ATTACKED BY THE FEDERALS--ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE VICKSBURG--CAPTURE OF BERWICK'S BAY.
Increased activity of the enemy at Berwick's Bay in the first days of April indicated an advance; and to guard against the danger from Grand Lake, Fuller, whose wounds in the Cotton affair were partially healed, was sent to Alexandria to complete repairs on the Queen and convert one or two other steamers into gunboats. It was hoped that he might harass the enemy on Grand Lake, delay the landing of troops, and aid the little garrison at Butte à la Rose in defending the Atchafalaya. Fuller was as energetic as brave, but the means at his disposal were very limited. Accompanied by a tender, he descended the Atchafalaya on the Queen, leaving orders for his steamers to follow as soon as they were armed. They failed to reach him, and his subsequent fate will be mentioned.
On the 10th of April the enemy had assembled at Berwick's sixteen thousand men under Weitzel, Emory, and Grover ("Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., page 309). On the 12th Weitzel and Emory, twelve thousand strong, advanced up the Teche against Bisland, while Grover, with four thousand men, embarked on transports to turn our position by Grand Lake. Weitzel and Emory came in sight of our lines before nightfall, threw forward skirmishers, opened guns at long range, and bivouacked; and our scouts reported the movement on the lake. My dispositions were as follows: Mouton, with six hundred men and six guns, held the left from the lake to the Teche. The Diana in the bayou and two twenty-fours on the right bank guarded the stream and the main road; and sixteen hundred men, with twelve guns, prolonged the line to the railway embankment on our extreme right, held by Green with his dismounted horsemen. One of Green's regiments, Colonel Reilly, the 2d Louisiana cavalry, Colonel Vincent, recently embodied, and a section of guns, were at Hutchin's Point on Grand Lake.
The cannonading ceased at dark, and when all was quiet I rode up to Franklin, thirteen miles, to look after my rear. A staff officer had been previously sent to direct the removal of stores from New Iberia, order down Clack's battalion, some ninety men, from the salt mines, and communicate with Fuller at Butte à la Rose; but the country around the Butte was flooded, and he was unable to reach it.
Above Franklin the Teche makes a great bend to the east and approaches Grand Lake at Hutchin's Point, where there was a shell bank, and a good road leading to the high ground along the bayou. The road to New Iberia leaves the Teche at Franklin to avoid this bend, and runs due north across the prairie. Just clear of the village it enters a small wood, through which flows a sluggish stream, the Bayou Yokely, crossed by a bridge. In the wood and near the stream the ground was low and boggy, impassable for wagons except on a causeway. The distance from Hutchin's Point to Yokely Bridge was less than that from Bisland; and this bridge, held by the enemy, made escape from the latter place impossible; yet to retreat without fighting was, in the existing condition of public sentiment, to abandon Louisiana.
I remained at Franklin until after midnight, when, learning from Reilly that no landing had been made at Hutchin's, I returned to Bisland. The enemy was slow in moving on the 13th, apparently waiting for the effect of his turning movement to be felt. As the day wore on he opened his guns, and gradually increased his fire until it became very heavy. Many of his field pieces were twenty-pounder Parrotts, to which we had nothing to reply except the Parrott on the Diana and the twenty-fours; and, as our supply of ammunition was small, Major Brent desired to reserve it for an emergency.
With the exception of Green's command, the troops on the right of the Teche were raw, and had never been in action. As shot and shell tore over the breastwork behind which they were lying, much consternation was exhibited, and it was manifest that an assault, however feeble, would break a part of the line. It was absolutely necessary to give the men some morale; and, mounting the breastwork, I made a cigarette, struck fire with my briquet, and walked up and down, smoking. Near the line was a low tree with spreading branches, which a young officer, Bradford by name, proposed to climb, so as to have a better view. I gave him my field glass, and this plucky youngster sat in his tree as quietly as in a chimney corner, though the branches around were cut away. These examples, especially that of Captain Bradford, gave confidence to the men, who began to expose themselves, and some casualties were suffered in consequence.
From the extreme right Colonel Green sent word that his corner was uncomfortably hot, and I found it so. The battery near him was cut up, its captain, Sayres, severely wounded, and Major Brent withdrew it. Green was assured that there were no places on our line particularly cool, and there was nothing to be done but submit to the pounding.
A heavy fire was concentrated on the twenty-fours and the Diana. Captain Semmes, son of Admiral Semmes of Alabama fame, and an officer of much coolness in action, had been detached from his battery and placed in command of the boat. A message from him informed me that the Diana was disabled. She was lying against the bank under a severe fire. The waters of the bayou seemed to be boiling like a kettle. An officer came to the side of the boat to speak to me, but before he could open his mouth a shell struck him, and he disappeared as suddenly as Harlequin in a pantomine. Semmes then reported his condition. Conical shells from the enemy's Parrotts had pierced the railway iron, killed and wounded several of his gunners and crew, and cut a steam pipe. Fortunately, he had kept down his fires, or escaping steam would have driven every one from the boat. It was necessary to take her out of fire for repairs. To lose even temporarily our best gun, the thirty-pounder, was hard, but there was no help for it.
During the day staff officers were frequently sent to Mouton to ascertain his condition; and, as the bridge over which they passed was in the line of fire directed on the Diana and the twenty-fours, the promenade was not a holiday affair.
Several times in the afternoon the enemy appeared to be forming for an assault; and after my men had become steady, I hoped an attack would be made, feeling confident of repulsing it.
Night brought quiet, and no report came from Reilly at Hutchin's. No news seemed good news; for I would have ample time to provide against a debarkation north of Hutchin's. The force at Bisland was in fine spirits. Protected by the breastwork, we had suffered but little; and the Diana was expected to resume her position before morning.
At 9 P.M. appeared Colonel Reilly to make the following report: The enemy had landed at Hutchin's, several thousand strong, with artillery, and advanced to the Teche, pushing our people back to and through Franklin. Reilly had left his command in camp below Franklin, toward Bisland, but thought the enemy had not reached the village at nightfall. Here was pleasant intelligence! There was no time to ask questions. I hoped to cut my way through, but feared the loss of wagons and material. Mouton was directed to withdraw from the left bank of the bayou, start the artillery and trains to Franklin, and follow with the infantry. Green, with his mounted men and a section of guns, was to form the rear guard; and Semmes was told to hurry his repairs and get the Diana to Franklin by dawn. As there was no means of removing the two twenty-fours, they were to be disabled. Leaving Major Brent to look after his artillery and Major Levy to superintend the prompt execution of orders, I rode for Franklin, taking Reilly with me. Reaching his camp, three miles from the town, I found the men sleeping and the trains parked, though the enemy was so near at hand. The camp was aroused, the troops were ordered under arms, and Reilly left to move up at once, with his trains following.
Two hours after midnight, and the village of Franklin was as silent as the grave. Beyond the last houses, toward New Iberia, a faint light from some camp fires could be seen. Were the Federals in possession of the road? Approaching the fires cautiously, I saw a sentinel walking his post, and, as he passed between me and the light, marked his ragged Confederate garb. Major Clack had reached this point after dark, and intended to resume his march to Bisland in the morning. He speedily got his little band under arms, and in the darkness we beat the wood to our right. Not a picket nor scout was found, and Yokely Causeway and Bridge were safe. From the farther edge of the wood, in open fields, Federal camp fires were visible. It was a wonderful chance. Grover had stopped just short of the prize. Thirty minutes would have given him the wood and bridge, closing the trap on my force. Reilly, with his own and Vincent's regiments of horse and the two guns, came up. The guns were placed on the road near the Teche, with orders to stand fast. Reilly and Vincent dismounted their men, sent horses well to the rear, and formed line in the wood to the left of the guns, with Clack to the left of Vincent.
The first light of dawn made objects visible and aroused the Federals, some two hundred yards distant. Advancing rapidly from the wood, our line poured in a fire and rushed forward with a shout. Taken by surprise, the Federals fell back, leaving a battery on their right exposed. To prevent the sleepy gunners from opening, I rode straight on the guns, followed by my staff and four mounted couriers, and the gunners made off. All this was easy enough. Surprise and the uncertain light had favored us; but broad day exposed our weakness, and the enemy threw forward a heavy line of skirmishers. It was necessary for us to regain the wood, now four hundred yards to the rear. Officers behaved admirably in seconding my efforts to encourage and steady their men and keep them well in hand. Our two guns on the road fired rapidly and effectively, but the Federals came on in numbers, and their fire began to tell. Reilly was killed, Vincent wounded in the neck, and many others went down. At this moment the peculiar whistle of a Parrott shell was heard, and Semmes appeared with the Diana.
The enemy's advance was arrested; Gray's infantry from Bisland came up; the wood was occupied; Mouton with the remaining infantry arrived, and all danger was over. Green, in command of the rear guard, showed great vigor, and prevented Emory and Weitzel from pressing the trains. Besides the twenty-fours mentioned, one gun of Cornay's battery, disabled in the action of the 13th, was left at Bisland, and with these exceptions every wagon, pot, or pan was brought off. Two months later these guns were recaptured, much to the delight of our men.
The trains over Yokely Bridge and on the road to New Iberia, Mouton skillfully withdrew from Grover's front as Green entered Franklin from below. To facilitate this, Semmes was directed to work the Diana's gun to the last moment, then get ashore with his crew, and blow up the boat. With his usual coolness Semmes carried out his instructions, but, remaining too long near the Diana to witness the explosion he had arranged, was captured.
The object sought in holding on to Bisland was attained. From this time forward I had the sympathy and support of the people, and my troops were full of confidence. Our retreat to Opelousas, by New Iberia and Vermilionville, was undisturbed, Green with his horse keeping the enemy in check. Indeed, the pursuit was without energy or vigor. The first defensible position was at the Bayou Vermilion, thirty miles south of Opelousas. Here, after an action of some warmth, the enemy was held back until night and the bridge destroyed. From Opelousas the infantry, by easy marches, moved to and up the valley of the Red River, where supplies were abundant. The country was open, and the great superiority of his numbers enabled the enemy to do as he liked. Mouton, with Green's horse, marched west of Opelousas. It was hoped that he could find subsistence between that place and the Mermentou River, and be in position to fall on the enemy's rear and capture any small force left on the Teche. I supposed that the Federal army, after reaching Alexandria, would turn to the east, cross the Mississippi, and invest Port Hudson; and this supposition proved to be correct.
Meantime, accompanied by a tender, Fuller on the Queen entered Grand Lake on the 13th, expecting his two armed steamers to follow. On the morning of the 14th the Federal gunboats from Berwick's Bay appeared, and Fuller, dispatching the tender up the Atchafalaya to hasten his steamers, prepared for action, as he doubtless would have done in presence of Admiral Farragut's fleet. A shell set fire to the Queen, and Fuller with his crew was captured. On the 20th the enemy's gunboats, assisted by four companies of infantry, captured Butte à la Rose with two twenty-four-pounders and sixty men. Semmes, Fuller, and the prisoners taken from the Queen and at the Butte, were on the transport Maple Leaf with Captain Fusilier, and escaped in the manner related, excepting Fuller, who from wounds received in his last action was unable to walk. Remaining in charge of the Maple Leaf until his friends were ashore, he restored her to the Federals, was taken to Fort Delaware, and died in prison. A braver man never lived.
The Federal army reached Opelousas on the 20th of April, and remained there until the 5th of May, detained by fear of Mouton's horse to the west. Unfortunately, this officer was forced by want of supplies to move to the Sabine, more than a hundred miles away, and thrown out of the game for many days.
In the "Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., pp. 309 and 310, the Federal General Banks makes the following statements: "During these operations on the Teche we captured over twenty-five hundred prisoners and twenty-two guns; destroyed three gunboats and eight steamers"; and further: "A dispatch from Governor Moore to General Taylor was intercepted, in which Taylor was directed to fall back into Texas." At the time, my entire force in western Louisiana was under three thousand, and it is rather startling to learn that we were all captured. Two twenty-fours and one field gun were abandoned at Bisland, and two twenty-fours lost at Butte à la Rose. We scuttled and burnt the Cotton at Bisland, and blew up the Diana (captured from the enemy) at Franklin. The Queen (also captured) was destroyed in action on Grand Lake. The Federals caught two small steamers, the Ellen and Cornie, in the Atchafalaya, and we destroyed two in the Teche. The other four reported by General Banks must have come from the realm of the multitude of prisoners and guns. It also appears from the intercepted dispatch of Governor Moore that major-generals of the Confederate army were under the orders of State governors--an original discovery.
The delay of the Federals at Opelousas gave abundant time to remove our stores from Alexandria. General Kirby Smith, the new departmental commander, was advised to retire to Shreveport, two hundred miles up Red River, where, remote from danger or disturbance, he could organize his administration. Threatened in rear, Fort De Russy was untenable; so the place was dismantled and the little garrison withdrawn. On the 16th of April Admiral Porter with several gunboats had passed the Vicksburg batteries, and the abandonment of De Russy now left the Red River open to him. He reached Alexandria on the 9th of May, a few hours in advance of Banks's army. From the 8th to the 11th of the same month some of his gunboats bombarded Fort Beauregard, on the Washita, but were driven off by the garrison under Colonel Logan.
At this time I was sorely stricken by domestic grief. On the approach of the enemy to Alexandria my family embarked on a steamer for Shreveport. Accustomed to the gentlest care, my good wife had learned to take action for herself, insisting that she was unwilling to divert the smallest portion of my time from public duty. A moment to say farewell, and she left with our four children, two girls and two boys, all pictures of vigorous health. Before forty-eight hours had passed, just as she reached Shreveport, scarlet fever had taken away our eldest boy, and symptoms of the disease were manifest in the other children. The bereaved mother had no acquaintance in Shreveport, but the Good Samaritan appeared in the person of Mr. Ulger Lauve, a resident of the place, who took her to his house and showed her every attention, though he exposed his own family to great danger from contagion. The second boy died a few days later. The two girls, older and stronger, recovered. I was stunned by this intelligence, so unexpected, and it was well perhaps that the absorbing character of my duties left no time for the indulgence of private grief; but it was sad to think of the afflicted mother, alone with her dead and dying, deprived of the consolation of my presence. Many days passed before we met, and then but for an hour.
My infantry, hardly a thousand strong, with the trains, had marched to Natchitoches and camped, and some mounted scouts to observe the enemy were kept in the vicinity of Alexandria.
On page 309 of the "Report" before quoted, General Banks says: "A force under Generals Weitzel and Dwight pursued the enemy nearly to Grand Ecore, so thoroughly dispersing his forces that he was unable to reorganize a respectable army until July." A party of Federal horse crossed Cane River at Monette's Ferry, forty miles below Grand Ecore, and chased a mounted orderly and myself about four miles, then turned back to Alexandria; but I maintain that the orderly and I were not dispersed, for we remained together to the end.
The Federal army withdrew from Alexandria on the 13th of May, and on the 23d crossed the Mississippi and proceeded to invest Port Hudson; whereupon I returned by steamer to Alexandria, directing the infantry at Natchitoches to march back to the Teche to unite with Mouton. Having obtained supplies on the Sabine, Mouton and Green, the latter promoted to brigadier for gallant conduct, returned to the Teche country, but arrived too late to cut off the enemy, who with large plunder had crossed to the east side of Berwick's Bay, where he had fortifications and gunboats.
At Alexandria a communication from General Kirby Smith informed me that Major-General Walker, with a division of infantry and three batteries, four thousand strong, was on the march from Arkansas, and would reach me within the next few days; and I was directed to employ Walker's force in some attempt to relieve Vicksburg, now invested by General Grant, who had crossed the Mississippi below on the 1st of May.
The peculiar position of Vicksburg and the impossibility of approaching it from the west bank of the Mississippi have been stated, and were now insisted upon. Granting the feasibility of traversing the narrow peninsula opposite the place, seven miles in length and swept by guns afloat on both sides, what would be gained? The problem was to withdraw the garrison, not to reënforce it; and the correctness of this opinion was proved by the fact that Pemberton could not use the peninsular route to send out messengers.
On the other hand, I was confident that, with Walker's force, Berwick's Bay could be captured, the Lafourche overrun, Banks's communication with New Orleans interrupted, and that city threatened. Its population of two hundred thousand was bitterly hostile to Federal rule, and the appearance of a Confederate force on the opposite bank of the river would raise such a storm as to bring General Banks from Port Hudson, the garrison of which could then unite with General Joseph Johnston in the rear of General Grant. Too late to relieve Port Hudson, I accomplished all the rest with a force of less than three thousand of all arms.
Remonstrances were of no avail. I was informed that all the Confederate authorities in the east were urgent for some effort on our part in behalf of Vicksburg, and that public opinion would condemn us if we did not try to do something. To go two hundred miles and more away from the proper theatre of action in search of an indefinite something was hard; but orders are orders. Time was so important that I determined to run the risk of moving Walker by river, though the enemy could bring gunboats into the lower Red and Washita, as well as into the Tensas, and had some troops in the region between this last and the Mississippi. Steamers were held in readiness, and as soon as Walker arrived his command was embarked and taken up the Tensas. I went on in advance to give notice to the boats behind of danger; for, crowded with troops, these would have been helpless in the event of meeting an enemy.
Without interference, a point on the Tensas opposite Vicksburg was reached and the troops disembarked. Here Captain Harrison's mounted men, previously mentioned, met us. For safety the steamers were sent down the Tensas to its junction with the Washita, and up the last above Fort Beauregard; and bridges were thrown over the Tensas and Macon to give communication with the terminus of the Monroe Railway.
Walker rapidly advanced to the village of Richmond, midway between the Tensas and Mississippi, some twelve miles from each, where he surprised and captured a small Federal party. At Young's Point, ten miles above Vicksburg, on the west bank of the river, the enemy had a fortified camp, and a second one four miles above Young's, both occupied by negro troops. Holding one brigade in reserve at the point of separation of the roads, Walker sent a brigade to Young's and another to the camp above. Both attacks were made at dawn, and, with the loss of some scores of prisoners, the negroes were driven over the levee to the protection of gunboats in the river.
Fifteen miles above Vicksburg the Yazoo River enters the Mississippi from the east, and twenty-five miles farther up Steele's Bayou connects the two rivers. Before reaching the Mississippi the Yazoo makes a bend to the south, approaching the rear of Vicksburg. The right of Grant's army rested on this bend, and here his supplies were landed, and his transports were beyond the reach of annoyance from the west bank of the Mississippi.
As foreseen, our movement resulted, and could result, in nothing. Walker was directed to desist from further efforts on the river, and move to Monroe, where steamers would be in readiness to return his command to Alexandria, to which place I pushed on in advance. Subsequently, General Kirby Smith reached Monroe direct from Shreveport, countermanded my orders, and turned Walker back into the region east of the Tensas, where this good soldier and his fine division were kept idle for some weeks, until the fall of Vicksburg. The time wasted on these absurd movements cost us the garrison of Port Hudson, nearly eight thousand men; but the pressure on General Kirby Smith to do something for Vicksburg was too strong to be resisted.
At Alexandria I found three small regiments of Texan horse, just arrived. Together they numbered six hundred and fifty, and restored the loss suffered in action and in long marches by the forces on the Teche. Colonel (afterward brigadier) Major, the senior officer, was ordered to move these regiments to Morgan's Ferry on the Atchafalaya; and by ambulance, with relays of mules, I reached Mouton and Green on the lower Teche in a few hours.
The Federals had a number of sick and convalescent at Berwick's Bay, but the effective force was small. Some works strengthened their positions, and there was a gunboat anchored in the bay. Mouton and Green were directed to collect small boats, skiffs, flats, even sugar-coolers, in the Teche; and the importance of secrecy was impressed upon them. Pickets were doubled to prevent communication with the enemy, and only a few scouts permitted to approach the bay. Returning north to Morgan's Ferry, I crossed the Atchafalaya with Major's command, and moved down the Fordoche and Grosse-Tête, bayous draining the region between the Atchafalaya and Mississippi. A short march brought us near the Fausse Rivière, an ancient bed of the Mississippi, some miles west of the present channel, and opposite Port Hudson.
Halting the command on the Fordoche, I rode out to the estate of an acquaintance on Fausse Rivière, whence the noise of battle at Port Hudson could be heard. Two ladies of the family, recently from New Orleans, told me that the Federal force left in the city would not exceed a thousand men; that a small garrison occupied a work near Donaldsonville, where the Lafourche leaves the Mississippi, and with this exception there were no troops on the west bank of the river. From our position on the Fordoche to the Bayou Boeuf, in rear of the Federal camp at Berwick's Bay, was over a hundred miles. The route followed the Grosse-Tête to Plaquemine on the Mississippi, and to escape observation Plaquemine must be passed in the night. Below this point there was an interior road that reached the Lafourche some distance below Donaldsonville. Minute instructions and guides were given to Major.
