes, seemingly almost hopeless one — 
 giving ground inch by inch, until, finally, he obtained a position 
 that he could not be driven from, and one that protected the entire 
 trains of the army." 
 
 As Hardee's attack fell upon the Sixteenth Army Corps, 
 his left division (Cleburne's) lapped over and beyond Blair's 
 left, and swung around his left front ; they poured down 
 through the gap between the left of the Seventeenth and the 
 right of the Sixteenth Corps, taking Blair in front, flank, and 
 rear. Cheatham's corps moved out of Atlanta and attacked in 
 Blair's front. General Giles A. Smith commanded Blair's left 
 division, his right connecting with Leggett at Bald Hill, where 
 Leggett's division held the line until they connected with the 
 Fifteenth Corps, and along this front the battle raged with 
 great fury. 
 
248 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 As they advanced along the open space between the Six- 
 teenth and Seventeenth Corps, they cut off from Blair's left 
 and captured an entire regiment of his command, and forced 
 the Seventeenth Corps to form new lines, utilizing the old 
 intrenchments thrown up by the enemy, fighting first on one 
 side and then on the other, as the attack would come, from 
 Hardee in the rear or Cheatham in the front, until about 3.30 
 P.M., when evidently, after a lull, an extraordinary effort was 
 made by the rebels to wipe out Giles A. Smith's division and 
 capture Leggett's Hill, the enemy approaching under cover of 
 the woods until they were within fifty yards of Smith's tem- 
 porary position, when they pressed forward until the fight 
 became a hand-to-hand conflict across the trenches occupied by 
 Smith, the troops using bayonets freely and the officers their 
 swords. This attack failed ; it was no doubt timed to occur 
 at the same time that Cheatham's corps attacked from the 
 Atlanta front, which Leggett met. The brunt of Cheatham's 
 attack was against Leggett's Hill, the key to the position of 
 that portion of the Army of the Tennessee. General Smith's 
 division had to give up the works they occupied, and fall into 
 line at right angles with Leggett's division, Leggett's Hill 
 being the apex of the formation ; and here, for three quarters of 
 an hour, more desperate fighting was done around this posi- 
 tion than I can describe. Up to midnight the enemy occupied 
 one side of the works while we occupied the other, neither side 
 giving way until Hood saw that the whole attack was a failure, 
 when those who were on the outside of the works finally sur- 
 rendered to us. Their attack at this angle was a determined 
 and resolute one, advancing up to our breastworks on the crest 
 of the hill, planting their flag side by side with ours, and fight- 
 ing hand to hand until it grew so dark that nothing could be 
 seen but the flash of the guns from the opposite side of the 
 works. The ground covered by these attacks was literally 
 strewn with the dead of both sides. The loss of Blair's corps 
 was 1801, killed, wounded, and missing. Blair's left, struck in 
 the rear, flank, and front, gave way slowly, gradually, fighting 
 for every inch of ground, until their left was opposite the right 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 249 
 
 flank of the Sixteenth Corps ; then they halted and held the 
 enemy, refusing to give another inch. 
 
 It would be difficult, in all the annals of war, to find a par- 
 allel to the fighting of the Seventeenth Corps; first from one 
 side of its works and then from another, one incident of which 
 was that of Colonel Belknap, of the Union side, reaching over 
 the works, seizing the colonel of the 45th Alabama, and 
 drawing him over the breastworks, making him a prisoner of 
 war. 
 
 About 4 P.M., Cheatham's corps and the Georgia militia 
 were ordered by Hood to again attack. They directed their 
 assault this time to the front of the Fifteenth Corps, using the 
 Decatur wagon road and railway as a guide, and came forward 
 in solid masses, meeting no success until they slipped through 
 to the rear of the Fifteenth Corps by a deep cut used by the 
 railway passing through our intrenchments. 
 
 As soon as they reached our rear, Lightburn's division of 
 the Fifteenth Corps became partially panic-stricken, and fell 
 back, giving up the intrenchments for the whole front of this 
 division, the enemy capturing the celebrated Degress Battery 
 of 20-pounders and two guns in advance of our lines. The 
 officers of Lightburn's division rallied it in the line of intrench 
 ments, just in the rear, where they had moved from in the 
 morning. 
 
 General Logan was then in command of the Army of the 
 Tennessee ; he rode over to where I was, and I sent Mersey's 
 brigade of the 2d Division, under the guidance of Major 
 Edward Jonas, my aide-de-camp, to the aid of the Fifteenth 
 Corps. 
 
 Of the performance of that brigade on that occasion, I 
 quote the words of that staff officer, Major Jonas: 
 
 " I conducted Mersey's brigade to the point where needed ; 
 arrived at the railroad, he at once deployed and charged, all men of 
 the Fifteenth Corps at hand joining with him. Mersey's brigade 
 recaptured the works and the guns. Old Colonel M. was slightly 
 wounded, and his celebrated horse ' Billy ' killed. By your direc- 
 tion I said to General Morgan L. Smith (temporarily in command of 
 
 / 
 
250 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 the Fifteenth Corps) : * General Dodge requests that you return this 
 brigade at the earliest practicable moment, as there is every indica- 
 tion of renewed assault on our own line,' and, after saying that your 
 request would be respected, General Smith added: 'Tell General 
 Dodge that his brigade (Mersey's) has done magnificently, and that 
 it shall have full credit in my report.' " 
 
 Afterwards, one of Mersey's officers — Captain Boyd, I think — 
 in trying his skill as an artillerist, cracked one of the recapt- 
 ured guns. 
 
 In this battle Colonel Mersey and many of his men, w^hom 
 he so gallantly led, had served their time, and v^ere av^aiting 
 transportation home. Eloquent words have been written and 
 spoken all over the land in behalf of the honor, of the bravery 
 of the soldier, but where is the word spoken or written that 
 can say more for the soldier than the action of these men on 
 that field ? They were out of service, they had written that 
 they were coming home, and their eyes and hearts were toward 
 the North ; many an anxious eye was looking for the boy who 
 voluntarily laid down his life that day ; and many a devoted 
 father, mother, or sister has had untold trouble to obtain re- 
 cognition in the War Department because the soldier's time 
 had expired. He was mustered out, waiting to go home, and 
 was not known on the records ; but on that day he fought on 
 three different parts of that field, without a thought except for 
 his cause and his country. General Sherman had discovered 
 the breach in the Fifteenth Corps' line. Chas. R. Wood's divis- 
 ion of the Fifteenth Corps, which was in the intrenchments 
 north of the railway, was formed in echelon, by his order, 
 General James A. Williamson's brigade in advance. They 
 moved at the same time that Lightburn and Mersey attacked 
 from the rear. Wood's division being on the flank ; and the 
 combined forces soon retook the line and the battery, and 
 thereafter held it. 
 
 The continuous attacks of Cheatham made no other impress- 
 ions on the line. Our men were behind the intrenchments 
 and the slaughter of the enemy was something fearful. Gen- 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 251 
 
 eral J. C. Brown who commanded the Confederate division 
 that broke through our line told me that after breaking 
 through it was impossible to force his men forward ; the fire on 
 their flanks and front was so terrific that when driven out of 
 the works one half of his command was killed, wounded, or 
 missing. The Confederate records sustain this and it is a won- 
 der that they could force their line so often up to within 100 
 to 300 feet of us where our fire would drive them back, in spite 
 of the efforts of their officers, a great many of whom fell in 
 these attacks. 
 
 I could see the terrific fighting at Leggett's Hill, but along 
 the line of the Fifteenth Corps, I can only speak of as shown 
 by the records, and as told me by General John C. Brown of the 
 Confederate Army. The stubbornness and coolness with which 
 they contested every inch of the ground won his admiration, 
 and the manner and method with which the line was retaken, 
 must have been seen to be appreciated. 
 
 When dark fell upon us the enemy had retired, except around 
 the angle in the Seventeenth Corps, known as Leggett's or Bald 
 Hill. Here there was a continuous fire, desultory and at close 
 quarters, the enemy in places occupying ground close up to 
 our intrenchments; and to relieve these men of the Seventeenth 
 Army Corps holding this angle who were worn out, at the re- 
 quest of General Blair I sent two regiments of Mersey's brigade. 
 They crawled in on their hands and knees, and swept the 
 enemy from that front. 
 
 The whole of Hood's Army except Stewart's corps, was 
 thrown into our rear upon the flank and front of the Army 
 of the Tennessee, and after fighting from mid-day until dark 
 were repulsed and driven back, and that army held or com- 
 manded the entire battle-field, demonstrating the fact that the 
 Army of the Tennessee alone was able and competent to meet 
 and defeat Hood's entire army. The battle fell almost entirely 
 upon the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps and two divisions 
 of the Fifteenth Corps, three brigades of the Sixteenth being 
 absent. The attack of the enemy was made along this line 
 some seven times, and they were seven times repulsed. 
 
252 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 We captured 18 stands of colors — 5000 stands of arms — 
 2017 prisoners. We lost in killed and wounded 3521 men — 
 10 pieces of artillery and over 1800 men, mostly from Blair's 
 Corps, were taken prisoners. The enemy's dead reported as 
 buried in front of the different corps, was over 2000 and the 
 enemy's total loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was 8000. 
 
 The criticism has often been made of this battle that with 
 two armies idle that day, one the Army of the Ohio (two thirds 
 as large as the Army of the Tennessee), the other the Army of 
 the Cumberland (the largest of all Sherman's armies), why we 
 did not enter Atlanta? General Sherman urged Thomas to 
 make the attack. Thomas's answer was, that the enemy were in 
 full force behind his intrenchments. The fact was Stewart's 
 corps was guarding that front, but General Schofield urged 
 Sherman to allow him to throw his army upon Cheatham's 
 flank, and endeavor to roll up the Confederate line, and so in- 
 terpose between Atlanta and Cheatham's corps, which were so 
 persistently attacking the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps 
 from the Atlanta front. Sherman, whose anxiety had been 
 very great, seeing how successfully we were meeting the attack, 
 his face relaxing into a pleasant smile, said to Schofield, " Let 
 the Army of the Tennessee fight it out this time." This flank 
 attack of Schofield on Cheatham would have no doubt cleared 
 our front facing the Atlanta intrenchments but Stewart was 
 ready with his three divisions to hold the Atlanta intrench- 
 ments. 
 
 General Sherman, in speaking of this battle, always regretted 
 that he did not allow Schofield to attack as he suggested, and 
 also force the fighting on Thomas's front, but no doubt the loss 
 of McPherson really took his attention from everything except 
 the Army of the Tennessee. 
 
 At about ten o'clock on the night of the 22d, the three corps 
 commanders of the Army of the Tennessee (one of them in 
 command of the army) met in the rear of the Fifteenth Corps, 
 on the lines of the Decatur road, under an oak tree, and there 
 discussed the results of the day. Blair's men were at the time 
 in the trenches ; in some places the enemy held one side and 
 
THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 they the other ; the men of the Fifteenth Corps were still in 
 their own line, but tired and hungry, and those of the Sixteenth 
 were, after their hard day's fight, busy throwing up intrench- 
 ments on the field they had held and won. It was thought 
 that the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of the Ohio, 
 which had not been engaged that day, should send a force to 
 relieve Blair. Dodge being the junior corps commander, was 
 dispatched by General Logan, at the requests of Generals Logan 
 and Blair, to see General Sherman. My impression is that I 
 met him in a tent ; I have heard it said that he had his head- 
 quarters in a house. When I met him he seemed rather sur- 
 prised to see me, but greeted me cordially, and spoke of the 
 loss of McPherson. I stated to him my errand. He turned 
 upon me and said : " Dodge, you whipped them to-day, did n't 
 you?" I said, "Yes, sir." Then he said: "Can't you do it 
 again to-morrow ? " and I said, " Yes, sir," bade him good night, 
 and went back to my command, determined never to go upon 
 another such errand. As he explained it afterward, he wanted 
 it said that the little Army of the Tennessee had fought the 
 great battle that day, needing no help, no aid, and that it 
 could be said that all alone it had whipped the whole of Hood's 
 army. Therefore he let us hold our position and our line, 
 knowing that Hood would not dare attack us after the " thrash- 
 ing " he had already received. When we consider that in this, 
 the greatest battle of the campaign, the little Army of the 
 Tennessee met the entire rebel army, secretly thrust to its 
 rear, upon its flank and advanced centre, with its idolized com- 
 mander killed in the first shock of battle, and at nightfall 
 found the enemy's dead and wounded on its front, showing 
 that no disaster, no temporary rebuff could discourage this 
 army, every man at his post, every man doing a hero's duty, 
 the conclusion is irresistable that they might be wiped out but 
 never made to run ; or in other words that they were invincible. 
 
 Companions, regarding so great a battle, against such odds, 
 with such loss, the question has often been asked me — and I 
 know it has come to the mind of all of us — why it was that 
 this battle was never put forth ahead of many others its in- 
 
254 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA. 
 
 ferior, but better known to the world and made of much 
 greater comment ? 
 
 The answer comes to all of us. It is as apparent to us to- 
 day as it was that night. We had lost our best friend, that 
 superb soldier, our commander. General McPherson ; his death, 
 counted so much more to us than victory, that we spoke of our 
 battle, our great success, with our loss uppermost in our 
 minds. 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL, S. C. 
 November 7, 1861. 
 
 By Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Wm. Conant Church. Read at the Meeting of 
 the N. Y. Commandery, October 2, 1895. 
 
 "TOURING the early months of 1861, when the dark clouds 
 were gathering over our native land, I was travelling 
 in Europe, and in March of that year was visiting the palaces 
 of Genoa, sampling Italian wines in company with John B. 
 Magruder, then Captain and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel 1st U. 
 S. Artillery, and listening to his stories of adventures in which, 
 I regret to say, Venus bore a more important part than 
 Mars. On my return to the United States in July, I availed 
 myself of the first opportunity to take part in the war, and 
 joined as a volunteer the military expedition then organizing 
 under General Thomas W. Sherman, for a descent upon some 
 point of the Southern coast not yet determined upon. The 
 organization of this expedition was in pursuance of what was 
 known as General Scott's "Anaconda Policy," designed to 
 involve the Confederacy in the coils of the Grand Army, by sur- 
 rounding it on all sides, and then to crush the life out of it. 
 
 No one who took part in such an expedition as that against 
 Port Royal, could fail to realize the gigantic nature of the task 
 General Scott had imposed upon himself. The difficulties 
 attending the organization of a body of twelve thousand men, 
 securing transportation and supplies for them, and carrying 
 them over the uncertain waters of the sea to their final destina- 
 tion on the Southern coast, required the utmost efforts of all 
 in command. 
 
 The demand for troops in all directions was so great that 
 
 255 
 
256 
 
 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 General Sherman had difficulty in obtaining the forces he 
 needed, and by the time the fifty sail required for the transport- 
 ation of his troops had gathered at Annapolis, days had length- 
 ened into weeks, and weeks into months. The preliminary 
 orders were received early in August by General Sherman, and 
 his coadjutor of the navy. Captain (afterwards Rear-Admiral) 
 Samuel F. Dupont, but the expedition did not move until the 
 1 8th of October. Meanwhile the troops were gathered in camp 
 at Annapolis, Md., and in the harbor of that city was assembled 
 as variegated a fleet as ever set sail upon the sea. There were 
 vessels of every sort, from the four-masted Great Republic, then 
 the leviathan of the ocean, and the caloric steamer Ericsson 
 with her four smoke-stacks, down to the spiteful little tugs and 
 wheezy double-ender ferry boats from the North and East 
 rivers, the sight of which made a New Yorker feel entirely at 
 home. 
 
 On Friday, October 18, 1861, Sherman's troops began to 
 embark, and by Sunday night they and their belongings were 
 ready for the sea. Then they proceeded from Annapolis to 
 Hampton Roads, where, after lying for a tedious week cooped 
 up on board their several vessels, they set sail under convoy of 
 Dupont's fleet of fourteen war-vessels, one hundred and thirty 
 guns, towards the South, every man resolved to do and die for 
 his country and her cause. 
 
 No one knew where we were going, not even the subor- 
 dinate officers of the expedition, for we proceeded under sealed 
 orders. We only knew that we were to make a descent some- 
 where on the Southern coast, the general opinion inclining to 
 Charleston. Having facilities for obtaining information, which 
 involved the suspicion of treachery at Washington, the Con- 
 federates discovered the secret of our destination sooner than 
 we did, and reported that our attack would be directed against 
 Port Royal. 
 
 The expedition finally got under way on October 29th. 
 The Baltic, a vessel of the old Collins line, to which I was at- 
 tached, carried a brigade-commander, H. G. Wright, and a regi- 
 ment of New Hampshire troops commanded by Colonel Tom 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 2 5/ 
 
 Whipple. Colonel Tom was the hero of the story of the chap- 
 lain who came to him one day and told him there had been a 
 great work of grace in the adjoining camp and five men had 
 been baptized. Calling his adjutant, Whipple immediately gave 
 him orders to detail ten men for baptism the next morning 
 saying that " he would be damned if he would let any other 
 regiment in that brigade get ahead of him." Whipple was 
 only one of the host of jolly good fellows who had assembled 
 on board the Baltic. Among those I recollect, in addition to 
 General Wright, and other dignitaries of the expedition, was a 
 young man named Hubbell, now Captain Henry W. Hubbell, 
 of the 1st Artillery, and a member of this Commandery ; there 
 was Herbert A. Hascall, also of the artillery, whose fine mind 
 subsequently became a wreck ; there was Weld, afterwards a 
 Massachusetts general officer ; there was Grant, later the head 
 of the " Grant Locomotive Works" ; and Frances P. Bangs, 
 subsequently a leader of the New York Bar. 
 
 I mention these names to show that I am not mistaken in 
 my recollection that we had an uncommonly bright set of fellows 
 in the society we organized on board the Baltic^ known as the 
 ** Society for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge." The de- 
 mand of the sea for tribute from the novices, while it did not 
 disturb the harmony of our society's proceedings, did interfere 
 to some extent with their continuity. 
 
 On the second night out we were aroused from our slumbers 
 by a singular rolling motion of the vessel, such as one who has 
 experienced it never forgets. This was followed in an instant 
 by a sudden stoppage, which threw us from our berths and 
 sent a quiver through every fibre of that staunch steamer, w^arn- 
 ing us of some great danger, we scarcely knew what. Then 
 another thump and another shock, and quick ran the report 
 from forecastle to cabin The ship 's ashore ! " 
 
 A current of unforeseen strength had drifted us inland, and 
 
 while we— the passengers at least — supposed ourselves to be 
 
 safely to the southward of Cape Hatteras, we were steering 
 
 straight on to Hatteras's outer shoal, where we struck, head on, 
 
 early Thursday morning, October 31, 1861. 
 17 
 
258 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 A few moments before the vessel grounded, the officer of 
 the deck was led by the appearance of the water to suspect the 
 vicinity of breakers, and almost at the instant of the collision 
 he had ordered the engines reversed. In the twinkling of an 
 eye Captain Comstock was at his post, and remembering the 
 vessel bearing down upon our stern sang out : 
 
 Cut away the hawsers aft ! " Then, " Get out your signal 
 guns ! " 
 
 Quick as the order was given to cut adrift the vessel we 
 were towing, the sharp sailor instinct of several on board had 
 anticipated it, and one or two were already at the hawser, axe 
 in hand. The cable parted, the Ocean Express promptly put 
 her helm hard a-starboard, and bore down past us almost with- 
 in arm's reach. This danger escaped, the Baltic^ with engines 
 reversed, drew away from the treacherous shoal, that had so 
 nearly compassed her destruction. The quiet night, the slow 
 rate at which we were steaming, and the prompt action of our 
 officers, alone saved the vessel. The lead was thrown when 
 the ship had gone a length or two, and seven fathoms were 
 announced, next ten, and in another moment we were swim- 
 ming in deep water again. Notwithstanding the heavy shock 
 she had experienced not a timber of the sturdy ship was dis- 
 placed, and the cheering report, " No water in the hold," was 
 soon brought to the deck to relieve our anxious fears. 
 
 But there was still another danger: All on board were now 
 awake to our peril, and while the cabin passengers, the officers 
 of the regiment, and others hurried to the deck, shivering in 
 scanty clothing, a thousand soldiers, equally strong in their 
 instinct for life, were struggling up from the hold to spread 
 confusion through the vessel, at the moment when everything 
 depended upon perfect coolness, unembarrassed action, and 
 prompt obedience to orders. Though the command was given 
 for every man to remain below, the sentries were powerless to 
 restrain the surging multitude, and it is impossible to say what 
 might have resulted had it not been for the vigorous action of 
 Lieutenant Richardson, the officer of the guard, who was fortu- 
 nately not only an old sailor but a man equal to the emergency. 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 259 
 
 Directing the sentinels to cut down every one who attempted 
 to pass, he stationed himself with a revolver at the head of the 
 companion-way, before the dense mass of struggling men, 
 threatening to shoot down the first who refused to obey orders; 
 at the same time assuring the anxious soldiers that there was 
 no danger except in their own disregard of the orders to re- 
 main quiet. 
 
 We had a little Englishman on board named Edge, corre- 
 spondent of the London Standard^ who, with sarcastic reference 
 to the superstitions of the time concerning masked batteries, 
 accounted for our adventure on the theory that we had run up 
 against one of the enemy's " masked shoals." Meanwhile we 
 consoled ourselves for the little contre temps by the classical 
 reflection that since the Greeks met with a similar mishap on 
 their way to the conquest of Troy, it could not argue anything 
 against the final success of the expedition. 
 
 With daylight came the discovery that worse mishaps had 
 befallen other vessels, though our tow, the Ocean Express, in 
 which we were chiefly interested, had received no other injury 
 than what her captain had emphatically announced through 
 his trumpet as having " lost forty-five fathoms of chain cable 
 and knocked hell out of her windlass." Other vessels were no 
 doubt turned from the danger by the warning lights we sent 
 up from the Baltic, but the Illinois narrowly escaped a similar 
 fortune, having had one smoke-stack carried away and received 
 other trifling injuries from the collision with a vessel she 
 was towing, while bringing up suddenly to escape the shoal 
 ahead. We soon had further occasion to note the power of 
 the sea, when a furious storm on the succeeding afternoon scat- 
 tered Dupont's fleet over a wide area of ocean, sinking some, 
 driving others on to the enemy's coast and compelling the flag 
 officer to delay action until he could gather his dispersed vessels 
 together, some of them coming into Port Royal harbor limping 
 painfully from the injuries they had received. 
 
 The poor New Hampshire boys of Whipple's regiment im- 
 prisoned below were left to imagine unknown terrors in the 
 howling storm and the buffeting waves which seemed each 
 
26o 
 
 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 moment about to rend the trembling and groaning vessel into 
 a thousand fragments. 
 
 A beautiful day followed, with soft and balmy air, and from 
 the near shore of Carolina the bright-winged butterflies came 
 floating out to the ships, to tell the frostbitten Northerners of 
 the summer which still lingered there. In the afternoon the 
 gunboats accompanying us had a brush with three of Tatnall's 
 small rebel steamers, which came down Broad River, from the 
 direction of Savannah, and opened fire from a safe distance. 
 It was five o'clock when the first gun was sounded, and during 
 the hour the twilight lasted the decks of the transports, lying 
 three or four miles outside of the warships, were crowded with 
 officers and men careering the vessels far over to the starboard ; 
 all eagerly watching the fight of which we could see nothing 
 more than the flashing of the guns succeeding one another at 
 different points at intervals of a minute or less. The insignifi- 
 cance of the affair we did not understand until the following 
 day. During Monday, November 5th, and Tuesday following 
 we laid quiet while a reconnoissance was made by two ofificers 
 of the flag-ship Wabash, Captain (afterwards Admiral) C. Ray- 
 mond P. Rogers, and Lieutenant Stephen P. Luce, now a 
 rear-admiral retired. 
 