It was now the 19th of June, and he was expected to reach the Boeuf on the morning of the 23d. The necessity of punctuality was impressed on him and his officers, as I would attack Berwick's at dawn on the 23d, and their coöperation was required to secure success. Indeed, their own safety depended on promptness. The men carried rations, with some forage, and wagons were sent back across the Atchafalaya. Major moved in time to pass Plaquemine, twenty odd miles, before midnight, and I hastened to Mouton's camp below Bisland, reaching it in the afternoon of the 22d.
Fifty-three small craft, capable of transporting three hundred men, had been collected. Detachments for the boats were drawn from Green's brigade and the 2d Louisiana horse. Major Hunter of Baylor's Texans was placed in command, with Major Blair of the 2d Louisiana as second. After nightfall Hunter embarked his men, and paddled down the Teche to the Atchafalaya and Grand Lake. Fortunately, there was no wind; for the slightest disturbance of the lake would have swamped his fleet. He had about twelve miles to make, and was expected to reach before daylight the northeast end of the island, a mile from Berwick's and the railway terminus, where he was instructed to lie quiet until he heard General Green's guns from the west side of the bay, then rush on the rear of the Federal works. During the night Green placed a battery opposite the gunboat and railway station, and deployed five hundred dismounted men along the shores of the bay, here eight hundred yards wide. The battery was run up by hand, and every precaution to secure silence taken. At dawn of the 23d (June, 1863) our guns opened on the gunboat, and speedily drove it away. Fire was then directed on the earthwork, where the enemy, completely surprised, had some heavy pieces with which he attempted to reply. A shout was heard in his rear, and Hunter with his party came rushing on. Resistance ceased at once; but before Hunter closed in, a train of three engines and many carriages escaped from the station toward the Boeuf, seven miles away. I crossed in a "pirogue" with Green, and sent back two flats and several skiffs found on the east side for his men, who used them to get over, their horses swimming alongside.
It was a scene of the wildest excitement and confusion. The sight of such quantities of "loot" quite upset my hungry followers. Wandering through the station and warehouse, filled with stores, a Texan came upon a telegraphic instrument, clicking in response to one down the line. Supposing this to be some infernal machine for our destruction, he determined to save his friends at the risk of his own life, and smashed the instrument with his heavy boots; then rushed among his comrades, exclaiming: "Boys! they is trying to blow us up. I seen the triggers a-working, but I busted 'em."
Mouton now crossed with some infantry, and order was restored; and Green, who had brought over several scores of horses, mounted his men and followed the rail toward the Boeuf. Before reaching it he heard the noise of the train; then, firing and moving forward, found the train stopped, and Major, up to time, in possession of the bridge. The capture of the train was of importance, as it enabled us to operate the thirty miles of rail between Berwick's and the Lafourche.
In the combined movements described, Green and Major had set out from points more than a hundred miles apart, the latter marching through a region in possession or under control of the enemy, while the boat expedition of Hunter passed over twelve miles of water; yet all reached their goal at the appointed time. Although every precaution had been taken to exclude mistakes and insure coöperation, such complete success is not often attained in combined military movements; and I felt that sacrifices were due to Fortune.
In his rapid march from the Fordoche Major captured seventy prisoners and burned two steamers at Plaquemine. He afterward encountered no enemy until he reached Thibodeaux, near which place, at Lafourche Crossing, there was a stockade held by a small force to protect the railway bridge. Colonel Pyron, with two hundred men, was detached to mask or carry this stockade, and Major passed on to the Boeuf. Pyron's attack was repulsed with a loss of fifty-five killed and wounded, Pyron among the latter; but the enemy, after destroying the bridge, abandoned the post and three guns and retired to New Orleans.
The spoils of Berwick's were of vast importance. Twelve guns, thirty-twos and twenty-fours (among which were our old friends from Bisland), seventeen hundred prisoners, with many small arms and accouterments, and great quantities of quarter-master's, commissary, ordnance, and medical stores, fell into our hands. For the first time since I reached western Louisiana I had supplies, and in such abundance as to serve for the Red River campaign of 1864. Three fourths of the prisoners were sick and convalescent men left here, as well as the stores, by General Banks, when he marched up the Teche in April. Excepting those too ill to be moved, the prisoners were paroled and sent to New Orleans under charge of their surgeons.
I was eager to place batteries on the Mississippi to interrupt Banks's communication with New Orleans; but the passage of Berwick's Bay consumed much time, though we worked night and day. We were forced to dismount guns and carriages and cross them piecemeal in two small flats, and several days elapsed before a little steamer from the upper Teche could be brought down to assist. It must be remembered that neither artillery nor wagons accompanied Major's march from the Fordoche.
On the 24th General Green, with Major's men and such of his own as had crossed their horses, marched for Donaldsonville, sixty-five miles, and General Mouton, with two regiments of infantry, took rail to Thibodeaux and sent pickets down the line to Bayou Des Allemands, twenty-five miles from New Orleans. Our third regiment of infantry remained at the bay, where Major Brent was at work mounting the captured guns on the southern end of the island and on the western shore opposite. Gunboats could stop the crossing, and entrance from the Gulf was open. While we might drive off "tin-clads" the enemy had boats capable of resisting field guns, and it is remarkable that, from the 23d of June to the 22d of July, he made no attempt to disturb us at Berwick's Bay.
General Green reached the vicinity of Donaldsonville on the 27th, and found an earthwork at the junction of the Lafourche and Mississippi. This work, called Fort Butler, had a ditch on three sides, and the river face was covered by gunboats in the stream. The garrison was reported to be from two to three hundred negro troops. After some correspondence with Mouton, Green determined to assault the place, and drew around it five hundred of his men in the night of the 27th. Two hours before dawn of the 28th Colonel Joseph Phillipps led his regiment, two hundred strong, to the attack. Darkness and ignorance of the ground caused much blundering. The levee above the fort was mistaken for the parapet, and some loss was sustained from the fire of gunboats. Changing direction, Phillipps came upon the ditch, unknown to him as to Green, who had been deceived by false information. The ditch passed, Phillipps mounted the parapet and fell dead as he reached the top. An equally brave man, Major Ridley, worthy of his leader, followed, and, calling on his men to come, jumped into the work. Frightened by his appearance, the enemy abandoned the parapet; but finding that Ridley was alone, returned and captured him. A dozen men would have carried the place; but the ditch afforded protection from fire, and the men, disheartened by Phillipps's death, could not be induced to leave it. Indeed, the largest part of our loss, ninety-seven, was made up of these men, who remained in the ditch until daylight and surrendered.
The above statements are taken from the report of Major Ridley, made after he was exchanged. The affair was unfortunate. Open to fire from vessels on the river, Fort Butler was of no value to us, and the feeble garrison would have remained under cover; but, like the Irishman at Donnybrook, Green's rule was to strike an enemy whenever he saw him--a most commendable rule in war, and covering a multitude of such small errors as the attack on Fort Butler.
Meantime I was detained at Berwick's Bay, engaged in hurrying over and forward artillery and arranging to transport the more valuable stores into the interior. It was not, however, until near the end of the first week in July that I succeeded in placing twelve guns on the river below Donaldsonville. Fire was opened, one transport destroyed and several turned back. Gunboats attempted to dislodge us, but were readily driven away by the aid of Green's men, dismounted and protected by the levee. For three days the river was closed to transports, and our mounted scouts were pushed down to a point opposite Kenner, sixteen miles above New Orleans. A few hours more, and the city would have been wild with excitement; but in war time once lost can not be regained. The unwise movement toward Vicksburg retarded operations at Berwick's and on the river, and Port Hudson fell. During the night of the 10th of July intelligence of its surrender on the previous day reached me, and some hours later the fall of Vicksburg on the 4th was announced.
An iron-clad or two in Berwick's Bay, and the road at Plaquemine held by troops, supported by vessels in the river, would close all egress from the Lafourche, and the enemy could make arrangements to bag us at his leisure; while Grant's army and Porter's fleet, now set free, might overrun the Washita and Red River regions and destroy Walker's division, separated from me by a distance of more than three hundred miles. The outlook was not cheerful, but it was necessary to make the best of it, and at all hazards save our plunder. Batteries and outposts were ordered in to the Lafourche; Green concentrated his horse near Donaldsonville, the infantry moved to Labadieville to support him, and Mouton went to Berwick's, where he worked night and day in crossing stores to the west side of the bay.
On the 13th of July Generals Weitzel, Grover, and Dwight, with six thousand men, came from Port Hudson, disembarked at Donaldsonville, and advanced down the Lafourche. Ordering up the infantry, I joined Green, but did not interfere with his dispositions, which were excellent. His force, fourteen hundred, including a battery, was dismounted and in line. As I reached the field the enemy came in sight, and Green led on his charge so vigorously as to drive the Federals into Donaldsonville, capturing two hundred prisoners, many small arms, and two guns, one of which was the field gun lost at Bisland. The affair was finished too speedily to require the assistance of the infantry.
Undisturbed, we removed not only all stores from Berwick's, but many supplies from the abundant Lafourche country, including a large herd of cattle driven from the prairies of Opelousas by the Federals some weeks before. On the 21st of July, we ran the engines and carriages on the railway into the bay, threw in the heavy guns, and moved up the Teche, leaving pickets opposite Berwick's. Twenty-four hours thereafter the enemy's scouts reached the bay. The timidity manifested after the action of the 13th may be ascribed to the fertile imagination of the Federal commander, General Banks, which multiplied my force of less than three thousand of all arms into nine or twelve thousand.
In the "Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., pages 313 and 314, General Banks states:
"Orders had been sent to Brashear City [Berwick's] to remove all stores, but to hold the position, with the aid of gunboats, to the last. The enemy succeeded in crossing Grand Lake by means of rafts, and surprised and captured the garrison, consisting of about three hundred men. The enemy, greatly strengthened in numbers, then attacked the works at Donaldsonville, on the Mississippi, which were defended by a garrison of two hundred and twenty-five men, including convalescents, commanded by Major J.D. Bullen, 28th Maine volunteers. The attack was made on the morning of the 28th of June, and lasted until daylight. The garrison made a splendid defense, killing and wounding more than their own number, and capturing as many officers and nearly as many men as their garrison numbered. The enemy's troops were under the command of General Green of Texas, and consisted of the Louisiana troops under General Taylor and five thousand Texas cavalry, making a force of nine to twelve thousand in that vicinity.
"The troops engaged in these different operations left but four hundred men for the defense of New Orleans. Upon the surrender of Port Hudson it was found that the enemy had established batteries below, on the river, cutting off our communication with New Orleans, making it necessary to send a large force to dislodge them. On the 9th of July seven transports, containing all my available force, were sent below against the enemy in the vicinity of Donaldsonville. The country was speedily freed from his presence, and Brashear City [Berwick's] was recaptured on the 22d of July."
Here are remarkable statements. Fourteen hundred men and the vast stores at Berwick's (Brashear City) are omitted, as is the action of the 13th of July with "all my [his] available force.... The country was speedily freed from his [my] presence, and Brashear City reoccupied," though I remained in the country for eleven days after the 9th, and had abandoned Brashear City twenty-four hours before the first Federal scout made his appearance. The conduct of Major J.D. Bullen, 28th Maine volunteers, with two hundred and twenty-five negroes, "including convalescents," appears to have surpassed that of Leonidas and his Spartans; but, like the early gods, modern democracies are pleased by large utterances.
While we were engaged in these operations on the Lafourche, a movement of Grant's forces from Natchez was made against Fort Beauregard on the Washita. The garrison of fifty men abandoned the place on the 3d of September, leaving four heavy and four field guns, with their ammunition, to be destroyed or carried off by the enemy.
MOVEMENT TO THE RED RIVER--CAMPAIGN AGAINST BANKS.
Recent events on the Mississippi made it necessary to concentrate my small force in the immediate valley of Red River. Indeed, when we lost Vicksburg and Port Hudson, we lost not only control of the river but of the valley from the Washita and Atchafalaya on the west to Pearl River on the east. An army of forty odd thousand men, with all its material, was surrendered in the two places, and the fatal consequences were felt to the end of the struggle. The policy of shutting up large bodies of troops in fortifications, without a relieving army near at hand, can not be too strongly reprobated. Vicksburg should have been garrisoned by not more than twenty-five hundred men, and Port Hudson by a thousand. These would have been ample to protect the batteries against a sudden coup, and forty thousand men added to General Joseph Johnston's force would have prevented the investment of the places, or at least made their loss of small moment.
After wasting three months in ineffectual attempts to divert the channel of the Mississippi, General Grant ran gunboats and transports by the batteries, and crossed the river below. Instead of meeting this movement with every available man, Pemberton detached General Bowen with a weak division, who successfully resisted the Federal advance for many hours, vainly calling the while for reënforcements. Pemberton then illustrated the art of war by committing every possible blunder. He fought a series of actions with fractions against the enemy's masses, and finished by taking his defeated fragments into the Vicksburg trap. It may be stated, however, that, had he acted wisely and kept out of Vicksburg, he would have been quite as much hounded as he subsequently was.
Grant's error in undertaking an impossible work cost him three months' time and the loss by disease of many thousands of his men. The event showed that he could as readily have crossed the river below Vicksburg at first as at last; but, once over, he is entitled to credit for promptly availing himself of his adversary's mistakes and vigorously following him. The same may be said of his first success at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The terror inspired by gunboats in the first year of the war has been alluded to; and at Fort Donelson General Grant had another potent ally. The two senior Confederate generals, politicians rather than warriors, retired from command on the approach of the enemy. One can imagine the effect of such conduct, unique in war, on the raw troops left behind. General Buckner, an educated soldier, was too heavily handicapped by his worthy superiors to make a successful defense, and General Grant secured an easy victory. "Among the blind, the one-eyed are kings."
General Grant's first essay at Belmont failed, and at Shiloh he was out-manoeuvred and out-fought by Sidney Johnston, and, indeed, he was saved from destruction by Johnston's death. Before he moved against Bragg at Missionary Ridge, the latter had detached Longstreet with a third of his force, while he (Grant) reënforced Thomas with most of the Vicksburg army and two strong corps under Hooker from the east. The historian of the Federal Army of the Potomac states that, in reply to a question of General Meade, Grant said: "I never manoeuvre"; and one has but to study the Virginia campaign of 1864, and imagine an exchange of resources by Grant and Lee, to find the true place of the former among the world's commanders. He will fall into the class represented by Marshal Villars and the Duke of Cumberland.
Genius is God-given, but men are responsible for their acts; and it should be said of General Grant that, as far as I am aware, he made war in the true spirit of a soldier, never by deed or word inflicting wrong on non-combatants. It would be to the credit of the United States army if similar statements could be made of Generals Sherman and Sheridan.
Released at length from the swamps of the Tensas, where it had suffered from sickness, Walker's division of Texas infantry joined me in the early autumn, and was posted to the north of Opelousas. Major-General J.G. Walker served as a captain of mounted rifles in the war with Mexico. Resigning from the United States army to join the Confederacy, he commanded a division at the capture of Harper's Ferry in 1862, and in the subsequent battle of Antietam; after which he was transferred to Arkansas. Seconded by good brigade and regimental officers, he had thoroughly disciplined his men, and made them in every sense soldiers; and their efficiency in action was soon established.
On the 29th of September Green, with his horse and a part of Mouton's brigade of Louisiana infantry, crossed the Atchafalaya at Morgan's Ferry, and attacked and routed the enemy on the Fordoche, capturing four hundred and fifty prisoners and two guns. Green lost a hundred in killed and wounded; the enemy, who fought under cover, less than half that number.
In October the Federals moved a large force of all arms up the Teche, their advance reaching the Courtableau. I concentrated for a fight, but they suddenly retired to the Bayou Bourbeau, three miles south of Opelousas, where they left a considerable body under General Burbridge. On the 3d of November Green, reënforced by three regiments of Walker's division, was ordered to attack them, and they were beaten with the loss of six hundred prisoners. This was the first opportunity I had had of observing the admirable conduct of Walker's men in action. Green's pursuit was stopped by the approach of heavy masses of the enemy from the south, who seemed content with the rescue of Burbridge, as they retired at once to the vicinity of New Iberia, fifty miles away. Green followed with a part of his horse, and kept his pickets close up; but one of his regiments permitted itself to be surprised at night, on the open prairie near New Iberia, and lost a hundred men out of a hundred and twenty-five. So much for want of discipline and over-confidence. General Banks's report mentions this capture, but is silent about Bourbeau.
The prisoners taken at the Bourbeau were marched to the Red River, where supplies could be had. The second day after the action, en route for Alexandria in an ambulance, I turned out of the road on to the prairie to pass the column, when I observed an officer, in the uniform of a colonel, limping along with his leg bandaged. Surprised at this, I stopped to inquire the reason, and was told that the colonel refused to separate from his men. Descending from the ambulance, I approached him, and, as gently as possible, remonstrated against the folly of walking on a wounded leg. He replied that his wound was not very painful, and he could keep up with the column. His regiment was from Wisconsin, recruited among his neighbors and friends, and he was very unwilling to leave it. I insisted on his riding with me, for a time at least, as we would remain on the road his men were following. With much reluctance he got into the ambulance, and we drove on. For some miles he was silent, but, avoiding subjects connected with the war, I put him at ease, and before Alexandria was reached we were conversing pleasantly. Impressed by his bearing and demeanor, I asked him in what way I could serve him, and learned that he desired to send a letter to his wife in Wisconsin, who was in delicate health and expecting to be confined. She would hear of the capture of his regiment, and be uncertain as to his fate. "You shall go to the river to-night," I replied, "catch one of your steamers, and take home the assurance of your safety. Remain on parole until you can send me an officer of equal rank, and I will look to the comfort of your men and have them exchanged at the earliest moment." His manly heart was so affected by this as to incapacitate him from expressing his thanks.
During the administration of Andrew Johnson a convention met in the city of Philadelphia which, at the earnest instance of the President, I attended. The gallant Wisconsin colonel was also there to lend his assistance in healing the wounds of civil strife. My presence in the city of brotherly love furnished an occasion to a newspaper to denounce me as "a rebel who, with hands dripping with loyal blood, had the audacity to show myself in a loyal community." Whereupon my Wisconsin friend, accompanied by a number of persons from his State, called on me to express condemnation of the article in question, and was ready, with the slightest encouragement, to make the newspaper office a hot place. This was the difference between brave soldiers and non-fighting politicians, who grew fat by inflaming the passions of sectional hate.
The ensuing winter of 1863-4 was without notable events. Control of the Mississippi enabled the enemy to throw his forces upon me from above and below Red River, and by gunboats interfere with my movements along this stream; and as soon as the Lafourche campaign ended, steps were taken to provide against these contingencies. Twenty miles south of Alexandria a road leaves the Boeuf, an effluent of Red River, and passes through pine forest to Burr's Ferry on the Sabine. Twenty odd miles from the Boeuf this road intersects another from Opelousas to Fort Jesup, an abandoned military post, thence to Pleasant Hill, Mansfield, and Shreveport. At varying distances of twelve to thirty miles the valley of the Red River is an arc, of which this last-mentioned road is the chord, and several routes from the valley cross to ferries on the Sabine above Burr's. But the country between the Boeuf and Pleasant Hill, ninety miles, was utterly barren, and depots of forage, etc., were necessary before troops could march through it. With great expenditure of time and labor depots were established, with small detachments to guard them; and events proved that the time and labor were well bestowed.
Movements of the Federals along the west coast of Texas in November induced General Kirby Smith to withdraw from me Green's command of Texas horse, and send it to Galveston. This left me with but one mounted regiment, Vincent's 2d Louisiana, and some independent companies, which last were organized into two regiments--one, on the Washita, by Colonel Harrison, the other, on the Teche, by Colonel Bush; but they were too raw to be effective in the approaching campaign. Mouton's brigade of Louisiana infantry could be recruited to some extent; but the Texas infantry received no recruits, and was weakened by the ordinary casualties of camp life, as well as by the action of the Shreveport authorities. The commander of the "Trans-Mississippi Department" displayed much ardor in the establishment of bureaux, and on a scale proportioned rather to the extent of his territory than to the smallness of his force. His staff surpassed in numbers that of Von Moltke during the war with France; and, to supply the demands of bureaux and staff, constant details from the infantry were called for, to the great discontent of the officers in the field. Hydrocephalus at Shreveport produced atrophy elsewhere. Extensive works for defense were constructed there, and heavy guns mounted; and, as it was known that I objected to fortifications beyond mere water batteries, for reasons already stated, the chief engineer of the "department" was sent to Fort De Russy to build an iron-casemated battery and other works. We shall see what became of De Russy.