 Early next morning the armed vessels formed in line of bat- 
 tle ; but the heavy Wabash got aground on Fishing-ship shoal, 
 and it became necessary to postpone the attack until the follow- 
 ing day. That night every preparation was made by the troops 
 for the action which seemed near at hand. Wills were drawn, 
 letters of affection were written, and every man laid down to 
 rest uncertain whether it might not be for the last time. The 
 Ocean Express^ carrying most of the heavy ordnance and the 
 ordnance stores of the army, was still at sea, and our steamer, 
 the Baltic, having on board the regiment second in line to 
 land, had been dispatched in search of her, and in no hopeful 
 spirit, our generals thought, of the difficulties before them, — 
 with an enemy presumably well armed, and prepared at every 
 point to oppose the landing of our troops. Disappointment 
 succeeded apprehension ; for we soon learned that we were to 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 261 
 
 have no part in the engagement, the navy, as history tells us, 
 reaping all the glory of the conquest of Port Royal. 
 
 I need not describe the naval attack of Thursday, November 
 7, 1861, which put us speedily in possession of the rebel forts 
 of Hilton Head and Bay Point. It is a matter of record, and 
 this paper is intended rather as a description of personal ad- 
 venture. It was impossible to witness a naval engagement 
 under more favorable circumstances, and, as the only one that 
 I ever saw, it has left an indelible impression upon my mem- 
 ory. The day was clear and beautiful, so that we on board 
 the transports, lying just outside the line of fire, could observe 
 every movement of the battle without risk to ourselves ; and 
 we realized the sensations of a Roman populace seated in the 
 galleries of the amphitheatre and watching the contest for life 
 and death of the gladiators below. 
 
 We had our little jokes even amidst the alarms of war ; 
 and when we saw that the engagement was about to begin, a 
 deputation from the "Society for the Confusion of Useless 
 Knowledge " waited upon the Englishman Edge, and fed his 
 egotism with the report that Captain Dupont has just sent 
 aboard a message saying, that if Mr. Edge was ready he would 
 begin the engagement. The doughty correspondent of the 
 Standard hunted up his field-glass, and presented himself on 
 deck as speedily as possible, so that he might not be accused 
 of delaying so important an affair. We had our revenge upon 
 him at that time for his joke about our masked shoals. 
 
 When the frowning fronts of the rebel forts appeared, the 
 question arose as to who threw them up. We had with us a 
 young ofificer of U. S. Ordnance, named Horace Porter, who 
 had during the voyage shown such a remarkable proclivity for 
 throwing up things that his name at once occurred to us all. 
 But we remembered that he was a loyal son of West Point, and 
 would throw up his commission rather than do a disloyal act. 
 Hence, though the circumstantial evidence against him was 
 strong, he was unanimously acquitted. 
 
 We were lunching on the Baltic during the closing hours of 
 the naval engagement, and as I had hurried on deck in advance of 
 
262 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 the others, it was my fortune to be the first one on board the 
 Baltic to discover that the national ensign had taken the place 
 of the rebel flag upon Hilton Head, and that the purpose of 
 our attack had been accomplished. I hastened to convey to 
 General H. G. Wright this glorious news, which he received 
 with some incredulity, and, as I thought, with a sigh of regret 
 that his troops were to have no part in that day's great work. 
 Soon the message came from the flag-ship that General Wright 
 was expected to land at once with his brigade. The disem- 
 barkation began without delay, and we were still uncertain 
 whether there might not be work before us in disloding an 
 enemy supposed to be in force upon the island of Hilton 
 Head, beyond the reach of Massa Linkum's " gunboats. 
 But we found our enemy had had enough of shot and shell for 
 one day, and had stood not upon the order of his going, but 
 had gone " to onc't." 
 
 That night, after I had landed with others in the surf, wad- 
 ing ashore in the shallow water from the boat that carried us 
 to the land, I ran up against a correspondent of the New York 
 Evening Express^ whom I was destined to subsequently know 
 well as General Adam Badeau, of the staff of General Grant. 
 Later on I also encountered for the first time Doctor J. J. 
 Craven, a surgeon of volunteers, whose narrative of his experi- 
 ences with the chief of the Confederacy, as a prisoner at Fort 
 Monroe, has made his name a familiar one. In one of the forts 
 I came upon the dead body of Doctor Buist, formerly an 
 assistant surgeon in U. S. Army, who was killed in one of the 
 galleries of the fort by a shell, and buried by the falling of a 
 parapet. 
 
 It would occupy too much of your time to enter into de- 
 tails which are full of interest in the retrospect. The gunboat 
 Bienville was detailed to carry the news of our victory North, 
 and I was invited by Captain Steedman to accompany him. 
 From Hampton Roads I proceeded to Washington, where I 
 was greeted with enthusiasm as an eye-witness of the victory 
 which had thrilled the whole country with excitement. 
 
 Standing in the lobby of Willard's Hotel, one evening, tell- 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 263 
 
 ing my story to a group of listeners, I was accosted by a little 
 man who introduced himself as Senator Simmons, of Rhode 
 Island. Much to my astonishment, I was invited by the Sen- 
 ator to go with him, the next morning, and tell my story to 
 President Lincoln. When we appeared at the White House, 
 with a little company of the Senator's friends, we were intro- 
 duced immediately to the presence of the Chief Magistrate, 
 and I found myself the centre of attentions, very pleasing to a 
 young man's vanity. As I discovered later on. Senator Sim- 
 mons's motive in taking me to the White House was to furnish 
 the President with the testimony of an eye-witness to the fact 
 that there were cotton-fields white with the harvest within 
 the lines of our army, which had effected a lodgment among 
 the sea-islands on the South Carolina shore. Simmons was a 
 Rhode Island manufacturer, as well as a Rhode Island Sena- 
 tor. The fact that he was subsequently disciplined by the 
 Senate for speculating upon his official influence, showed that 
 his chief purpose was to secure a permit from Mr. Lincoln to 
 gather cotton, for which his soul longed. I did not understand 
 it at the time, but I recall now the shrewdness with which the 
 astute Lincoln divined his purpose, and succeeded in so turn- 
 ing the conversation that the Senator had no opportunity, dur- 
 ing our interview, to prefer the request which he intended to 
 make. Every time he led up to the subject of cotton, Mr. 
 Lincoln would start off with a story and thus divert the con- 
 versation into another channel. The President told us his own 
 experience of an attempt to grow cotton in Illinois, where he 
 found the climate too cold for it ; he read to us from a copy of 
 the comic weekly of that date. Vanity Fair, a story of an in 
 terview with a drunken South Carolinian whose Dutch courage 
 enabled him to remain in Beaufort whence all but he had fled. 
 In these and in other ways he amused an hour which the anx- 
 ious Senator had proposed to employ more profitably, to him- 
 self, at least. 
 
 The fleet, under the orders of Flag-Oflicer Dupont, at Port 
 Royal was the largest ever commanded by an officer of our 
 navy, up to that time, and the results accomplished with it 
 
264 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 were important. Yet the battle of Port Royal will not rank 
 among great naval engagements. It was a fine exhibition of 
 seamanship and naval tactics ; but the resistance encountered 
 was too insignificant to seriously test the metal of our fleet. 
 The forts were open works, manned by a few hundred raw 
 militia, who soon grew weary of seeing their guns dismounted 
 and their gunners killed by shot from the fleet, planted with 
 admirable precision precisely where they were intended to go. 
 They discovered that they had enough of it, and the alacrity 
 with which they departed was a pleasant sight — at least from 
 the ships. Apparently the Confederate officers recalled the 
 story of the militia captain who when the time came to retreat, 
 started first because he was a little lame. 
 
 Vessels could not well have been better handled than were 
 those of Dupont. Their constant motion distracted the fire 
 of the Confederate gunners, and their own broadsides were de- 
 livered rapidly, with the precision of target practice. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the order of battle followed by 
 the Japanese at Yalu, the only naval engagement thus far 
 fought under modern conditions, was the same as Dupont's. 
 The Japanese fleet, like our fleet at Port Royal, sailed in an 
 ellipse, but while Dupont delivered his fire at a distance vary- 
 ing from 600 to 800 feet, the Japanese opened fire at a range of 
 5300 metres, or over three miles, and at close quarters even 
 the range was nearly two thirds of a mile. As the principal 
 Japanese squadron circled around the doomed Chinese, in the 
 heat of the fight, the range varied from nearly two miles to 
 two thirds of a mile. 
 
 The casualties of Dupont's fleet were 25 in all, 8 being 
 killed ; A single shell from the Chen Yuen, fired at a range of 
 1700 metres, or over a mile, killed, according to McGiffen, 49 
 Japanese and wounded over 50. Both engagements lasted 
 about the same length of time, five hours, and the number of 
 vessels in the Japanese fleet was the same as Dupont had in 
 line, 13. Dupont's flag-ship, the Wabash, was struck 34 times, 
 and without serious damage. One Chinese vessel, the Chen 
 Yuen, was struck 220 times, and another vessel, the Ting Yuen^ 
 
THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 265 
 
 1 59 times."^ A single 4.7 inch projectile from a Japanese vessel, 
 fired at a range of 300 metres, or nearly two miles, pierced the 
 conning-tower of a Chinese ship and shattered its inmates into 
 a shapeless mass." The heaviest gun in our fleet was XI inch 
 muzzle loader, but its destructive effects were out of all propor- 
 tion less than those of the 12.6 inch breech-loading rifles of the 
 foreign vessels. The average tonnage of the Japanese and Chi- 
 nese vessels was nearly three times that of Dupont's nondescript 
 fleet of screw and paddle-wheel steamers and sailing sloops-of- 
 war, but the yankee sailors escaped the misery of being shut up 
 in fire rooms at a temperature of 200 degrees, and they were 
 not subjected to the infernal din occasioned by the rattling of 
 steel projectiles against impenetrable armor. Modern ways of 
 fighting may be more effective but they are less comfortable. 
 
 This comparison between the old and the new might be 
 carried much further, to show the new conditions under which 
 our sailors must accept the guage of battle. Whatever these 
 conditions may be we may be sure that they will prove equal 
 to them. 
 
 *' ' But what came of it at last,' 
 Quoth little Peterkin, 
 ' Why that I cannot tell,' said he, 
 ' But 't was a famous victory.' " 
 
 It is time alone, in this instance, that forbids the detail of 
 the results of our victory at Port Royal. Its immediate effect 
 was to stimulate patriotic hopes, and to encourage new efforts 
 on behalf of the Union. I shall never forget the scene wit- 
 nessed in Hampton Roads on that beautiful Sabbath morning 
 when the Bienville arrived with tidings of our victory, and the 
 cannon roared their welcome, as the sailors manned the yards 
 of the beautiful Minnesota, and awakened the echoes of the 
 Virginia shore with their shouts of greeting. 
 
 * Commander McGiffen, of the Chinese Navy, who listened to this paper 
 corrected it by saying that the Chin Yuen was struck four hundred times. The 
 authority for that statement that the hits were 220 is an article in the North 
 American Review by Hon. H. A. Herbert, Secretary U. S. Navy. 
 
 W. C. C. 
 
266 
 
 THE NAVAL VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL. 
 
 I have been shown a slab of stone on which were still clearly 
 visible the impressions made by the rain drops falling upon a 
 sandy shore millions of years ago, when the ichthyosaurus swam 
 the sea and the mastodon roamed the land. In the fervid 
 heat of Earth's convulsions these passing impressions have been 
 made as enduring as the everlasting rock itself. 
 
 Thus it is with the impressions received when our still plas- 
 tic souls were subjected to the white heat of a fervid patriotism. 
 All else may pass away like a dream in the night, but these im- 
 pressions will remain with us so long as the soul itself shall 
 endure. It is the common inheritance of such impression, 
 ennobling, elevating, as well as enduring, that unites the mem- 
 bers of this Order in a fellowship that not even death itself 
 can destroy. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 A Paper Read by General D. S. Stanley, U. S. A., December 4, 1895. 
 HE surrender of Fort Doneison, on the i6th February, 
 
 1862, was a great joy to the loyal people of these then 
 disunited States, and a deadly shock to the people who had 
 disunited them. 
 
 Kentucky, with its blooded horses, its big mules, its jeans, 
 and its old whiskey, was in the hands of the " Black Republi- 
 cans." Nashville, the prospective grand capital of the great 
 Southern Confederacy, was occupied by " Lincoln's hirelings," 
 and Tennessee, which, like unto ancient Gaul, was divided into 
 three parts, had hopelessly gone into the hands of the " mud- 
 sills." East Tennessee spurned secession, and the control of 
 the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers turned slave-holding, 
 aristocratic, and thoroughly rebel Middle and West Tennessee, 
 with their slaves, rich plantations, their wealth of grain and 
 cotton, their cities, and their railroads, to the use of the loyal 
 Union armies. I remember talking to a very enthusiastic and 
 clever Confederate at the time of the surrender of Doneison. 
 He said : " Oh, this only gives up Middle Tennessee, and no 
 army will dare invade it as long as we hold East and West 
 Tennessee." But the early fall of Island No. 10, put West 
 Tennessee between two fires, and, as time proved, it was lost 
 to the Confederacy forever. The fall of Forts Doneison and 
 Henry opened the problem of where to strike next and strike 
 at a vital point. 
 
 Two great railroad centres presented tempting prizes. 
 These were Corinth, Miss., and Chattanooga, Tenn. These two 
 small and unimportant towns became then places of vital 
 
 267 
 
268 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 importance in the future history of the United States — Corinth, 
 a city of the plains ; Chattanooga, a natural fortress of the 
 mountains ; both only worth notice since great railroads crossed 
 within their narrow limits. Had the Union armies been strong 
 enough it would have spared us two years of war to have occu- 
 pied at the same time both Corinth and Chattanooga. But this 
 could not be, and Corinth was selected as the objective of the 
 next attack upon the Confederacy, and as promptly accepted 
 by Albert Sydney Johnston as the place to try his first and last 
 battle, offensive and defensive. 
 
 The battle of Shiloh, on the 6th of April, was one of the 
 bloodiest battles of history, and far-reaching in its results. 
 There was not much in it to illustrate the science of war, but 
 it was a trial of manhood on an immense field, and never after- 
 wards was heard from Southern lips that trite saying, " One 
 Southerner can lick five Yankees." 
 
 The battle of Shiloh, 27 miles from Corinth, was the excit- 
 ing event that immediately called out the energies of the 
 Union and Confederate armies. To hold Pittsburg Landing 
 and to advance on Corinth was the design of the Union general ; 
 to hold Corinth for the time was the object of the Confederate. 
 The commanders of the opposing forces were both graduates 
 of West Point. General Halleck, formerly of the Engineers, 
 long a civilian, rich, fond of ease, who could not ride a horse 
 faster than a walk, commanded the Union Army: Beauregard, 
 late a captain in the Engineer Corps of the army, commanded 
 the defence of Corinth. He was a man full of wonderful theo- 
 ries of strategy, and fond of writing them on paper. He had 
 a poor stomach, and always carried with him a Jersey cow, and 
 almost lived on milk ; consequently, when Beauregard could 
 not have his cow, and a railroad car to carry her with him, 
 strategy had to be delegated to another, and, fortunately, often 
 failed. The advance of General Halleck's army on Corinth will 
 be a curiosity of history for all time to come. Some mathe- 
 matical pessimist — I knew the man, a staff officer — computed 
 the time of Pope's advance. Pope commanded the left wing 
 of this immense army of 100,000 men, and the progress from 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 269 
 
 Pittsburg Landing to Corinth, up to the day we entered 
 the place, was at the rate of one furlong and three rods a 
 day. Several small battles — affairs " they may be called — 
 were fought during this advance, the most notable at Farming- 
 ton, by Pope's left wing of the army. The grand turning move- 
 ment of Beauregard's force was repulsed and failed, and two 
 days afterwards we found that the rebel army of nearly 100,000 
 men had retreated safely, but not noiselessly. They had 
 folded their tents and stolen away. I say not noiselessly, for 
 I was close to their intrenched line the night they left, and, 
 such noise of whistling engines, such beating of big drums, and 
 flight of rockets, and even cheers of seeming thousands, never 
 before or since disturbed a night as did this grand charivari 
 of the night of 29th of May, 1862, at Corinth. From General 
 Pope down to the drummer-boy, we were all awake that night,, 
 listening and interpreting this hubbub. One sentiment pre-^ 
 vailed, viz. : Beauregard is reinforcing his right, and will attack 
 us in the morning. As we were the extreme left of our army, 
 and the fellows to be attacked, we were, of course, interested. 
 At daybreak our pickets went forward and found — nothing. 
 The rockets, the drums, all were for effect ; the whistles of the 
 engines were reality — they meant the conveying away the last 
 of Beauregard's 100,000 men. Two great armies had confronted 
 each other for six weeks, had parted, and no harm was done. 
 
 Without waiting for the next move of the rebels. General 
 Halleck at once set about occupying Chattanooga, and General 
 Buell marched for that important place. Memphis fell with 
 the evacuation of Corinth, and General Sherman occupied that 
 city coincident with Buell's starting for Chattanooga. 
 
 Bragg left Opelika with 40,000 of the best trained of 
 Beauregard's army, for the same place. Bragg had 700 miles 
 to march, over poor country roads. Buell had a shorter march, 
 and a railroad to assist him, yet Bragg's army was there first, 
 and from thence invaded Kentucky. The great army which at 
 immense expense had been collected under General Halleck, 
 rapidly dispersed. General Pope was called to Washington, 
 and we whom he commanded regretted his departure sincerely. 
 
2/0 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 His command — two divisions — fell to Rosecrans, and was called 
 a corps, but without a number. General Halleck remained at 
 Corinth until the middle of July, when he too was ordered to 
 Washington. 
 
 During his stay at Corinth, his engineer ofificer, General 
 Cullum, erected a line of earthworks, and in many places abatis 
 were constructed around Corinth, so extensive that 200,000 
 men would have been necessary to man them properly. For 
 the angles and redoubts of this work, artesian wells were sunk, 
 over 300 feet in depth, to provide for contingencies. During 
 June and July, little worth while recording occurred. 
 
 Upon the departure of General Halleck, General Grant took 
 command of all the troops in West Tennessee and Mississippi, 
 and fixed his headquarters at Corinth. The largest force in the 
 Department, about 10,000 of all arms, were in camps 5 or 6 
 miles outside of the village of Corinth ; Hamilton's and Stan- 
 ley's divisions, 5 miles southeast of Corinth, at the Big Springs, 
 very beautiful camping-grounds, with the finest water. Here, 
 although the weather was intensely hot in July and August, 
 we drilled industriously, practised outpost duties, and fitted 
 ourselves, I believe, for future usefulness. 
 
 Corinth was, before the war, a village of 1000 inhabitants, 
 only noted, after the war commenced, as the place of crossing 
 of an east and west railroad, connecting Memphis with Charles- 
 ton, and a north and south railroad, connecting Mobile with 
 Cairo. 
 
 The general country about is flat, with poor soil and scarc- 
 ity of water. The greater part of the country is wooded with 
 oak and pine. It is a meagre cotton country. The village is 
 near the summit of a great divide. The drain of the village is 
 to the Tennessee, 27 miles north ; 10 miles to the west, is the 
 Tuscumbia, running northwest to the Hatchie, and thence into 
 the Mississippi, 40 miles above Memphis. Six miles southeast 
 of Corinth, the water flows to the Tombigbee, and thence to 
 the Gulf. The outposts for Corinth were Rienzi, Jacinto, and 
 luka, the latter on the Charleston railroad, and 30 miles east 
 of Corinth. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 271 
 
 Meantime, our Confederate foes south of us had two com- 
 manders, General Sterling Price, commanding the district of 
 the Tennessee, though far from Tennessee, and General Van 
 Dorn, commanding the district of Mississippi ; headquarters, 
 Oxford. They were both directly south of our lines, and their 
 forces were close together. 
 
 Our daily life at Big Springs was first disturbed by the dis- 
 covery that General Price was moving on luka, which, strangely, 
 he did upon false information. Both General Price and Gen- 
 eral Van Dorn were informed by General Bragg, now well on 
 his way to central Kentucky, that General Rosecrans had left 
 Corinth, and had crossed the Tennessee River, and was march- 
 ing to join Buell. Bragg asked, and indeed commanded, that 
 General Price follow Rosecrans. General Price accordingly 
 marched to luka, intending to cross the Tennessee River at 
 Eastport ; but Rosecrans had not gone, and General Grant was 
 at Burnsville, 8 miles from luka, the night of September i8th, 
 with 8000 men commanded by General Ord. Rosecrans had 
 been ordered to march his two divisions (Hamilton's and Stan- 
 ley's) by a circuitous route by Jacinto, and make a combined 
 attack with Ord's force upon Price's army. Rosecrans reached 
 the vicinity of luka, after a 25-mile march, at 4 P.M. the 17th, 
 and immediately engaged the enemy. The combat was fierce, 
 with the advantage in favor of the Union troops at dark. 
 Grant's force, 6 miles distant, never heard the sound of cannon 
 and remained idle. Very early in the night Price's force fled 
 by the Fulton road. The failure of communication between 
 Grant's and Rosecrans's forces was very unfortunate, but only 
 to be expected where the wings of an army operate on widely- 
 separated lines in a forest country, and the intervening 6 miles 
 of big timber accounts for General Grant's not hearing Rose- 
 crans's cannon. Price's expedition was, however, thwarted and 
 broken up. 
 
 Our Union hopes were disappointed, and a quarrel arose 
 between Generals Grant and Rosecrans that had far-reaching, 
 and, I think, very sad results. This occurred in the middle of 
 September. Price retreated to Tupelo. General Grant re- 
 
2/2 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 turned to Jackson, Tennessee, where he had fixed his head- 
 quarters, and Rosecrans retained his camps about Corinth. 
 
 Several weeks before the movement on luka, Captain Fred- 
 erick E. Prime, a very talented engineer officer on General 
 Rosecrans's staff, suggested that the immense lines of defence 
 constructed under General Cullum's direction, were too extens- 
 ive to be of any use for defence by a small army, and prepared 
 to construct a system of redoubts, to protect the railroad depot 
 of Corinth. Accordingly, five redoubts were constructed, 
 practically covering the approaches to Corinth from all direct- 
 ions. These redoubts had 4 guns each, 24-pounders, old style, 
 or Parrotts of 20-pound calibre. The soldiers of the ist U. S. 
 Infantry were drilled to work these guns. 
 
 Immediately upon Price's return to Tupelo, he joined his 
 force to all of Van Dorn's, making an army of 25,000 efficients,, 
 and on the ist of October, was at Ripley, 30 miles southwest 
 of Corinth, moving north. At this date General Grant, at 
 Jackson, and Rosecrans, at Corinth, knew that Van Dorn was 
 coming to attack somewhere. He marched directly north, as 
 if intending to attack Bolivar, now occupied by General Ord 
 with 4000 men. 
 
 The great wooded valley of the Hatchie River, with its 
 deep, sluggish stream, completely screened his movements from 
 observation from Corinth. Having marched as far north as 
 Pocahontas, he suddenly turned to the southeast, soon re- 
 paired the broken bridges over the Hatchie River, and at ten 
 o'clock, October 3d, his troops were in line of battle three miles 
 north of Corinth, between Grant's and Rosecrans's forces, and 
 he immediately attacked the Union force, composed of Davies's 
 and McKean's divisions, which were posted at the old line of 
 works, only to compel the enemy to develop his entire force. 
 
 Rosecrans's force to defend Corinth was four small divisions 
 of two brigades each, commanded by Brigadier-Generals Ham- 
 ilton, Stanley, McKean, and Davies. In addition to their in- 
 fantry force, there were eight batteries and 1000 cavalry. 
 Without reference to tables, Rosecrans's force may be fairly 
 stated at 14,000 men. Van Dorn says his own force was 22,000. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 Three of the divisions of Rosecrans's army, viz., McKean's, 
 Davies's, and Hamilton's, were deployed upon this outer line, 
 intended only for development. Davies's division and two 
 regiments on the right of McKean soon became engaged. Gen- 
 eral McArthur commanded this force, and, as he called for 
 reinforcements and they were sent him, the affair intended as 
 the action of a grand guard turned into a battle, and engaged 
 the greater part of Price's corps and Lovell's division of the 
 Confederates. It required from ten o'clock until sundown to 
 push McArthur back, which finally did occur, and not in the 
 best order, as McArthur was sorely pressed. A very gallant 
 and promising brigadier-general — Hackelman — was killed on 
 the Union side, and General Oglesby was badly wounded. A 
 brigade of Stanley's division (Mower's) was called for at nearly 
 sundown, and assisted in covering McArthur's retreat, in 
 which Colonel Thrush, 47th Illinois, was killed. At least 
 ten regiments had been engaged, and many officers and 
 men had been killed and wounded. The day was very hot, 
 and drinking-water very scarce. Yet, if our lines were hard, 
 our enemies' were by no means easy. They marched ten miles 
 in the morning, fought all day, and had only the water they 
 carried in their canteens. 
 
 Just at dusk the enemy showed force right up the Memphis 
 road, and the 24-pounders let fly shell at the mark. A rebel 
 told me a day afterward that old Sterling Price was there, 
 and a shell just missed his head. The exciting day was over,, 
 and by nine o'clock our line was formed for the next day's bat- 
 tle. The entire action had taken place in the northwest angle 
 formed by the two railroad tracks. Our line this night con- 
 nected three redoubts, none more than half a mile from the 
 centre of the little town. 
 
 There were no earthworks or intrenchments ; Hamilton on 
 the right, then Davies, next Stanley, McKean on the left. At 
 midnight all slept. At four o'clock in the morning all suddenly 
 awoke. An enterprising rebel artillery captain had quietly 
 brought his 4-gun battery close to our picket line, only 400 
 
 yards from our main line, and suddenly fired a volley over 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 our heads and into the town. The battery continued to 
 fire until one of the 24-pounders in battery Robinette was 
 trained on it, when they Hmbered up and hurried away ; but 
 not until the pickets of the Ohio brigade made a rush upon 
 the battery and captured one of their guns. To this day it is 
 a puzzle what that foolish captain of artillery expected to do 
 by crawling his battery in the dark near to our picket line, and 
 then firing shells into a town at random. 
 
 After this rude reveille, we anxiously awaited daylight. It 
 came, and not the crack of a gun disturbed us. We had our 
 coffee. Eight o'clock came and the ominous stillness was yet 
 unbroken. When the redoubts were built the timber in 
 front was cut down, slashed to the extent of 400 yards in 
 front. Beyond this all was timber, so dense as to cover all 
 movements of the troops. At nine o'clock General Rosecrans 
 came to me and ordered a reconnoissance to my front. I 
 immediately sent Colonel Joseph Mower, cammanding the 
 2d Brigade of my division, with two regiments to feel the 
 enemy. These two regiments moved to the front. Major 
 McDowell, 39th, Ohio, commanding the skirmishers. In 
 less than half a mile he was stopped by a heavy line of 
 infantry. 
 
 In the fight which ensued Colonel Mower was badly 
 wounded. His horse was shot, and the Colonel was captured. 
 I may add that, after the defeat of the Confederates, at three 
 o'clock, P.M., the Colonel walked into our lines, having been 
 abandoned by the enemy. 
 
 At about eleven o'clock the storm broke. Four brigades, 
 formed with regimental fronts, burst out of the woods directly 
 north of the railroad station, and rushed at the town. They 
 fairly covered the front of Davies's division, which stood solid 
 for a time, but as the charging column came close, gave way 
 and dissolved into groups. 
 
 I stood on the small hill to the right of the Battery Robin- 
 ette, and for once in my life I saw a grand and powerful assault. 
 The brigades were in columns of regiments, and coming from 
 cover into a cleared field their formation was splendid. Their 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 275 
 
 officers rode well to the front, their flags waved gayly and full 
 of defiant confidence. After they had fully emerged upon the 
 cleared ground, I could see every man in the huge column as 
 they broke forth in their high-keyed rebel yell. 
 
 The rebels fairly poured into the little town ; they occupied 
 the depot and helped themselves to commissaries ; they took 
 possession of General Rosecrans's headquarters, but did not 
 stop to read his orders. Rosecrans himself and his staff were 
 riding furiously amongst the runaways of Davies's division, 
 trying to rally them. Rosecrans was very mad, and addressed 
 very severe language to the demoralized soldiers, for which he 
 afterward made some amends. 
 
 The panic was accounted for from the fact that these regi- 
 ments had lost heavily in the battle of the 3d. They were 
 weary and dispirited, and the full view of this big column com- 
 ing with yells straight at them was too much for them. Al- 
 ready they had lost many of their comrades, and had been 
 fought up to that point where men are easily whipped. 
 They fought on many fields afterwards as bravely as any 
 troops could do. But the great assaulting column had made 
 a mistake. They had driven Davies's division and rushed into 
 the interval. Hamilton's division, on their left,'and Stanley's, 
 on their right, were intact, and immediately attacked the big 
 column on both flanks with infantry and artillery. For a time 
 the Confederates stood their ground, but Sullivan's brigade 
 pressing close to their left, and the Fifth Minnesota closing on 
 their right, and pouring in volleys, the column vanished, leav- 
 ing the ground covered with their slain. Scarcely had the big 
 column broken up when another column from Price's corps 
 emerged from the shelter of the woods and came straight 
 toward the centre of my division. The key of the position 
 was Battery Robinette, so called for Lieutenant Robinette, 
 1st U. S. Infantry, whose company manned it. 
 
 The Ohio brigade, composed of the 27th, 39th, 43d and 63d 
 regiments, commanded by Colonel J. W. Fuller, 27th Ohio, occu- 
 pied the right and left of the battery. This was called at the 
 time, the Ohio brigade. It was my first brigade command. I 
 
276 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 had drilled them, and the relations of commander and com- 
 manded were certainly those of mutual confidence. The 2d 
 brigade was commanded by Joseph Mower, 11 Missouri, who 
 was wounded and captured early in the forenoon. 
 
 As the charging column emerged from the woods the big 
 guns in the redoubt opened on them, as well as the three field 
 batteries now attached to the division ; but the column came 
 on, the fallen timber in front of the division, instead of helping 
 the defence, added to the advantages of the assailants, as their 
 skirmishers, by the hundreds, tumbled behind the shelter of 
 the trees, and fired point-blank into our Hnes. Soon their 
 advance came right up to our front, and their men and ours 
 were exchanging shots at thirty paces apart. The commander 
 of the leading brigade. Colonel Rogers, 2d Texas, rode right 
 up to the muzzle of one of the 24-pounders, and he and 
 his horse fell together. He was a brother-in-law of Sam 
 Houston. He was a gallant man, but not a Union man, as was 
 his great kinsman. 
 
 At this period the fight was close and doubtful, and was 
 eventually ended by the 27th Ohio and nth Missouri spring- 
 ing up and charging the rebel line with the bayonet. Early 
 in the fight my adjutant-general, Captain W. O. Coleman, was 
 mortally wounded. I was dismounted, and I ran into the line 
 of my hard-pressed regiments. These were the 43d and 63d 
 Ohio. The fire on them was very deadly. Colonel J. L. Smith 
 was mortally wounded early in the assault. His adjutant, Heyl,. 
 was killed. 
 
 Colonel Smith was a model soldier and engineer officer, of 
 rare talents, the son of a brave captain killed in the Mexican 
 War. He had taken this 43d Ohio regiment, and had made it 
 a well disciplined and drilled regiment. He had been under 
 fire before, but only a few days previous to this battle said to 
 me : " I want to go into one fight where there is a storm of 
 bullets, just to see how I can behave." Alas, his wish was 
 gratified, but it was his last storm of bullets. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Wager Swayne, lately Commander of 
 the Loyal Legion of New York Commandery, succeeded 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 Colonel Smith, and very gallantly directed the regiment dur- 
 ing the remainder of the fight. 
 
 The condition of things in the meantime was very precari- 
 ous. As the charging column reached the muzzle of the guns, 
 Captain George A. Williams, 1st Infantry, in command of 
 the battery and regiment, seeing his cannon were no longer 
 useful, directed his men to take their rifles. Graybacks came 
 through the embrasures, and some, running around, came in 
 through the gorge of the battery; but it is doubtful if any 
 Confederate who entered the battery ever left it. My anxiety 
 to keep our men up to the scratch led me to run into the line 
 of the 63d Ohio, which held the right of the Ohio brigade. 
 The fire of the Confederate force was particularly fatal to this 
 regiment. Of fifteen ofificers present when the action com- 
 menced, nine were prostrated, killed, or wounded, when the 
 fight ended. Colonel J. W. Sprague, who lately was a prosper- 
 ous citizen of Tacoma, Washington, and his adjutant, Otis W. 
 Pollock, were unscathed, and did gallant duty in holding the 
 survivors up to their work. Fifty-three per cent, of the 63d 
 Ohio were down, killed or wounded, but the rest stayed and 
 returned the assailants' fire, and conquered. 
 
 In European warfare, it is calculated that when one third 
 of a military organization are struck the fight is gone out of 
 the rest, and I think this is generally true ; but here we have 
 a new Ohio regiment, a little over a year in service, with ofificers 
 taken from the busy circles of civil life, which bravely stood 
 up and returned the hostile fire until only three line ofificers 
 were on their feet, and the regiment did not run ; but as soon 
 as the fire ceased re-formed, and were ready for a renewal of 
 the fight. 
 
 A part of the 63d Ohio had been recruited near my old 
 home in Wayne County, and, passing amongst the men 
 stretched on the ground just after the fight ceased, a young 
 lieutenant named McFadden, who had received his promotion 
 only a few days before, called to me, and said : General, 
 come here ; I want to say good-bye. I am mortally wounded." 
 He spoke so naturally I could not believe it, and tried to en- 
 
278 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 courage him ; but he died in half an hour. He was born 
 within two miles of my home. 
 
 The charge of the 27th Ohio and the nth Missouri, which 
 was directed by Colonel John W. Fuller, commanding the first 
 brigade, really ended the battle of Corinth. The Confederates 
 withdrew into the woods they had advanced from. We re- 
 adjusted our lines, and expected a renewal of the battle. Gen- 
 eral Rosecrans felt sure that, beaten upon this front, the enemy 
 was moving to the left, to renew the assault from the east. 
 Van Dorn, on the other hand, says : " Rosecrans had received 
 large reinforcements from Jacinto and Rienzi, and therefore I or- 
 dered immediate retreat." Thus both commanders were mis- 
 taken, and the rebel army left, unmolested, upon the roads they 
 had advanced upon. The next morning a considerable force 
 had crossed Davies's bridge, over the Hatchie River near Poca- 
 hontas, where they were badly defeated by General Ord, who 
 crossed his force and attacked them on the east bank of the 
 Hatchie. Had Rosecrans been up, which he might have been, 
 this should have proved utter ruin to Van Dorn's army. Ord's 
 force was stopped, and the Confederates passed up the Hatchie 
 six miles, constructed a bridge upon the dam of Crump's Mill, 
 and continued their retreat to Ripley. 
 
 General Grant, Rosecrans's superior, severely censured him 
 at the time for not following Van Dorn's retreat on the 4th, 
 and for his tardiness on the 5th. 
 
 There may be some justice in this, but it is easy to criticise 
 after the fact. The test is, put yourself in his place. Rose- 
 crans's troops had marched for two and three days, had fought 
 two days, had scarcely a supply of even drinking-water, the 
 heat was excessive, and the men were worn out. They had 
 narrowly escaped a most terrible defeat, and no one was anx- 
 ious to crowd their late antagonists. 
 
 The battle of Corinth was not a great battle as compared 
 to those of first magnitude in the war, and yet it was bloody 
 enough; on our side 315 killed, 1812 wounded, 232 missing. 
 Rosecrans reported 1423 Confederates buried and 3000 prison- 
 
THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 279 
 
 ers, mostly wounded men. We now know that it was most 
 disastrous to the Confederacy. 
 
 General Sherman, in his Memoirs^ says : It was indeed a 
 decisive blow to the Confederate cause in our quarter. From 
 the timid defensive we were enabled at once to assume the 
 bold offensive." 
 
 The Confederacy never recovered from it. 
 
 They were brave men, — the Confederates who assailed Cor- 
 inth ; they were just as gallant men who defeated them. 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 
 
 A Paper Read by Admiral O. F. Stanton, U. S. Navy, February 5, 1896. 
 
 N the 2 1st of December, i860, the Pacific mail steamer 
 
 ^""^ North Star sailed from New York with more than eleven 
 hundred passengers on board. About 210 of these were navy 
 officers, seamen, and marines, on their way to Panama, to join 
 the United States ship St. Marys. There were also several 
 army officers, with their families, who had taken passage to 
 join their regiments in California. Some of these officers soon 
 afterwards returned to the Southwestern States through Mex- 
 ico and Texas, and became prominent in the Confederate 
 Army. 
 
 On the morning of the day we sailed from New York the 
 news of the secession of the State of South Carolina from the 
 Union was received. The comments on this by the officers of 
 both branches of the service were tinged with sadness. The 
 friendship between the officers, whether from the North or the 
 South, had been much like that of brothers ; but now all felt 
 that a change was coming. The prevailing impression seemed 
 to be that more of the States would secede, and, under the 
 doctrine of States'-rights, each would provide for its own gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 However, no arguments as to the merits of the case were 
 held. We were all still under the flag of our country, and on 
 the high seas. 
 
 The first night after leaving port some of the sailors became 
 involved in a fight on the forward deck, and in quelling the 
 disturbance the right arm of the executive officer was broken. 
 A little later the same evening, a son of Colonel Albert Sydney 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 
 
 281 
 
 Johnston missed his footing by a sudden roll of the steamer, 
 fell down the companion-way, was badly bruised, and broke 
 his nose. These two accidents made enough work for the 
 army, navy, and ship's surgeons for one evening. While the 
 surgeons were employed in the necessary operations, the boy 
 sat on his father's knee and hardly winced. This pleased the 
 father, but the only remark he made was that the boy shows 
 good grit." General Johnston was killed at the battle of 
 Shiloh, while in command of the Confederate forces. 
 
 On our arrival at Panama we found the St. Mary's at an- 
 chor in the bay. We relieved the old officers and men, and 
 they went to New York by the same steamer on her return 
 trip. After a few weeks of drills and sail practice we sailed 
 for San Francisco, arriving there about the time of the receipt 
 of the news of the firing on Fort Sumter. These tidings were 
 at first received by the people almost in silence and wonder, 
 for there were many citizens who favored the Southern cause, 
 but few apparently seemed to gather the full import of the 
 event. This state of things only lasted about a day, when the 
 great numbers of American flags of all sizes displayed by the 
 people on their houses, places of business, and on the streets 
 showed what stand the new State had taken. The sharp divis- 
 ion into two parties greatly relieved the army and navy officers, 
 who had then only to decide whether they were for or against 
 the Union. 
 
 The St. Marys went to the navy yard at Mare Island for 
 some needed repairs, and then sailed for a station off Cape St. 
 Lucas, Lower California, where we remained on the track of 
 the mail steamers, all the time being spent under sail. 
 
 This was done to guard the mails and passengers, it having 
 been reported that privateers were fitting out for their capture. 
 After three months of this work, and without having anchored 
 since leaving San Francisco Bay, we returned to that place. 
 At this time the Pacific railroad was not completed — the space 
 intervening between the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific 
 railroads being traversed by the celebrated Pony Express. 
 
 The officers of the ship, except the captain and executive 
 
282 
 
 A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 
 
 officer, were detached and ordered to New York, their places 
 being supplied by officers of the Volunteer service. When we 
 arrived East we found the navy largely increased in number by 
 the vessels newly built, or chartered, and we were all soon em- 
 ployed in the blockading squadrons or the flotillas on the 
 James and Potomac rivers. 
 
 Several of the first style of the " double-enders," so-called, 
 had been completed and were in commission. 
 
 These vessels were fitted with rudders in both bow and 
 stern, so they might be ready for river service, and could run 
 up or down without being obliged to turn around. Of some 
 of them it was said, they were built to go both ways, and could 
 not go either ; this, however, was not altogether true. They 
 carried heavy batteries, and were quite efficient in rivers or 
 smooth water, but were very uncomfortable, and some of them 
 almost unmanageable in a gale of wind. One of them, the 
 Tioga, sailed from Boston under the command of Lieutenant- 
 Commanding George W. Rogers, with a new crew, and one 
 week afterwards was engaged near Windmill Point on the 
 James River, with a part of the Confederate artillery known 
 as Stewart's battery. The crew all worked their guns as 
 calmly and quietly as if it were something they had been used 
 to daily. 
 
 The Captain was on the hurricane-deck directing the move- 
 ments of the ship, and when the shot began to come pretty 
 thick, he said to me: ''You had better go down out of this, 
 you may get hurt." I asked him, How about yourself ? " His 
 reply was: **If I get hit you may come here and take my 
 place." The Captain did not get hurt that day, but was killed 
 subsequently off Charleston by a shot from Fort Sumter. 
 
 A few days later the Tioga was one afternoon employed as 
 escort for the army balloon, when one of the dispatch boats 
 came with orders to go up the river to Harrison's Landing. 
 On nearing that place it was seen that all the gunboats had 
 gone three or four miles up the river to the next bend, where 
 a number of Confederate vessels had come down that day. As 
 night was coming on, we all anchored there. 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 283 
 
 During the evening the enemy began firing with artillery 
 from three or four positions on the south side, opposite Harri- 
 son's Landing, and kept up a lively fire on the Union camp, 
 for about half an hour. The gunboats were too far up the 
 river to reply, and expecting an attack at the same time from 
 the vessels above, remained in their positions. It so happened, 
 however, that one, the Conemaugh, had come up the river after 
 nightfall, and had anchored in a position from whence she got 
 in some effective work. The next day General McClellan de- 
 siring to occupy the points from which the firing had occurred, 
 sent some cavalry across to reconnoitre and ascertain whether 
 a large creek there was fordable. 
 
 Two boats were sent from the Tioga to sound for the same 
 purpose. I went in the launch with its crew and part of the 
 marines, and Acting-Master Charles O'Neil was in charge of 
 the first cutter, with its crew and the remainder of the mar- 
 ines. We found the creek to be about two miles long and 
 quite deep. Reaching its head the roll of a drum and the 
 sound of voices were heard. Knowing our cavalry did not 
 carry drums, it was evident we were quite near the outposts of 
 the Confederates, and in such narrow waters, surrounded by 
 thick woods, had gotten ourselves into rather close quarters ; 
 so we started down the creek as quietly as we could pull, and 
 fully on the alert for an attack from any point. At a sharp 
 bend near the mouth of the creek, the officer in the cutter 
 suddenly gave the order, Oars ! " and called out, " There are 
 soldiers with arms on that point." Sure enough, there they 
 were, and quite near. As they stood in the bushes on the edge 
 of the water, their uniforms could not be distinguished. At 
 this moment the coxswain of the launch, an excitable Span- 
 iard but a good seaman, levelled his carbine and exclaimed : 
 " I '11 kill one any way ! " He was pushed down in the boat 
 while I hailed, asking who they were. The answer came back 
 clear and distinct, Friends." Of course they could see the 
 flags flying in our boats. Still having some doubts, I called 
 out, " What regiment do you belong to ? " The answer was. 
 The i6th Pennsylvania reserves." 
 
284 A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY ^SIXTIES. 
 
 This was so particular and descriptive that I could not but 
 accept it as satisfactory, and it relieved a strain on the nervous 
 system of all in the boats. 
 
 It turned out that the cavalry had returned to the north 
 side of the river before we had left the ship, owing to a delay 
 in the delivery of General McClellan's note to Captain Rogers, 
 and this force of infantry had just come over and established 
 a picket station near the mouth of the creek. 
 
 A few days before this we had been at anchor near Point 
 Powhattan, and another vessel, the Port Royal, was at anchor 
 below the point about the same distance away. 
 
 The plan was to keep two vessels in that vicinity to prevent 
 the enemy from firing from their rifle-pits on the mail steam- 
 ers and transports, as they passed up and down the river. 
 Every morning, when the mail came down, and afternoons, as 
 they went up, from Fort Monroe, or when a tow of transports 
 passed, we would commence shelling the rifle-pits and a large 
 wood-pile on the bank above. The convoy for the mail-boats 
 also used to put in some target practice in the same way, so we 
 had exercise enough of this kind every day. The wood-pile 
 thus gradually accumulated a quantity of shell that had not 
 exploded. 
 
 One afternoon, a number of vessels passing by were fired 
 on by the Confederate sharpshooters concealed in the rifle-pits 
 and behind the wood-pile. One of the vessels broke adrift 
 from the tow just abreast the old fort on the point. We went 
 to her rescue and so got too close for the efficient use of our 
 big guns, but carried on a rapid fire with our 24-pounder how- 
 itzers on the hurricane-deck. One of the shot struck a loaded 
 shell in the wood-pile, making a bonfire which lasted all night, 
 enlivened with occasional pyrotechnic displays in the shape of 
 exploding shell. 
 
 These howitzers were, for their time, very useful guns for 
 river work, where the banks were not too high. Of course they 
 were smooth-bore and muzzle-loading, but the ammunition was 
 fixed, and they may be said to have represented the secondary 
 battery, which plays so important a part in vessels of the pres- 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 285 
 
 ent day. We never got caught close under a high bank but 
 once, and then our opponents were in the opposite plight, for 
 they could not depress their guns enough to fire down on us ; 
 and while they amused themselves at firing at some transports 
 a little farther off, we got into good range for our lo-inch shell 
 gun and that finished the contention for that day. 
 
 One Sunday while we were there, two or three negro boys 
 came off in an old flat-boat from the eastern side of the river. 
 The captain asked them where they came from and where they 
 lived. They pointed to a house and said they belonged to 
 Missis Mary Wilther Dowlis. They were then asked where 
 the gentleman of the plantation was. " Gone to Richmond to 
 fight the Yankees," said one. 
 
 Where are the negro men ? " asked the captain. 
 
 " Dase gone to * Old Pint * to be contrabands." 
 
 " Well," said the captain, what does Mrs. Dowlis say 
 about these gunboats being here ? " 
 
 " She say she like to get under dey bottom and blow 
 *em up." 
 
 Then the captain asked them if their mistress needed any- 
 thing. They thought awhile, and looked at each other ; finally, 
 one said he had heard her say she wished she had some salt. 
 Of this we had plenty and were throwing it overboard, every 
 day, from the beef and pork barrels ; so we sent some ashore 
 and I guess it was welcome, even if it did come from the de- 
 testable Yankee gunboat. 
 
 No one was allowed to land, but one evening, when at 
 anchor, not far from this place, I obtained permission to take 
 two boat crews and some marines to go ashore, abreast the 
 ship, where there appeared to be a sandy beach, to get some 
 sand for scrubbing decks. We pulled in very carefully and 
 posted the marines a short distance away from the edge of the 
 river, and had four men in each boat, with oars in their hands, 
 ready to shove off at a moment's notice, while the others 
 rapidly filled the tarpaulins with sand. The work was nearly 
 done when one of the marines came running in and told us, in 
 a loud whisper, the cavalry were coming. A snorting of horses 
 
286 A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 
 
 was plainly heard and everybody scrambled into the boats 
 lively enough. We pushed off quickly, but did not get so far 
 away, as we turned towards the ship, to prevent us from learn- 
 ing they were only some loose animals that had been left out 
 to graze in the fields. They evidently wanted to find out what 
 we were doing with the " sacred soil of Virginia." 
 