In the winter there joined me from Arkansas a brigade of Texas infantry, numbering seven hundred muskets. The men had been recently dismounted, and were much discontented thereat. Prince Charles Polignac, a French gentleman of ancient lineage, and a brigadier in the Confederate army, reported for duty about the same time, and was assigned to command this brigade. The Texans swore that a Frenchman, whose very name they could not pronounce, should never command them, and mutiny was threatened. I went to their camp, assembled the officers, and pointed out the consequences of disobedience, for which I should hold them accountable; but promised that if they remained dissatisfied with their new commander after an action, I would then remove him. Order was restored, but it was up-hill work for General Polignac for some time, notwithstanding his patience and good temper. The incongruity of the relation struck me, and I thought of sending my monte-dealing Texas colonel to Paris, to command a brigade of the Imperial Guard.
In the first weeks of 1864 the enemy sent a gunboat expedition up the Washita, and Polignac's brigade, with a battery, was moved to Trinity to meet it. The gunboats were driven off, and Polignac, by his coolness under fire, gained the confidence of his men, as he soon gained their affections by his care and attention. They got on famously, and he made capital soldiers out of them. General Polignac returned to Europe in 1865, and as he had shown great gallantry and talent for war while serving with me, I hoped that he might come to the front during the struggle with Germany; but he belonged to that race of historic gentry whose ancestors rallied to the white plume of Henry at Ivry, and followed the charge of Condé at Rocroy. Had he been a shopkeeper or scribbling attorney, he might have found favor with the dictator who ruled France.
All the information received during the months of January and February, 1864, indicated a movement against me in the early spring; and in the latter month it was ascertained that Porter's fleet and a part of Sherman's army from Vicksburg would join Banks's forces in the movement, while Steele would coöperate from Little Rock, Arkansas. This information was communicated to department headquarters, and I asked that prompt measures should be taken to reënforce me; but it was "a far cry" to Shreveport as to "Lochow," and the emergency seemed less pressing in the rear than at the front.
The end of February found my forces distributed as follows: Harrison's mounted regiment (just organized), with a four-gun battery, was in the north, toward Monroe; Mouton's brigade near Alexandria; Polignac's at Trinity on the Washita, fifty-five miles distant; Walker's division at Marksville and toward Simmsport on the Atchafalaya, with two hundred men under Colonel Byrd detached to assist the gunners at De Russy, which, yet unfinished, contained eight heavy guns and two field pieces. Walker had three companies of Vincent's horse on the east side of the Atchafalaya, watching the Mississippi. The remainder of Vincent's regiment was on the Teche.
Increased activity and concentration at Berwick's Bay, and a visit of Sherman to New Orleans to confer with Banks, warned me of the impending blow; and on the 7th of March Polignac was ordered to move at once to Alexandria, and thence, with Mouton's brigade, to the Boeuf, twenty-five miles south. Harrison was directed to get his regiment and battery to the west bank of the Washita, gather to him several independent local companies of horse, and report to General Liddell, sent to command on the north bank of Red River, whence he was to harass the enemy's advance up that stream. Vincent was ordered to leave flying scouts on the Teche and move his regiment, with such men as Bush had recruited, to Opelousas, whence he afterward joined me on the Burr's Ferry road. At Alexandria steamers were loaded with stores and sent above the falls, and everything made ready to evacuate the place. These arrangements were not completed a moment too soon.
On March 12th Admiral Porter, with nineteen gunboats, followed by ten thousand men of Sherman's army, entered the mouth of Red River. (These numbers are from Federal official reports.) On the 13th, under cover of a part of the fleet, the troops debarked at Simmsport, on the Atchafalaya near the Red, other vessels ascending the latter stream, and on the 14th, under command of General A.J. Smith, marched to De Russy, thirty miles, which they reached about 5 P.M. As stated, the work was incomplete, and had time been given me would have been abandoned. Attacked in the rear, the garrison surrendered after losing ten killed and wounded. Byrd's two hundred men were in rifle pits on the river below, where gunboats, under Commander Phelps, were removing obstructions in the channel. A number of Byrd's men and a few gunners escaped to the swamps and rejoined their commands; but we lost a hundred and eighty-five prisoners, eight heavy guns, and two field pieces. Thus much for our Red River Gibraltar.
Cut off from direct communication by the sudden appearance of the enemy on the 12th, the three mounted companies east of the Atchafalaya were forced to cross at Morgan's Ferry, below Simmsport, and did not rejoin Walker until the 15th. This officer was thereby left without means of information; but, judging correctly of the numbers of the enemy by a personal observation of his transports and fleet, he fell back from his advanced position to the Boeuf, forty miles, where he was united with Mouton and Polignac. His division at this time was reduced to some thirty-three hundred muskets, too weak to make head against A.J. Smith's column.
On the afternoon of the 15th of March the advanced boats of Porter's fleet reached Alexandria, whence all stores had been removed; but, by the mismanagement of a pilot, one steamer was grounded on the falls and had to be burned.
In the "Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., page 192, Colonel J.S. Clarke, aide-de-camp to General Banks, states that Banks's army in this campaign was twenty-eight thousand strong, eighteen thousand under Franklin, ten thousand under A.J. Smith. General Steele, operating from Arkansas, reports his force at seven thousand; and the number of gunboats given is taken from the reports of Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy.
To meet Porter and A.J. Smith, Major-General Franklin had left the lower Teche on the 13th for Alexandria, with eighteen thousand men. My entire force on the south side of Red River consisted of fifty-three hundred infantry, five hundred horse, and three hundred artillerymen; and Liddell, on the north, had about the same number of horse and a four-gun battery. From Texas, if at all, the delayed reënforcements must come, and it was vital to cover the roads from the Sabine.
From the Boeuf, on the 16th, I marched on the Burr's Ferry road to Carroll Jones's, which was reached on the evening of the 18th. Here, where the Burr's Ferry and Natchitoches roads separated, was a depot of forage, and I camped.
Polignac's and the Louisiana brigade, under Colonel Gray, were united in a division for General Mouton. Vincent's horse, from Opelousas, joined on the 19th, and on the following day was sent forward to the Bayou Rapides, twelve miles, where it skirmished with the enemy's horse from Alexandria, twenty miles below. At dawn of the 21st Edgar's battery, four guns, was sent to strengthen Vincent, and posted in a strong position near James's Store, where it overlooked and commanded the valley.
Meanwhile, couriers were dispatched to the Sabine to inform approaching reënforcements of my position, and direct them on to the Fort Jesup road. The 21st proved to be a cold, rainy day, with gusts of wind. Toward evening the sound of Edgar's guns was heard. Fearing a surprise during the night, Captain Elgee of my staff was sent to withdraw the battery and warn Vincent of the necessity of vigilance; but the enemy had been too prompt. Vincent's pickets found their fires more agreeable than outposts. At nightfall the battery and a number of the horse were captured, as was Captain Elgee, who rode up just after the event. We lost the four guns, with their caissons, and two hundred men. Vincent, with the remainder of his command escaped. In truth, my horse was too ill disciplined for close work. On the 22d we marched to Beaseley's, twelve miles, and remained until the 29th, hoping that reënforcements would reach us. Beaseley's was a depot of forage, and covered roads to Fort Jesup and Natchitoches; and a cross road reached the Red River valley at a point twenty-five miles below the latter place, by which some supplies were obtained. As no reënforcements arrived, and the enemy was moving up the river, the troops were ordered to Pleasant Hill via Fort Jesup, forty miles, and I went to Natchitoches, thirty miles. Here, on the night of the 30th, I met Colonel McNeill's regiment of Texas horse, numbering two hundred and fifty men, of whom fifty were without arms; and the following morning Colonel Herbert came in, with a hundred and twenty-five of his three hundred and fifty men unarmed. These were a part of Green's command, and the first reënforcements received.
The enemy's advance reached Natchitoches, by the river road, on the 31st, and McNeill and Herbert were directed to fall back slowly toward Pleasant Hill, thirty-six miles. I remained in the town until the enemy entered, then rode four miles to Grand Ecore, where, in the main channel of Red River, a steamer was awaiting me. Embarking, I went up river to Blair's Landing, forty miles by the windings of the stream, whence was a road, sixteen miles, to Pleasant Hill. Four miles from Blair's was Bayou Pierre, a large arm of the river, crossed by a ferry. At Pleasant Hill, on the 1st of April, Walker and Mouton, with their infantry divisions, artillery, and trains joined me, as did Green with his staff. From the latter I learned that De Bray's regiment of cavalry, with two batteries and trains, was in march from Fort Jesup. As the enemy was moving from Natchitoches, and could strike the Jesup road across country, De Bray was ordered to push forward his artillery and wagons, and look well to his right. He reached Pleasant Hill after dark. The enemy attempted to impede the march, but was driven off, with a loss of five wounded to De Bray. During the day our horse, toward Natchitoches, had some skirmishing.
It appeared that General Major, with the remainder of Green's horse, could not get up before the 6th, and he was directed to cross the Sabine at Logansport and march to Mansfield, twenty miles in my rear. This insured his march against disturbance; and, to give him time, I halted two days at Pleasant Hill, prepared for action. But the enemy showed no disposition to advance seriously, and on the 4th and 5th the infantry moved to Mansfield, where on the following day Major, with his horse and Buchell's regiment of cavalry, joined. General Major was sent to Pleasant Hill to take charge of the advance.
De Bray's and Buchell's regiments have been spoken of as cavalry to distinguish them from mounted infantry, herein called horse. They had never before left their State (Texas), were drilled and disciplined, and armed with sabers. Buchell's regiment was organized in the German settlement of New Braunfels. The men had a distinct idea that they were fighting for their adopted country, and their conduct in battle was in marked contrast to that of the Germans whom I had encountered in the Federal army in Virginia. Colonel Buchell had served in the Prussian army, and was an instructed soldier. Three days after he joined me, he was mortally wounded in action, and survived but a few hours. I sat beside him as his brave spirit passed away. The old "Fatherland" sent no bolder horseman to battle at Rossbach or Gravelotte.
During this long retreat of two hundred miles from the banks of the Atchafalaya to Mansfield, I had been in correspondence with General Kirby Smith at Shreveport, and always expressed my intention to fight as soon as reënforcements reached me. General Kirby Smith thought that I would be too weak to meet the enemy, even with all possible reënforcements, and suggested two courses: one, to hold the works at Shreveport until he could concentrate a force to relieve me; the other, to retire into Texas and induce the enemy to follow us.
My objection to the first suggestion was, that it would result in the surrender of the troops and Shreveport, as it would be impossible to raise a new force for their relief; and to the second, that its consequences would be quite as disastrous as a defeat, as it would be an abandonment of Louisiana and southern Arkansas. The men from these States might be expected to leave us, and small blame to them; while from the interior of Texas we could give no more aid to our brethren on the east of the Mississippi than from the Sandwich Islands. General Kirby Smith did not insist on the adoption of either of his own suggestions, nor express an approval of mine; but when Mansfield was reached, a decision became necessary.
Three roads lead from this place to Shreveport, the Kingston, Middle, and Keachi. The distance by the first, the one nearest to the valley of Red River, is thirty-eight miles; by the second, forty; and by the third, forty-five. From Keachi, five and twenty miles from Mansfield and twenty from Shreveport, roads cross the Sabine into Texas. Past Mansfield, then, the enemy would have three roads, one of which would be near his fleet on the river, and could avail himself of his great superiority in numbers. This was pointed out to the "Aulic Council" at Shreveport, but failed to elicit any definite response.
On the 21st of March there had reached Shreveport, from Price's command in Arkansas, two brigades of Missouri infantry and two of Arkansas, numbering together forty-four hundred muskets. These troops I had repeatedly asked for, but they were retained at Shreveport until the afternoon of the 4th of April, when they marched to Keachi, and reported to me from that place on the morning of the 6th. Supplies were far from abundant in the vicinity of Mansfield; and as I might at any moment receive an order to retire to Keachi, they were directed to remain there for the present. Green, now promoted to major-general, was placed in command of all the horse, with Brigadiers Bee, Major, and Bagby under him.
On the morning of the 7th of April, Major, from Pleasant Hill, reported the enemy advancing in force; whereupon Green went to the front. Later in the day the southerly wind brought such distinct sounds of firing to Mansfield as to induce me to join Green. Riding hard, I suddenly met some fifty men from the front, and reined up to speak to them; but, before I could open my mouth, received the following rebuke from one of the party for a bad habit: "General! if you won't curse us, we will go back with you." I bowed to the implied homily, rode on, followed by the men, and found Green fighting a superior force of horse. Putting in my little reënforcement, I joined him, and enjoyed his method of managing his wild horsemen; and he certainly accomplished more with them than any one else could have done. After some severe work, the enemy's progress was arrested, and it became evident that Green could camp that night at a mill stream seven miles from Pleasant Hill, a matter of importance.
The roads in this region follow the high ridge dividing the drainage of Red River from that of the Sabine, and water is very scarce. Between Pleasant Hill and Mansfield but two streams are found, the one above mentioned, and a smaller, seven miles nearer to the latter place. For twenty miles from Pleasant Hill toward Natchitoches there was little or no water; and at Pleasant Hill itself we had exhausted the wells and reduced the store in cisterns during our stay. This, as it affected movements and positions of troops, should be borne in mind.
Leaving Green, I returned to Mansfield, stopping on the road to select my ground for the morrow. This was in the edge of a wood, fronting an open field eight hundred yards in width by twelve hundred in length, through the center of which the road to Pleasant Hill passed. On the opposite side of the field was a fence separating it from the pine forest, which, open on the higher ground and filled with underwood on the lower, spread over the country. The position was three miles in front of Mansfield, and covered a cross-road leading to the Sabine. On either side of the main Mansfield-Pleasant Hill road, at two miles' distance, was a road parallel to it and connected by this Sabine cross-road.
General Churchill, commanding the Missouri-Arkansas troops at Keachi, was ordered to march for Mansfield at dawn of the 8th, and advised that a battle was impending. My medical director was instructed to prepare houses in the village for hospitals, and quartermasters were told to collect supplies and park surplus wagons. An officer with a small guard was selected to preserve order in the town, and especially among the wagoners, always disposed to "stampede." Walker and Mouton were ordered to move their divisions in the morning, ready for action, to the position selected; and a staff officer was sent to Green, with instructions to leave a small force in front of the enemy, and before dawn withdraw to the appointed ground. These arrangements made, a dispatch was sent to General Kirby Smith at Shreveport, informing him that I had returned from the front, found the enemy advancing in force, and would give battle on the following day, April 8, 1864, unless positive orders to the contrary were sent to me. This was about 9 P.M. of the 7th.
My confidence of success in the impending engagement was inspired by accurate knowledge of the Federal movements, as well as the character of their commander, General Banks, whose measure had been taken in the Virginia campaigns of 1862 and since.
On the morning of the 7th of April Admiral Porter left Grand Ecore with six gunboats and twenty transports, on which last were embarked some twenty-five hundred troops. The progress of these vessels up the river was closely watched by an officer of my staff, who was also in communication with General Liddell on the north side. Banks began his movement from Grand Ecore to Pleasant Hill on the 6th, with an estimated force of twenty-five thousand. Though lateral roads existed, his column marched by the main one, and in the following order: Five thousand mounted men led the advance, followed by a large wagon train and much artillery. Infantry succeeded, then more wagons and artillery, then infantry again. In the afternoon of the 7th I knew that the front and rear of his column were separated by a distance of twenty miles.
My troops reached the position in front of Sabine cross-road at an early hour on the 8th, and were disposed as follows: On the right of the road to Pleasant Hill, Walker's infantry division of three brigades, with two batteries; on the left, Mouton's, of two brigades and two batteries. As Green's men came in from the front, they took position, dismounted, on Mouton's left. A regiment of horse was posted on each of the parallel roads mentioned, and De Bray's cavalry, with McMahon's battery, held in reserve on the main road. Dense forest prevented the employment of much artillery, and, with the exception of McMahon's, which rendered excellent service, none was used in the action.
I had on the field fifty-three hundred infantry; three thousand horse, and five hundred artillerymen--in all, eight thousand eight hundred men, a very full estimate. But the vicious dispositions of the enemy made me confident of beating all the force he could concentrate during the day; and on the morrow Churchill, with forty-four hundred muskets, would be up.
The forenoon of the 8th wore on as the troops got into position. Riding along the line, I stopped in front of the Louisiana brigade of Mouton's division, and made what proved to be an unfortunate remark to the men: "As they were fighting in defense of their own soil I wished the Louisiana troops to draw the first blood." But they were already inflamed by many outrages on their homes, as well as by camp rumors that it was intended to abandon their State without a fight. At this moment our advanced horse came rushing in, hard followed by the enemy. A shower of bullets reached Mouton's line, one of which struck my horse, and a body of mounted men charged up to the front of the 18th Louisiana. A volley from this regiment sent them back with heavy loss. Infantry was reported in the wood opposite my left. This was a new disposition of the enemy, for on the 6th and 7th his advance consisted of horse alone; and to meet it, Mouton was strengthened by moving Randall's brigade of Walker's from the right to the left of the road. To cover this change, skirmishers were thrown forward and De Bray's regiment deployed in the field.
The enemy showing no disposition to advance, at 4 P.M. I ordered a forward movement of my whole line. The ardor of Mouton's troops, especially the Louisianians, could not be restrained by their officers. Crossing the field under a heavy fire of artillery and small arms, the division reached the fence, paused for a moment to draw breath, then rushed into the wood on the enemy. Here our loss was severe. General Mouton was killed, as were Colonels Armand, Beard, and Walker, commanding the 18th, Crescent, and 28th Louisiana regiments of Gray's brigade. Major Canfield of the Crescent also fell, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clack of the same regiment was mortally wounded. As these officers went down, others, among whom Adjutant Blackman was conspicuous, seized the colors and led on the men. Polignac's brigade, on the left of Gray's, also suffered heavily. Colonel Noble, 17th Texas, with many others, was killed. Polignac, left in command by the death of Mouton, displayed ability and pressed the shattered division steadily forward. Randall, with his fine brigade, supported him on the right; while Major's dismounted men, retarded by dense wood, much to the impatience of General Green, gradually turned the enemy's right, which was forced back with loss of prisoners and guns.
On the right of the main road General Walker, with Waul's and Scurry's brigades, encountered but little resistance until he had crossed the open field and entered the wood. Finding that he outflanked the enemy's left, he kept his right brigade, Scurry's, advanced, and swept everything before him.
The first Federal line, consisting of all the mounted force and one division of the 13th army corps, was in full flight, leaving prisoners, guns, and wagons in our hands. Two miles to the rear of the first position, the 2d division of the 13th corps brought up, but was speedily routed, losing guns and prisoners; and our advance continued. Near sunset, four miles from our original position, the 19th army corps was found, drawn up on a ridge overlooking a small stream. Fatigued, and disordered by their long advance through dense wood, my men made no impression for a time on this fresh body of troops; but possession of the water was all-important, for there was none other between this and Mansfield. Walker, Green, and Polignac led on their weary men, and I rode down to the stream. There was some sharp work, but we persisted, the enemy fell back, and the stream was held, just as twilight faded into darkness.
Twenty-five hundred prisoners, twenty pieces of artillery, several stands of colors, many thousands of small arms, and two hundred and fifty wagons were the fruits of victory in the battle of Mansfield. Eight thousand of the enemy, his horse and two divisions of infantry, had been utterly routed, and over five thousand of the 19th corps driven back at sunset. With a much smaller force on the field, we invariably outnumbered the enemy at the fighting point; and foreseeing the possibility of this, I was justified in my confidence of success. The defeat of the Federal army was largely due to the ignorance and arrogance of its commander, General Banks, who attributed my long retreat to his own wonderful strategy.
Night put an end to the struggle along the little stream, and my troops camped by the water.
A dispatch was sent to General Kirby Smith, at Shreveport, to inform him of the result of the day's fighting, and of my intention to push the enemy on the following morning. Leaving instructions for Green, with all the mounted force, to pursue at dawn, I rode to Mansfield to look after our wounded and meet Churchill. The precautions taken had preserved order in the village throughout the day. Hospitals had been prepared, the wounded brought in and cared for, prisoners and captured property disposed of. Churchill came and reported his command in camp, four miles from Mansfield, on the Keachi road; and he was directed to prepare two days' rations, and march toward Pleasant Hill at 3 A.M.