 While a portion of the army was encamped on the south 
 side of the river, from whence the firing on the camp at Harri- 
 son's Landing had taken place, General Butterfield, who was in 
 command of this force, invited the captain and myself to ride 
 out along the picket line. It so happened that the horse fur- 
 nished me had been captured from the Confederate cavalry, 
 rider and all, a day or two before. He was a fine animal, and 
 went along very quietly with the party of some seven or eight 
 riders. After a while we rode into the grounds of a plantation, 
 and on the lawn, fronting the mansion, were a number of slips 
 of paper. 
 
 Having some curiosity to find out what they were, I drew 
 my sword and tried to pick one up. As I did this the horse 
 started off on a run and darted out of the gate. Instead of 
 turning to the left, where our pickets were, he turned to the 
 right towards the Confederate picket line. Here was a state 
 of things, and the horse had the best of it for a while ; but 
 coming to a small, rough bridge he slowed down, and one of 
 the aides, who had come in pursuit, caught him by the bridle 
 and helped turn him back. I have always thought that horse 
 knew the way to make prisoners for either side. He certainly 
 came near getting one that day. 
 
 Not long after this the army left Harrison's Landing and 
 went to the vicinity of Aquia Creek and Alexandria. 
 
 We remained there two or three days after the ninety thou- 
 sand men composing the Army of the Potomac had departed. 
 The contrast with the bustle and hum that had been going on 
 there for six or seven weeks made the place seem very lonely, 
 and suggested the appearance of the plains of ancient Troy. 
 
 The ship then went around to the Potomac, was present 
 at the evacuation of Aquia Creek, and later sailed with the 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 28/ 
 
 newly-organized flying squadron, under Admiral Wilkes, for 
 Bermuda and the West Indies. 
 
 We have lately read a good deal about the fitting out of 
 another flying squadron on the other side of the Atlantic. We 
 do not know yet whether it, too, will sail for " Bermuda and 
 the West Indies " ; but history sometimes repeats itself. 
 
 On our arrival at Bermuda we found several blockade run- 
 ners from Charleston in the harbor, so the admiral left one 
 ship — the Sonoma — outside, to chase if they should leave, while 
 his ship — the Wachusett — and the Tioga went into the harbor 
 to coal. 
 
 The Governor promptly called our attention to Her Majes- 
 ty's proclamation of neutrality, but it did not forbid our 
 taking coal aboard once, and we availed ourselves of that 
 chance. The night we were inside, two blockade runners left 
 the harbor, but being discovered by the Sonoma they did not 
 venture outside of the marine league and soon returned to 
 port. The next day we went outside and took the place of the 
 Sonoma^ which then went in for coal. 
 
 By this time the wrath of the officials had waxed warm, 
 and an English man-of-war was sent out — apparently to keep 
 us company. 
 
 We paid no attention to her, and both remained underway 
 near each other two days. Then the Sonoma came out, and 
 we went around to the western entrance to the harbor to pre- 
 vent the escape of the blockade runners through that channel. 
 The Admiral came out in a day or two and ordered us to 
 remain off the island until our coal supply should be dimin- 
 ished to sufficient to take us to Havana. 
 
 During this time we boarded and examined the papers of 
 steamers leaving or entering the port — but always outside the 
 marine league, — and two or three times with the aforesaid man- 
 of-war close to, with her crew at their guns. Of course we 
 were likewise ready for action. The people on shore on one 
 of these occasions became much excited, the stores were 
 closed, business suspended, and the hills covered with the in- 
 habitants of the island, in anticipation of witnessing a sea fight. 
 
288 
 
 A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 
 
 Our neutral, however, apparently rennembered that we were 
 only applying a doctrine of belligerent rights that they had, as 
 a nation, insisted upon through a long series of maritime wars, 
 and only made a show of force, while we made the examination 
 of their vessels in spite of their guns and the bluster and in- 
 dignation of the captains and passengers. They afterwards 
 adopted the same tactics while we were in the vicinity of 
 Nassau, but never but once came quite so close to us with their 
 men-of-war. When we fell in with any of them that resembled 
 the Alabama or Florida (for some of them did very much, and 
 they knew it), they were prompt to assure us they were truly, 
 bluely Britons, and not Confederate cruisers under English 
 colors. 
 
 While cruising off the island of Abaco, in company with 
 the Octorara and Santiago de Cuba^ on watch for the Confed- 
 erate cruisers Alabama and Florida^ which had been reported 
 as being in that vicinity, the lookout at our mast-head reported 
 black smoke to the northward. We made signal to the others 
 and all of us started in chase. 
 
 The vessel making the black smoke soon saw what was 
 coming and steamed rapidly off to the northeastward. 
 
 We gradually gained on her and soon we began to pass 
 bales of cotton that her crew had thrown overboard. Each 
 bale was then worth about four hundred dollars. We stopped, 
 lowered boats, and commenced picking up the cotton. The 
 Octorara followed our motions, but the Santiago continued in 
 pursuit. After a while it was found the boats could not tow 
 the bales alongside the ships fast enough, so each boat's crew 
 would lash two or three bales together and leave a man on one 
 of them to hold the claim against the other ship, while the 
 boats towed all they could manage to their respective vessels. 
 
 The ocean soon presented the scene of sailors floating on 
 cotton bales, and it was amusing until darkness came on ; then 
 the matter changed for there was a brisk trade-wind blowing. 
 I am sure the ofificers of both ships felt relieved when the men 
 had all been collected, with their cotton bales, late that night. 
 As a matter of fact we would have fared better in prize-money 
 
A FEW YARNS OF THE EARLY 'SIXTIES. 289 
 
 if we had kept on and been present when the Santiago cap- 
 tured the vessel, for she turned out one of the best prizes dur- 
 ing the war, and we could have been within signal distance 
 when she was brought to. The type of ships to which I have 
 alluded has gone from the service, but old ocean rolls on as 
 ever — no change there. Storms still rage and its waves break 
 with the same force as of old. The same care and alertness 
 must be exercised to guard against its dangers. Well and 
 truthfully are these facts expressed in the words of the old 
 ballad. 
 
 " Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 
 Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 
 
 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 
 
 19 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON, 
 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 A Paper Read by Major C. A. Woodruff, U. S. A., May 6, 1896. 
 
 OMMANDER and Companions: I appreciate the honor 
 
 of appearing before this Commandery, to present my trib- 
 ute of love and devotion to the memory of our late commander- 
 in-chief, Major-General John Gibbon. 
 
 For twenty-four years, in garrison, camp, and field, it was 
 my proud privilege to call him my friend. On duty, the strict 
 but just commander; at home, the genial host; around the 
 camp-fire, the entertaining comrade and wise counsellor, — all 
 these, and more, I found him, and your invitation to speak 
 was a call to duty ; to respond, a labor of love. 
 
 I shall not eulogize a creature of the fancy, — a little more 
 than human, a little less than divine, — but simply tell the story 
 of a pleasant companion, a brave patriot, a stout soldier, a true 
 friend, an earnest opponent, an honest man, — as ready to re- 
 buke the powerful as to defend the weak ; one whose strong 
 but kindly heart beat warmly with those human sympathies 
 and passions that ever animate a vigorous physical, mental, 
 and moral manhood. 
 
 Could his spirit whisper to the speakers to-night 't would 
 simply say, " Tell the truth " ; and his heroic character will not 
 suffer if we only hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature." 
 
 General Gibbon came of English Quaker and Scotch Pres- 
 byterian stock, and it was manifested alike by his gentleness 
 towards the weak, his toleration of the honest opinions of 
 others, and his stern, unyielding devotion to duty and princi- 
 ple, regardless of the world's opinion. He was not one of 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 29I 
 
 those time-servers who " shut their doors against a setting 
 sun," and turn a smiling face upon the rising; but all through 
 his long career was pre-eminently one who never permitted 
 selfish policy to hold the helm of duty, nor trim the sails of 
 action to catch the shifting breezes of popularity, but he man- 
 fully steered for the right, as God gave him light to see the 
 right. 
 
 He always tried to be just, but in private life could n't 
 help being a partisan, even as all pugnacious, positive, honest, 
 warm-hearted men are partisans ; prompt to redress another's 
 wrongs, his own he did not leave to Time, Truth, and Peni- 
 tence, but fearlessly battled for them ; yet, clothed with 
 official responsibility, was always the just judge and truthful 
 witness for friend or foe. 
 
 In all his acts and thoughts he was candor itself, and posi- 
 tively abhorred deceit ; the wiles of the intriguer and schemer 
 were absolutely unknown to him. He was no believer in, nor 
 promulgator of, rigid personal liberty laws ; yet there was an 
 honest manhood about him that created an atmosphere inim- 
 ical to dishonor or demoralization, and no man could serve 
 under him without being the better soldier for such service. 
 While a strict disciplinarian, he was no martinet ; did n't care 
 for the " fuss and feathers " of his profession, and in the ad- 
 ministration of affairs exhibited that greatest of military vir- 
 tues, sound common-sense ; was kind to, and considerate of, 
 the rights of his juniors, and while tenacious of his own rights, 
 thoroughly loyal to his seniors when he considered them within 
 the law. 
 
 His dictum, " The law is supreme," was a protest against 
 what he considered its violation by those in authority when 
 they considered it inconvenient or objectionable, and was char- 
 acteristic of the man ; for with him law and duty were supreme, 
 and a tortuous construction he could not or would not com- 
 prehend. 
 
 Gibbon was a natural man, never posed for effect ; easy to 
 approach, and while he never clothed himself with chilling dig- 
 nity, had no trouble in avoiding undue familiarity. As the old 
 
292 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 
 
 soldier said to the recruit : Yes ; you can go right up to the 
 General same as you would to me, and you '11 get your rights 
 and he '11 speak gentle-like ; but you '11 just feel that you had n't 
 better call him Johnnie." 
 
 He loved nature, was fond of books, yet devoted to rod 
 and gun, and encouraged every manly sport. 
 
 Children always looked upon him as their personal friend, 
 and for woman he had a respectful admiration, and was her 
 earnest champion. A better husband and father I never knew» 
 He was a model of faithful devotion, tender, thoughtful, and 
 most considerate. 
 
 Was of a very social disposition, loved to be in the midst 
 of friends, old or young, and while he could keep up his end of 
 the conversation with anecdote, reminiscence, or argument, 
 was also a good listener. 
 
 In all our intercourse I never knew him to manifest a dis- 
 position to be alone but once, and that was when he stood 
 on San Juan Island where his class-mate, Captain George E. 
 Pickett, formed his company and faced the British admiral's 
 fleet. He walked thoughtfully over the ground, his hands 
 clasped behind him. What tender memories of the days of 
 Auld Lang Syne must have been awakened, what heroic mem- 
 ories of that grand struggle at the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge ! 
 When he joined me, all he said was : George had just such a 
 slope to advance over when he struck my division." 
 
 General Gibbon was born at Holmesburg, Pa. (now a part 
 of Philadelphia), April 20, 1827 ; his parents moved to North 
 Carolina when he was a child and he was appointed to West 
 Point from that State, in 1842, and graduated just in time ta 
 reap the traditions but not the honors of Scott's glorious cam- 
 paign in Mexico. 
 
 He said his most valuable experience was gained one night 
 at a card table soon after he reported. He had joined with a 
 few dollars, a horse, equipments, and pistols, and was urged to 
 take a hand, "just to make up a game." The next morning, 
 going on detached service, he was compelled to borrow a horse, 
 saddle, bridle, spurs, pistols, and money for his expenses, but 
 never again played cards for a stake. 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 293 
 
 His next service was in Florida against the Seminole Indians, 
 and assisted in removing them west of the Mississippi ; was 
 instructor of artillery at West Point, where he prepared the 
 Artillerist s Manual^ for many years a standard work ; com- 
 manded his battery in Utah, and, on his return march across 
 the plains, met the news of our defeat at Bull Run ; hastening 
 east, was assigned to duty as chief of artillery for McDowell's 
 division. 
 
 In May, 1862, he was appointed brigadier-general, — his 
 opportunity had come and he was prepared for it, — and from 
 this time on — 
 
 " Till we called 
 Both field and city ours, he never stood 
 To ease his breast with panting." 
 
 He was given four regiments, composed of the very best of 
 raw material, and tempering discipline with kindness and justice, 
 he forged that thunderbolt of war known as the " Iron Brigade," 
 and at Groveton hurled it and two other regiments against 
 five choice brigades of Jackson's army ; to be exact, twenty- 
 six regiments and two battalions, including the Stonewall" 
 brigade. 
 
 Thirty-four per centum went down before the leaden storm, 
 but they who stood, with valor held their ground. 
 
 In the words of General Bragg: " General Gibbon stood up 
 with his command, face to face, against the flower of Jackson's 
 corps — and strong and chivalrous was the foe ! Hand-to-hand, 
 almost, was the battle of that night. And then and there it 
 was that Jackson's stubborn fighters learned that iron was as 
 enduring and immovable as stone." 
 
 At the second Bull Run this brigade presented the same 
 dauntless front and retired with honor as the rear-guard from 
 that unfortunate field. 
 
 Again he hurled it over the crest of South Mountain ; and at 
 Antietam, that bloodiest day of all the war, the Iron Brigade," 
 with Gibbon's old battery, opened fight on the extreme right of 
 the army and, attacked in flank and front, furnished their full 
 share of the sacrifice. Only three brigades in the entire army 
 
294 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 
 
 lost as heavily in that campaign, and they constituted what 
 was afterwards known as Gibbon's division." 
 
 A distinguished officer of volunteers said : 
 
 "When our brigade first met him he was a brown-headed cap- 
 tain of artillery. He came to our northwestern regiments for his 
 soldiery to fill his depleted battery, and he found what he wanted. 
 A little later he appeared with a star upon his shoulder, and our 
 militia, for they were militia, but with hearts of oak and nerves of 
 steel, thought he was putting on airs. They labored under the im- 
 pression that he imagined himself to be a wonderful fellow, while 
 they were of the opinion that he was not nearly so great a man as he 
 conceived himself to be. But when he left them they called him 
 'Lion Heart' and thought he was a bigger man than he ever had 
 the conceit to fancy himself to be. Then officers and rank and file 
 swore by him as they swear by him now." 
 
 On that ill-fated December day, at Fredericksburg (which 
 might well have been prevented had his suggestions of No- 
 vember 30th been adopted), he commanded a division of the 
 First Corps and was severely wounded. 
 
 The next spring he was back and placed in command of the 
 Second Division, Second Corps, and was with Sedgwick at the 
 capture of Marye's Heights, against which Hancock, French, 
 Humphreys, Howard, and Sturgis hurled themselves so gal- 
 lantly, but in vain, the winter before. 
 
 He brought the Second Corps to the field of Gettysburg, 
 and commanded it part of the time during that battle. Of 
 this great contest, the only battle for freedom on freedom's 
 soil, suffice it to say that when the third day's bloody conflict 
 ended, the Union Army was victorious ; the enemy's last 
 charging column a forlorn hope, fourteen thousand strong, led 
 by the very flower of Virginia's sons, was killed, captured, or 
 dispersed, while forty-three per cent, of Gibbon's division, 
 who bore the brunt of this desperate hand-to-hand struggle, 
 lay dead or wounded around their sorely smitten chief. 
 
 After a partial recovery from his wounds, he joined his 
 division in time to start on the Wilderness campaign, where 
 he commanded the extreme left around the Brock Road. 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 295 
 
 Here occurred one of those unfortunate incidents of battle : 
 Hancock says he sent repeated orders to Gibbon ; Gibbon says 
 he never received one of them : those acquainted with both 
 men know that the orders were sent and that they were not 
 received. 
 
 Then followed Spottsylvania, North Anna, Totopotomy, and 
 Cold Harbor, thirty days of continuous fighting, in all of which 
 he and his division bore an important and heroic part, and 
 contributed their share to that bloody thoroughfare from the 
 Rapidan to the James. 
 
 On May 13th, General Grant recommended several ofificers 
 for promotion, as he said, " for gallant and distinguished serv- 
 ices in the last eight days' battles." Second on the list was 
 Brigadier-General Gibbon to be made Major-General, and 
 twenty-five days later this promotion came. 
 
 Grant also recommended that Meade be placed in command 
 of the forces in the Shenandoah, Hancock in command of the 
 Army of the Potomac, and Gibbon in command of the Second 
 Corps. 
 
 Next followed the siege of Petersburg and the fighting on 
 the Weldon Road. 
 
 At Ream's Station he tasted the bitterness of defeat ; for 
 the first time in its history the Second Division failed to respond 
 to the call of duty. 
 
 Let us for a moment consider the cause ; it will revive 
 heroic memories of the war and add to the glory of Gibbon 
 and the ''White Trefoil." This division lost 991 killed and 
 wounded on the Peninsula; 1966 at Antietam ; 822 at Fred- 
 ericksburg ; 1 5 30 at Gettysburg ; and in sixteen weeks after cross- 
 ing the Rapidan, 4207 ; a grand total (not including the tens, 
 the twenties, and the hundreds who fell at Bristoe Station and 
 a score of other minor but glorious combats) of 9516 killed 
 and wounded, a greater number than ever stood in its ranks 
 on any field. Gibbon said : " They were all fought out." 
 
 The terrible flail of battle had threshed the rich sheaves of 
 patriotism and the ripe grain was garnered to fatten historic 
 fields or fill the Nation's hospitals. 
 
296 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 
 
 On November 25th, Major-Gen eral Humphreys was as- 
 signed to the *' temporary " command of the Second Corps and 
 Gibbon promptly protested and asked to be reheved ; in for- 
 warding his protest, General Meade said : " It is understood 
 that General Gibbon would have made no objection to serving 
 under General Humphreys as the permanent commander of the 
 corps, but thinks that pending such permanent assignment the 
 command of the corps should have been devolved on him." 
 
 General Grant said : 
 
 " In the assignment of Major-General A. A. Humphreys to the 
 command of the Second Corps, no reflection upon or disrespect to 
 Major-General Gibbon was intended. General Humphreys has long 
 desired the command of troops, and it has been promised him. 
 When General Hancock left, it was understood that he was perman- 
 ently relieved and separated from the corps, and General Hum- 
 phreys being the oldest major-general in the Army of the Potomac, 
 was placed in command of it. The wording of the order of 
 assignment might have been made less objectionable ; there was, 
 however, no intention of in any way reflecting upon General Gib- 
 bon, and it was expected that the 'temporary assignment would be 
 made permanent by the President. It is hoped that General Gibbon 
 will accept this explanation as satisfactory. I have full confidence 
 in General Gibbon, as a commander of troops, and believe him en- 
 tirely capable of commanding a corps. I should not like to spare 
 his services from this army, but if after this explanation he continues 
 dissatisfied, he will on his own application be relieved." 
 
 This frank explanation, creditable ahke to the heart of the 
 great soldier who sent it and to the honor of the one who re- 
 ceived it, was satisfactory ; he remained a division commander 
 six weeks longer and was then placed in command of the 
 Twenty-fourth Corps, and, with this corps, broke the lines in 
 the assaults of April 1st and 2d. 
 
 On the morning of April 8th Sheridan sends word to Grant: 
 " If Gibbon and the Fifth Corps can get up to-night we will 
 perhaps finish the job in the morning." To Gibbon he wrote : 
 " If you can possibly get your men up to-night we may have 
 handsome results." 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 29/ 
 
 Since Gibbon's assault on Fort Gregg, his corps had been 
 racing after the cavalry. On the morning of the 8th they 
 started at six o'clock, and were just going into camp after a long 
 day's march when Sheridan's request was received. But it 
 fell upon ears that were not prone to neglect a comrade's call 
 for help, especially as it was emphasized by the boom of distant 
 guns. So once more these men toil on, and only bivouac at 
 midnight, getting rations from one of the captured trains. At 
 three o'clock in the morning, these walking machines are once 
 more swinging along, and, at daylight, the music of their 
 tramp, tramp, filled Sheridan's heart with joy. Gibbon was 
 up " and the ''job " was finished. 
 
 The long lines of Gibbon's infantry across the enemy's path, 
 with the cavalry on either flank, show them that the end has 
 come. A flag of truce meets Sheridan, the lines are halted, 
 word is sent to General Grant, peace reigns, the war is over, and 
 General Gibbon is selected as the ranking commissioner to 
 arrange the details of the surrender, and he it was who received 
 the actual surrender ; and this is how he describes it : 
 
 " The remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia was 
 marched up by brigades, stacked their arms and deposited their 
 colors and equipments in front of a division of our troops. 
 Thus the curtain dropped over the tragedy of our great Civil 
 War." 
 
 He was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel, briga 
 dier-general, and major-general " for gallant and meritorious 
 conduct " at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Spott- 
 sylvania, and Petersburg, respectively. 
 
 After the war, as colonel of infantry, to which he was pro- 
 moted from captain, being one of the first so honored, he com- 
 mands the Rocky Mountain district and guards the constructing 
 parties of the Union Pacific Railroad. When that was com- 
 pleted he was given command of the district of Montana, which 
 he held for eight years, and by constant watchfulness protected 
 its extended frontier. His fourteen companies had numerous 
 combats with hostile Indians and scouted over and mapped an 
 area greater than the whole of New England. 
 
298 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 
 
 One incident will illustrate a phase of frontier service but 
 little known, and also how ready the General was to stand by 
 his own orders and uphold his subordinates. 
 
 He gave a lieutenant, whose respect for law was not as 
 great as his own, the brief but explicit order to break up the 
 whiskey trade on the Blackfeet Reservation." Whiskey traders 
 are the curse of every Indian Reservation and are generally an 
 especially lawless class of hard citizens, and these were no 
 exception to the rule. 
 
 The order was executed with considerable vigor and the ex- 
 pedition was a decided success, from the lieutenant's stand- 
 point. 
 
 Later on complaints were received charging that officer with 
 arson, tyrannical conduct, etc. The papers were referred to 
 him and he returned them stating : " I burned such cabins as 
 contained whiskey, and those only which the occupants had 
 received no authority to build ; the contents were destroyed 
 because I had no means of transporting them, as the captured 
 horses were in poor condition, and for the same reason I com- 
 pelled the owners to walk." 
 
 The General sent for him : " Mr. , I have not called 
 
 upon you for any statement, just tear off that endorsement 
 and return these papers ' Contents noted.' " This instruction 
 was promptly complied with. The General's endorsement was in 
 
 effect : " Lieut. was ordered by me * to break up the whiskey 
 
 trade on the Blackfeet Reservation ' ; he reported that he had 
 done so and these papers confirm his report ; that the whiskey 
 traders were also ' broken up ' is an incident for which I alone 
 am responsible." 
 
 In 1876 he took the field against the Sioux and led the 
 little band of 379 men that, with solid lines, made their way in 
 the face of from 3000 to 7000 hostile warriors up the valley of 
 the Little Big Horn, rescued the survivors of the 7th Cavalry,, 
 and buried Custer and his dead. 
 
 The next year, with 182 men, after a forced march of 25a 
 miles over the roughest kind of mountain trail, during which he 
 crossed the Rocky Mountains twice, he attacked the Nez 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 299 
 
 Perces Indians, and fought what General Sheridan characterized 
 as " one of the most desperate engagements on record." 
 
 The General had carefully examined several of their camp 
 grounds and knew just what an undertaking he had before 
 him. 
 
 As he was making the night march to strike these Indians, 
 a few stars were shining amid the banks of clouds ; pointing to 
 one of these, he whispered to his Adjutant : ^' Old Mars is 
 smiling upon us to-night, that 's a favorable omen." 
 
 At two o'clock the little band was in position near the 
 unsuspecting hostiles — two hours of weary, chilly waiting ; at 
 daylight the advance commenced ; in a few moments the com- 
 mand was in the village, and then it was a regular melee — 
 cheers, yells, shots, groans, curses ; men, white and red, squaws, 
 and larger children, all took a hand. 
 
 The Indians left 89 dead on the field. Fourteen bullets 
 found their billets among the 17 officers, 3 of whom were killed 
 and 4, including General Gibbon, severely wounded. The en- 
 tire command lost 31 killed or mortally wounded, and 38 
 wounded, a larger per centum of loss than that of the Light 
 Brigade at Balaklava, — but Gibbon had not blundered. It was 
 not magnificent, but it was war. 
 
 Of this fight General Terry said : 
 
 " It is painful to contemplate the famous 7th Infantry, a regiment 
 whose history is interwoven with that of the country, from the battle 
 of New Orleans to the present hour, so attenuated that, with more 
 than half of its companies present, it could take into action but 182 
 men. And it is equally painful to behold its Colonel, recently a 
 major-general and a distinguished corps commander, reduced to 
 the necessity of fighting, rifle in hand, as a private soldier, and com- 
 pelled, by a sense of duty, to lead a mere squad of men as a forlorn 
 hope against a savage enemy, from whom defeat would have been 
 destruction." 
 
 For the next seven years he commanded his regiment in 
 Minnesota and Wyoming, was Inspector-General of the Depart- 
 ment of Dakota, and for several months commanded that 
 
300 IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 
 
 department and later the Department of the Platte. In '85 
 he was promoted to Brigadier-General and assigned to the com- 
 mand of the Department of the Columbia, and, for the last 
 year of his active service, of the Department of California also. 
 During this period in his command — with the exception of 
 the anti-Chinese troubles — peace reigned. For his management 
 of affairs during these troubles, he received the thanks of the 
 Governor of Washington Territory and the people of Seattle. In 
 1891, having reached the statutory age of sixty-four, he was, while 
 in the full possession of mental and physical vigor, retired, and 
 the name of the last commissioned officer of the United States 
 Army in Mexico disappeared from the active list. 
 
 He entered the Military Academy a boy of fifteen, and for 
 forty-nine years gallantly upheld the flag of his country, honored 
 her uniform, and furnished an example of devotion to duty 
 that the soldier of to-day can follow with honor to himself. 
 He was fortunate in the fact that his lot was cast in the most 
 inspiring and eventful period of our history, and our country 
 was fortunate in having such a champion at such a time. 
 
 Although reared in the South, with which most of his fam- 
 ily linked their fortunes, and for which three brothers battled, 
 he was never blinded by the sophistry that State allegiance 
 was above National patriotism. 
 
 Like General Lee, he was opposed to slavery. Speaking of 
 the origin of the contest, he said : " The cause of our great 
 civil war was that the whole of the American people had not 
 then learned to recognize the fact that the civilized world had 
 reached the conclusion that human slavery was morally wrong. 
 We all know it nozv^ And when the war came he saw his 
 moral and patriotic duties clear and did them well. 
 
 After Appomattox, he stopped fighting, and his great com- 
 mander's magnanimous : " Let us have peace," was echoed in 
 his heart, and thenceforth, until that heart was stilled in death, 
 it never treasured an unkind thought, nor did his tongue utter 
 a harsh or unkind word against those with whom he contended. 
 February 6, 1896, he calmly, peacefully, passed from life to 
 eternity, and the heroic spirit that animated one of the last 
 
IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN GIBBON. 3OI 
 
 surviving stars in that bright constellation of leaders who 
 shaped the destinies of the Army of the Potomac joined our 
 honored dead ! 
 
 " He was a friend to truth, of soul sincere, 
 In action faithful and in honor clear ; 
 He broke no promise, served no private end, 
 Devoted to his family, and friend ; 
 To duty, true. He leaves this world of strife 
 With noble record of an upright life." 
 
 And when history tells of those who were America's brave 
 soldiers, unselfish patriots, pure men, and loyal sons, who 
 always really had the courage of their convictions, few names 
 will lead that of John Gibbon, 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 A Paper Read by General Francis A. Walker, May 6, 1896. 
 
 ENERAL GIBBON came to the Second Corps early in 
 
 1863. The wound he had received at Fredericksburg 
 was healed ; but the laurels he had won by his spirited attack 
 in that battle were still green. The division to which he was 
 assigned was the one which had been formed by Charles P. 
 Stone on the Upper Potomac, in the fall of 1861, and which 
 had later been commanded by John Sedgwick, on the Penin- 
 sula and at Antietam. It had gone into action at Fredericks- 
 burg under Howard ; but that officer had subsequently been 
 assigned to the command of the Eleventh Corps. General 
 Gibbon's characteristics were, from the first, fully manifest. 
 Intelligence is perhaps the single word which best describes 
 him as a commander of troops, whether in the field, on the 
 march, or in battle. There was nothing dull, or heavy, or 
 commonplace about his performance of any duty. He looked 
 fully at every situation ; saw it for himself ; saw it clearly ; 
 studied it in the light of experience and of military know- 
 ledge ; and as the result made up his opinion and took his 
 course of action. His powers of perception and his powers 
 of reflection were well balanced ; and both faculties were 
 actively used whenever he had any military duty to perform. 
 He knew just what he was going to do and just why he was 
 going to do it, whereas many of us have known more than 
 one general officer, not at all incapable, who saw just far 
 enough ahead and around to get his brigade or division or 
 corps into action, without any clear conception of what he 
 was really trying to do. 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 I do not mean by what I have just said that Gibbon was 
 one of those extremely theoretical officers who formed plans 
 of action in which the sole possible success of which could 
 come from the absolute mechanical precision of several suc- 
 cessive operations. I remember on several occasions listening 
 with simple astonishment at hearing certain officers, of high 
 position, laying their plans for the day's action, which required 
 that every one of several successive steps should be taken in 
 a certain way, and in a certain time, with the utmost exact- 
 ness. There was nothing of this in Gibbon. The theoretical 
 and practical were well adjusted in his mind and temper. But, 
 as I said, he never undertook to do anything without know- 
 ing just what it was he was trying to do, and without a keen 
 appreciation of the methods and ways by which he was to do 
 it. His mind was always alert, without being uneasy. While 
 he was prompt and thoroughly subordinate in obeying orders 
 and directions, having respect as well to the spirit as to the 
 letter of his orders, he never ceased to exercise his own intelli- 
 gence ; he never threw himself back upon corps headquarters, 
 as if he had no occasion to see and think for himself. An 
 experience of two years and a half as adjutant-general of the 
 corps, I think, justifies me in saying that the fault to which 
 division commanders were most prone was that of discharging 
 themselves of all feeling of responsibility, and of acting in a 
 purely mechanical way upon the orders which came down 
 from corps headquarters, without responsiveness and without 
 suggestiveness. I have seen many a division commander who 
 was brave and efficient in executing precise orders, to whom 
 it never seemed to occur that he was to contribute anything 
 to the intelligence which directed and animated the mighty 
 mass of living valor which made up his army corps. Not 
 so with Gibbon. He was absolutely free from the fault of 
 obtrusiveness ; yet his fine military scholarship, his keen per- 
 ception, his sound judgment, necessarily became a power 
 throughout the larger command of which his own brigade and 
 division formed a part. Division commanders of this type 
 immensely strengthen the hands of their corps commanders, 
 
304 
 
 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 however capable and however distinguished. Such division 
 commanders in their time were Meade and Reynolds and 
 Humphreys. While absolute and instant obedience should 
 be the rule of every military body, that constitutes no reason 
 for the suppression of intelligence and even of intellectual life, 
 as is so often the case ; and that commander is either a born 
 tyrant or an arrant humbug who imagines that he can do all 
 the thinking that is necessary in his command. 
 
 As a disciplinarian, General Gibbon was disposed to be 
 rather severe, and in a few instances showed himself too hasty. 
 But the general effect of his conduct of troops in camp and 
 on the march was in the direction of good order, health, and 
 military efficiency. His general purposes of kindness and of 
 justice were so manifest that the troops had for him both 
 respect and regard. He could not be said while in the Second 
 Corps to have filled General Sedgwick's place in the hearts of 
 the division ; but he was liked as well as trusted by the officers 
 and men generally. 
 
 Chancellorsville was the first action in which the corps was 
 engaged after General Gibbon was assigned to it. Here he was 
 detached with two brigades to support the Sixth Corps in its 
 enterprise against Marye's Heights. Gibbon's command came 
 under fire and lost some men ; but the impossibility of getting 
 across the canal which carried water from the river above the 
 town to the mills of Fredericksburg, prevented its being gener- 
 ally engaged. The misadventure was in no sense Gibbon's 
 fault ; but was wholly due to the astounding ignorance of the 
 Fredericksburg plain and Marye's Heights which characterized 
 all the operations from the 17th of November, 1862, down to the 
 day of which we now speak. I well remember on the 12th of 
 December, 1862, carrying a message to Burnside from Couch, 
 saying that, so far as the latter could judge from the reports 
 of citizens, contrabands, and deserters, a deep trench or canal 
 ran around the town, between it and the hills, which would 
 prove a serious obstacle to the passage of troops ; and I never 
 shall forget how indignantly and even angrily Burnside rejected 
 the suggestion. What came of this ignorance, on the 13th of 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 305 
 
 December, is a part of the history of the war, and one of the 
 most painful and distressing parts of that history. And here, 
 again, after the occupation of Fredericksburg and the Freder- 
 icksburg plain for four or five days in December of 1862, we 
 find the staff of the Army of the Potomac so ignorant of the 
 features of that field as to allow Gibbon to be sent into a posi- 
 tion which was an impossible one. Ordered to attack the 
 enemy's extreme left, he simply could not get his troops into 
 action, because of the intervening watercourse. 
 
 But, if Gibbon's part in the Fredericksburg-Chancellorsville 
 operations of April to May, 1863, was a subordinate one, he 
 was to have no cause of blame at not being allowed his full 
 share of achievements, and dangers, and sufferings, in the next 
 battle, which was destined to be the greatest of the war. 
 When, on the afternoon of the 1st of July, General Meade 
 sent Hancock forward, with his staff alone, to take command 
 of the field where Reynolds had been killed, and the First and 
 Eleventh Corps had sustained terrific losses, the charge of the 
 Second Corps was turned over to Gibbon, who led it to the 
 vicinity of Gettysburg where Hancock resumed command. 
 On the second of those great days, when Hancock, after the 
 wounding of Sickles, was ordered to take command of the left 
 wing of the army. Gibbon again came into command of the 
 Second Corps ; and it was under his personal direction that 
 the fierce action of the late afternoon took place between the 
 left of the Second Corps and the Confederate division of An- 
 derson, which overran our advanced force at the Codori House, 
 momentarily captured one of our batteries, and even reached 
 the main line of the Army of the Potomac, only to be hurled 
 back by Gibbon's resolute defense. On the third and greatest 
 of those memorable days, Hancock was assigned to the com- 
 mand of the left centre, comprising his own troops and those 
 of the First Corps ; and Gibbon assumed immediate command 
 of the Second Corps. During the great cannonade directed 
 upon the predestined point of Longstreet's great assault — 
 "the clump of trees," — the infantry of the Second Corps lay 
 
 patiently on their faces under the iron hail waiting for the 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 charge which they knew was sure to come. It is not necessary 
 to tell again, here, the story of the 3d of July. For our pres- 
 ent purpose, it is enough to say that, while Longstreet never 
 left the crest on which his troops had been formed for the as- 
 sault, and while, according to the usual reports, the com- 
 mander of the leading division, Pickett, never crossed the 
 Emmettsburg road, Hancock, the commander of the left-cen- 
 tre, fell among the regiments of the Vermont brigade which 
 had been thrown out in front of the main line of the Potomac 
 Army ; while Gibbon, commanding the corps on which the 
 assault was specially directed, was struck down among the 
 soldiers of the 19th Maine, whom he was at the time en- 
 couraging to climb the rail fence and attack Armistead's and 
 Garnett's brigades in flank. With gallantry and self-devotion 
 such as this on the part of ofificers holding high commands, it 
 is not a matter to be wondered at, that the soldiers in the ranks 
 rushed eagerly forward to wall around the head of the Confed- 
 erate column, and to bring to defeat the greatest enterprise 
 which the Confederate armies ever undertook. 
 
 Gibbon's wound had been a very severe one ; and it seemed 
 to me, as I observed him in daily intercourse, that the effects 
 of the injury to his nervous system lasted a great while. Even 
 when his ordinary health was fully restored, I was disposed to 
 think that he was still suffering, though in a steadily diminish- 
 ing degree, from the shock of his Gettysburg wound. During 
 a portion of his necessarily long absence from the field, one of 
 the ofificers of his staff, whose name can never be mentioned 
 without honor, continued on duty, joining the staff of General 
 Warren, then temporarily commanding the corps. This was 
 Lieutenant Frank Haskell, of Wisconsin, who had won dis- 
 tinction in earlier actions ; but at Gettysburg placed himself 
 in the front rank of the heroes of the war, being one of the 
 two mounted ofificers who rode between the hostile lines as 
 they gave and took fire at the stone wall by the clump of 
 trees, on the third day. He was destined to a glorious death 
 at Cold Harbor, where he fell on the 3d of June, 1864, as 
 Colonel of the 36th Wisconsin, leading a brigade with the 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 lion-like courage and perfect intellectual poise which character- 
 ized his whole military service. 
 
 During the winter of 1863 to '64, General Gibbon had suf- 
 ficiently recovered his health and strength to return to the 
 front ; but the division of which he took command, though 
 nominally the same, was far from being the body of troops he 
 had previously known. The assignment to the Second Corps 
 under Hancock, of the old divisions of Hooker and Kearny, 
 from the Third Corps, had caused the previously existing three 
 divisions of the Second to be consolidated into two. Gibbon's 
 division, as it entered upon the overland campaign of 1864 was 
 a very large one, comprising an aggregate of 11,367 men. It 
 was a superior body of troops ; and, under the leadership of 
 the new lieutenant-general fresh from his victories in the West, 
 the troops looked confidently forward to a decisive campaign. 
 To follow out Gibbon's part in the series of fierce and bloody 
 battles which ensued, would consume too much time and ex- 
 haust your patience. On the first day's battle in the Wilder- 
 ness, Gibbon was placed in command of a giant battery of 
 more than forty guns, supported by Barlow's division of in- 
 fantry, to protect the flank of the Army of the Potomac 
 against Longstreet coming up from Gordonsville, and attempt- 
 ing to pass, as was anticipated, into our left rear. In this posi- 
 tion, he remained the rest of that day, and during the fierce 
 fighting on the morning of the 6th of May. It was here that 
 he became subject to one of the most painful imputations of 
 his whole career. In his official report. General Hancock 
 stated that, on the morning of May 6th, he directed Gibbon to 
 move Barlow's division forward across the Brock Road, till it 
 should come up on the left of the corps then heavily engaged 
 with the enemy. This statement Hancock supported by the 
 testimony of at least two members of his staff. On the other 
 hand. Gibbon solemnly declared that he at no time received 
 any definitive order to that effect, though the contingency of 
 advancing Barlow's division had been spoken of between 
 Hancock and himself. The question is a difficult one, a deli- 
 cate one, and a painful one. The history of the war abounds 
 
3o8 
 
 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 in such instances of misunderstandings between officers of the 
 highest intelligence and of devoted loyalty. Certainly, no 
 man could ever believe that General Gibbon conscientiously 
 failed or delayed to attempt to execute any order given him. 
 
 While, as Hancock's adjutant-general, I have always felt 
 bound to explicitly set forth his views and those of the Second 
 Corps staff, I have never yet been satisfied in my own mind, and 
 I frankly said as much in my Life of Geyieral Hancock. What 
 I believe, without any positive evidence, to have taken place is 
 somewhat as follows : Hancock proposed that, in due time Bar- 
 low's division, which, as I have said, was under Gibbon's com- 
 mand, supporting the great battery on the left, should be ad- 
 vanced across the Brock Road into the tangled woods, and 
 pushed forward until it came up on the left of Mott, thus con- 
 tinuing our line in that direction, from which, as things turned 
 out, and even as had been anticipated, it was exposed to its 
 greatest danger. Of this intention General Gibbon was fully 
 advised ; and it is most probable, considering all the evidence^ 
 that at some moment an order to that effect was given. Then, 
 probably, it was that new intelligence as to movements of the 
 Confederates on the Catharpin Road, and from the direction of 
 Todd's Tavern, reached headquarters, and caused a general 
 understanding that the advance of Barlow's division should 
 be suspended pending developments. The origin of the news 
 brought in from the left, that the Confederates — supposed to be 
 Longstreet's corps coming up from Gordonsville — had appeared 
 in that direction, was a very curious one, and illustrates how 
 small events may affect the fate of great operations. It seems 
 that a body of convalescents — stated at about 1700 or 1800 — 
 intending to join the troops at the front had been misdirected, 
 and sent off towards Todd's Tavern. Why the Confederates 
 did not gobble them up, it is difficult to understand ; but 
 probably just because of the audacity of their action, they 
 were, in fact, not molested. Having wandered far enough on 
 the left of the army, the officer in charge of the column made 
 up his mind that he had better get back under cover, and at 
 the time in question was making his way toward our left rear. 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 309 
 
 This mass of dusty, travel-worn convalescents had been ob- 
 served by our outposts, and was reported as a Confederate 
 column. Just here, I think, we have the explanation of the 
 misunderstanding between Hancock and Gibbon. The alarm 
 caused by the appearance of this accidental body of men on 
 our left, from which direction, be it remembered, Hancock had 
 even the day before been advised that he must look for Long- 
 street, caused a suspension of whatever orders may have been 
 given for the advance of Barlow's brigades. When, after some 
 delay, the appearance of this erratic column was accounted for, 
 Hancock would seem to have assumed that Gibbon would send, 
 or had sent, the troops forward without further orders. Gib- 
 bon, on the other hand, would appear to have awaited Hancock's 
 pleasure in the matter. It is to be said that Hancock himself 
 always treated the case purely as one of misunderstanding, 
 never alleging any indisposition on Gibbon's part, or making 
 any more of the matter than to explain, in his ofificial report, 
 why it was that Longstreet's flanking movement at about 
 eleven o'clock in the morning found his left so unprepared. 
 
 No charges of misconduct were ever preferred, and no alle- 
 gation of lack of loyalty or energy made. With the warmest 
 affection and admiration for General Hancock, I feel free to 
 say that my mind has always inclined towards Gibbon's view 
 of the occurrence. I remember well how thoroughly we were 
 aroused by the reported appearance of Confederate infantry 
 on our left, and how much our minds were occupied by appre- 
 hensions of a serious movement into our rear. Beyond this I 
 can only say that, after the scare was over, I did not suppose 
 that Barlow had gone forward. This is merely negative evi- 
 dence ; but, so far as it goes, it tells on Gibbon's side. When 
 the grand crash came, and Longstreet's flanking column drove 
 us back to the breastworks along the Brock Road, Barlow's 
 fresh brigades furnished, for a little while, the mainstay of our 
 somewhat disorganized, though not defeated, corps. 
 
 Leaving this painful episode, regarding which nothing more 
 seems likely to be said, since every actor in it is dead and has 
 spoken his last word, let me go forward in a rapid survey of 
 
310 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 Gibbon's work in later battles of the campaign. On the loth 
 of May he made an unsuccessful attack, in co-operation with 
 Warren's troops, upon the enemy's works at Spottsylvania. 
 In the great battle of the salient, on the 12th of May, Gibbon's 
 division was formed in support ; but during the wild excite- 
 ment of that tremendous charge, two of his brigades, Carroll's 
 and Owen's, were carried away by the enthusiasm of the occa- 
 sion as by a cyclone, and, dashing to the front, struggled even 
 past some of the leading troops, and entered the works of the 
 left almost at the same moment with the brigades of Brooke 
 and Miles, from Barlow's division. During the terrific action 
 of twenty hours which followed, while the contestants at times 
 grappled each other across the breastworks, and great standing 
 trees were cut ofi and brought down by the fire of musketry 
 alone, Gibbon's division shared to the full in the honor and the 
 danger and the loss. Every brigade was tried to its utmost ; 
 every regiment squeezed dry ; the cartridge-boxes filled over 
 and over again ; the trenches more than once cleared of the 
 dead, that the living might find a place to stand. It was an 
 awful and a glorious day. Eighteen cannon and four thousand 
 prisoners, with numerous colors, were the fruits of this great 
 attack. On the next morning, the 13th, Gibbon sent Carroll 
 with two brigades forward, and brought out two more guns, 
 which had been left overnight between the contending lines, 
 making the total number of pieces captured twenty. From 
 the 13th through the 17th of May, the Second Corps was not 
 engaged ; but on the morning of the i8th. Gibbon's divis- 
 ion, now reinforced by the Irish Corcoran Legion, of New 
 York, and two or three other regiments, pushed forward from 
 the line captured on the 12th, over ground cumbered with the 
 fast-decaying bodies of those who fell upon the 12th, and 
 sought to carry, with special reliance upon the enthusiasm of 
 the new troops, the line which the enemy had constructed to 
 cut off the salient. The enemy's position was found too strong 
 and too fully occupied to be carried ; and Gibbon was finally 
 ordered to retire to save further loss, Meade and Hancock be- 
 coming satisfied that the enterprise was not a practicable one. 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 During the operations on the North Anna and the Toto- 
 potomy, Gibbon's troops were frequently engaged. The differ- 
 ence of opinion which originated in the Wilderness produced 
 absolutely no effect, so far as I was able to judge. Hancock 
 freely sought Gibbon's advice, as that of a thoroughly accom- 
 plished soldier. There was, however, little in the last twelve 
 days of May to afford distinction to any body of troops or any 
 commander in the Potomac Army ; though there was, on the 
 other hand, nothing at all discreditable in what was done. 
 General headquarters ordered a succession of movements in 
 the dark. The troops coming up into new positions, invariably 
 found themselves anticipated by the enemy's sagacity and 
 activity. After confronting formidable positions, rapidly in- 
 trenched and strongly occupied, for a longer or shorter time, 
 and after making more or fewer partial or general assaults, 
 headquarters were satisfied, and the army again moved to the 
 left. The losses of this period were not monstrous ; but any 
 loss, however small, must have been altogether out of propor- 
 tion to any results which could reasonably be expected from 
 these methods. They were purely in the nature of feeling the 
 way for a possible opening. 
 
 At last, before the first of June, the commander-in-chief 
 abandoned the direct route; and, letting go his hold on his base 
 of supplies at Acquia Creek, swung strongly and boldly over 
 to the Peninsular route. At Cold Harbor, almost the identical 
 scene of Porter's great fight of June 27, 1862, the leading corps 
 of the Army of the Potomac, the Sixth, was to support Sheri- 
 dan's cavalry, in an attempt to occupy that position, in advance 
 of the arrival of the Confederates ; and it was there to be 
 joined by Smith's Eighteenth Corps, coming up from White 
 House on the Pamunky, which had been McClellan's base of 
 supplies. Two days later, the united Armies of the Potomac 
 and the James delivered an assault upon the formidable works 
 which had been hastily coiistructed to hold the roads to Rich- 
 mond, there only six miles away. In that desperate enterprise, 
 Gibbon's division was conspicuous for the gallantry of its offi- 
 cers and men, and for its monstrous losses. Notwithstanding 
 
312 
 
 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 the fact that so many officers of rank had already fallen in 
 forty days of almost continuous fighting, four full colonels, 
 Peter Porter and James McMahon of New York, Frank Has- 
 kell of Wisconsin, and Harry Boyd McKeen of Pennsylvania, 
 were killed in Gibbon's division alone; while 1674 officers and 
 men fell in one awful twenty minutes. 
 