Sitting by my camp fire to await the movement of Churchill's column, I was saddened by recollection of the many dead, and the pleasure of victory was turned to grief as I counted the fearful cost at which it had been won. Of the Louisianians fallen, most were acquaintances, many had been neighbors and friends; and they were gone. Above all, the death of gallant Mouton affected me. He had joined me soon after I reached western Louisiana, and had ever proved faithful to duty. Modest, unselfish, and patriotic, he showed best in action, always leading his men. I thought of his wife and children, and of his father, Governor Mouton, whose noble character I have attempted to portray.
Churchill's march disturbed these solemn reveries, and I returned to the front, where Walker and Green were awaiting the approaching day. The horse, with a battery, moved early to Pleasant Hill, fourteen miles, leaving Walker and Polignac to follow Churchill's column as soon as it had passed. I rode with Green, and we found many stragglers, scattered arms, and burning wagons, showing the haste of the enemy's retreat. The mill stream, seven miles distant, was reached, then the vicinity of Pleasant Hill, before a shot was fired. A short mile in front of the latter place the enemy was found; and as our rapid advance had left the infantry far to the rear, feints were made to the right and left to develop his position and strength.
The village of Pleasant Hill occupies part of a plateau, a mile wide from east to west, along the Mansfield and Fort Jesup road. The highest ground, called College Hill, is on the west, and here enters a road from the Sabine, which, sixteen miles to the east, strikes the Red River at Blair's Landing; while, from the necessity of turning Spanish Lake, the distance to Natchitoches and Grand Ecore is thirty-six miles. The Federal fleet, with accompanying troops, was now many miles above Blair's, which by river is forty-five miles above Grand Ecore. Driven from Pleasant Hill to the latter place, the Federal forces would be widely separated, and might be destroyed in detail. Though it appeared to be the enemy's intention to continue his retreat, as he was known to be moving back his trains, yet if undisturbed he might find courage to attempt a junction with his fleet at Blair's Landing; and I did not wish to lose the advantage of the morale gained by success on the previous day.
Our reconnoissance showed that the Federal lines extended across the open plateau, from College Hill on their left to a wooded height on the right of the road to Mansfield. Winding along in front of this position was a gully cut by winter rains, but now dry, and bordered by a thick growth of young pines, with fallen timber interspersed. This was held by the enemy's advanced infantry, with his main line and guns on the plateau. Separating the gully and thicket from the forest toward Mansfield was an open field, several hundred yards wide near the road, but diminishing in width toward the west. Here the Federal commander had concentrated some eighteen thousand, including A.J. Smith's force, not engaged on the previous day.
My plan of attack was speedily determined. Orders were sent to the infantry to fill canteens at the mill stream, and to the trains to park there. Shortly after midday the infantry appeared, Churchill in advance; but a glance showed that his men were too much exhausted to attack. They had marched forty-five miles, and were thoroughly jaded. Walker's and Polignac's divisions had been heavily engaged on the previous day, and all were suffering from heat and thirst. Accordingly, two hours were given to the troops to lie down and rest.
At 3 P.M. Churchill, with two batteries and three regiments of horse, was directed to move to the right and turn the enemy's left. His route was through the forest for two miles to the road coming from the Sabine. The enemy's left outflanked, he was to attack from the south and west, keeping his regiments of horse well to his right, and Walker would attack on his left. This was explained to Churchill, and Mr. T.J. Williams, formerly sheriff of De Soto parish, and acquainted with every road in the vicinity, was sent with him as a guide. On Walker's left, near the road from Mansfield, Major Brent had twelve guns in the wood, with four on the road, where were posted Buchell's and De Bray's cavalry, under General Bee, and Polignac's division, the last in reserve. In the wood on the left of the road from Mansfield, Major, with two brigades of horse dismounted, was to drive back the enemy's skirmishers, turn his right, and gain the road to Blair's Landing. As no offensive movement by the enemy was anticipated, he would be turned on both flanks, subjected to a concentric fire, and overwhelmed. Though I had but twelve thousand five hundred men against eighteen thousand in position, the morale was greatly in our favor, and intelligent execution of orders was alone necessary to insure success.
At 4.30 P.M. Churchill was reported to be near the position whence he would attack; and, to call off attention, Major Brent advanced his twelve guns into the field, within seven hundred yards of the enemy's line, and opened fire. Soon thereafter the sound of Churchill's attack was heard, which the cheers of his men proved to be successful. Walker at once led forward his division by echelons of brigades from his right, Brent advanced his guns, and Major turned the enemy's right and gained possession of the road to Blair's. Complete victory seemed assured when Churchill's troops suddenly gave way, and for a time arrested the advance of Walker and Major.
The road from the Sabine reached, Churchill formed his line with the two Missouri brigades, General Parsons on the right, and the two Arkansas, General Tappan, on the left. Advancing three fourths of a mile through the forest, he approached the enemy's line, and found that he had not gained ground enough to outflank it. Throwing forward skirmishers, he moved by the right flank until the Missouri brigades were on the right of the Sabine road, the regiments of horse being farther to the right. Churchill should have placed his whole command on the right of the Sabine road, and he would have found no difficulty in successfully executing his orders. In his official report he states "that had my [his] line extended a half mile more to the right, a brilliant success would have been achieved"; and he gives as the reason for not so disposing his force that he judged, from information furnished by his guides, the enemy's left to be already outflanked.
The attack ordered, the Missourians threw themselves on the enemy, drove him from the gully and thicket, mounted the plateau, broke an opposing line, captured and sent to the rear three hundred prisoners, got possession of two batteries, the horses of which had been killed, and reached the village. Here a Federal brigade, left by Churchill's error on his right, attacked them in flank and rear, while their rapid charge had put three hundred yards between them and the Arkansas brigades, delayed by the gully. The enemy's reserve was thrust into this opening and advanced in front. Finding themselves assaulted on all sides, the Missourians retreated hastily, and in repassing the gully and thicket fell into much confusion. Colonel Hardiman, commanding the horse, checked the enemy, and Parsons rallied his men on the line first formed by Churchill. The Arkansas brigades had forced the gully and mounted the plateau as the Missourians retreated, whereupon they fell back, their left brigade (Gause's) running into Walker's right (Scurry's) and impeding its advance. Gause imagined that Scurry had fired on him; but as his entire loss in the action amounted to but fifteen killed and fifty-nine wounded, out of eleven hundred men, there appears little ground for this belief. Churchill's two batteries followed the Missourians, and with much difficulty reached the plateau, where they opened an effective fire. When the infantry retreated three carriages broke down in the attempt to get through the thicket and fallen timber, and the guns were lost. Night ended the conflict on this part of the field, and both sides occupied their original positions. We brought off three hundred prisoners, but lost three guns and one hundred and seventy-nine prisoners from Churchill's command. Out of two thousand men, the Missourians lost three hundred and thirty-one in killed and wounded, and the Arkansas brigades, of equal strength, one hundred and forty-two.
Within a few minutes of the time when our whole line became engaged, an officer came to inform me that General Walker was wounded. Directing Polignac to move up his division and hold it in readiness, I left General Green in charge of the center and hastened to Walker, whose division was now fully engaged in the wood. I found him suffering from a contusion in the groin, and ordered him to retire, which he unwillingly did. Here it was that our right gave way in the manner described. Scurry's brigade of Walker's, disordered by the sudden retreat upon it of Gause, was heavily pressed by the enemy. Scurry and his men struggled gallantly, but required immediate relief; and to give it, Waul and Randall on their left were ordered to drive back the line fronting them. Never was order more thoroughly executed. Leading on their fine brigades with skill and energy, these officers forced back the Federals and relieved Scurry.
Meanwhile, the fire of Brent's guns had overpowered a Federal battery posted on the plateau in front of the road from Mansfield. The confusion attending the withdrawal of this battery, coupled with the fierce attack of Waul and Randall, led General Green to believe that the enemy was retreating, and he ordered Bee to charge with his two regiments of cavalry, Buchell's and De Bray's. Bee reached the plateau, where he was stopped by a heavy fire from infantry, in the wood on both sides of the road. Some men and horses went down, Buchell was mortally wounded, and Bee and De Bray slightly. The charge was premature and cost valuable lives, but was of use in moral effect. I returned to the road as Bee, with coolness and pluck, withdrew. Brent advanced his guns close up to the opposing line, Polignac attacked on Randall's left with his reduced but stubborn division, and Green urged on his dismounted horsemen, cleared the wood from the Mansfield to the Blair's Landing road, and at nightfall held the position previously occupied by the Federal battery.
Severe fighting continued in the dense thicket, where Polignac, Randall, Waul, and Scurry were steadily driving back the enemy. Approaching twilight obscured the wood, but resistance in front was becoming feeble, and, anxious to reach the village, I urged on our men. As Randall and Waul gained ground to the front, they became separated by a ravine in which was concealed a brigade of Federals. Isolated by the retreat of their friends, these troops attempted to get out. Fired on from both sides of the ravine, a part of them appeared on the field in front of Brent's guns, to be driven back by grape. With heavy loss they at length succeeded in escaping through the thicket. A letter from the commander was subsequently captured, wherein he denounces the conduct of his superiors who abandoned him to his fate. However true the allegation, it is doubtful if his brigade could have rendered more service elsewhere. The suddenness of its appearance stopped our forward movement, and a cry arose that we were firing on our own people. The thickening gloom made it impossible to disabuse the troops of this belief, and I ordered them to withdraw to the open field. The movement was made slowly and in perfect order, the men forming in the field as they emerged from the thicket. The last light of day was fading as I rode along the line, and the noise of battle had ceased.
Churchill came to report the result of his attack, and seemed much depressed. I gave such consolation as I could, and directed him to move his command to the mill stream, seven miles to the rear, where he would find his trains and water. A worthy, gallant gentleman, General Churchill, but not fortunate in war.
The mill stream was the nearest water to be had, and I was compelled to send the troops back to it. The enemy made no attempt to recover the ground from which his center and right had been driven. Bee picketed the field with his cavalry, his forage wagons were ordered up from the mill stream, and it was hoped that water for his two regiments could be found in the wells and cisterns of the village. Sounds of retreat could be heard in the stillness of the night. Parties were sent on the field to care for the wounded, and Bee was ordered to take up the pursuit toward Grand Ecore at dawn, to be followed by the horse from the mill stream as soon as water and forage had been supplied. These dispositions for the morning made, worn out by fatigue and loss of sleep, I threw myself on the ground, within two hundred yards of the battle field, and sought rest. The enemy retreated during the night, leaving four hundred wounded, and his many dead unburied. On the morning of the 10th Bee pursued for twenty miles before he overtook his rear guard, finding stragglers and burning wagons and stores, evidences of haste.
In the two actions of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill my loss in killed and wounded was twenty-two hundred. At Pleasant Hill we lost three guns and four hundred and twenty-six prisoners, one hundred and seventy-nine from Churchill's, and two hundred and forty-seven from Scurry's brigade at the time it was so nearly overwhelmed. The Federal loss in killed and wounded exceeded mine, and we captured twenty guns and twenty-eight hundred prisoners, not including stragglers picked up after the battle. The enemy's campaign for conquest was defeated by an inferior force, and it was doubtful if his army and fleet could escape destruction.
These were creditable results, yet of much less importance than those that would have been accomplished but for my blunder at Pleasant Hill. Instead of intrusting the important attack by my right to a subordinate, I should have conducted it myself and taken Polignac's division to sustain it. True, this would have removed my reserve from the center and line of retreat, and placed it on a flank; but I was confident that the enemy had no intention of resuming the offensive, and should have acted on that conviction. All this flashed upon me the instant I learned of the disorder of my right. Herein lies the vast difference between genius and commonplace: one anticipates errors, the other discovers them too late.
The foregoing account of Churchill's attack at Pleasant Hill, hidden from me by intervening wood, is taken from his official report and the reports of his subordinates; and I will now supplement it by some extracts from the testimony given by General Francis Fessenden of the Federal army. On pages 94 and 95 of the second volume of the "Report on the Conduct of the War," the following appears:
"In the afternoon we were changed, from a position in the woods in front of Pleasant Hill, to a position in rear of a deep ditch near the town. We were placed behind this ditch, in open ground, and practically held the left of the front line; and my regiment was on the left. I think it was not expected that an attack would be made by the enemy in that direction. The attack was expected by the road which led in by the right center of the army. Instead of that, however, the enemy came around through the woods, and about half-past 5 o'clock drove in our skirmishers, and made a very fierce attack on the brigade I was in--Colonel Benedict's brigade. The brigade fell back under the attack a great deal broken up, and my regiment was separated from the other three regiments which went off in another direction. I had fallen back still further to the left, as I knew there was a brigade of troops in there to protect our left flank and rear from attack in that direction. My regiment being the last of the brigade to fall back, the enemy had already advanced so far after the other three regiments that I could not fall back where they did. I therefore fell back in another direction, rallying my regiment and forming on the right of the brigade referred to; and that brigade, my regiment, and another brigade, which I think had been brought up under General Emory, made an attack upon the enemy's column, which had advanced some distance, and drove them back with great loss. We continued to advance, and drove them a mile or more, so completely off the field that there was no other attack made by the enemy in that direction.
"That night we fell back again, marching all night and all the next morning, until we reached the camping ground at the end of our first day's march from Grand Ecore. I ought to state here that in that attack of the enemy on our left the brigade commander, Colonel Benedict, was killed, and I then assumed command of the brigade. We remained at Grand Ecore some eight or nine days, where we built intrenchments to a certain extent--rifle pits. I think the whole army threw up a kind of temporary work in front."
General Fessenden's statements accord with the reports of Churchill and his officers, and in other respects are accurate.
On page 62 of the volume quoted from, General A.L. Lee, commanding mounted division of Banks's army, testifies:
"The next morning (9th of April) I was ordered by General Banks to detach one thousand cavalry to act as scouts and skirmishers, and to take the remainder of my division, and take whatever was left of the detachment of the 13th army corps and some negro troops that were there, and take the trains and the majority of the artillery of the army to Grand Ecore. It was thought that the enemy would get between us and Grand Ecore. I started about 11 o'clock with this train, and with six or eight batteries of artillery, and reached Grand Ecore the next day. The battle of the 9th of April commenced just as I was leaving. The next day at night the main army had reached Grand Ecore and joined me there. General Banks impressed on me very strongly that, in sending me back from Pleasant Hill just as the fight was commencing, it was of the greatest importance to save what material we had left. Early the next morning, when I was distant from Pleasant Hill eighteen miles, I received a dispatch from General Banks. I have not the dispatch with me, but it was to this effect: that they had whipped the enemy terribly; that Price was killed, also two or three other rebel generals whom he named, but who have since recovered; and that I was to send back the subsistence trains for such and such troops. I was very much puzzled by that order, and immediately sent a staff officer back for more specific instructions. But he had not been gone more than half an hour when a staff officer of General Banks arrived with an order to me, with which he had left in the night, for me to continue pressing on with the whole train to Grand Ecore, and with instructions if any wagons broke down to burn them, not stop to fix anything, but get everything into Grand Ecore as quickly as I could, and look out very carefully on the flanks."
There can be no question of the correctness of these statements of General A.L. Lee.
The following quotations from the reports of Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy are taken from page 239, and succeeding pages of the same volume:
"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, GRAND ECORE, April 14, 1864.
"The army here has met with a great defeat, no matter what the generals try to make ofit. With the defeat has come demoralization, and it will take some time to reorganize and make up the deficiencies in killed and prisoners. The whole affair has been seriously mismanaged. It was well we came up, for I am convinced the rebels would have attacked this broken army at Grand Ecore had we not been here to cover them. I do not think our army would be in a condition to resist them. I must confess that I feel a little uncertain how to act. I could not leave this army now without disgracing myself forever; and, when running a risk in their cause, I do not want to be deserted. One of my officers has already been asked 'If we would not burn our gunboats as soon as the army left?' speaking as if a gunboat was a very ordinary affair, and could be burned with indifference. I inclose two notes I received from Generals Banks and Stone. There is a faint attempt to make a victory out of this, but two or three such victories would cost us our existence."
Again, on page 166 of the same volume appears this dispatch from Lieutenant-General Grant, at Culpepper, Virginia, to General Halleck, Chief of Staff, at Washington:
"You can see from General Brayman's dispatch to me something of General Banks's disaster."
Concerning the battle of Pleasant Hill General Banks reports (page 326):
"The whole of the reserves were now ordered up, and in turn we drove the enemy, continuing the pursuit until night compelled us to halt. The battle of the 9th was desperate and sanguinary. The defeat of the enemy was complete, and his loss in officers and men more than double that sustained by our forces. There was nothing in the immediate position and condition of the two armies to prevent a forward movement the next morning, and orders were given to prepare for an advance. But representations subsequently received from General Franklin and all the general officers of the 19th corps, as to the condition of their respective commands for immediate active operations against the enemy, caused a suspension of this order, and a conference of the general officers was held in the evening, in which it was determined to retire upon Grand Ecore the following day. The reasons urged for this course were: 1. That the absence of water made it absolutely necessary to advance or retire without delay. General Emory's command had been without rations for two days, and the train, which had been turned to the rear during the battle, could not be put in condition to move forward upon the single road through dense woods, in which it stood, without great difficulty and much loss of time."
Again, on page 13, General Banks states:
"The enemy was driven from the field. It was as clear a rout as it was possible for any army to suffer. After consulting with my officers, I concluded, against my own judgment, to fall back to Grand Ecore and reorganize. We held the field of battle. Our dead were buried. The wounded men were brought in and placed in the best hospitals we could organize, and surgeons were left with them, with provisions, medicines, and supplies; and at daybreak we fell back to Grand Ecore."
Here the proportion of fiction to fact surpasses that of sack to bread in Sir John's tavern bill; and it may be doubted if a mandarin from the remotest province of the Celestial Empire ever ventured to send such a report to Peking. General Fessenden's testimony, given above, shows that the army marched during the night of the 9th, and continued to Grand Ecore, where it intrenched; and General A.L. Lee's, that the main army joined him at that place on the evening of the 10th. Twenty of the thirty-six miles between Pleasant Hill and Grand Ecore were passed on the 10th by my cavalry before the rear of the enemy's column was seen; yet General Banks officially reports that his army left Pleasant Hill at daybreak of the 10th. Homeric must have been the laughter of his troops when this report was published.
ESCAPE OF BANKS AND PORTER.
From my resting-place on the ground at Pleasant Hill, after the battle of the 9th, I was aroused about 10 P.M. by General Kirby Smith, just arrived from Shreveport. This officer disapproved of further pursuit of Banks, except by a part of our mounted force, and ordered the infantry back to Mansfield. He was apprehensive that the troops on the transports above would reach Shreveport, or disembark below me and that place. In addition, Steele's column from Arkansas caused him much uneasiness, and made him unwilling for my troops to increase their distance from the capital of the "Trans-Mississippi Department." It was pointed out that the water in Red River was falling, and navigation becoming more and more difficult; that I had a staff officer watching the progress of the fleet, which was not accompanied by more than three thousand men, too few to attempt a landing, and that they would certainly hear of Banks's defeat and seek to rejoin him at Grand Ecore. As to Steele he was more than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, harassed by Price's force; he must learn of Banks's misfortune, and, leading but a subsidiary column, would retire to Little Rock. Banks, with the remains of his beaten army, was before us, and the fleet of Porter, with barely water enough to float upon. We had but to strike vigorously to capture or destroy both. But it was written that the sacrifices of my little army should be wasted, and, on the morning of the 10th, I was ordered to take all the infantry and much of the horse to Mansfield.
The Bayou Pierre, three hundred feet wide and too deep to ford, leaves the Red River a few miles below Shreveport, and after a long course, in which it frequently expands into lakes, returns to its parent stream three miles above Grand Ecore, dividing the pine-clad hills on the west from the alluvion of the river on the east. Several roads lead from the interior to landings on the river, crossing Bayou Pierre by ferries. One from Pleasant Hill to Blair's Landing, sixteen miles, has been mentioned. Another led from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing, eighteen miles. Dispatches from Captain McCloskey informed me that the enemy's fleet had passed this last place on the morning of the 9th, pushing slowly up river, impeded by low water. Feeling assured that intelligence of Banks's defeat would send the fleet back to Grand Ecore, and hoping to cut off its communication, at dawn of the 11th I sent General Bagby, with a brigade of horse and a battery, from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing. Before reaching the ferry at Bayou Pierre, he ascertained that the fleet had turned back on the afternoon of the 10th. There was a pontoon train at Shreveport that I had in vain asked for, and Bagby experienced great delay in crossing Bayou Pierre by means of one small flat. The fleet, descending, passed Grand Bayou Landing at 10 o'clock A.M. of the 11th, some hours before Bagby reached the river; and he pushed on toward Blair's Landing, where he arrived on the night of the 12th, after the close of Green's operations of that day.