 Brilliant and bold as had been the movement by which 
 Grant let go of the direct route from Washington to Richmond 
 and swung over to the line of the Pamunky, the change of 
 base which, with an interval of nine or ten days, followed the 
 terrible defeat at Cold Harbor, by which the Army of the 
 Potomac was transferred from the line of the Pamunky to that 
 of the Appomattox and the James, far exceeded the former 
 both in boldness and in brilliancy. The Second Corps was the 
 first from this army to reach the field of Petersburg on the 
 afternoon of the 15th of June. In the assaults of the i6th and 
 the i8th, which definitely closed the bloody series of attacks 
 upon intrenched positions, which render the whole period from 
 the lOth of May to the last named date almost unique in the 
 history of war. Gibbon's division took part. It was while his 
 troops were preparing for the assault which was to be made 
 exactly at high-noon, that a little incident occurred which may 
 have in it enough of the real flavor of military life to be worth 
 mentioning here. As the corps-mail was brought to me from 
 General Meade's headquarters, I noticed a sealed letter from 
 the Attorney-General's office, addressed to Major-General John 
 Gibbon, U. S. V. Calling an orderly, I at once sent the letter 
 over to General Gibbon who, with his staff, was on a little 
 mound in plain sight and at no great distance from the place 
 where the corps staff were assembled. A little later, my name 
 shouted across the intervening space caused me to turn in that 
 direction, and I saw Gibbon waving something in his hand and 
 heard him shout, Walker, come over here ! " So, as I was- 
 not particularly occupied, I got on my horse and trotted over. 
 Gibbon said he had just received — as I well knew — his com- 
 mission as major-general and he wanted me, as an officer of the 
 adjutant-general's department, to swear him in at once, so 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 that, if he should be killed in the approaching attack, Mrs. 
 Gibbon would get a major-general's widow's pension. So I put 
 on my most judicial air, administered the oath, which my posi- 
 tion as assistant adjutant-general authorized me to do, and made 
 John Gibbon, then and there, a major-general of volunteers. 
 
 In the extensive turning movement which took place on 
 the 22d of June, in which the Second Corps, then under the 
 command of Birney, by reason of Hancock's disablement from 
 his old Gettysburg wounds, was to be swung forward further to 
 envelop Petersburg, pivoting its right on the left of the Fifth 
 Corps and advancing its own left as rapidly as the right of the 
 Sixth Corps could be got to move. Barlow's division was on 
 the left of the corps, pivoting on Gibbon. General Meade, 
 having lost patience with the slowness of the movement, neces- 
 sitated by the extreme length of the line, which embraced 
 three corps, at last ordered Birney to proceed without further 
 regard to the Sixth Corps. Owing to this ill-advised order, 
 the Second Corps was shortly after struck in flank and rolled 
 up in a most humiliating fashion. Barlow's division, the 
 first to encounter the blow, fell back with considerable loss ; 
 and Gibbon's division, sharply clipped on end by the active 
 enemy, also had to give ground, with the loss of the four guns 
 of McKnight's battery, which were upon his front. This was 
 the first battery the Second Corps ever lost. Only once before, 
 namely, in the battle of the Po River, on the loth of May, 
 1864, had it ever given to the enemy so much as a single gun, 
 disabled, in all its terrific actions. The affair was over in a 
 very few minutes ; but the annoyance and irritation it caused 
 were of a lasting character. It was the worst blow which the 
 prestige of the corps had, down to that time, ever sustained. 
 With hardly an opportunity to fire a shot, the corps had lost 
 more prisoners than it lost on the Peninsula ; more than it lost 
 at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville combined. 
 In the mortification caused by this affair, Gibbon shared deeply, 
 and, under the sting of it, reflected very sharply upon one of 
 his brigade commanders, an officer of good repute for soldierly 
 efficiency and promptness. 
 
314 GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 
 
 During the first expedition to Deep Bottom, on the north 
 bank of the James, a movement which involved Httle severe 
 fighting, though a great deal of hard marching, Gibbon was in 
 command of his division ; but at the time of the second expe- 
 dition, in August, he was absent from the army, by reason of a 
 brief leave of absence accorded him by General Meade. He 
 returned to the front in time to take part in the disastrous 
 action at Ream's Station, on the 25th of August, where the 
 Second Corps, reduced to a shadow of its former self, by the 
 almost incessant marching and fighting of four months, having 
 lost during the campaign, twenty-seven division or brigade com- 
 manders killed or wounded, with one hundred and twenty-five 
 commanding ofificers of regiments, and more than twenty-three 
 thousand ofificers and men, was attacked, in a thoroughly bad 
 position, by a largely superior force under A. P. Hill, and driven 
 from some part of its breastworks, with the loss of nine guns and 
 nearly two thousand prisoners. The two small infantry divis- 
 ions at Ream's — Mott's being in the intrenchments at Peters- 
 burg — comprised less than seven thousand men at the beginning 
 of the action : yet, even after the terrible disaster which had 
 befallen, through Hill's successful charge, it held a considerable 
 portion of its intrenchments for several hours in the immediate 
 presence of three or four times its numbers of the enemy ; and 
 even recovered, through a desperate dash, led by Hancock and 
 Miles in person, three guns of Dauchey's battery. While few 
 of the once famous regiments, which were thus roughly handled 
 at Ream's Station, can be said to have borne themselves with 
 their pristine spirit, it is undoubtedly true, that it was the old 
 division of Sedgwick, or rather what remained of it, which car- 
 ried itself with the least credit. It is pitiful to think of regi- 
 ments like the 19th and 20th Massachusetts captured almost 
 without firing a shot. I am sure that Gibbon did all that was 
 in his power to do, on this blackest of all days in the calendar 
 of the Second Corps ; but that all was little enough. When a 
 brigade commander like Thomas A. Smyth, of Delaware, the 
 last general ofificer who fell in the war, was obliged to report 
 that he simply could not bring his troops up against the enemy. 
 
GENERAL GIBBON IN THE SECOND CORPS. 315 
 
 it is hard to see what the bravest and most efficient division 
 commander could have done. 
 
 It is with this melancholy farewell that John Gibbon parted 
 from the Second Corps. He was, indeed, still upon the roster 
 of the corps, as the commander of the Second Division, when 
 the expedition to the Boydton plank road took place, toward 
 the end of October, 1864; but he was absent from the com- 
 mand under orders from general headquarters ; and his troops, 
 now fully recovered from the disaster of the 25th of August 
 and again in good condition to meet the enemy, were com- 
 manded by General Smyth. In February, 1865, Gibbon's high 
 merit, as testified to by all under whom he had served, and all 
 who had served with him, caused his promotion and appoint- 
 ment to be commander of the Twenty-fourth Army Corps. 
 With what distinction he acquitted himself in that command, 
 alike in the victorious assaults of the first and second of April, 
 which crowned the long and painful labors of the much enduring 
 armies of the Union, and in the fearful race and running fight 
 by which Lee, escaping from Petersburg, was successfully cut 
 oH from escape southward into the Carolinas, and westward 
 into the mountains, you will hear this evening, told by one far 
 more competent than myself to describe the various rapidly 
 moving incidents of these remarkable events. I have only 
 sought to bring before you General Gibbon's services in the 
 Second Corps. Much of this was of a kind which could not be 
 shown in a brief sketch. Much of the best of it was of a kind 
 which would require an elaborate exposition of the situation 
 and the circumstances in order properly to set it forth. 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 A Paper Read by Lieutenant-Colonel Aldace F. Walker, U. S. V., October, 
 
 7, 1896. 
 
 /^NE of the greatest embarrassments of the Northern Army 
 throughout the war, was the lack of permanence in its 
 organization. 
 
 Immense armies were demanded, and were produced. Their 
 efficient organization clearly required stability. The division 
 should have been the smallest permanent unit, to be solidified 
 and preserved. Upon the usual basis, this would have fur- 
 nished a body of ten thousand men constantly present for duty 
 — a military unit easily handled in the camp, on the march, or 
 in action, and always ready to fuse and throb with mutual 
 sympathy and self-reliant pride. As the years went on, more 
 was heard of this or that division ; the reputation of many of 
 our most successful generals was made while holding such a 
 command. It is difficult to conceive what would have been 
 the result if a given number of divisions had been organized 
 in 1861, and their ranks kept full to the end. But nothing of 
 the kind was attempted. 
 
 There were, however, a few brigades in different portions 
 of the army, the integrity of which was to some extent pre- 
 served. One of these was the organization known as the 
 *' Old Vermont Brigade." The adjective old " was at first 
 used to distinguish this particular brigade from a second Ver- 
 mont brigade of nine months' troops, whose only battle was 
 Gettysburg. At the last, the word involved the secondary 
 idea of respect and affection, as when employed by the soldiers 
 in speaking of Old Grant," ''Old Sherman," or " Old Sedg- 
 wick." 
 
 316 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 The first, or, " Old Vermont Brigade," was organized in 
 October, 1861, upon the soil of Virginia, a few miles south 
 from Washington. After nearly four years of constantly active 
 service, it was disbanded in June, 1865, at almost precisely the 
 same spot. Its formation was suggested to General McClellan 
 by Colonel William F. Smith of the 3d Vermont, a distin- 
 guished engineer of the regular army, who was its first brigade 
 commander. The command of General Smith soon took on 
 the proportions of a division ; he afterwards became com- 
 mander of an army corps, and was known familiarly as 
 Baldy Smith." 
 
 The original components of the Vermont Brigade were 
 the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th Vermont infantry regiments ; 
 all of which were enlisted in the summer of i86r, for 
 three years' service. These organizations were represented in 
 its ranks to the close of the war, by re-enlistments, though 
 their ranks were not kept full, and at the last their numbers 
 were greatly reduced. The nth Vermont, after eighteen 
 months' service as heavy artillery in the fortifications on the 
 north of Washington, joined the brigade. May 12, 186^, It 
 had but two regularly assigned brigadier-generals ; there were 
 many occasions, of course, when a senior colonel was in com- 
 mand. Its first brigadier was General W. H. F. Brooks, who 
 afterwards successfully commanded the Tenth Army Corps. 
 His rule was firm and efficient, and his regular-army education 
 and experience were of great value. After his promotion, the 
 command presently fell to Colonel Lewis A. Grant, of the 5th 
 Vermont, then the senior officer of the brigade. He was sub- 
 sequently made a brigadier-general, and led the brigade to the 
 end. General Grant was afterwards Assistant Secretary of 
 War when the Secretary of War was Redfield Proctor, who was 
 at one time major of the same regiment and is now a United 
 States Senator. General Stannard entered the army in the 
 Old Vermont Brigade, and subsequently commanded the 
 Second Vermont Brigade at Gettysburg. 
 
 A body of men like this, when subjected to the stringent de- 
 mands of active campaign service, soon becomes self-reliant 
 
318 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 and coherent. The touch of elbow which gives united action 
 is felt throughout the organization. A sense of solidarity is 
 developed, bringing the assurance that the fractions are not 
 merely individual regiments, but are parts of a greater whole ; 
 and a continuing consciousness exists, that support and assist- 
 ance will not be wanting, if required. The Old Vermont Bri- 
 gade received no factitious support from war correspondents. 
 Metropolitan newspapers seldom found space to advertise its 
 deeds ; illustrated weeklies published no alleged pictures of its 
 charges ; but in the Army of the Potomac, there was abundant 
 appreciation of its merits. Its chief characteristic was not 
 dash or display, but steadiness. There was no elaboration in 
 its drill. The skirmish-line was its delight. The secret of its 
 acknowledged pre-eminence on the battle-field was its extraor- 
 dinary tenacity. Although its active service embraced more 
 important engagements than almost any other similar com- 
 mand in the Northern Army, it was seldom, if ever driven 
 from its position by assault. It was famed for a certain qual- 
 ity of steady, quiet, intelligent courage, comparison which was 
 high honor. 
 
 At Sheridan's famous battle of Cedar Creek, October 19, 
 1864, Getty's division, known as the Second Division of the 
 Sixth Army Corps, was the farthest from the point of Early's 
 fierce attack at daybreak. Getty's second brigade was the Old 
 Vermont Brigade, which held the centre of the division through 
 the day. Getty's was the last division to come into the fight. 
 It was moved by the left flank a mile across the field, and 
 fronted to the right, thus forming its line in the face of the en- 
 tire rebel army, which by that time had passed over the camps 
 of the Eighth and Nineteenth Corps in Early's successful 
 charge. Three of the Vermont regiments were at once ordered 
 out as skirmishers, into the dismal fog which enveloped the en- 
 tire attacking line, and amid the tumult and dismay which 
 covered the field with disaster. They deployed through a 
 broad cornfield, diverging and gradually taking proper dis- 
 tances, then across a little watercourse, through a pasture, 
 aligning instinctively and almost without a word of command, 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 forward into the scattering grove, even then occupied by the 
 advance of the enemy, and on to its farthest margin, where 
 the rolling ground sloped away. There, with an open view to 
 the front, five or six hundred skirmishers arranged themselves 
 for battle, prepared to cover for a time the defensive position 
 which Getty with the remainder of the division was endeavor- 
 ing to find and assume. It is believed to have been the first 
 moment, on that disastrous morning, when the rush of the sur- 
 prise was confronted by a skirmish-line, well out in front of a 
 line of battle ; and by eight A. M. there was no other organiza- 
 tion which could be seen or heard holding ground against the 
 enemy. 
 
 Although the position was practically chosen by the men 
 themselves, in the centre of confusion and dismay, it was 
 maintained in perfect steadiness, and with an entire under- 
 standing of a skirmisher's duty. The grove was held, with 
 some loss, for an hour or more, until artillery was brought up 
 by the enemy, and two lines of rebel infantry were distinctly 
 seen, advancing to drive back the Vermonters' skirmish-line. 
 Then, receiving the order to retire, and assembling as they 
 went, the three regiments took position with the rest of the 
 brigade, in the centre of Getty's division, — the only Union 
 troops then in line of battle, with their front to the foe. A 
 determined stand was here made ; a terrible artillery fire was 
 silently submitted to ; three successive line-of-battle charges 
 were repulsed ; and, after a desperate conflict, the division 
 eventually received and obeyed an order to retire, when two 
 rebel divisions had executed a flank movement around its 
 right. Moving back once more, this time in line of battle and 
 with well-dressed ranks, Getty's division presently faced about 
 again, a mile north of the village of Middletown, and took up 
 a new defensive position, with every regiment in perfect order. 
 A new skirmish-line went to the front, and once more the true 
 battle formation was presented. This was perhaps ten or eleven 
 o'clock A.M. The fog had lifted, and the day was bright. Cav- 
 alry formed on either flank. Two or three batteries of artillery 
 rallied in the rear. Then the unexpected happened. General 
 
320 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 Sheridan, whose absence was known and deplored, was seen 
 dashing down the pike, in hot eagerness to find the front Hne 
 of his scattered army. The first infantry troops before which 
 he halted, were those whose movements have been hastily 
 described. What troops are these ? " were his first words ; 
 and " The Vermont Brigade " was the first answer, amid cheers 
 and yells that filled the air. Colonel Tracy of the 2d Ver- 
 mont, then commanding the brigade, rode up to salute, and 
 said : We 're glad to see you. General Sheridan." " Well, by 
 God, I'm glad to get here!" We'll have our camps by 
 night ! " 
 
 How vividly a scene like that burns itself into one's mem- 
 ory ! Words cannot describe it. The artist's brush cannot 
 paint it. But it stands distinct in the chambers of the mind ; 
 and, when its vision is awakened, the eyes fill, and the throat 
 swells, and the soul thrills in quick response. 
 
 I have no hesitancy in saying that Sheridan's greatest vic- 
 tory was very largely, if not chiefly, due to the cool and dogged 
 steadiness of the Vermont Brigade during the hours before he 
 arrived upon the field. It is generally conceded that Getty's 
 division remained in the fight of that morning at least two 
 hours after every other organization had been successively de- 
 feated. When at last it retired, a position was deliberately 
 selected where the fight could be resumed. It thus became 
 the nucleus on which the army formed. The Vermont Brigade 
 was the centre of Getty's division during all that day. The 
 first brigade, on the right of the division, was commanded by 
 one of the Vermont colonels, permanently assigned, General 
 James M. Warner, a member of this Commandery. It was 
 composed of the 62d New York and four Pennsylvania 
 regiments. General Bidwell, of Buffalo, commanding the third 
 brigade, upon the left, was killed about nine A.M., while re- 
 pulsing one of the rebel charges made upon the semicircular 
 crest which the division occupied ; soon after this his men 
 began to waver under the fierce attack, when the appeal was 
 heard, Don't run till the Vermonters do," and they stood 
 steady to their work. This Brigade embraced the 43d, 49th, 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 321 
 
 77th and I22d New York, together with the 7th Maine and 
 the 6ist Pennsylvania. 
 
 Sheridan, in his official report of the battle, makes the situ- 
 ation clear. He says : 
 
 " On arriving at the front, I found Merritt's and Custer's divis- 
 ions of cavalry and General Getty's division of the Sixth Corps op- 
 posing the enemy. I suggested to General Wright that we would fight 
 on Getty's line, and that the remaining two divisions of the Sixth 
 Corps, which were to the right and rear of Getty, about two miles^ 
 should be ordered up, and also that the Nineteenth Corps, which 
 was on the right and rear of those divisions, should be hastened up 
 before the enemy attacked Getty." 
 
 And again, in the same report, he says : 
 
 " Getty's division of the Sixth Corps confronted the enemy from 
 the first attack of the morning until the battle was decided." 
 
 In his Memoirs he writes as follows : 
 
 " Getty's division, when I found it, was about a mile north of 
 Middletown, posted on the reverse slope of some slightly rising 
 ground, holding a barricade made of fence rails, and skirmishing 
 slightly with the enemy's pickets. Jumping my horse over the line 
 of rails, I rode to the crest of the elevation, and then, taking off my 
 hat, the men rose up from behind the barricade with cheers of 
 recognition. An officer of the Vermont Brigade, Colonel A. S. 
 Tracy, rode up to the front, and, joining me, informed me that 
 General Lewis A. Grant was in command there, the regular division 
 commander. General Getty, having taken charge of the Sixth Corps, 
 in place of Ricketts, wounded early in the action." 
 
 Sheridan proceeds with the story as follows : 
 
 " I crossed the depression in the rear of Getty's line, and, dis- 
 mounting on the opposite crest, established that point as my head- 
 quarters. Crook met me at this time, and strongly favored the idea 
 of fighting, but said that most of his troops were gone. General 
 Wright (of the Sixth Corps, who had been in command of the army) 
 came up a little later, when I saw that he was wounded, a ball having 
 grazed the point of his chin so as to draw blood plentifully. Wright 
 
 21 
 
322 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 gave me a hurried account of the day's events, and when told that 
 we would fight the enemy upon the line which Getty and the cavalry 
 were holding, and that he must go himself and send all his staff to 
 bring up the troops, he zealously fell in with the scheme ; and it 
 was then that the Nineteenth Corps and two divisions of the Sixth 
 were ordered to the front." 
 
 The subsequent advance of the army and the total rout of 
 the enemy as the sun went down, are known to all. 
 
 This was by no means the first occasion on which the Ver- 
 mont Brigade had exhibited the cool and persevering steadi- 
 ness and composure under extreme difficulties which distin- 
 guished it so highly in the Army of the Potomac. Its conduct 
 at Cedar Creek was not accidental, but was habitual. There 
 was never a time after the Peninsular campaign in 1862 when 
 the knowledge that the Vermont Brigade was holding a point 
 of danger did not give confidence to all the army, or when its 
 absence from the fight was not a cause for regret. Its troops 
 were commonly known as " the Vermonters." When brave 
 John Sedgwick, the beloved organizer and commander of the 
 Sixth Army Corps, marched his men thirty-two miles in a day 
 to the sound of the guns at Gettysburg, he issued an order, as 
 reported by his adjutant-general, which has since been often 
 repeated : " Put the Vermonters ahead, and keep the column 
 closed up." 
 
 I remember a group of troops from other States, whom I 
 found conversing around a picket-fire in front of Petersburg, 
 while making the grand-rounds as " Officer of the Day," one 
 night in the early spring of 1865. The story was evidently of 
 some desperate occasion, when the danger was extreme ; for 
 the narrator concluded, with the hearty approval of all the 
 group, as I approached : ^' Then is when we wanted the Ver- 
 monters." 
 
 In the summer of 1864, Early was knocking at the back- 
 door of Washington, and the Sixth Corps was ordered to move 
 by water from Petersburg to its relief. When the first boat 
 arrived, President Lincoln, silent and careworn, was standing 
 on the wharf. As soon as its landing was made, he inquired 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 what troops were on board, and was told the name of the 
 general who had occupied the steamer as headquarters during 
 the trip. The anxious President turned away with evident 
 disappointment, saying: ''I do not care to see any major-gen- 
 erals ; I came here to see the Vermont Brigade." And he 
 was at the landing when the Vermont Brigade arrived. 
 
 To give the story of the Old Vermont Brigade in detail 
 would be substantially to write the history of the Army of the 
 Potomac. Its proper presentation would require a volume. 
 Upon an occasion like this, there remains only time to hastily 
 sketch its services, pausing to speak more particularly of two 
 or three matters perhaps not generally known. 
 
 The 2d Vermont regiment was in the first battle of Bull 
 Run, and witnessed Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court- 
 House. The first important campaign of the brigade as an 
 organization was with McClellan on the Peninsula. The first 
 assault upon an entrenched line made by the Army of the 
 Potomac was the celebrated charge of a detachment of the 
 Vermont Brigade across the mill-dam and into the enemy's 
 works at Lee's Mill, near Yorktown. The battle of Williams- 
 burg followed, and the army trailed its slow and tortuous way 
 until it finally halted astride the Chickahominy. The battles 
 in which the Vermont Brigade honorably participated in this 
 ineffectual demonstration against Richmond were Golding's 
 Farm, Savage's Station, and White Oak Swamp. At Savage's 
 Station, in particular, the men fought desperately and the loss 
 was enormous. The 5th Vermont regiment had not exceed- 
 ing four hundred muskets in the battle, and its killed and 
 wounded numbered 206. General D. H. Hill, in his Century 
 article describing this action, says that a Vermont regiment 
 made a desperate charge upon the division of McLaws, and 
 was almost annihilated. Baldy " Smith's division did its 
 part well through the whole campaign of disaster, and was 
 among the last to leave Harrison's Landing when the army 
 was recalled to Washington. It did not arrive at Alexandria 
 in season to participate in the second Bull Run, although it 
 inarched out towards the south through Fairfax Court-House. 
 
324 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 It was active in the Antietam campaign, taking a brilliant part 
 at the battle of South Mountain, known in its annals as the 
 storming of Cramton's Gap. Its next serious engagement was 
 General Burnside's unfortunate battle at Fredericksburg, where 
 its experiences were painful and its losses large. When Gen- 
 eral Hooker, shortly after repeated the experiments, in what is 
 known as the Chancellorsville campaign, the duty assigned to 
 the Vermont Brigade, with a few other troops, was the storm- 
 ing of Marye's Heights. The hill was carried by a brilliant 
 and successful charge, and Sedgwick's part of the battle was 
 a complete success. At Gettysburg the Sixth Corps was the 
 last to reach the field, and most of it was held in reserve. 
 The position occupied by the Old Vermont Brigade is marked 
 by the marble statue of a crouching lion, ready for its spring. 
 Speculations have often been made concerning the possible 
 result, in case Pickett's charge on the third day had proved 
 successful ; but such conjectures are of little value unless the 
 fact is kept in view that Sedgwick's command was under arms, 
 in readiness at any moment to participate in the battle. In 
 the course of Meade's pursuit of Lee, a so-called skirmish took 
 place at Funkstown, Maryland, in respect to which General 
 Sedgwick's official report says : ^' The Vermont Brigade were 
 deployed as skirmishers, covering a front of over two miles ; 
 and during the afternoon repulsed three successive attacks 
 made in line of battle. The remarkable conduct of the brigade 
 on this occasion deserves high praise." Soon after this, Gen- 
 eral Sedgwick was asked to detail his best brigade " for duty 
 at New York City in connection with the draft riots then in 
 progress. He designated the Vermont Brigade, which spent 
 August and September, 1863, in and about this city. Return- 
 ing to the army, it was received with music and military 
 salutes, and took part in Meade's Mine Run campaign, includ- 
 ing a severe engagement at Rappahannock Station. 
 
 The next spring the army was reorganized for active serv- 
 ice under General Grant, and on May 4th it crossed the Rapi- 
 dan. On May 5 and 6, 1864, the battle of the Wilderness was 
 fought. Getty's division was detached from the Sixth Corps, 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 and sent to occupy and hold the Brock Road, at the crossing 
 of the Orange Plank Road, until the Second Corps, under 
 Hancock, should arrive. It was a desperate duty, and the 
 circumstances were such that the service performed was little 
 known outside the army. The assault, under Lee in person, 
 was sustained for hours by Getty's division without support, 
 and the entire loss of the Second Corps, on May 5th, was not 
 equal to that of the Vermont Brigade alone. On the second 
 day, the Second Corps took the front and delivered a success, 
 ful advance; but reinforcements of the enemy presently ena- 
 bled Longstreet to sweep down its flank in apparent victory. 
 
 We thought," he afterwards said to Mr. Swinton, that we 
 had another Bull Run on you." But two brigades from Get- 
 ty's division were waiting, and the steadiness and nerve of the 
 Vermonters were never more signally displayed. The Brock 
 Road was held, and on the evening of the 7th the Army of 
 the Potomac took up its march to the south. The battle of 
 the Wilderness was an enigma ; it has even been doubted 
 whether, in fact, it was a Northern victory. But the troops 
 engaged had no such doubt. It was the last occasion when 
 General Lee made an attack in force upon the Army of the 
 Potomac. The losses on both sides were nearly equal. Get- 
 ty's Division sustained at this time the heaviest loss experi- 
 enced during the war by any division in any battle, a total of 
 2994. The Vermont Brigade suffered one-tenth of the entire 
 loss of Grant's army. It crossed the Rapidan with 2800 men, 
 and its casualties in the Wilderness aggregated 1234, or 44 per 
 cent. Of the officers present for duty, three-fourths were 
 killed and wounded. Twenty-one officers were killed, or died 
 of their wounds. 
 
 The army moved on toward Spottsylvania, and the Ver- 
 mont Brigade, by a forced march, was brought to the right of 
 the Sixth Corps once more. It was directed to take position 
 on the left ; and as the brigade, reduced to half its former size, 
 began to move down the line, the men nearest broke into 
 spontaneous hurrahs, and its march was made under a continu- 
 ous roll of cheers. 
 
326 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 The fighting for a time was now almost constant. General 
 Sedgwick was killed, and General Wright succeeded to the 
 command of the corps. General Getty had been severely- 
 wounded in the Wilderness, and was in a Northern hospital. 
 Three of the Vermont regiments were engaged in Upton's 
 famous charge, which captured what was known as the bloody 
 angle." Ordered to withdraw, they refused at first to do so. 
 But the position gained was abandoned, and was the scene of 
 a terrible conflict two days later on. Then the , Vermont 
 Brigade for nearly eight hours was engaged in a hand-to-hand 
 fight across the breastworks. A tree was here cut off by bul- 
 lets, described by the Confederate General, McGowan, as an 
 oak tree, twenty-two inches in diameter, which injured several 
 men of the /th South Carolina regiment when it fell. Mr. 
 Swinton says : Of all the struggles of the war, this was, per- 
 haps, the fiercest and most deadly. The musketry fire had 
 the effect to kill a whole forest within its range." In these 
 engagements about Spottsylvania Court-House, the brigade 
 lost nearly four hundred men more ; and when it was rein- 
 forced, on May 15th, by the nth Vermont, fresh from the 
 defences of Washington, the new portion of the command 
 outnumbered the old. One hundred and fifty recruits at the 
 same time joined the older regiments, and the men were still 
 stout at heart, feeling that they were moving to the south and 
 had at last left Fredericksburg behind them. 
 
 Several other collisions with the enemy occurred, of which 
 time does not permit mention ; the region about Spottsylvania 
 Court-House was soon abandoned in a movement by the left 
 flank still southward across the North Anna. Thence a like 
 manoeuvre repeated brought the Sixth Corps, on June 1st, in 
 face of a prepared line of earthworks near Cold Harbor. 
 
 The brigade participated actively in the desperate but suc- 
 cessful attempt to carry the rebel position, fortified the ground 
 gained, and was under fire for twelve days without a moment's 
 cessation. Then, moving by the left flank once more, the army 
 crossed the Chickahominy and the James, and pushed forward 
 to the attack then in progress upon Petersburg. After con- 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 stant fighting here for twenty days, including a battle on the 
 Weldon Road that cost the brigade a loss of over four hun- 
 dred and fifty officers and men, and a raid to Ream's Station 
 on the south, the Sixth Corps was suddenly ordered back to 
 Washington, then threatened by Early, who was approaching 
 through Maryland with considerable force. The Vermont 
 Brigade was near the head of the corps as it marched up 
 Seventh Street from the landing and pushed straight out to 
 the presence of the enemy. The entire population of Wash- 
 ington thronged along the line of march. The day before had 
 been one of almost absolute panic. The morning saw the 
 streets filled with old campaigners, whose rapid steps and easy 
 swing told the story of veteran experience. Before sunset 
 there was a " right smart " fight within five miles of the National 
 Capitol, and the next morning Early's army was gone. 
 
 Then followed a weary month of marching and counter- 
 marching, by night and by day ; across the Potomac, through 
 Leesburg and Snicker's Gap into the Shenandoah Valley ; back 
 again to Washington ; out once more by way of Frederick to 
 Harper's Ferry ; back to Frederick, and on to Harper's Ferry 
 again. The men were weary and worn by continual hurrying 
 to and fro, with no apparent object or result ; until one day a 
 new commander was announced, and a new order of things 
 presently began. 
 
 General Sheridan's campaign was cautiously conducted 
 until he received authority to *' go in." One of its early inci- 
 dents was a falling back some forty miles from Strasburg to 
 Charleston, at which place an unexpected attack was received 
 by Getty's division, which was covering the movement. This- 
 was once more the Vermonters' day upon the skirmish-line ; 
 and though no other troops were engaged, and the affair finds 
 no mention in the histories, it was for them as bitter a little 
 fight as could well be imagined. The brigade held its ground 
 all day against several attacks of infantry and a severe artillery 
 fire, without asking for support. Two divisions of the enemy 
 were in its front. General Early, in his Memoir of the Last 
 Year of the War of Independence^ says of this affair: "I 
 
328 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 encountered Sheridan's main force near Cameron's Depot, about 
 three miles from Charleston, in a position which he commenced 
 fortifying at once. Rodes's and Ramseur's divisions were ad- 
 vanced to the front, and very heavy skirmishing ensued and 
 was continued until night ; but I waited for General Anderson 
 to arrive before making a general attack." Although the rest 
 of Sheridan's army was in position some distance in the rear, 
 the only troops engaged on our side upon this occasion were 
 the regiments of the Old Vermont Brigade. A comparison of 
 the accounts given by both the opposing commanders clearly 
 shows that Early was endeavoring to bring on an engagement, 
 and Sheridan was quite willing that he should ; but the unusual 
 tenacity with which the Vermont Brigade held the skirmish- 
 line prevented the battle, though both Generals desired it. 
 
 Sheridan's first serious engagement in the valley was the 
 battle of the Opequan, named from the Opequan Creek. This 
 encounter is often spoken of as the battle of Winchester ; but 
 as that city was taken and re-taken some eighty times during 
 the war, its name is useless for any special identification. After 
 the battle of Opequan, however, the rebel army saw it no more. 
 On the morning of September 19, 1864, the army broke camp 
 at 2 A. M., and the Vermont Brigade led the column of infan- 
 try, marching straight to the west. 
 
 If there were time, it might be interesting to describe this 
 action sufficiently to call attention to a series of accidents which 
 upset General Sheridan's calculations and caused him to wholly 
 change his plan of battle during its progress. In his Memoirs 
 he says : 
 
 " The battle was not fought out on the plan in accordance with 
 which marching orders were issued to my troops, for I then hoped 
 to take Early in detail, and with Crook's force cut off his retreat. 
 . . . It was during the reorganization of my lines that I changed 
 my plan as to Crook, and moved him from my left to my right. 
 This I did with great reluctance, for I hoped to destroy Early's army 
 entirely if Crook continued on his original line of march towards 
 the valley pike south of Winchester ; and although the ultimate 
 results did in a measure vindicate the change, yet I have always 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 thought that by adhering to the original plan we might have captured 
 the bulk of Early's army." 
 
 In conversation during the later years of his life, General 
 Sheridan expressed himself still more strongly, saying in sub- 
 stance that he had always regretted the change from his original 
 plan, which sacrificed the opportunity for a much more impor- 
 tant victory than the one which he in fact obtained. 
 
 General Early criticises Sheridan for his failure to take 
 advantage of the opportunity open to have destroyed my 
 whole force and captured everything I had." 
 
 During this engagement, the writer had an excellent oppor- 
 tunity to observe the condition of affairs on the extreme left 
 of our army. The opportunity to envelop the entire rebel 
 force from the south was perfectly apparent, and was freely 
 discussed in the ranks ; the appearance of troops in that direc- 
 tion was anxiously expected. They failed to come, and the 
 battle was ended by an attack from the other flank of the army 
 which the whole line took up in turn ; but I have never seen 
 the least reason to doubt that if Crook's command, after the 
 reorganization of the line, had pursued the direction originally 
 contemplated, and come in on the south of the rebel army, 
 there would either have been an entire surrender by the enemy, 
 or a quick retreat into the North Mountains. 
 
 A brief allusion only can be made to the battle of Fisher s 
 Hill, three days later, in which the enemy was driven from the 
 strongest position in the Shenandoah Valley, by a secret move- 
 ment executed by Crook, who marched his two small divisions 
 all day through the woods and along the mountain side, and 
 delivered a complete surprise upon the enemy's left flank about 
 5 P.M. The Sixth Corps, at the same time, charged in front, 
 directly against the works occupied by the rebels at the crown- 
 ing points of the line of defense on the high hills that here 
 cross the valley. General Early says, that he intended to 
 withdraw that night, but when his left was turned, his men 
 abandoned their position and " my whole force retired in con- 
 siderable confusion." He omits to notice the fact that their 
 haste was so extreme that eleven hundred men and sixteen 
 
330 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 pieces of artillery were left behind. The heavy artillerists in 
 the Vermont Brigade enjoyed the exhilarating sensation of 
 turning the guns of a captured battery upon the retreating 
 foe. 
 
 After the pursuit to Staunton, the army returned leisurely 
 and camped on the north side of Cedar Creek. Early pres- 
 ently again occupied Fisher's Hill, from which his movement 
 across Cedar Creek was made against our army in Sheridans' 
 absence, which has already been described, and which ended 
 the war in the Shenandoah Valley. 
 
 In December, 1864, the Sixth Corps returned to the Army 
 of the Potomac and was assigned a position at the extreme 
 left of the line on the south-west front of Petersburg. The 
 Vermont Brigade occupied works previously constructed by 
 troops which it had relieved, facing northerly, near the farthest 
 point at that time held by our army in that direction. Picket 
 duty and an occasional skirmish occupied the days and nights 
 until the latter part of March, 1865, when active work was 
 resumed. 
 
 At daybreak on April 2d, an event occurred which is well 
 worth a careful description. The battle of Five Forks had 
 just been fought and won. The time had arrived when it was 
 considered necessary to break through the entrenched line of 
 the enemy. General Wright was sure he could do it, and told 
 General Meade that whenever he got the word he would 
 make the fur fly." The enemy's line was closely studied. 
 General L. A. Grant discovered an opening in the rebel en- 
 trenchments, where there was a little ravine which their works 
 did not cross. This was opposite the farthest point to the 
 west then held by our army. He describes what took place 
 as follows : 
 
 " Knowing that a vulnerable point of attack was sought for, I 
 called General Getty's attention to this place, and he in turn called 
 the attention of Generals Wright and Meade. All came down, and 
 we went out together to examine it as well as could be done at a 
 distance. It was decided to make this the point of attack, and the 
 Old Vermont Brigade was selected to form the entering wedge. 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 33 1 
 
 Orders were given the night previous for my brigade to move out at 
 twelve o'clock, and to take the position that I might select as most 
 favorable for the purpose, and for the other troops to follow." 
 
 The plan thus outlined was closely followed. While the 
 troops were being massed for the assault, a general bombard- 
 ment was in progress all along the line, which continued 
 throughout the night. The Vermont Brigade moved out, un- 
 der strict orders to hug the ground and observe the utmost 
 silence, and laid down three hundred yards from the enemy's 
 picket line. The other brigades of the division took position 
 on its right. The other divisions of the corps were in echelon 
 on either side of Getty. Each brigade was massed in columns 
 by battalion. Axemen were in front, to cut away the abatis. 
 General Getty's official report says that Grant's Vermont Bri- 
 gade " was made the directing column." It was ordered that 
 upon the firing of a certain gun from Fort Fisher the whole 
 Sixth Army Corps should rise and charge together, silently 
 and without firing a musket. For three hours after the prepa- 
 rations were complete, the Sixth Corps waited for the signal 
 gun. The night was very dark and cold. The ground was 
 damp, and the men were almost benumbed, as they lay upon 
 it, without fire or light. Cannon shot were frequently ex- 
 changed, and the projectiles whizzed over the heads of the 
 troops in both directions. By some unlucky chance, a picket 
 fire was opened, to which the rebels replied sharply, and many 
 casualties occurred in the prostrate ranks of the corps. Gen- 
 eral L. A. Grant was wounded in the head, and Colonel Tracy 
 again took command of the brigade. Colonel James M. War- 
 ner, of the nth Vermont, had for some months commanded 
 the third Brigade of Getty's division. The cannonading was so 
 heavy that the signal gun, when fired, was not recognized. 
 The order to advance was finally given. The troops rose to 
 their feet, and the massed columns moved out silently into the 
 night. The entire corps took up the movement as directed. 
 The blunders of the Mine were not repeated. Twelve thou- 
 sand men were formed into a living wedge, to penetrate the 
 
332 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 strongest line of works ever constructed in America. Sud- 
 denly the enemy's pickets heard the tramp of the approaching 
 army, opened a scattering fire, and fled to the works behind 
 them. Silence was no longer required, and a mighty cheer 
 arose, while the Sixth Corps rapidly pressed forward on its 
 charge. The rebel works were almost instantly manned ; the 
 enemy had evidently also been under arms through the night ; 
 musketry and artillery swept the field, but the column moved 
 on. There was disorganization and confusion as the lines of 
 abatis were pulled aside, and the men were on their mettle ; 
 dashing into the ditch, they climbed the parapet, and poured a 
 resistless torrent, across the enemy's defenses, as the day be- 
 gan to dav/n. There is no dispute, that the first man to 
 mount the parapet was Captain C. J. Gould of the 5th Ver- 
 mont, who was bayoneted in the face and back, as he jumped 
 within the fort. The first mounted officer to cross the works 
 was undoubtedly Colonel Warner of the nth Vermont, who 
 led the charge of the third Brigade. The scene, as it appeared 
 to a non-combatant, was described by Surgeon S. J. Allen, of 
 the 4th Vermont, medical director of the division, who was 
 standing on the parapet of Ft. Welch, in rear of the attacking 
 column, anxiously peering into the night. He could hear the 
 muffled tramp and rustle of the moving host, but could discern 
 nothing. He saw the flashes of the first volley, heard the an- 
 swering shout from ten thousand throats, and then he saw, 
 stretching across the front for half a mile, a line of flashing 
 fire, crackling, blazing, and sparkling in the darkness, more 
 vividly lighted up by the heavier flashes of artillery ; shells 
 with their fiery trails sped through the gloom in every direc- 
 tion. While he was intently watching that line of deadly fire, 
 suddenly in the middle of it there appeared a tiny black spot, 
 a narrow gap, which spread and widened, moment by moment, 
 to the right and left ; and then he knew that the line was 
 pierced, and our men had carried the defences of the enemy. 
 
 It is claimed by historians on the other side, that this feat 
 was rendered easy, by reason of the depletion of the troops 
 upon the rebel line. This hardly accords with known facts. 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 333 
 
 It is certain that the entire line of breastworks against which 
 the charge was directed was fully manned, and that a seem- 
 ingly solid wall of fire was maintained until the charging party 
 reached the works and broke through ; that all the artillery 
 commanding the line of march was in full play, including many 
 enfilading guns ; that three thousand prisoners were taken by 
 the Sixth Corps ; and that it lost eleven hundred men killed 
 and wounded in the charge. It was no boys' play. If the line 
 of attack had not been well chosen and quickly traversed, the 
 corps could not have succeeded. No mistakes were made by 
 officers, and the spirit of the men was superb. 
 
 The results are well known. The Sixth Corps pressed 
 forward without a moment's delay, and, before nightfall, had 
 cleared the entire country between Hatcher's Run and the 
 Appomattox River. General Lee in person attempted to stem 
 the tide, and narrowly escaped capture. The news was tele- 
 graphed to Richmond, and Jefferson Davis with his cabinet took 
 a special train for Danville at 2 P.M. In the evening, Peters- 
 burg and Richmond were evacuated, and the end of the war 
 was near. 
 
 A few days later, I heard General Meade say that the gal- 
 lant and successful charge of the Sixth Corps on the morning 
 of the 2d of April was in his opinion "the decisive move- 
 ment of the campaign." Candor compels me to add that he 
 called it " decissive," but the peculiarity of pronunciation did 
 not weaken the value of the praise. It was undoubtedly the 
 decisive movement of the final campaign of the war, which 
 soon resulted in the surrender of the army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia. The importance of the part taken by the Vermont 
 Brigade on this occasion may safely rest upon the facts which 
 I have stated. 
 
 The next day the whole of Grant's command started for 
 the west with a new objective, — Lee's flying army. Sheridan 
 and his cavalry pressed the pursuit with such vigor that three 
 days found them in advance of Lee's left wing. He planted 
 General Crook and General Merritt, with their cavalry, directly 
 across the road which the rebels were taking, and then hur- 
 
334 
 
 THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 ried round to their rear, where he met the Sixth Corps, which 
 he had been trying for several days to get under his orders. 
 When the men found that Sheridan was putting them into the 
 fight, their enthusiasm was indescribable. They charged across 
 Sailor's Creek, attacked the enemy furiously, and forced the 
 surrender of General Ewell and eight thousand men, caught 
 between the cavalry and infantry lines. 
 
 A few days later, almost identical tactics were repeated at 
 Appomattox Court-House, the remainder of Lee's army sur- 
 rendered, and the war was over. 
 
 No doubt many remember an article by Colonel Fox in 
 the Century Magazine of May, 1888, entitled "The Chances of 
 Being Hit in Battle " ; an article which, while purely statistical 
 in form, was intensely interesting, and was subsequently ex- 
 panded into a volume. One of the tables given was a list of 
 infantry regiments whose loss during the war in killed was two 
 hundred or more, embracing every regiment in the Northern 
 army in which two hundred or over were killed in action or 
 died of wounds received in action. This list contains only 
 forty-five regiments ; it includes the 2d, 3d, 5th, and 6th Ver- 
 mont. His roster of " three hundred fighting regiments " of 
 course embraces the entire brigade — 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 
 nth Vermont. A list of one hundred and three regiments los- 
 ing sixty-three men or over, killed or mortally wounded in a 
 single battle, includes five regiments of the Old Vermont 
 Brigade at the battle of the Wilderness, and another at Sav- 
 age's Station. The total number of deaths in the brigade dur- 
 ing the war, including killed in action, deaths from wounds, from 
 diseases, and in rebel prisons, was 2417, being about 25 % of the 
 total membership of the brigade, original enlistments and re- 
 cruits. Its losses in killed and mortally wounded in action are 
 1 1 72, a greater number than any other brigade in the army. 
 
 The brigade was engaged in thirty different battles, the 
 names of which are embroidered on the colors of its regiments. 
 It was fortunate in its officers. No unnecessary sacrifice of life 
 is chargeable to reckless handling. Its casualties were evenly 
 distributed ; their severity was simply owing to the remarkable 
 
THE OLD VERMONT BRIGADE. 
 