General Green, from Pleasant Hill, had been directing the movements of our advanced horse, a part of which, under Bee, was in front of Grand Ecore and Natchitoches. Advised of the movements of the enemy's fleet, he, with seven hundred and fifty horse and two batteries, left Pleasant Hill for Blair's Landing at 6 o'clock P.M. on the 11th. As in the case of Bagby, he was delayed at Bayou Pierre, and, after hard work, only succeeded in crossing three guns and a part of his horse before the fleet came down on the 12th. Green attacked at once, and leading his men in his accustomed fearless way, was killed by a discharge of grape from one of the gunboats. Deprived of their leader, the men soon fell back, and the fleet reached Grand Ecore without further molestation from the west bank. The enemy's loss, supposed by our people to have been immense, was officially reported at seven on the gunboats and fifty on the transports. Per contra, the enemy believed that our loss was stupendous; whereas we had scarcely a casualty except the death of General Green, an irreparable one. No Confederate went aboard the fleet and no Federal came ashore; so there was a fine field of slaughter in which the imagination of both sides could disport itself.
With facilities for crossing the Pierre at hand, the fleet, during the 11th and 12th, would have been under the fire of two thousand riflemen and eighteen guns and suffered heavily, especially the transports, crowded with troops. As it was, we accomplished but little and lost General Green.
Like Mouton, this officer had joined me at an early period of my service in western Louisiana. Coming to me with the rank of colonel, his conspicuous services made it my pleasant duty to recommend him for promotion to brigadier and major-general. Upright, modest, and with the simplicity of a child, danger seemed to be his element, and he rejoiced in combat. His men adored him, and would follow wherever he led; but they did not fear him, for, though he scolded at them in action, he was too kind-hearted to punish breaches of discipline. In truth, he had no conception of the value of discipline in war, believing that all must be actuated by his own devotion to duty. His death was a public calamity, and mourned as such by the people of Texas and Louisiana. To me he was a tried and devoted friend, and our friendship was cemented by the fact that, through his Virginia mother, we were related by blood. The great Commonwealth, whose soil contains his remains, will never send forth a bolder warrior, a better citizen, nor a more upright man than Thomas Green.
The brigade of horse brought by General Green to Louisiana, and with which he was so long associated, had some peculiar characteristics. The officers such as Colonels Hardiman, Baylor, Lane, Herbert, McNeill, and others, were bold and enterprising. The men, hardy frontiersmen, excellent riders, and skilled riflemen, were fearless and self-reliant, but discharged their duty as they liked and when they liked. On a march they wandered about at will, as they did about camp, and could be kept together only when a fight was impending. When their arms were injured by service or neglect, they threw them away, expecting to be supplied with others. Yet, with these faults, they were admirable fighters, and in the end I became so much attached to them as to be incapable of punishing them.
After the affair at Blair's Landing on the 12th, the horse returned to Pleasant Hill, and thence joined Bee in front of Grand Ecore, where Banks had his army concentrated behind works, with gunboats and transports in the river, Bee occupying the town of Natchitoches, four miles away. On the morning of the 13th General Kirby Smith visited me at Mansfield. Relieved of apprehension about the fleet, now at Grand Ecore, he expressed great anxiety for the destruction of Steele's column. I was confident that Steele, who had less than ten thousand men and was more than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, would hear of Banks's disaster and retreat; but General Kirby Smith's views differed from mine. I then expressed my willingness to march, with the main body of the infantry, to join Price in Arkansas, and serve under his command until Steele's column was destroyed or driven back; insisting, however, that in the event of Steele's retreat I should be permitted to turn on Banks and Porter, to complete the work of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. The destruction of the Federal army and capture of the fleet, helpless alone by reason of low and falling water in Red River, were the legitimate fruits of those victories, and I protested with all possible earnestness against a policy that would fail to reap them. After this conversation General Kirby Smith returned to Shreveport, leaving me under the impression that my last proposition was acceded to. The loss of valuable time incurred by a wild-goose chase after Steele was most annoying, but I was hopeful it might be recovered. To get the fleet down to Alexandria and over the falls at that place would require much time in the low condition of the water; and Banks's army was so much demoralized by defeat that Bee found no difficulty in restraining its movements with his horse.
At dawn of the 14th Walker's and Churchill's divisions of infantry, with their artillery, prepared for an active campaign, marched for Shreveport, forty miles. The same day Polignac's infantry division, reduced to some twelve hundred muskets, was sent toward Grand Ecore to strengthen the horse in front of the enemy. On the evening of the 15th I reached Shreveport, and had a short interview with General Kirby Smith, who informed me that Steele had begun his retreat from a point a hundred and ten miles distant, but that he hoped to overtake him, and would personally direct the pursuit. I was further informed that my presence with the troops was not desired, and that I would remain in nominal command of Shreveport, but might join the force near Grand Ecore if I thought proper. All this with the curt manner of a superior to a subordinate, as if fearing remonstrance. General Kirby Smith marched north of Shreveport on the 16th, and three days thereafter I received a dispatch from his "chief of staff" informing me that the pontoon train, asked for in vain when it would have been of priceless value, would be sent back from his army and placed at my disposition. Doubtless General Kirby Smith thought that a pontoon train would supply the place of seven thousand infantry and six batteries.
I remained at Shreveport three days, occupied with reports and sending supplies to my little force near Grand Ecore, toward which I proceeded on the 19th of April. Major-General Wharton, who had gained reputation as a cavalry officer in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, accompanied me. He had reported for duty at Shreveport on the 18th, and was assigned to the command of the horse to replace the lamented Green. We reached Polignac's camp, in the vicinity of Grand Ecore, ninety odd miles from Shreveport, on the evening of the 21st, and learned that the enemy had threatened an advance during the day. This convinced me of his intention to retreat, and an officer was sent to General Bee to warn him.
Cane River leaves the main channel of the Red below Grand Ecore, and, passing by Natchitoches, returns to the Red after a winding course of sixty miles. Except at the season of floods, it is not navigable; but the alluvion through which it flows is very productive, while the pine forest immediately to the west is sterile. Bee, under instructions, occupied the valley of Cane River with his horse, and had been ordered to keep his pickets close to Grand Ecore and Natchitoches, draw his forage from plantations along the river, and, when the enemy retreated toward Alexandria, fall back before him to Monette's Ferry, which he was expected to hold. Monette's Ferry, forty miles below Natchitoches, was on the only practicable road to Alexandria. Here the river made a wide, deep ford, and pine-clad hills rose abruptly from the southern bank. On the left, looking toward Natchitoches, were hills and impassable lakes, easily held against any force. On the right, hills, rugged and pine-clad, extended eight miles to the point at which Cane River reënters the Red. The distance from Monette's to Alexandria is thirty-five miles, of which fourteen is through wooded hills. Roads led west to Carroll Jones's and Beaseley's, twelve and thirty miles respectively; and on these roads Bee was directed to keep his trains.
Concerning the position at Monette's General Banks reports: "The army marched from Grand Ecore on the morning of the 22d of April. To prevent the occupation of Monette's Bluff, on Cane River, a strong position commanding the only road leading across the river to Alexandria, or to prevent the concentration of the enemy's forces at that point, it became necessary to accomplish the evacuation without his knowledge." As before stated, the threatened advance of the 21st convinced me that the enemy's retreat was imminent, and so I advised Bee; but there was not time to send General Wharton to him after I reached Polignac's camp. Bee had two thousand horse and four batteries, and, after several days to examine and prepare his ground, might well be expected to hold it with tenacity.
Immediately after the battle of Pleasant Hill I had sent Vincent, with his own and Bush's regiments of Louisiana horse, to threaten Alexandria and drive out small parties of the enemy from the Attakapas and Teche regions. Subsequently, a brigade of Texas horse, seven hundred strong, under Brigadier William Steele, joined me, and was now with Polignac.
As anticipated, the enemy left Grand Ecore during the night of the 21st and marched without halting to Cloutierville, thirty-two miles. With Steele's brigade, Wharton drove his rear guard from Natchitoches on the morning of the 22d, capturing some prisoners, and continued the pursuit to the twenty-four-mile ferry. On the 23d, after a sharp action, he pushed the enemy's rear below Cloutierville, taking some score of prisoners. Polignac's infantry joined that evening, and covered a road leading through the hills from Cloutierville to Beaseley's. If Bee stood firm at Monette's, we were in position to make Banks unhappy on the morrow, separated as he was from the fleet, on which he relied to aid his demoralized forces. But Bee gave way on the afternoon of the 23d, permitting his strong position to be forced at the small cost to the enemy of less than four hundred men, and suffering no loss himself. Then, instead of attacking the great trains, during their fourteen miles' march through the forest, and occupying with artillery McNutt's Hill, a high bluff twenty miles from Alexandria and commanding the road thither in the valley, he fell back at once to Beaseley's, thirty miles. Before this mistake could be rectified, the enemy crossed at Monette's, burning many wagons at the ford, and passed below McNutt's Hill. General Bee had exhibited much personal gallantry in the charge at Pleasant Hill, but he was without experience in war, and had neglected to study the ground or strengthen his position at Monette's. Leaving Mansfield for Shreveport on the 15th, under orders from General Kirby Smith, I only got back to the front on the night of the 21st, too late to reach Monette's or send Wharton there.
It was very disheartening, but, persuaded that the enemy could not pass the falls at Alexandria with his fleet, I determined to stick to him with my little force of less than forty-five hundred of all arms. It was impossible to believe that General Kirby Smith would continue to persist in his inexplicable policy, and fail to come, ere long, to my assistance.
On the 26th Bee's horse, from Beaseley's, joined Steele's at McNutt's Hill; and together, under Wharton, they attacked the enemy in the valley and drove him, with loss of killed and prisoners, to the immediate vicinity of Alexandria.
When General Banks retreated so hastily from Grand Ecore, Admiral Porter was laboring to get his fleet down to Alexandria. In a communication to the Secretary of the Navy from his flag-ship below Grand Ecore, he says ("Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., pages 234-5):
"I soon saw that the army would go to Alexandria again, and we would be left above the bars in a helpless condition. The vessels are mostly at Alexandria, above the falls, excepting this one and two others I kept to protect the Eastport. The Red River is falling at the rate of two inches a day. If General Banks should determine to evacuate this country, the gunboats will be cut off from all communication with the Mississippi. It cannot be possible that the country would be willing to have eight iron-clads, three or four other gunboats, and many transports sacrificed without an effort to save them. It would be the worst thing that has happened this war."
The Eastport, the most formidable iron-clad of the Mississippi squadron, grounded on a bar below Grand Ecore. Three tin-clad gunboats and two transports remained near to assist in getting her off; and, to prevent this, some mounted riflemen were sent, on the morning of the 26th, to coöperate with Liddell's raw levies on the north bank of the river. These forced the enemy to destroy the Eastport, and drove away the gunboats and transports. Our loss in the affair was two killed and four wounded. Meantime, to intercept the gunboats and transports on their way down, Colonel Caudle of Polignac's division, with two hundred riflemen and Cornay's four-gun battery, had been posted at the junction of Cane and Red Rivers, twenty miles below. At 6 o'clock P.M. of the 26th the leading gunboat and one transport came down. Our fire speedily crippled and silenced the gunboat, and a shot exploded the boiler of the transport. Under cover of escaping steam the gunboat drifted out of fire, but the loss of life on the transport was fearful. One hundred dead and eighty-seven severely scalded, most of whom subsequently died, were brought on shore. These unfortunate creatures were negroes, taken from plantations on the river above. The object of the Federals was to remove negroes from their owners; but for the lives of these poor people they cared nothing, or, assuredly, they would not have forced them, on an unprotected river steamer, to pass riflemen and artillery, against which gunboats were powerless. On the following day, the 27th, the two remaining gunboats and transport attempted to pass Caudle's position; and the former, much cut up, succeeded, but the transport was captured. Colonel Caudle had one man wounded, and the battery one killed--its commander, Captain Cornay, who, with Mouton, Armand, and many other creoles, proved by distinguished gallantry that the fighting qualities of the old French breed had suffered no deterioration on the soil of Louisiana.
The following extracts from the report of Admiral Porter well exhibit the efficiency of Caudle and Cornay in this affair:
"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, OFF ALEXANDRIA, April 28, 1864.
"When rounding the point, the vessels in close order and ready for action, we descried a party of the enemy with artillery on the right bank, and we immediately opened fire with our bow guns. The enemy immediately returned it with a large number of cannon, eighteen in all, every shot of which struck this vessel. The captain gave orders to stop the engines. I corrected this mistake, and got headway on the vessel again, but not soon enough to avoid the pelting showers of shot and shell which the enemy poured into us, every shot going through and through us, clearing all our decks in a moment. I took charge of the vessel, and, as the battery was a very heavy one, I determined to pass it, which was done under the heaviest fire I ever witnessed. Seeing that the Hindman did not pass the batteries, the Juliet disabled, and that one of the pump boats (transport) had her boiler exploded by a shot, I ran down to a point three or four miles below. Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had two vessels in charge, the Juliet and Champion (transport), which he wished to get through safely. He kept them out of range until he could partially repair the Juliet, and then, starting under a heavy fire, he make a push by. Unfortunately the pump boat (Champion) was disabled and set fire to. The Hindman had her wheel ropes cut away, and drifted past, turning round and round, and getting well cut up in going by. The Juliet was cut to pieces in hull and machinery; had fifteen killed and wounded. I inclose the report of Lieutenant-Commander Phelps, from the time of his first misfortune until his arrival at this place (Alexandria), where I now am with all the fleet, but very much surprised that I have any left, considering all the difficulties encountered. I came up here with the river on the rise, and water enough for our largest vessels; and even on my way up to Shreveport from Grand Ecore the water rose, while it commenced falling where I left the largest gunboats. Falling or not, I could not go back while in charge of the transports and material on which an army of thirty thousand men depended."
This is high testimony to the fighting capacity of two hundred riflemen and four guns, two twelve-pounder smooth-bores and two howitzers, all that Admiral Porter's three gunboats had to contend with. It proves the utter helplessness of gunboats in narrow streams, when deprived of the protection of troops on the banks. Even the iron-clads, with armor impenetrable by field guns, were readily driven off by sharp-shooters, who, under cover, closed their ports or killed every exposed man.
On the 24th Liddell, from the north bank of Red River, dashed into Pineville, opposite Alexandria, killed and captured a score of the enemy's party, and drove the remainder over the river.
On the 27th Admiral Porter's fleet was lying above the falls, now impassable, and Banks's army, over twenty thousand strong, was in and around Alexandria behind earthworks. Such was the condition to which this large force had been reduced by repeated defeat, that we not only confined it to its works, driving back many attacks on our advanced positions, but I felt justified in dividing my little command in order to blockade the river below, and cut off communication with the Mississippi. Wharton's horse was divided into three parts, each a thousand strong, and accompanied by artillery. The first, under Steele, held the river and Rapides roads, above and west of Alexandria; the second, under Bagby, the Boeuf road to the south of that place; while Major, with the third, was sent to Davide's Ferry, on the river, twenty-five miles below. Polignac's infantry, twelve hundred muskets, was posted on the Boeuf within supporting distance of the two last. Liddell's seven hundred newly-organized horse, with four guns, was of little service beyond making feints to distract the enemy.
Major reached his position on the 30th, and on the following day, the 1st of May, captured and sunk the transport Emma. On the 3d he captured the transport City Belle, on her way up to Alexandria, with the 120th Ohio regiment on board. All the officers and two hundred and seventy-six men were taken, with many killed and wounded. On the evening of the 4th the gunboats Covington and Signal, each mounting eight heavy guns, with the transport Warner, attempted to pass. The Covington was blown up by her crew to escape capture, but the Signal and Warner surrendered. Four guns, two three-inch rifled and two howitzers, were engaged in this action with the Covington and Signal. They were run up to the river's bank by hand, the howitzers above, the three-inch rifles below the gunboats, which, overpowered by the rapid fire, moved back and forth until one surrendered and the other was destroyed, affording a complete illustration of the superiority of field guns to gunboats in narrow streams. There was no further attempt to pass Major's position, and Federal communication with the Mississippi was closed for fifteen days.
During these operations the enemy was engaged night and day in the construction of a dam across the Red River, to enable him to pass his fleet over the falls; and the following extracts from the report of Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy well exhibit the condition of affairs in and around Alexandria ("Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., page 250):
"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, ALEXANDRIA, April 28, 1864.
"SIR: I have written you an account of the operations of the fleet in these waters, but take the liberty of writing to you confidentially the true state of affairs. I find myself blockaded by a fall of three feet of water, three feet four inches being the amount now on the falls. Seven feet being required to get over, no amount of lightening will accomplish the object. I have already written to you how the whole state of things has been changed by a too blind carelessness on the part of our military leader, and our retreat back to Alexandria from place to place has so demoralized General Banks's army that the troops have no confidence in anybody or anything. Our army is now all here, with the best general (Franklin) wounded and unfit for duty in the field. General Banks seems to hold no communication with any one, and it is impossible for me to say what he will do. I have no confidence in his promises, as he asserted in a letter, herein inclosed, that he had no intention of leaving Grand Ecore, when he had actually already made all his preparations to leave. The river is crowded with transports, and every gunboat I have is required to convoy them. I have to withdraw many light-draughts from other points on the Mississippi to supply demands here. In the mean time the enemy are splitting up into parties of two thousand, and bringing in the artillery (with which we have supplied them) to blockade points below here; and what will be the upshot of it all I can not foretell. I know that it will be disastrous in the extreme, for this is a country in which a retreating army is completely at the mercy of an enemy. Notwithstanding that the rebels are reported as coming in from Washita, with heavy artillery to plant on the hills opposite Alexandria, no movement is being made to occupy the position, and I am in momentary expectation of hearing the rebel guns open on the transports on the town side; or if they go down or come up the river, it will be at the risk of destruction. Our light-clads can do nothing against hill batteries. I am in momentary expectation of seeing this army retreat, when the result will be disastrous. Unless instructed by the Government, I do not think that General Banks will make the least effort to save the navy here. The following vessels are above the falls and command the right of the town: Mound City, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Carondelet, Chillicothe, Osage, Neosho, Ozark, Lexington, and Fort Hindman. At this moment the enemy have attacked our outposts, and driven in our indifferent cavalry, which came up numbering six thousand, and have brought nothing but calamity in their train. Our whole army is cooped up in this town, while a much inferior force is going rampant about the country, making preparations to assail our helpless transports, which, if caught filled with men, would be perfect slaughter-houses. Quick remedies are required, and I deem it my duty to lay the true state of affairs before you. If left here by the army, I will be obliged to destroy this fleet to prevent it falling into the enemy's hands. I can not conceive that the nation will permit such a sacrifice to be made, when men and money can prevent it. We have fought hard for the opening of the Mississippi, and have reduced the naval forces of the rebels in this quarter to two vessels. If we have to destroy what we have here, there will be material enough to build half a dozen iron-clads, and the Red River, which is now of no further dread to us, will require half the Mississippi squadron to watch it. I am apprehensive that the turrets of the monitors will defy any efforts we can make to destroy them. Our prestige will receive a shock from which it will be long in recovering; and if the calamities I dread should overtake us, the annals of this war will not present so dire a one as will have befallen us."
Thus Admiral Porter, who even understates the facts.
In vain had all this been pointed out to General Kirby Smith, when he came to me at Pleasant Hill in the night after the battle. Granted that he was alarmed for Shreveport, sacred to him and his huge staff as Benares, dwelling-place of many gods, to the Hindoo; yet, when he marched from that place on the 16th of April against Steele, the latter, already discomfited by Price's horse, was retreating, and, with less than a third of Banks's force at Grand Ecore, was then further from Shreveport than was Banks. To pursue a retreating foe, numbering six thousand men, he took over seven thousand infantry, and left me twelve hundred to operate against twenty odd thousand and a powerful fleet. From the evening of the 21st of April, when I returned to the front near Grand Ecore, to the 13th of May, the day on which Porter and Banks escaped from Alexandria, I kept him advised of the enemy's movements and condition. Couriers and staff officers were sent to implore him to return and reap the fruits of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, whose price had been paid in blood. Not a man was sent me; even the four-gun battery with Liddell on the north of the river was, without my knowledge, withdrawn toward Arkansas. From first to last, General Kirby Smith seemed determined to throw a protecting shield around the Federal army and fleet.
In all the ages since the establishment of the Assyrian monarchy no commander has possessed equal power to destroy a cause. Far away from the great centers of conflict in Virginia and Georgia, on a remote theatre, the opportunity of striking a blow decisive of the war was afforded. An army that included the strength of every garrison from Memphis to the Gulf had been routed, and, by the incompetency of its commander, was utterly demoralized and ripe for destruction. But this army was permitted to escape, and its 19th corps reached Chesapeake Bay in time to save Washington from General Early's attack, while the 13th, 16th, and 17th corps reënforced Sherman in Georgia. More than all, we lost Porter's fleet, which the falling river had delivered into our hands; for the protection of an army was necessary to its liberation, as without the army a dam at the falls could not have been constructed. With this fleet, or even a portion of it, we would have at once recovered possession of the Mississippi, from the Ohio to the sea, and undone all the work of the Federals since the winter of 1861. Instead of Sherman, Johnston would have been reënforced from west of the Mississippi, and thousands of absent men, with fresh hope, would have rejoined Lee. The Southern people might have been spared the humiliation of defeat, and the countless woes and wrongs inflicted on them by their conquerors.
It was for this that Green and Mouton and other gallant spirits fell! It was for this that the men of Missouri and Arkansas made a forced march to die at Pleasant Hill! It was for this that the divisions of Walker and Polignac had held every position intrusted to them, carried every position in their front, and displayed a constancy and valor worthy of the Guards at Inkermann or Lee's veterans in the Wilderness! For this, too, did the handful left, after our brethren had been taken from us, follow hard on the enemy, attack him constantly at any odds, beat off and sink his gunboats, close the Red River below him and shut up his army in Alexandria for fifteen days! Like "Sister Ann" from her watch tower, day after day we strained our eyes to see the dust of our approaching comrades arise from the north bank of the Red. Not a camp follower among us but knew that the arrival of our men from the North would give us the great prize in sight. Vain, indeed, were our hopes. The commander of the "Trans-Mississippi Department" had the power to destroy the last hope of the Confederate cause, and exercised it with all the success of Bazaine at Metz.
"The affairs of mice and men aft gang aglee," from sheer stupidity and pig-headed obstinacy. General Kirby Smith had publicly announced that Banks's army was too strong to be fought, and that the proper policy was either to defend the works protecting Shreveport, or retreat into Texas. People do not like to lose their reputations as prophets or sons of prophets. Subsequently, it was given out that General Kirby Smith had a wonderful plan for the destruction of the enemy, which I had disturbed by rashly beating his army at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill; but this plan, like Trochu's for the defense of Paris, was never disclosed--undoubtedly, because c'était le secret de Polichinelle.
After many days of energetic labor, the enemy on the 13th of May succeeded in passing his fleet over the falls at Alexandria, evacuated the place, and retreated down the river, the army, on the south bank, keeping pace with the fleet. Admiral Porter, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, gives a graphic account of the passage of the falls, and under date of May 19th, says: "In my report in relation to the release of the gunboats from their unpleasant position above the falls, I did not think it prudent to mention that I was obliged to destroy eleven thirty-two-pounders, not having time to haul them from above the falls to Alexandria, the army having moved and drawn in all their pickets. For the same reason I also omitted to mention that I was obliged to take off the iron from the sides of the Pook gunboats and from the Ozark, to enable them to get over."
To harass the retreat, the horse and artillery, on the river above Alexandria, were directed to press the enemy's rear, and the remaining horse and Polignac's infantry to intercept his route at Avoyelles Prairie. During the 14th, 15th, and 16th he was constantly attacked in front, rear, and right flank; and on the 17th Wharton charged his rear near Mansura, capturing many prisoners, while Colonel Yager, with two regiments of horse, cut in on the wagon train at Yellow Bayou, killed and drove off the guard, and destroyed much property. Meanwhile Liddell, on the north bank of the Red, followed the fleet and kept up a constant fire on the transports. But for the unfortunate withdrawal of his battery, before alluded to, he could have destroyed many of these vessels. On the 18th we attacked the enemy at Yellow Bayou, near Simmsport, and a severe engagement ensued, lasting until night. We held the field, on which the enemy left his dead, but our loss was heavy, four hundred and fifty-two in killed and wounded; among the former, Colonel Stone, commanding Polignac's old brigade. Polignac, in charge of division, was conspicuous in this action. The following day, May 19, 1864, the enemy crossed the Atchafalaya and was beyond our reach. Here, at the place where it had opened more than two months before, the campaign closed.
The army I had the honor to command in this campaign numbered, at its greatest strength, about thirteen thousand of all arms, including Liddell's force on the north bank of Red River; but immediately after the battle of Pleasant Hill it was reduced to fifty-two hundred by the withdrawal of Walker's and Churchill's divisions. Many of the troops marched quite four hundred miles, and from the 5th of April to the 18th of May not a day passed without some engagement with the enemy, either on land or river. Our total loss in killed, wounded, and missing was three thousand nine hundred and seventy-six; that of the enemy, nearly three times this number.
From the action at Yellow Bayou on the 18th of May, 1864, to the close of the war in the following year, not a shot was fired in the "Trans-Mississippi Department." Johnston was forced back to Atlanta and relieved from command, and Atlanta fell. Not even an effective demonstration was made toward Arkansas and Missouri to prevent troops from being sent to reënforce Thomas at Nashville, and Hood was overthrown. Sherman marched unopposed through Georgia and South Carolina, while Lee's gallant army wasted away from cold and hunger in the trenches at Petersburg. Like Augustus in the agony of his spirit, the sorely pressed Confederates on the east of the Mississippi asked, and asked in vain: "Varus! Varus! Where are our legions?"
The enemy's advance, fleet and army, reached Alexandria on the 16th of March, but he delayed sixteen days there and at Grand Ecore. My first reënforcements, two small regiments of horse, joined at Natchitoches on the 31st; but the larger part of Green's force came in at Mansfield on the 6th of April, Churchill's infantry reaching Keachi the same day. Had Banks pushed to Mansfield on the 5th instead of the 8th of April, he would have met but little opposition; and, once at Mansfield, he had the choice of three roads to Shreveport, where Steele could have joined him.
Judging from the testimony given to the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, cotton and elections seem to have been the chief causes of delay. In the second volume of "Report" may be found much crimination and recrimination between the Navy and Army concerning the seizure of cotton. Without attempting to decide the question, I may observe that Admiral Porter informs the Secretary of the Navy of "the capture from the rebels of three thousand bales of cotton on the Washita river, and two thousand on the Red, all of which I have sent to Cairo"; while General Banks testifies that he "took from western Louisiana ten thousand bales of cotton and twenty thousand beef cattle, horses, and mules." From this, the Army appears to have surpassed the navy to the extent of five thousand bales of cotton and the above-mentioned number of beef cattle, etc. Whether Admiral Porter or General Banks was the more virtuous, the unhappy people of Louisiana were deprived of "cakes and ale."
In his enthusiasm for art the classic cobbler forgot his last; but "all quality, pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war" could not make General Banks forget his politics, and he held elections at Alexandria and Grand Ecore. The General describes with some unction the devotion of the people to the "Union," which was and was to be, to them, "the fount of every blessing."
Says General Banks in his report: "It became necessary to accomplish the evacuation [of Grand Ecore] without the enemy's knowledge. The conflagration of a portion of the town at the hour appointed for the movement partially frustrated the object." And further on: "Rumors were circulated freely throughout the camp at Alexandria, that upon the evacuation of the town it would be burned, and a considerable portion of the town was destroyed." Evidently, these burnings were against the orders of General Banks, who appears to have lost authority over some of his troops. Moreover, in their rapid flight from Grand Ecore to Monette's Ferry, a distance of forty miles, the Federals burned nearly every house on the road. In pursuit, we passed the smoking ruins of homesteads, by which stood weeping women and children. Time for the removal of the most necessary articles of furniture had been refused. It was difficult to restrain one's inclination to punish the ruffians engaged in this work, a number of whom were captured; but they asserted, and doubtless with truth, that they were acting under orders.
From the universal testimony of citizens, I learned that General Banks and the officers and men of the 19th corps, Eastern troops, exerted themselves to prevent these outrages, and that the perpetrators were the men of General A.J. Smith's command from Sherman's army. Educated at West Point, this General Smith had long served in the regular army of the United States, and his men were from the West, whose brave sons might well afford kindness to women and babes. A key to their conduct can be found in the "Memoirs" of General W.T. Sherman, the commander who formed them, and whose views are best expressed in his own words.
The city of Atlanta, from which the Confederates had withdrawn, was occupied by Slocum's corps of Sherman's army on the 2d of September, 1864. In vol. ii. of his "Memoirs," page 111, General Sherman says: "I was resolved to make Atlanta a pure military garrison or depot, with no civil population to influence military measures. I gave notice of this purpose as early as the 4th of September, to General Halleck, in a letter concluding with these words: 'If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relations must stop the war.'" On pages 124-6 appears the correspondence of General Sherman with the mayor and councilmen of Atlanta concerning the removal of citizens, in which the latter write: "We petition you to reconsider the order requiring them to leave Atlanta. It will involve in the aggregate consequences appalling and heartrending. Many poor women are in an advanced state of pregnancy, others now having young children, and whose husbands for the greater part are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, 'I have such a one sick at my house; who will wait on them when I am gone?' Others say, 'What are we to do? we have no house to go to, and no means to buy, build, or rent any; no parents, relatives, or friends to go to.' This being so, how is it possible for the people still here, mostly women and children, to find shelter? And how can they live through the winter in the woods?" To this General Sherman replies: "I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not intended to meet the humanities of the case. You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride." Again, on page 152 is Sherman's telegram to General Grant: "Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl." It could hardly be expected that troops trained by this commander would respect the humanities.
EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Prostrated by two years of constant devotion to work--work so severe, stern, and exacting as to have prevented me from giving the slightest attention to my family, even when heavily afflicted--and persuaded that under existing administration nothing would be accomplished in the "Trans-Mississippi Department," a month after the close of the Red River campaign I applied for relief from duty. After several applications this was granted, and with my wife and two surviving children I retired to the old Spanish-French town of Natchitoches. The inhabitants, though impoverished by the war, had a comfortable house ready for my family, to which they invited me, with all the warmth of Southern hearts and all the good taste of the Latin race. Here I remained for several weeks, when information of my promotion to lieutenant-general came from Richmond, with orders to report for duty on the east side of the Mississippi. The officers of my staff, who had long served with me, desired and were permitted to accompany me, with the exception of Brent, now colonel of artillery, who could not be spared. Colonel Brent remained in west Louisiana until the close of the war, attaining the rank of brigadier. Of his merit and services I have already written.
The Red River campaign of 1864 was the last Federal campaign undertaken for political objects, or intrusted to political generals. Experience taught the Washington Government that its enormous resources must be concentrated, and henceforth unity of purpose and action prevailed. Posts on the Mississippi between Memphis and New Orleans were strengthened, intervening spaces closely guarded by numerous gunboats, and parties thrown ashore to destroy all boats that could be found. Though individuals, with precaution, could cross the great river, it was almost impossible to take over organized bodies of troops or supplies, and the Confederates on the west were isolated. The Federal Government now directed its energies against Richmond and Atlanta.
Upon what foundations the civil authorities of the Confederacy rested their hopes of success, after the campaign of 1864 fully opened, I am unable to say; but their commanders in the field, whose rank and position enabled them to estimate the situation, fought simply to afford statesmanship an opportunity to mitigate the sorrows of inevitable defeat.
A grand old oak, on the east bank of the Black River, the lower Washita, protected my couch; and in the morning, with two guides, the faithful Tom following, I threaded my way through swamp and jungle to the Mississippi, which was reached at sunset. A light canoe was concealed some distance from the river bank, and after the short twilight faded into night this was borne on the shoulders of the guides, and launched. One of the guides embarked to paddle, and Tom and I followed, each leading a horse. A gunboat was lying in the river a short distance below, and even the horses seemed to understand the importance of silence, swimming quietly alongside of our frail craft. The eastern shore reached, we stopped for a time to rub and rest the cattle, exhausted by long-continued exertion in the water; then pushed on to Woodville, some five and twenty miles east. This, the chief town of Wilkison county, Mississippi, was in telegraphic communication with Richmond, and I reported my arrival to the war office. An answer came, directing me to take command of the department of Alabama, Mississippi, etc., with the information that President Davis would shortly leave Richmond to meet me at Montgomery, Alabama. While awaiting telegram, I learned of the fall of Atlanta and the forts at the entrance of Mobile Bay. My predecessor in the department to the command of which telegraphic orders had just assigned me was General Bishop Polk, to whom I accord all his titles; for in him, after a sleep of several centuries, was awakened the church militant. Before he joined Johnston in northern Georgia, Polk's headquarters were at Meridian, near the eastern boundary of Mississippi, where the Mobile and Ohio Railway, running north, is crossed by the Vicksburg, Jackson, and Selma line, running east. To this point I at once proceeded, via Jackson, more than a hundred miles northeast of Woodville. Grierson's and other "raids," in the past summer, had broken the New Orleans and Jackson Railway, so that I rode the distance to the latter place. It was in September, and the fierce heat was trying to man and beast. The open pine forests of southern Mississippi obstruct the breeze, while affording no protection from the sun, whose rays are intensified by reflection from the white, sandy soil. Jackson reached, I stopped for an hour to see the Governor of Mississippi, Clarke, an old acquaintance, and give instructions to Brigadier Wirt Adams, the local commander; then took rail to Meridian, eighty miles, where I found the records of the department left by General Polk, as well as several officers of the general staff. These gentlemen had nothing especial to do, and appeared to be discharging that duty conscientiously; but they were zealous and intelligent, and speedily enabled me to judge of the situation. Major-General Maury, in immediate command at Mobile, and the senior officer in the department before my arrival, had ordered General Forrest with his cavalry to Mobile in anticipation of an attack. Forrest himself was expected to pass through Meridian that evening, en route for Mobile.
Just from the Mississippi river, where facilities for obtaining information from New Orleans were greater than at Mobile, I was confident that the enemy contemplated no immediate attack on the latter place. Accordingly, General Maury was informed by telegraph of my presence, that I assumed command of the department, and would arrest Forrest's movement. An hour later a train from the north, bringing Forrest in advance of his troops, reached Meridian, and was stopped; and the General, whom I had never seen, came to report. He was a tall, stalwart man, with grayish hair, mild countenance, and slow and homely of speech. In few words he was informed that I considered Mobile safe for the present, and that all our energies must be directed to the relief of Hood's army, then west of Atlanta. The only way to accomplish this was to worry Sherman's communications north of the Tennessee river, and he must move his cavalry in that direction at the earliest moment.
To my surprise, Forrest suggested many difficulties and asked numerous questions: how he was to get over the Tennessee; how he was to get back if pressed by the enemy; how he was to be supplied; what should be his line of retreat in certain contingencies; what he was to do with prisoners if any were taken, etc. I began to think he had no stomach for the work; but at last, having isolated the chances of success from causes of failure with the care of a chemist experimenting in his laboratory, he rose and asked for Fleming, the superintendent of the railway, who was on the train by which he had come. Fleming appeared--a little man on crutches (he had recently broken a leg), but with the energy of a giant--and at once stated what he could do in the way of moving supplies on his line, which had been repaired up to the Tennessee boundary. Forrest's whole manner now changed. In a dozen sharp sentences he told his wants, said he would leave a staff officer to bring up his supplies, asked for an engine to take him back north twenty miles to meet his troops, informed me he would march with the dawn, and hoped to give an account of himself in Tennessee.
Moving with great rapidity, he crossed the Tennessee river, captured stockades with their garrisons, burned bridges, destroyed railways, reached the Cumberland River below Nashville, drove away gunboats, captured and destroyed several transports with immense stores, and spread alarm over a wide region. The enemy concentrated on him from all directions, but he eluded or defeated their several columns, recrossed the Tennessee, and brought off fifteen hundred prisoners and much spoil. Like Clive, Nature made him a great soldier; and he was without the former's advantages. Limited as was Clive's education, he was a person of erudition compared with Forrest, who read with difficulty. In the last weeks of the war he was much with me, and told me the story of his life. His father, a poor trader in negroes and mules, died when he was fifteen years of age, leaving a widow and several younger children dependent on him for support. To add to his burden, a posthumous infant was born some weeks after the father's death. Continuing the paternal occupations in a small way, he continued to maintain the family and give some education to the younger children. His character for truth, honesty, and energy was recognized, and he gradually achieved independence and aided his brethren to start in life. Such was his short story up to the war.
Some months before the time of our first meeting, with two thousand men he defeated the Federal General Sturgis, who had five times his force, at Tishimingo; and he repeated his success at Okalona, where his opponent, General Smith, had even greater odds against him. The battle of Okalona was fought on an open plain, and Forrest had no advantage of position to compensate for great inferiority of numbers; but it is remarkable that he employed the tactics of Frederick at Leuthen and Zorndorf, though he had never heard these names. Indeed, his tactics deserve the closest study of military men. Asked after the war to what he attributed his success in so many actions, he replied: "Well, I got there first with the most men." Jomini could not have stated the key to the art of war more concisely. I doubt if any commander since the days of lion-hearted Richard has killed as many enemies with his own hand as Forrest. His word of command as he led the charge was unique: "Forward, men, and mix with 'em!" But, while cutting down many a foe with long-reaching, nervous arm, his keen eye watched the whole fight and guided him to the weak spot. Yet he was a tender-hearted, kindly man. The accusations of his enemies that he murdered prisoners at Fort Pillow and elsewhere are absolutely false. The prisoners captured on his expedition into Tennessee, of which I have just written, were negroes, and he carefully looked after their wants himself, though in rapid movement and fighting much of the time. These negroes told me of Mass Forrest's kindness to them. After the war I frequently met General Forrest, and received many evidences of attachment from him. He has passed away within a month, to the regret of all who knew him. In the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, to generations yet unborn, his name will be a "household word."
Having devoted several hours at Meridian to the work mentioned, I took rail for Mobile, a hundred and forty miles. This town of thirty thousand inhabitants is situated on the west bank of the Alabama (here called Mobile) River, near its entrance into Mobile Bay, which is five-and-twenty miles long by ten broad. A month before my arrival Admiral Farragut had captured Fort Morgan at the eastern mouth of the bay, after defeating the Confederate fleet under Admiral Buchanan, who was severely wounded in the action. Two or three of Buchanan's vessels had escaped, and were in charge of Commodore Farrand near Mobile. The shallow waters of the bay were thickly planted with torpedoes, and many heavy guns were mounted near the town, making it safe in front. Mobile had excellent communications with the interior. The Alabama, Tombigby, and Black Warrior Rivers afforded steam navigation to central Alabama and eastern Mississippi, while the Mobile and Ohio Railway reached the northern limit of the latter State. Supplies from the fertile "cane-brake" region of Alabama and the prairies of eastern Mississippi were abundant. Before they abandoned Pensacola, the Confederates had taken up fifty miles of rails from the Pensacola and Montgomery line, and used them to make a connection between the latter place and Blakeley, at the eastern head of the bay, opposite Mobile. From the known dispositions of the Federal forces, I did not think it probable that any serious attempt on Mobile would be made until spring. Already in possession of Fort Morgan and Pensacola, thirty miles east of the first, and the best harbor on the Gulf, the enemy, when he attacked, would doubtless make these places his base. It was important, then, to look to defensive works on the east side of the bay, and such works were vigorously pushed at Blakeley, above mentioned, and at Spanish Fort, several miles south. I had no intention of standing a siege in Mobile, but desired to hold the place with a small force, so as to compel the employment of an army to reduce it; and for this its situation was admirably adapted. The Mobile River, forty miles long, and formed by the Alabama and Tombigby, is but the estuary at the head of Mobile Bay, silted up with detritus by the entering streams. Several miles wide, it incloses numerous marshy islands in its many channels. These features make its passage difficult, while the Mobile and Ohio Railway, trending to the west as it leaves the town to gain the high land above the valley, affords a ready means for the withdrawal of a limited force.
The officer commanding at Mobile was well qualified for his task. Major-General D.H. Maury, nephew to the distinguished Matthew Maury, formerly of the United States navy, graduated from West Point in time to serve in the war with Mexico, where he was wounded. A Virginian, he resigned from the United States cavalry to share the fortunes of his State. Intelligent, upright, and devoted to duty, he gained the respect and confidence of the townspeople, and was thereby enabled to supplement his regular force of eight thousand of all arms with a body of local militia. It was a great comfort to find an able officer in this responsible position, who not only adopted my plans, but improved and executed them. General Maury had some excellent officers under him, and the sequel will show how well they discharged their duty to the end.
From Mobile to Meridian, and after some days to Selma, ninety miles east. The railway between these last places had been recently laid down, and was very imperfect. There was no bridge over the Tombigby at Demopolis, and a steam ferry was employed. East of Demopolis, the line passed through the cane-brake country, a land of fatness. The army of Lee, starving in the trenches before Richmond and Petersburg, could have been liberally supplied from this district but for lack of transportation.