 335 
 
 personal character of the rank and file. They were called 
 on for the hardest work ; they never knew when they were 
 whipped ; they stood together like men, and they fought every 
 battle to the end ; not one of their colors was ever in a rebel 
 hand ; their appearance was quiet, and their speech was often 
 homely ; but their hearts were stout and their aim steady. 
 They were never surprised or stampeded ; no panic ever 
 reached them ; their service was intelligent, faithful, and hon- 
 est ; they had the full confidence of their commanders ; and 
 their countrymen will forever honor their memory. In the 
 words of General Martin T. McMahon, the well known Ad- 
 jutant-General of the Sixth Army Corps : " No body of 
 troops in or out of the Sixth Corps had a better record. No 
 body of troops in or out of the Army of the Potomac made 
 their record more gallantly, sustained it more heroically, or 
 wore their honors more modestly " than the Old Vermont 
 Brigade. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alabama, The steamer, 221, 288 
 Albatross, U. S. Gunboat, 120, 121, 122, 
 
 123, 124 
 Albemarle, Steamer, 193 
 Allen, Surg. S. J., 332 
 Ames, Gen. Adelbert, 193 
 Anderson, General Robert, 39, 40 
 Anderson, General, 328 
 Anderson, Major, 213 
 Anderson's, division, 305 
 Armistead's brigade, 306 
 Armstrong, Com'dr James, 214, 217, 
 
 218, 220, 221, 222 
 Atlanta, Snake Creek Gap and, 7-29 
 Atlanta, The battle of, 240-254 
 
 Badeau, Gen. Adam, 262 
 
 Baltic, The Steamer, 256, 257, 258, 259, 
 
 260, 261, 262 
 Bangs, Francis P., 257 
 Banks, Gen. Nathaniel P., 65, 66, 120, 
 
 147, 156 
 
 Barlow's division, 307, 308, 309, 310, 
 313 
 
 Bate, General, 23 
 
 Bayard, Lieut. George D., igi, 196 
 Beauregard, General P. G. T., no, 143, 
 
 268, 269 
 Belknap, Colonel, 249 
 Bell, Captain, 226, 227 
 Benet, General, 196. 
 Benton, Senator Thomas H., 156 
 Berryman, Commander, 214, 220, 221 
 Bidwell, General, 320 
 Bienville, U. S. Gunboat, 262, 265 
 Birney, General, 313 
 Black Horse cavalry, 226 
 Blair, General Frank P. 39, 58, 240, 241, 
 
 242, 243, 244, 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 
 
 253 
 
 Blakeman, Paymaster A Noel, paper 
 
 of, 231-239 
 Booth, J. Wilkes, 44 
 
 Boston, Capt. Reuben, 224 
 Boyd, Captain, 250 
 Bradford, Lieutenant, 221 
 Bragg, Captain, 112 
 Bragg, Gen'l. B., 38, 79, 143, 269, 271 
 293- 
 
 Breckenridge, Mr., 11 
 
 Brennan, Tom, 135 
 
 Brooklyn, U. S. S., 220 
 
 Brooks', brigade, 310 
 
 Brooks, Gen. William H. F., 167, 172, 
 
 173, 317 
 Brovv^n, Gen. John C, 251 
 Brown, John, 160 
 Brown, Mr., 189, 190 
 Buell, General, 27, 41, 269, 271 
 Buford, General, 68, 69 
 Buist, Dr., 262 
 
 Burnside, General Ambrose E., 67, 68, 
 
 152, 168, 177, 304, 324 
 Butler, Gen. B. F., 107, 108, 117, 239 
 Butterfield, Gen. Daniel, 130, 137, 286 
 
 Cadet and army service. Reminiscences 
 
 of, 183-197 
 California, Governor of, 35 
 Cameron, Mr., 40, 145 
 Canty's men, 16 
 Carlin, General, 59 
 Carroll, Sergeant, 227 
 Carroll's brigade, 310, 328 
 Case, Uncle Billy, 98 
 Chancellorsville, The cavalry at, 223- 
 
 230 
 
 Charlier, Captain, 74 
 
 Cheatham, General, 25, 242, 243, 247, 
 
 248, 249, 250, 252 
 Church, Col. William C, paper of, 255- 
 
 266 
 
 Clark, Col. A. M., 50, 15 
 Clarkson, Col. Floyd, 223 
 Cleburne, General, 18, 23, 25, 243, 247 
 Coleman, Capt. W. O., 276 
 
 337 
 
338 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Collins, 185 
 
 Company street, in the, 126-139 
 Comstock, Captain, 258 
 Comstock, Colonel, 196 
 Confederate prisons, in and out of, 
 64-103 
 
 Congress, U. S. S., 1-6, 233 
 Connecticut, U. S. S., 234 
 Conway, Quartermaster, 218, 219 
 Cook, Mrs., 96 
 
 Cooke, General Philip, St. G. , 195 
 Cooper, 143 
 
 Corinth, the battle of, 267-279 
 
 Corwin, Steamer, 37 
 
 Couch, General, 304 
 
 Couthouy, Captain, 236 
 
 Cox, Major Rowland, paper of, 7-29 
 
 Craighill, 196 
 
 Craven, Dr. J. J., 262 
 
 Crook, General, 321, 329, 333 
 
 Cross, 194 
 
 Crusader, Steamer, 214, 215 
 Cullum, General, 270, 272 
 Cumberland, U. S. S., 1-6 
 Cummings, Lieutenant - Commander, 
 124 
 
 Curtis, General, 109 
 
 Gushing, Alonzo, 193 
 
 Custer, General, 193, 194, 298, 321 
 
 Dahlgren, Admiral, 85, 234 
 Daniels, Joseph D., 115, 116 
 Dauchey's battery, 314 
 David, 114 
 
 Davis, Captain, 88, 93 
 Davis' division, 272, 273, 274, 275 
 Davis, Jefferson, 44, 86, 333 
 Dearborn, Major-General, 140 
 Degress' battery, 249 
 De Kay, Charles, 51 
 De Maistre, 208 
 di Cesnola, Col. Louis, 74 
 Dodge, General G. M., paper of, 240- 
 254 
 
 Dodge, Major-General, G. M., 8, 10, 
 
 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 23, 31 
 Doubleday, General, 69 
 Dowlis, Mrs. Mary W., 235 
 Dupont, Admiral S. F., 156, 234, 256, 
 
 259, 261, 263, 264, 265 
 Duryea, General Abram, 65 
 Duty and value of patriotism, the, 198- 
 
 212 
 Dutton, 194 
 
 Early, General, 143, 318, 322, 327, 328, 
 329, 330 
 
 Erben, Admiral Henry, paper of, 213- 
 222 
 
 Ericsson, Steamer, 256 
 Essex, U. S. S., 120 
 Ewell, General, 69, 334 
 Ewing, Hon. Thomas, 33, 41 
 
 Farragut, Admiral David G., 104, 106, 
 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 231, 239 
 
 Farragut, Lieut. Loyall, 124 
 
 Farragut's passage of Port Hudson, 
 11S-125 
 
 Farrand, Commander, 214, 2i6, 217, 
 
 218, 219, 221 
 Florida, Confederate Cruiser, 214, 221, 
 
 288 
 
 Foote, Admiral, 221, 231 
 
 Force's brigade, 240 
 
 Fort Fisher, the navy in the battle of, 
 
 T04-117 
 Fox, Colonel, 334 
 Franklin, General, 146, 163, 164 
 Fremont, General, 34, 144 
 French, 110, 294 
 Fuller, Col. J. W., 275, 278 
 Fuller's division, 240, 241, 244, 245 
 Fuller, General, 13, 22, 23 
 Fulton, Steamer, 214, 215, 218 
 
 Garfield, James A., 46 
 Garnett's brigade, 306 
 Garrard's division, 20, 21, 22, 23 
 Geary, General, 65 
 Genesee, 120, 124 
 
 Getty, General, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 
 324, 325, 326, 327, 330, 331 
 
 Gibbon's division, 169, 294 
 
 Gibbon, Gen. John, in memory of, 290- 
 301 
 
 Gibbon, Gen. John, in the Second 
 Corps, 302-315 
 
 Gidding, 37 
 
 Gilkey, Colonel, 185 
 
 Gilman, Lieutenant, 217 
 
 Goldsborough, Capt. L. M., 233 
 
 Goler, Captain, 227, 228 
 
 Gordon, Colonel, 185 
 
 Gould, Capt. C. J., 332 
 
 Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 37, 41, 42, 43, 
 44, 45, 47, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 106, 
 109, 119, 142, 145, 156, 157, 158, 193, 
 262, 270, 271, 272, 278, 295, 296, 297, 
 312, 316, 324, 325, 333 
 
 Grant, General Lewis A., 175, 317, 
 321, 330, 331 
 
 Great Republic, Ship, 256 
 
 Grier, Captain, 94 
 
INDEX. 
 
 339 
 
 Grigsby's brigade, ii 
 
 Hackelman, Brigadier-General, 273 
 Halleck, General, 42, 149, 150, 151, 
 
 156, 157, 268, 269, 270 
 Hamilton, Brigadier-General, 270, 271, 
 
 272, 273, 275 
 Hamilton, Major A. G., 80 
 Hamilton, Uncle Bob, 98, 100 
 Hancock, Gen. W. S., 176, 294, 295, 
 
 296, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 
 
 311, 313, 314, 325 
 Hardee, General, 18, 20, 23, 24, 241, 
 
 242, 243, 247, 248 
 Harlan, J. M., 114 
 Harrison, "William H., 46 
 Hartford, U. S. S., 119, 120, 121, 122, 
 
 123, 124 
 Hascall, Herbert A., 257 
 Haskell, Col. Frank, 306, 312 
 Haskin, Captain, 37 
 Hastings, George S., 95 
 Hay, Mr., 150, 154, 157 
 Heermance, Capt. W. L., paper of, 
 
 223, 230 
 Heintzelman, General, 147, 148 
 Heth's division, 71 
 Heyl, Adjutant, 276 
 Hill, Gen. A. P., 314 
 Hill, Gen. D. H., 323 
 Hill, General, 69, 143 
 Hindman, General. 23 
 Hood, Gen. John B., 7, 14, 16, 17, 19, 
 
 20, 24, 58, 92, 143, 240, 241, 242, 
 
 243, 245, 248, 249, 251, 253 
 Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 8, 9, 20, 67, 135, 
 
 137, 139, 152, 153, 154, 164, 166, 
 167, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 225, 
 307, 324 
 Houston, Sam, 276 
 
 Howard, Gen. Oliver O., 18, 19, 31, 
 
 196, 225, 228, 294, 302 
 Howard, Gen. O. O., remarks of, 57- 
 
 61 
 
 Howe, General, 167, 169, 173, 175 
 Hubbell, Capt. Henry W., 257 
 Hudson, Commodore William, 233, 234 
 Humphreys, Gen. A. A., 294, 296, 304 
 Hunt, General, 181 
 Hunter, General, 156 
 Hunisville, U. S. S., 235, 236 
 Hussey, The Rev. John, 75 
 Hyde, General, 179 
 
 Illinois, the steamer, 259 
 Imboden, General, 72 
 Iowa brigade, 26 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop, paper of, 198-212 
 
 Irish brigade, 187 
 
 Irish Corcoran Legion, 310 
 
 Iron brigade, 293 
 
 Ironsides, U. S. S., 113 
 
 Isaacs, Jack, 233 
 
 Jackson, General, 107 
 
 Jackson, Stonewall, 57, 66, 68, 143, 
 
 228, 229, 230, 293 
 Johnson, Lieut. Thomas, 69 
 Johnson, President Andrew, 44 
 Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney, 268, 
 
 281 
 
 Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 7, 8, 9, 10, 
 II, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 44, 106, 158, 
 240 
 
 Jonas, Major Edward, 249 
 Jones, Mr., 189, 190 
 
 Kearny, Gen. Phil., 34, 307 
 Kearny's division, 67 
 Keenan, Major, 228, 229, 230 
 Keyes, General, 147, 148 
 Kell, Lieutenant, 221 
 Kilpatrick, General, 85, 193 
 King, Capt. Charles, 188, 189, 191 
 King, Horatio, 53 
 King's division, 67 
 Kingfisher, U. S. S., 235, 239 
 Kirby, 194 
 Knox, Major, 133 
 
 Lamb, Col. William, no, in, 113 
 
 Lardner, Admiral, 234 
 
 Larrabee, Captain, 133 
 
 Lee, Captain, 76 
 
 Lee, Fitz Hugh, 143, 223, 228 
 
 Lee, Gen. L., 223 
 
 Lee, Gen. Robert E., 44, 56, 57, 62, 70, 
 71, 72, 106, 143, 145, 150, 153, 154, 
 155, 157, 158, 164, 172, 174, 175, 
 176, 224, 300, 315, 323, 324, 325, 
 
 333, 334 
 Leffleth, Sergeant, 69 
 Leggett's division, 240, 247, 248 
 Lightburn's division, 249, 250 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 37, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 
 
 48, 55, 89, 100, 104, 202, 205, 221, 
 
 263, 266, 322 
 Lincoln, as Commander-in-chief, 140- 
 
 158 
 
 Logan, Gen. John A., 8, 12, 13, 14,24, 
 
 25, 59, 242, 249, 253 
 Longshaw, William, 114 
 Longstreet, Gen. James, 66, 100, 143, 
 
 305, 306, 307, 30S, 309, 325 
 
340 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 JLoring's division, i6 
 Lovell's division, 273 
 Luce, Stephen P., 260 
 
 MacKenzie, 193 
 Madison, President, 140 
 Maffitt, John N., 214, 215, 221 
 Magruder, Col. John B., 255 
 Marshall, 34 
 
 Martin, Med. Director, Charles, U. S. 
 N. paper of, 1-6 
 
 Martin's 6th Independent N. Y. Bat- 
 tery, 225, 236 
 
 Mason, Colonel and Governor, 34, 35 
 
 Mason, 235, 236 
 
 McArthur, General, 273 
 
 McCabe, Chaplain, 74 
 
 McClellan, Gen. Geo. B., 67, 141, 144, 
 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 
 152, 154, 161, 283, 284, 311, 317, 
 323 
 
 McClure, Alexander K., paper of, 140- 
 158 
 
 McCook, 196 
 
 McDowell's corps, 65 
 
 McDovv^ell, General, 142, 143, 146, 147, 
 
 148, 294 
 McDowell, Major, 274 
 McFadden, Lieutenant, 277 
 McGowan, General, 326 
 McKean, Flag officer, U. S. N., 232 
 McKean's division, 272, 273 
 McKeen, Col. Harry B., 312 
 McKinstry, 124 
 McKnight's battery, 313 
 McLaws' division, 323 
 McMahon, Col. James, 312 
 McMahon, Gen. M. T., 335 
 McMahon, Gen. M.T., paper of, 159- 
 
 183 
 
 McPherson, Gen. James B., 18, 19, 20, 
 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 42, 240, 241, 
 243, 244, 245. 252, 253, 254 
 
 McVicar, Colonel, 223, 225, 226, 227, 
 230 
 
 Meade, Gen, Geo., C, 6, 68, 106, 139, 
 152, 154, 155, 225, 295, 296, 304, 
 305, 310, 312, 313, 314, 324, 330, 333 
 
 Medina, Capt. Benj. F., 224 
 
 Meredith, Paymaster, W. T. U. S. N., 
 paper of, 118-125 
 
 Merrimac, Confederate steamer, 1-6, 
 231 
 
 Merritt General, Wesley, 193, 321, 333 
 Mersey's brigade, 249, 250, 251 
 Michie, Gen. Peter, paper of, 183-197 
 Mike, Regimental bugler, 130, 131 
 
 Miles' division, 310, 314 
 
 Minnesota, U. S. S., 5, 108, 114, 265 
 
 Mississippi, U. S. S. 120, 122, 123, 124, 
 
 125, 238, 239 
 Monitor, U. S. S., 2, 5, 6, 231 
 Monongahela, U, S. S. 120, 122, 124 
 Morgan, Gen. John, 86 
 Mott, General, 308, 314 
 Mower, Col. Joseph, 273, 274, 276 
 
 Naval Victory at Port Royal, 255-266 
 Neals, Sheriff, 99 
 Neills, 175 
 Nelson, 112 
 
 Newton, Gen. John, 20, 167, 168, 169, 
 
 171, 173 
 Niagara, U. S. S., 232 
 Nolan, Philip, 116 
 North Star, Steamer, 280 
 
 Oceaii Express, Steamer, 258, 259, 260 
 
 Odorara, U. S. S. 288 
 
 Oglesby, General 273 
 
 Ohlenschlager, Dr., 180 
 
 O'Niel, Act, master, Charles, 283 
 
 Ord, General, 271, 272, 278 
 
 O'Rourke, 194 
 
 Ould, Mr., 86 
 
 Owen's brigade, 310 
 
 Parker, Lieutenant-Commander, James, 
 
 paper of, 104-117 
 Patriotism, the duty and value of, 198- 
 
 212 
 
 Patterson, General, 40, 142, 144 
 Paul, General, 69 
 Pennington, 193 
 Pennington's battery, 225 
 Pennsylvania Reserve corps, 142 
 Pensacola, Surrender of Navy Yard at 
 
 213-222 
 Pickett, Capt. Geo. E., 292 
 Pickett's division, 71, 306, 324 
 Pierce, Lieutenant, 83 
 Piatt, Colonel, 181 
 
 Pleasonton, Gen. Alfred, 225, 228, 229, 
 
 230 
 
 Polk's corps, 16 
 
 Polk, President, James K., 140 
 
 Pollock, Adjt. Otis W., 277 
 
 Pope, Gen. John, 66, 67, 149, 150, 155, 
 
 157, 268, 269 
 Port Royal, Naval victory at, 256-266 
 Port Royal, the steamer, 284 
 Porter Admiral, David D., 43, 55, 107, 
 
 109, III. 119, 221, 231, 239 
 Porter, B. F., 113, 114 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Porter, Col. Peter, 312 
 Porter, Gen. Fitz John, 66, 311 
 Porter, Gen. Horace, 57, 61, 193, 261 
 Porter, Gen. Horace, remarks of, 52-56 
 Port Hudson, Farragut's passage of, 
 
 118-125 
 Powell, Captain, 88, 90, 103 
 Pratt, Gen. Calvin E., 165 
 Preston, S, W., 113, 114 
 Price, Capt. Cicero, U. S. N., 235, 236 
 Price, Gen. Sterling, 271, 272, 273, 
 
 275 
 
 Prime, Capt. Fredrick E., 272 
 Proctor, Redfield, 317 
 
 Raines, no 
 
 Ramseur's division, 328 
 Randol, 193 
 
 Randolph, Capt. Victor M., 218 
 Reminiscences of Cadet and Army ser- 
 vice, 183-197 
 Reno's division, 67 
 Renshaw, Lieutenant, 217, 218 
 Reynolds, Gen. John F., 67, 68, 69, 
 
 152, 164, 166, 167, 175, 196, 304, 
 
 305. 
 
 Richardson, Albert D., 74 
 
 Richardson, Lieutenant, 258 
 
 Richmond, U. S. S., 120, 122, 124 
 
 Ricketts, General, 181 
 
 Ricketts's division, 65, 66, 67 
 
 Riley, Pat, 130, 131, 133 
 
 Roanoke, U. S. S., 3 
 
 Roberts, Lieut. Charles, 51 
 
 Robinette, Lieutenant, 275 
 
 Robinette battery, 274, 275 
 
 Rode's division, 328 
 
 Rodgers, Capt. C. R. P., U. S. N., 26 
 
 Rodgers, Capt. Geo. W. 282, 284 
 
 Rodgers, Colonel, 276 
 
 Roosevelt, Mr., 70. 
 
 Rose, Col. Thos. E., 80. 
 
 Rosecrans, General, 270, 271, 272, 273, 
 
 274, 275, 278 
 Ross, 82, 86 
 Rowan, Admiral, 231 
 Rudd, Lieutenant, 66 
 
 Sabine, U. S. S., 220 
 Sanitary commission, 76 
 San Jacinto, U. S. S., 236 
 Santiago de Cuba, Steamer, 288, 289 
 Sawyer, Captain, 76 
 Saxton, 196 
 
 Schofield, Gen. John M., 8, 9, 16, 18, 
 19. 195, 252 
 
 Scott, Asst. Sec. Thos. A., 145 
 
 Scott, Gen. W., 40, 140, 141, 142, 143, 
 
 144, 145, 155, 156, 195, 255,292 
 Sedgwick, (ien. John, 159-1S2 
 Sedgwick, Gen. John, 152, 294, 302, 
 
 304, 314, 316, 322, 324, 326 
 Sedgwick, Maj. William D. 163 
 Selfridge, 238 
 Semmes, Captain, 221 
 Seward, 37, 150 
 Shelby, Col. J. O. 184, 186 
 Shepherd's battery, no 
 Sheridan, Gen. Philip H. 48, 52, 152, 
 
 182, 193, 230, 296, 297, 299, 311, 
 
 318, 320, 321, 322, 328, 329, 330, 
 
 333, 334 
 
 Sherman, Gen. Thos. W. 255, 256 
 
 Sherman, Gen. William T., 7, 8, 9, 18, 
 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27 
 
 Sherman, Gen. W. T., in commemora- 
 tion of, 30-63 
 
 Sherman, Hon. John, remarks of, 31- 
 50 
 
 Sickles, Gen. Daniel E. 164, 167, 176, 
 
 228, 229, 305, 330 
 Sigel's corps, 66 
 Simmons, Senator, 263 
 Slemmer, Captain, 214, 215, 217, 219, 
 
 220 
 
 Slidell, Honorable, 235, 236 
 
 Slocum, Gen. Henry W., 31, 58, 59, 
 
 61, 163, 166, 225, 226 
 Slocum, Gen. Henry W., remarks of, 
 
 61-63 
 
 Smith, Admiral Melancton, 120, 124, 
 125 
 
 Smith, Col. J. L., 276, 277 
 Smith, Gen. Baldy, 163, 164, 311, 317. 
 323 
 
 Smith, Gen. C. F., 27, 28, 73, 89, 90, 
 91, 106, 158, 183, 240, 243, 244, 250, 
 252, 253, 269, 279, 316 
 
 Smith, Gen. Giles A., 25, 240, 243, 247 
 
 298 
 
 Smith, Gen. Kirby, 143, 
 
 Smith, Gen. Morgan L., 249 
 
 Smith, Georgia Militia, 243 
 
 Smith, Mr., 188, 189 
 
 Smyth, Gen. Thos. A., 314, 315 
 
 Snake Creek Gap, 7-29 
 
 Sonoma, U. S. S., 287 
 
 Spotts, Captain, U. S. N., 234 
 
 Sprague's brigade, 23, 243, 247 
 
 Sprague, Charles E., paper of, 126-139 
 
 Sprague, Col. J. W., 277 
 
 Stanley, Gen. D. S., paper of, 267-279 
 
 Stannard, General, 317 
 
342 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stanton, Admiral O. F., paper of, 280- 
 289 
 
 Stanton, Secretary, 42, 44, 149, 151, 
 152 
 
 Starr, Capt. George H., paper of, 64- 
 103 
 
 Steedman, Captain. 262 
 Steinwehr, General, 57 
 Stewart's battery, 282 
 Stewart's corps, 242, 243, 251, 252 
 St. Marys, U. S. S., 280, 281 
 Stone, Gen. Charles P., 161, 302 
 Stoneman, General, 93, 225 
 Stoneman's raid, 73, 91 
 Straight, Col. A. D., 74 
 Strong, Colonel, 27 
 Strong, General, 244, 245 
 Stuart, 143 
 
 Stuart, Gen. J. E. B., 227, 228, 230 
 Sturgis, 294 
 Sullivan's brigade, 275 
 Sumner, General, 147, 148, 163 
 Sumpter, Fort, 39, 114, 205 
 Supply, U. S. S., 213, 214, 215, 219, 
 220, 221 
 
 Surrender of the Navy Yard at Pensa- 
 
 cola, 213-222 
 Swayne, Gen. Wager, 30, 32, 276 
 Sweeny, Gen. Thos. W., 12, 13, 22, 
 
 34, 37. 241, 245 
 Swinton, Mr., 325, 326 
 
 Tatnall, Commodore, 260 
 Taylor, General, 112, 140, 156 
 Taylor, Gen. Zachary, 46 
 Teaser, Confed. steamer, 3, 4, 5 
 Tennessee, Rebel ram, 221 
 Terry, Gen. A. H., 109, iii, 299 
 Thatcher, Admiral Thos. K., 233 
 Thomas, Gen. George H., 7, 8, 9, 16, 
 
 18, 19, 27, 28, 40, 57, 58, 240, 252 
 Thrush, Colonel, 273 
 Tioga, U. S. S., 282, 283, 287 
 Tompkins, General, 179, 180 
 Tracy, Col. A. S., 320, 321, 331 
 Tucker, James E., 223 
 Turner, Major, 75, 82, 85, 86 
 Turner, Uncle John, 97, 98 
 
 Upton's charge, 326 
 Upton, Gen. Emory, 193 
 
 Vanderbilt, Ensign A., 108 
 Vanderbilt, U. S. S., 115 
 
 Van Dorn, General, 271, 272, 278 
 Veatch's division, 12, 13 
 Vermont brigade, 175, 306 
 Vermont brigade, the old, 316-335 
 Von Borche, Major Heros, 227 
 
 Wabash, U. S. S., 260, 264 
 
 Wachuseit, U. S. S., 287 
 Wade, Senator, 156 
 Wadsworth, General, 147 
 Walke, Captain, U. S. N., 214, 216, 
 221 
 
 Walker, Col. Aldace F., paper of, 
 
 316-335 
 Walker, General, 23 
 Walker, Gen. Francis A., paper of, 
 
 302-315 
 
 Warner, Gen. James M., 320, 331, 332 
 Warren, General, 306, 310 
 Warren, Lieut. G. K., 195, 196 
 Webb, Inspector-General, 132 
 Weitzel, General, 196 
 Weld, 257 
 
 Welker's battery, 245 
 
 Welles, Sec. Gideon, 115, 117 
 
 Wentwort, Thos, 64 
 
 Wheeler, General, 11, 18, 20, 23, 24, 
 
 242, 243 
 Whipple, Col. Tom, 257, 259 
 White, Captain, 228 
 Whiting, no 
 
 Whittier, Gen. Chas. A., 179, 180 
 Wilcox, 127 
 
 Wilkes, Admiral, 236, 287 
 Williams, Capt. Geo. A., 277 
 Williams, Gen. Seth, 181 
 Williamson, Gen. James A., 250 
 Wilson, Harry, 193 
 Wilson's, Billy, Zouaves, 220 
 Winder, General, 76, 86, 89 
 Wood's, Charles R., division, 250 
 Woodhull, Capt. Max, 233, 234 
 Woodruff, Maj. C. A., paper of, 290- 
 301 
 
 Wool, General, 35 
 
 Worden, Captain, U. S. N., 235 
 
 Wright, Gen. Horatio G., 181, 256, 
 
 257, 262, 321, 326, 330 
 Wyandotte, U. S. S., 214, 215, 217, 
 
 219, 220 
 
 Yorktown, Confed. steamer, 3, 4, 5 
 Zouave, U. S. tug, 3