Here it may be asserted that we suffered less from inferiority of numbers than from want of mechanical resources. Most of the mechanics employed in the South were Northern men, and returned to their section at the outbreak of war. The loss of New Orleans, our only large city, aggravated this trouble, and we had no means of repairing the long lines of railway, nor the plant. Even when unbroken by raids, wear and tear rendered them inefficient at an early period of the struggle. This had a more direct influence on the sudden downfall of the Confederacy than is generally supposed.
Selma, a place of some five thousand people, is on the north bank of the Alabama River, by which it has steam communication with Mobile and Montgomery, forty miles above on the opposite bank. In addition to the railway from Meridian, there was a line running to the northeast in the direction of Dalton, Georgia, the existing terminus of which was at Blue Mountain, a hundred and odd miles from Selma; and, to inspect the line, I went to Blue Mountain. This, the southern limit of the Alleghanies, which here sink into the great plain of the gulf, was distant from the Atlanta and Chattanooga Railway, Sherman's only line of communication, sixty miles. A force operating from Blue Mountain would approach this line at a right angle, and, drawing its supplies from the fertile country near Selma, would cover its own communications while threatening those of an enemy from Atlanta to Chattanooga. On this account the road might be of importance.
Returning to Selma, I stopped at Talladega, on the east bank of the Coosa River, the largest affluent of the Alabama, and navigable by small steamers to Rome, Georgia. Here I met Brigadier Daniel Adams, in local command, and learned much of the condition of the surrounding region. After passing Chattanooga the Tennessee River makes a great bend to the South, inclosing a part of Alabama between itself and the Tennessee State line; and in this district was a small Confederate force under Brigadier Roddy, which was enabled to maintain an exposed position by knowledge of the country. General Adams thought he could procure wire enough to establish communication with Roddy, or materially shorten the courier line between them; and, as this would duplicate my means of getting news, especially of Forrest, he was directed to do so. I had no knowledge of Hood's plans or condition, saving that he had been defeated and was southwest of Atlanta; but if he contemplated operations on Sherman's communications, which was his true policy, he must draw supplies from Selma, as much of the country between the Tennessee and Alabama Rivers was sterile and sparsely populated. Accordingly, I moved my headquarters to Selma and ordered the collection of supplies there, and at Talladega; then took steamer for Montgomery, to meet the General Assembly of Alabama, called in extra session in view of the crisis produced by Hood's defeat and the fall of Atlanta. Just as the steamer was leaving Selma, I received dispatches from Forrest, announcing his first success after crossing the Tennessee river. Traveling alone, or with one staff officer, and unknown to the people, I had opportunities of learning something of the real state of public sentiment in my new department. Citizens were universally depressed and disheartened. Sick and wounded officers and men from Hood's army were dissatisfied with the removal of Johnston from command, and the subsequent conduct of affairs. From conversations in railway carriages and on river steamers I had gathered this, and nothing but this, since my arrival.
Reaching Montgomery in the morning, I had interviews with the Governor and leading members of the Assembly, who promised all the assistance in their power to aid in the defense of the State. The Governor, Watts, who had resigned the office of Attorney-General of the Confederacy to accept his present position, was ever ready to coöperate with me.
Late in the afternoon a dispatch was received from President Davis, announcing his arrival for the following morning. He came, was received by the State authorities, visited the Capitol, addressed the Assembly, and then received leading citizens; all of which consumed the day, and it was ten o'clock at night when he took me to his chamber, locked the door, and said we must devote the night to work, as it was imperative for him to return to Richmond the next morning. He began by saying that he had visited Hood and his army on his way to Montgomery, and was gratified to find officers and men in excellent spirits, not at all depressed by recent disasters, and that he thought well of a movement north toward Nashville. I expressed surprise at his statement of the condition of Hood's army, as entirely opposed to the conclusions forced on me by all the evidence I could get, and warned him of the danger of listening to narrators who were more disposed to tell what was agreeable than what was true. He readily admitted that persons in his position were exposed to this danger. Proceeding to discuss the suggested movement toward Nashville, I thought it a serious matter to undertake a campaign into Tennessee in the autumn, with troops so badly equipped as were ours for the approaching winter. Every mile the army marched north, it was removing farther from supplies, and no reënforcements were to be hoped for from any quarter. Besides, Sherman could control force enough to garrison Chattanooga and Nashville, and, if time were allowed him to accumulate supplies at Atlanta by his one line of rail, could abandon everything south of Chattanooga, and with fifty thousand men, in the absence of Hood's army, march where he liked. The President asked what assistance might be expected from the trans-Mississippi. I replied, none. There would not be another gun fired there; for the Federals had withdrawn their troops to concentrate east of the river. The difficulty of bringing over organized bodies of men was explained, with the addition of their unwillingness to come. The idea prevailed that the States west of the Mississippi had been neglected by the Government, and this idea had been encouraged by many in authority. So far from desiring to send any more men to the east, they clamored for the return of those already there. Certain senators and representatives, who had bitterly opposed the administration at Richmond, talked much wild nonsense about setting up a government west of the Mississippi, uniting with Maximilian, and calling on Louis Napoleon for assistance. The President listened attentively to this, and asked, "What then?" I informed him of the work Forrest was doing, pointed out the advantages of Blue Mountain as a base from which to operate, and suggested that Hood's army be thrown on Sherman's line of railway, north of Atlanta. As Johnston had been so recently removed from command, I would not venture to recommend his return, but believed that our chances would be increased by the assignment of Beauregard to the army. He still retained some of the early popularity gained at Sumter and Manassas, and would awaken a certain enthusiasm. Apprehending no immediate danger for Mobile, I would strip the place of everything except gunners and join Beauregard with four thousand good troops. Even the smallest reënforcement is inspiriting to a defeated army, and by seizing his railway we would force Sherman to battle. Granting we would be whipped, we could fall back to Blue Mountain without danger of pursuit, as the enemy was chained to his line of supply, and we certainly ought to make the fight hot enough to cripple him for a time and delay his projected movements. At the same time, I did not disguise my conviction that the best we could hope for was to protract the struggle until spring. It was for statesmen, not soldiers, to deal with the future.
The President said Beauregard should come, and, after consultation with Hood and myself, decide the movements of the army; but that he was distressed to hear such gloomy sentiments from me. I replied that it was my duty to express my opinions frankly to him, when he asked for them, though there would be impropriety in giving utterance to them before others; but I did not admit the gloom. In fact, I had cut into this game with eyes wide open, and felt that in staking life, fortune, and the future of my children, the chances were against success. It was not for me, then, to whimper when the cards were bad; that was the right of those who were convinced there would be no war, or at most a holiday affair, in which everybody could display heroism. With much other talk we wore through the night. In the morning he left, as he purposed, and I returned to Selma. My next meeting with President Davis was at Fortress Monroe, under circumstances to be related.
Some days at Selma were devoted to accumulation of supplies, and General Maury was advised that he must be prepared to forward a part of his command to that place, when a message from Beauregard informed me that he was on the way to Blue Mountain and desired to meet me there. He had not seen Hood, whose army, after an ineffectual attack on Altoona, had left Sherman's line of communication, moved westward, and was now some fifteen miles to the north of Blue Mountain. Having told me this, Beauregard explained the orders under which he was acting. To my disappointment, he had not been expressly assigned to command Hood's army, but to the general direction of affairs in the southwest. General Maury, a capable officer, was at Mobile; Forrest, with his cavalry division, I had sent into Tennessee; and a few scattered men were watching the enemy in various quarters--all together hardly constituting a command for a lieutenant-general, my rank. Unless Beauregard took charge of Hood's army, there was nothing for him to do except to command me. Here was a repetition of 1863. Then Johnston was sent with a roving commission to command Bragg in Tennessee, Pemberton in Mississippi, and others in sundry places. The result was that he commanded nobody, and, when Pemberton was shut up in Vicksburg, found himself helpless, with a handful of troops, at Jackson. To give an officer discretion to remove another from command of an army in the field is to throw upon him the responsibility of doing it, and this should be assumed by the government, not left to an individual.
However, I urged on Beauregard the considerations mentioned in my interview with President Davis, that Sherman had detached to look after Forrest, was compelled to keep garrisons at many points from Atlanta to Nashville, and, if forced to action fifty or sixty miles north of the former place, would be weaker then than we could hope to find him later, after he had accumulated supplies. I mentioned the little reënforcement we could have at once from Mobile, my readiness to take any command, division, brigade, or regiment to which he might assign me, and, above all, the necessity of prompt action. There were two persons present, Colonel Brent, of Beauregard's staff, and Mr. Charles Villeré, a member of the Confederate Congress from Louisiana. The former said all that was proper for a staff officer in favor of my views; the latter, Beauregard's brother-in-law, warmly urged their adoption. The General ordered his horse, to visit Hood, and told me to await intelligence from him. On his return from Hood, he informed me that the army was moving to the northwest, and would cross the Tennessee river near the Muscle Shoals. As this plan of campaign had met the sanction of President Davis, and Hood felt confident of success, he declined to interfere. I could not blame Beauregard; for it was putting a cruel responsibility on him to supersede a gallant veteran, to whom fortune had been adverse. There was nothing to be said and nothing to be done, saving to discharge one's duty to the bitter end. Hood's line of march would bring him within reach of the Mobile and Ohio Railway in northern Mississippi, and supplies could be sent him by that road. Selma ceased to be of importance, and my quarters were returned to Meridian. Forrest, just back from Tennessee, was advised of Hood's purposes and ordered to coöperate. Maury was made happy by the information that he would lose none of his force, and the usual routine of inspections, papers, etc., occupied the ensuing weeks.
My attention was called about this time to the existence of a wide-spread evil. A practice had grown up of appointing provost-marshals to take private property for public use, and every little post commander exercised the power to appoint such officials. The land swarmed with these vermin, appointed without due authority, or self-constituted, who robbed the people of horses, mules, cattle, corn, and meat. The wretched peasants of the middle ages could not have suffered more from the "free companies" turned loose upon them. Loud complaints came up from State governors and from hundreds of good citizens. I published an order, informing the people that their property was not to be touched unless by authority given by me and in accordance with the forms of law, and they were requested to deal with all violators of the order as with highwaymen. This put an end to the tyranny, which had been long and universally submitted to.
The readiness of submission to power displayed by the American people in the war was astonishing. Our British forefathers transmitted to us respect for law and love of liberty founded upon it; but the influence of universal suffrage seemed to have destroyed all sense of personal manhood, all conception of individual rights. It may be said of the South, that its people submitted to wrong because they were engaged in a fierce struggle with superior force; but what of the North, whose people were fighting for conquest? Thousands were opposed to the war, and hundreds of thousands to its conduct and objects. The wonderful vote received by McClellan in 1864 showed the vast numbers of the Northern minority; yet, so far from modifying in the smallest degree the will and conduct of the majority, this multitude of men dared not give utterance to their real sentiments; and the same was true of the South at the time of secession. Reformers who have tried to improve the morals of humanity, discoverers who have striven to alleviate its physical conditions, have suffered martyrdom at its hands. Years upon years have been found necessary to induce the masses to consider, much less adopt, schemes for their own advantage. A government of numbers, then, is not one of virtue or intelligence, but of force, intangible, irresistible, irresponsible--resembling that of Cæsar depicted by the great historian, which, covering the earth as a pall, reduced all to a common level of abject servitude. For many years scarce a descendant of the colonial gentry in the Eastern States has been elected to public office. To-day they have no existence even as a social force and example. Under the baleful influence of negro suffrage it is impossible to foretell the destiny of the South. Small wonder that pure democracies have ever proved ready to exchange "Demos" for some other tyrant.
Occasional visits for inspection were made to Mobile, where Maury was strengthening his defenses. On the east side of the bay, Blakeley and Spanish Fort were progressing steadily, as I held that the enemy would attack there, tempted by his possession of Pensacola and Fort Morgan. Although this opinion was justified in the end, hope may have had some influence in its formation; for we could meet attack from that quarter better than from the west, which, indeed, would have speedily driven us from the place. The loss of the Mobile and Ohio railway would have necessitated the withdrawal of the garrison across the bay, a difficult operation, if pressed by superior force.
The Confederate Congress had enacted that negro troops, captured, should be restored to their owners. We had several hundreds of such, taken by Forrest in Tennessee, whose owners could not be reached; and they were put to work on the fortifications at Mobile, rather for the purpose of giving them healthy employment than for the value of the work. I made it a point to visit their camps and inspect the quantity and quality of their food, always found to be satisfactory. On one occasion, while so engaged, a fine-looking negro, who seemed to be leader among his comrades, approached me and said: "Thank you, Massa General, they give us plenty of good victuals; but how you like our work?" I replied that they had worked very well. "If you will give us guns we will fight for these works, too. We would rather fight for our own white folks than for strangers." And, doubtless, this was true. In their dealings with the negro the white men of the South should ever remember that no instance of outrage occurred during the war. Their wives and little ones remained safe at home, surrounded by thousands of faithful slaves, who worked quietly in the fields until removed by the Federals. This is the highest testimony to the kindness of the master and the gentleness of the servant; and all the dramatic talent prostituted to the dissemination of falsehood in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and similar productions can not rebut it.
About the middle of November I received from General Lee, now commanding the armies of the Confederacy, instructions to visit Macon and Savannah, Georgia, if I could leave my department, and report to him the condition of affairs in that quarter, and the probabilities of Sherman's movements, as the latter had left Atlanta. I proceeded at once, taking rail at Montgomery, and reached Macon, via Columbus, Georgia, at dawn. It was the bitterest weather I remember in this latitude. The ground was frozen and some snow was falling. General Howell Cobb, the local commander, met me at the station and took me to his house, which was also his office. Arrived there, horses appeared, and Cobb said he supposed that I would desire to ride out and inspect the fortifications, on which he had been at work all night, as the enemy was twelve miles north of Macon at noon of the preceding day. I asked what force he had to defend the place. He stated the number, which was utterly inadequate, and composed of raw conscripts. Whereupon I declined to look at the fortifications, and requested him to order work upon them to be stopped, so that his men could get by a fire, as I then was and intended to remain. I had observed a movement of stores in passing the railway station, and now expressed the opinion that Macon was the safest place in Georgia, and advised Cobb to keep his stores. Here entered General Mackall, one of Cobb's subordinates, who was personally in charge of the defensive works, and could not credit the order he had received to stop. Cobb referred him to me, and I said: "The enemy was but twelve miles from you at noon of yesterday. Had he intended coming to Macon, you would have seen him last evening, before you had time to strengthen works or remove stores." This greatly comforted Cobb, who up to that moment held me to be a lunatic. Breakfast was suggested, to which I responded with enthusiasm, having been on short commons for many hours. While we were enjoying the meal, intelligence was brought that the enemy had disappeared from the north of Macon and marched eastward. Cobb was delighted. He pronounced me to be the wisest of generals, and said he knew nothing of military affairs, but had entered the service from a sense of duty.
Cobb had been Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of President Buchanan. Beloved and respected in his State, he had been sent to Georgia to counteract the influence of Governor Joe Brown, who, carrying out the doctrine of State rights, had placed himself in opposition to President Davis. Cobb, with his conscripts, had been near Atlanta before Sherman moved out, and gave me a laughable account of the expeditious manner in which he and "his little party" got to Macon, just as he was inditing a superb dispatch to General Lee to inform him of the impossibility of Sherman's escape.
While we were conversing Governor Brown was announced, as arrived from Milledgeville, the State capital, forty miles to the northeast. Cobb remarked that it was awkward; for Governor Brown was the only man in Georgia to whom he did not speak. But he yielded to the ancient jest, that for the time being we had best hang together, as there seemed a possibility of enjoying that amusement separately, and brought the Governor in, who told me that he had escaped from Milledgeville as the Federals entered. People said that he had brought off his cow and his cabbages, and left the State's property to take care of itself. However, Governor Brown deserves praise at my hands, for he promptly acceded to all my requests. With him were General Robert Toombs, the most original of men, and General G.W. Smith, both of whom had been in the Confederate army. Toombs had resigned to take the place of Adjutant-General of Georgia; Smith, to superintend some iron works, from which he had been driven by Sherman's movements, and was now in command of Governor Brown's "army," composed of men that he had refused to the Confederate service. This "army" had some hours before marched east toward Savannah, taking the direct route along the railway. I told the Governor that his men would be captured unless they were called back at once; and Smith, who undertook the duty in person, was just in time. "Joe Brown's army" struck the extreme right of Sherman, and suffered some loss before Smith could extricate it. To Albany, ninety miles south of Macon, there was a railway, and some forty miles farther south, across the country, Thomasville was reached. Here was the terminus of the Savannah and Gulf Railway, two hundred miles, or thereabouts, southwest of Savannah. This route I decided to take, and suggested it to the Governor as the only safe one for his troops. He acquiesced at once, and Toombs promised to have transportation ready by the time Smith returned. Taking leave of Cobb, I departed.
Several years after the close of the war General Cobb and I happened to be in New York, accompanied by our families, but stopping at different inns. He dined with me, seemed in excellent health and spirits, and remained to a late hour, talking over former times and scenes. I walked to his lodgings with him, and promised to call with my wife on Mrs. Cobb the following day at 1 o'clock. We were there at the hour, when the servant, in answer to my request to take up our cards, stated that General Cobb had just fallen dead. I sprang up the stair, and saw his body lying on the floor of a room, his wife, dazed by the shock, looking on. A few minutes before he had written a letter and started for the office of the inn to post it, remarking to his wife that he would return immediately, as he expected our visit. A step from the threshold, and he was dead. Thus suddenly passed away one of the most genial and generous men I have known. His great fortune suffered much by the war, but to the last he shared its remains with less fortunate friends.
Traveling all night, I reached Thomasville in the early morning, and found that there was telegraphic communication with General Hardee at Savannah, whom I informed of my presence and requested to send down transportation for Governor Brown's troops. There was much delay at Thomasville, the railway people appearing to think that Sherman was swarming all over Georgia. At length I discovered an engine and a freight van, which the officials promised to get ready for me; but they were dreadfully slow, until Toombs rode into town and speedily woke them up. Smith returned to Macon after my departure, found transportation ready for his men, brought them to Albany by rail, and was now marching to Thomasville. Toombs, who had ridden on in advance, was not satisfied with Hardee's reply to my dispatch, but took possession of the telegraph and threatened dire vengeance on superintendents and road masters if they failed to have the necessary engines and carriages ready in time. He damned the dawdling creatures who had delayed me to such an extent as to make them energetic, and my engine appeared, puffing with anxiety to move. He assured me that he would not be many hours after me at Savannah, for Smith did not intend to halt on the road, as his men could rest in the carriages. A man of extraordinary energy, this same Toombs.
Savannah was reached about midnight, and Hardee was awaiting me. A short conversation cleared the situation and enabled me to send the following report to General Lee. Augusta, Georgia, held by General Bragg with a limited force, was no longer threatened, as the enemy had passed south of it. Sherman, with sixty or seventy thousand men, was moving on the high ground between the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers; and as this afforded a dry, sandy road direct to Savannah, where he would most readily meet the Federal fleet, it was probable that he would adhere to it. He might cross the Savannah river forty or fifty miles above and march on Charleston, but this was hardly to be expected; for, in addition to the river named, there were several others and a difficult country to pass before Charleston could be reached, and his desire to communicate with the fleet by the nearest route and in the shortest time must be considered. Hardee's force was inadequate to the defense of Savannah, and he should prepare to abandon the place before he was shut up. Uniting, Bragg and Hardee should call in the garrison from Charleston, and all scattered forces along the coast south of Wilmington, North Carolina, and be prepared to resist Sherman's march through the Carolinas, which he must be expected to undertake as soon as he had established a base on the ocean. Before this report was dispatched, Hardee read and approved it.
Meanwhile scores of absurd rumors about the enemy came in. Places I had passed within an hour were threatened by heavy columns; others, from which the enemy was distant a hundred miles, were occupied, etc. But one of importance did come. The railway from Savannah to Charleston passes near the coast. The officer commanding at Pocotaligo, midway of the two places, reported an advance of the enemy from Port Royal, and that he must abandon his post the following morning unless reënforced. To lose the Charleston line would seriously interfere with the concentration just recommended. Hardee said that he could ill spare men, and had no means of moving them promptly. I bethought me of Toombs, Smith, and Governor Brown's "army." The energetic Toombs had frightened the railway people into moving him, and, from his telegrams, might be expected before dawn. Hardee thought but little of the suggestion, because the ground of quarrel between Governor Brown and President Davis was the refusal of the former to allow his guards to serve beyond their state. However, I had faith in Toombs and Smith. A short distance to the south of Savannah, on the Gulf road, was a switch by which carriages could be shunted on to a connection with the Charleston line. I wrote to Toombs of the emergency, and sent one of Hardee's staff to meet him at the switch. The governor's army was quietly shunted off and woke up at Pocotaligo in South Carolina, where it was just in time to repulse the enemy after a spirited little action, thereby saving the railway. Doubtless the Georgians, a plucky people, would have responded to an appeal to leave their State under the circumstances, but Toombs enjoyed the joke of making them unconscious patriots.
In the past autumn Cassius Clay of Kentucky killed a colored man who had attacked him. For more than thirty years Mr. Clay had advocated the abolition of slavery, and at the risk of his life. Dining with Toombs in New York just after the event, he said to me: "Seen the story about old Cassius Clay? Been an abolitionist all his days, and ends by shooting a nigger. I knew he would." A droll fellow is Robert Toombs. Full of talent and well instructed, he affects quaint and provincial forms of speech. His influence in Georgia is great, and he is a man to know.
Two days at Savannah served to accomplish the object of my mission, and, taking leave of Hardee, I returned to my own department. An educated soldier of large experience, Hardee was among the best of our subordinate generals, and, indeed, seemed to possess the requisite qualities for supreme command; but this he steadily refused, alleging his unfitness for responsibility. Such modesty is not a common American weakness, and deserves to be recorded. General Hardee's death occurred after the close of the war.
In this journey through Georgia, at Andersonville, I passed in sight of a large stockade inclosing prisoners of war. The train stopped for a few moments, and there entered the carriage, to speak to me, a man who said his name was Wirtz, and that he was in charge of the prisoners near by. He complained of the inadequacy of his guard and of the want of supplies, as the adjacent region was sterile and thinly populated. He also said that the prisoners were suffering from cold, were destitute of blankets, and that he had not wagons to supply fuel. He showed me duplicates of requisitions and appeals for relief that he had made to different authorities, and these I indorsed in the strongest terms possible, hoping to accomplish some good. I know nothing of this Wirtz, whom I then met for the first and only time, but he appeared to be earnest in his desire to mitigate the condition of his prisoners. There can be but little doubt that his execution was a "sop" to the passions of the "many-headed."
Returned to Meridian, the situation of Hood in Tennessee absorbed all my attention. He had fought at Franklin, and was now near Nashville. Franklin was a bloody affair, in which Hood lost many of his best officers and troops. The previous evening, at dusk, a Federal column, retreating north, passed within pistol-shot of Hood's forces, and an attack on it might have produced results; but it reached strong works at Franklin, and held them against determined assaults, until night enabled it to withdraw quietly to Nashville. This mistake may be ascribed to Hood's want of physical activity, occasioned by severe wounds and amputations, which might have been considered before he was assigned to command. Maurice of Saxe won Fontenoy in a litter, unable from disease to mount his horse; but in war it is hazardous to convert exceptions into rules.
Notwithstanding his frightful loss at Franklin, Hood followed the enemy to Nashville, and took position south of the place, where he remained ten days or more. It is difficult to imagine what objects he had in view. The town was open to the north, whence the Federal commander, Thomas, was hourly receiving reënforcements, while he had none to hope for. His plans perfected and his reënforcements joined, Thomas moved, and Hood was driven off; and, had the Federal general possessed dash equal to his tenacity and caution, one fails to see how Hood could have brought man or gun across the Tennessee River. It is painful to criticise Hood's conduct of this campaign. Like Ney, "the bravest of the brave," he was a splendid leader in battle, and as a brigade or division commander unsurpassed; but, arrived at higher rank, he seems to have been impatient of control, and openly disapproved of Johnston's conduct of affairs between Dalton and Atlanta. Unwillingness to obey is often interpreted by governments into capacity for command.
Reaching the southern bank of the Tennessee, Hood asked to be relieved, and a telegraphic order assigned me to the duty. At Tupelo, on the Mobile and Ohio Railway, a hundred and odd miles north of Meridian, I met him and the remains of his army. Within my experience were assaults on positions, in which heavy losses were sustained without success; but the field had been held--retreats, but preceded by repulse of the foe and followed by victory. This was my first view of a beaten army, an army that for four years had shown a constancy worthy of the "Ten Thousand"; and a painful sight it was. Many guns and small arms had been lost, and the ranks were depleted by thousands of prisoners and missing. Blankets, shoes, clothing, and accouterments were wanting. I have written of the unusual severity of the weather in the latter part of November, and it was now near January. Some men perished by frost; many had the extremities severely bitten. Fleming, the active superintendent mentioned, strained the resources of his railway to transport the troops to the vicinity of Meridian, where timber for shelter and fuel was abundant and supplies convenient; and every energy was exerted to reëquip them.
Sherman was now in possession of Savannah, but an interior line of rail by Columbus, Macon, and Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, was open. Mobile was not immediately threatened, and was of inferior importance as compared with the safety of Lee's army at Petersburg. Unless a force could be interposed between Sherman and Lee's rear, the game would be over when the former moved. Accordingly, I dispatched to General Lee the suggestion of sending the "Army of Tennessee" to North Carolina, where Johnston had been restored to command. He approved, and directed me to send forward the men as rapidly as possible. I had long dismissed all thought of the future. The duty of a soldier in the field is simple--to fight until stopped by the civil arm of his government, or his government has ceased to exist; and military men have usually come to grief by forgetting this simple duty.
Forrest had fought and worked hard in this last Tennessee campaign, and his division of cavalry was broken down. By brigades it was distributed to different points in the prairie and cane-brake regions, where forage could be had, and I hoped for time to restore the cattle and refit the command. With our limited resources of transportation, it was a slow business to forward troops to Johnston in North Carolina; but at length it was accomplished, and the month of March came round to raise the curtain for the last act of the bloody drama. Two clouds appeared on the horizon of my department. General Canby, a steady soldier, whom I had long known, had assumed command of all the Federal forces in the southwest, and was concentrating fifty thousand men at Fort Morgan and Pensacola against Mobile. In northern Alabama General Wilson had ten thousand picked mounted men ready for an expedition. At Selma was a foundry, where the best ordnance I have seen was made of Briarsfield iron, from a furnace in the vicinity; and, as this would naturally attract the enemy's attention to Selma, I endeavored to prepare for him. The Cahawba River, from the northeast, enters the Alabama below Selma, north of which it separates the barren mineral region from the fertile lands of the river basin; and at its crossing I directed Forrest to concentrate.
Wilson, with the smallest body, would probably move first; and, once disposed of, Forrest could be sent south of the Alabama River to delay Canby and prolong the defense of Mobile. For a hundred miles north of the gulf the country is sterile, pine forest on a soil of white sand; but the northern end of the Montgomery and Pensacola Railway was in our possession, and would enable us to transport supplies. In a conference with Maury at Mobile I communicated the above to him, as I had previously to Forrest, and hastened to Selma. Distributed for forage, and still jaded by hard work, Forrest ordered his brigades to the Cahawba crossing, leading one in person. His whole force would have been inferior to Wilson's, but he was a host in himself, and a dangerous adversary to meet at any reasonable odds.
Our information of the enemy had proved extremely accurate; but in this instance the Federal commander moved with unusual rapidity, and threw out false signals. Forrest, with one weak brigade, was in the path; but two of his brigadiers permitted themselves to be deceived by reports of the enemy's movements toward Columbus, Mississippi, and turned west, while another went into camp under some misconception of orders. Forrest fought as if the world depended on his arm, and sent to advise me of the deceit practiced on two of his brigades, but hoped to stop the enemy if he could get up the third, the absence of which he could not account for. I directed such railway plant as we had to be moved out on the roads, retaining a small yard engine to take me off at the last moment. There was nothing more to be done. Forrest appeared, horse and man covered with blood, and announced the enemy at his heels, and that I must move at once to escape capture. I felt anxious for him, but he said he was unhurt and would cut his way through, as most of his men had done, whom he had ordered to meet him west of the Cahawba. My engine started toward Meridian, and barely escaped. Before headway was attained the enemy was upon us, and capture seemed inevitable. Fortunately, the group of horsemen near prevented their comrades from firing, so we had only to risk a fusillade from a dozen, who fired wild. The driver and stoker, both negroes, were as game as possible, and as we thundered across Cahawba bridge, all safe, raised a loud "Yah! yah!" of triumph, and smiled like two sable angels. Wilson made no delay at Selma, but, crossing the Alabama River, pushed on to Montgomery, and thence into Georgia. I have never met this General Wilson, whose soldierly qualities are entitled to respect; for of all the Federal expeditions of which I have any knowledge, his was the best conducted.
It would have been useless to pursue Wilson, had there been troops disposable, as many hundred miles intervened between him and North Carolina, where Johnston commanded the nearest Confederate forces, too remote to be affected by his movements. Canby was now before the eastern defenses of Mobile, and it was too late to send Forrest to that quarter. He was therefore directed to draw together and reorganize his division near Meridian.
CLOSING OPERATIONS OF THE WAR--SURRENDER.
On the 26th of March Canby invested Spanish Fort, and began the siege by regular approaches, a part of his army investing Blakeley on the same day. General R.L. Gibson, now a member of Congress from Louisiana, held Spanish Fort with twenty-five hundred men. Fighting all day and working all night, Gibson successfully resisted the efforts of the immense force against him until the evening of April 8, when the enemy effected a lodgment threatening his only route of evacuation. Under instructions from Maury, he withdrew his garrison in the night to Mobile, excepting his pickets, necessarily left. Gibson's stubborn defense and skillful retreat make this one of the best achievements of the war. Although invested on the 26th of March, the siege of Blakeley was not pressed until April 1, when Steele's corps of Canby's army joined the original force before it. Here, with a garrison of twenty-eight hundred men, commanded General Liddell, with General Cockrell, now a Senator from Missouri, as his second. Every assault of the enemy, who made but little progress, was gallantly repulsed until the afternoon of the 9th, when, learning by the evacuation of Spanish Fort how small a force had delayed him, he concentrated on Blakeley and carried it, capturing the garrison. Maury intended to withdraw Liddell during the night of the 9th. It would have been more prudent to have done so on the night of the 8th, as the enemy would naturally make an energetic effort after the fall of Spanish Fort; but he was unwilling to yield any ground until the last moment, and felt confident of holding the place another day. After dismantling his works, Maury marched out of Mobile on the 12th of April, with forty-five hundred men, including three field batteries, and was directed to Cuba Station, near Meridian. In the interest of the thirty thousand non-combatants of the town, he properly notified the enemy that the place was open. During the movement from Mobile toward Meridian occurred the last engagement of the civil war, in a cavalry affair between the Federal advance and our rear guard under Colonel Spence. Commodore Farrand took his armed vessels and all the steamers in the harbor up the Tombigby River, above its junction with the Alabama, and planted torpedoes in the stream below. Forrest and Maury had about eight thousand men, but tried and true. Cattle were shod, wagons overhauled, and every preparation for rapid movement made.
From the North, by wire and courier, I received early intelligence of passing events. Indeed, these were of a character for the enemy to disseminate rather than suppress. Before Maury left Mobile I had learned of Lee's surrender, rumors of which spreading among the troops, a number from the neighboring camps came to see me. I confirmed the rumor, and told them the astounding news, just received, of President Lincoln's assassination. For a time they were silent with amazement, then asked if it was possible that any Southern man had committed the act. There was a sense of relief expressed when they learned that the wretched assassin had no connection with the South, but was an actor, whose brains were addled by tragedies and Plutarch's fables.
It was but right to tell these gallant, faithful men the whole truth concerning our situation. The surrender of Lee left us little hope of success; but while Johnston remained in arms we must be prepared to fight our way to him. Again, the President and civil authorities of our Government were on their way to the south, and might need our protection. Granting the cause for which we had fought to be lost, we owed it to our own manhood, to the memory of the dead, and to the honor of our arms, to remain steadfast to the last. This was received, not with noisy cheers, but solemn murmurs of approval, showing that it was understood and adopted. Forrest and Maury shared my opinions and objects, and impressed them on their men. Complete order was maintained throughout, and public property protected, though it was known later that this would be turned over to the Federal authorities. A considerable amount of gold was near our camps, and safely guarded; yet it is doubtful if our united means would have sufficed to purchase a breakfast.
Members of the Confederate Congress from the adjoining and more western States came to us. These gentlemen had left Richmond very hurriedly, in the first days of April, and were sorely jaded by fatigue and anxiety, as the presence of Wilson's troops in Georgia had driven them to by-paths to escape capture. Arrived at a well-ordered camp, occupied by a formidable-looking force, they felt as storm-tossed mariners in a harbor of refuge, and, ignorant of recent events, as well as uncertain of the future, were eager for news and counsel. The struggle was virtually over, and the next few days, perhaps hours, would decide my course. In my judgment it would speedily become their duty to go to their respective homes. They had been the leaders of the people, had sought and accepted high office at their hands, and it was for them to teach the masses, by example and precept, how best to meet impending troubles. Possibly they might suffer annoyance and persecution from Federal power, but manhood and duty required them to incur the risk. To the credit of these gentlemen it should be recorded that they followed this advice when the time for action came. There was one exception which deserves mention.
Ex-Governor Harris, now a United States Senator from Tennessee, occupied the executive chair of his State in 1862, and withdrew from Nashville when the army of General Sidney Johnston retreated to the Tennessee River in the spring of that year. By the death of President Lincoln, Andrew Johnson had succeeded to power, and he was from Tennessee, and the personal enemy of Governor Harris. The relations of their State with the Federal Union had been restored, and Harris's return would be productive of discord rather than peace. I urged him to leave the country for a time, and offered to aid him in crossing the Mississippi River; but he was very unwilling to go, and only consented after a matter was arranged, which I anticipate the current of events to relate. He had brought away from Nashville the coin of the Bank of Tennessee, which, as above mentioned, was now in our camp. An official of the bank had always been in immediate charge of this coin, but Harris felt that honor was involved in its safe return. At my request, General Canby detailed an officer and escort to take the coin to Nashville, where it arrived intact; but the unhappy official accompanying it was incarcerated for his fidelity. Had he betrayed his trust, he might have received rewards instead of stripes. 'Tis dangerous to be out of harmony with the practices of one's time.
Intelligence of the Johnston-Sherman convention reached us, and Canby and I were requested by the officers making it to conform to its terms until the civil authorities acted. A meeting was arranged to take place a few miles north of Mobile, where the appearance of the two parties contrasted the fortunes of our respective causes. Canby, who preceded me at the appointed spot, a house near the railway, was escorted by a brigade with a military band, and accompanied by many officers in "full fig." With one officer, Colonel William Levy, since a member of Congress from Louisiana, I made my appearance on a hand-car, the motive power of which was two negroes. Descendants of the ancient race of Abraham, dealers in cast-off raiment, would have scorned to bargain for our rusty suits of Confederate gray. General Canby met me with much urbanity. We retired to a room, and in a few moments agreed upon a truce, terminable after forty-eight hours' notice by either party. Then, rejoining the throng of officers, introductions and many pleasant civilities passed. I was happy to recognize Commodore (afterward Admiral) James Palmer, an old friend. He was second to Admiral Thatcher, commanding United States squadron in Mobile Bay, and had come to meet me. A bountiful luncheon was spread, of which we partook, with joyous poppings of champagne corks for accompaniment, the first agreeable explosive sounds I had heard for years. The air of "Hail Columbia," which the band in attendance struck up, was instantly changed by Canby's order to that of "Dixie"; but I insisted on the first, and expressed a hope that Columbia would be again a happy land, a sentiment honored by many libations.
There was, as ever, a skeleton at the feast, in the person of a general officer who had recently left Germany to become a citizen and soldier of the United States. This person, with the strong accent and idioms of the Fatherland, comforted me by assurances that we of the South would speedily recognize our ignorance and errors, especially about slavery and the rights of States, and rejoice in the results of the war. In vain Canby and Palmer tried to suppress him. On a celebrated occasion an Emperor of Germany proclaimed himself above grammar, and this earnest philosopher was not to be restrained by canons of taste. I apologized meekly for my ignorance, on the ground that my ancestors had come from England to Virginia in 1608, and, in the short intervening period of two hundred and fifty-odd years, had found no time to transmit to me correct ideas of the duties of American citizenship. Moreover, my grandfather, commanding the 9th Virginia regiment in our Revolutionary army, had assisted in the defeat and capture of the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and I lamented that he had not, by association with these worthies, enlightened his understanding. My friend smiled blandly, and assured me of his willingness to instruct me. Happily for the world, since the days of Huss and Luther, neither tyranny nor taste can repress the Teutonic intellect in search of truth or exposure of error. A kindly, worthy people, the Germans, but wearing on occasions.
The party separated, Canby for Mobile, I for Meridian, where within two days came news of Johnston's surrender in North Carolina, the capture of President Davis in Georgia, and notice from Canby that the truce must terminate, as his Government disavowed the Johnston-Sherman convention. I informed General Canby that I desired to meet him for the purpose of negotiating a surrender of my forces, and that Commodore Farrand would accompany me to meet Admiral Thatcher. The military and civil authorities of the Confederacy had fallen, and I was called to administer on the ruins as residuary legatee. It seemed absurd for the few there present to continue the struggle against a million of men. We could only secure honorable interment for the remains of our cause--a cause that for four years had fixed the attention of the world, been baptized in the blood of thousands, and whose loss would be mourned in bitter tears by countless widows and orphans throughout their lives. At the time, no doubts as to the propriety of my course entered my mind, but such have since crept in. Many Southern warriors, from the hustings and in print, have declared that they were anxious to die in the last ditch, and by implication were restrained from so doing by the readiness of their generals to surrender. One is not permitted to question the sincerity of these declarations, which have received the approval of public opinion by the elevation of the heroes uttering them to such offices as the people of the South have to bestow; and popular opinion in our land is a court from whose decisions there is no appeal on this side of the grave.
On the 8th of May, 1865, at Citronelle, forty miles north of Mobile, I delivered the epilogue of the great drama in which I had played a humble part. The terms of surrender demanded and granted were consistent with the honor of our arms; and it is due to the memory of General Canby to add that he was ready with suggestions to soothe our military pride. Officers retained their side arms, mounted men their horses, which in our service were private property; and public stores, ordnance, commissary, and quartermaster, were to be turned over to officers of the proper departments and receipted for. Paroles of the men were to be signed by their officers on rolls made out for the purpose, and I was to retain control of railways and river steamers to transport the troops as nearly as possible to their homes and feed them on the road, in order to spare the destitute people of the country the burden of their maintenance. Railways and steamers, though used by the Confederate authorities, were private property, and had been taken by force which the owners could not resist; and it was agreed that they should not be seized by civil jackals following the army without special orders from Washington. Finally, I was to notify Canby when to send his officers to my camp to receive paroles and stores.
Near the Tombigby River, to the east of Meridian, were many thousands of bales of cotton, belonging to the Confederate Government and in charge of a treasury agent. It seemed to me a duty to protect public property and transfer it to the United States, successors by victory to the extinct Confederacy. Accordingly, a guard had been placed over this cotton, though I hated the very name of the article, as the source of much corruption to our people. Canby remarked that cotton had been a curse to his side as well, and he would send to New Orleans for a United States Treasury agent, so that we might rid ourselves of this at the earliest moment. The conditions of surrender written out and signed, we had some conversation about the state of the country, disposition of the people, etc. I told him that all were weary of strife, and he would meet no opposition in any quarter, and pointed out places in the interior where supplies could be had, recommending him to station troops at such places. I was persuaded that moderation by his officers and men would lead to intercourse, traffic, and good feeling with the people. He thanked me for the suggestions, and adopted them.
The Governors of Mississippi and Alabama, Clarke and Watts, had asked for advice in the emergency produced by surrender, which they had been informed was impending, and I thought their best course would be to summon their State Legislatures. These would certainly provide for conventions of the people to repeal ordinances of secession and abolish slavery, thus smoothing the way for the restoration of their States to the Union. Such action would be in harmony with the theory and practice of the American system, and clear the road of difficulties. The North, by its Government, press, and people, had been declaring for years that the war was for the preservation of the Union and for nothing else, and Canby and I, in the innocence of our hearts, believed it. As Canby thought well of my plan, I communicated with the Governors, who acted on it; but the Washington authorities imprisoned them for abetting a new rebellion.
Returned to Meridian, I was soon ready for the Federal officers, who came quietly to our camp and entered on their appointed work; and I have now in my possession receipts given by them for public stores. Meanwhile, I received from Canby a letter informing me that he had directed two of his corps commanders, Generals Steele and Granger, to apply to me for instructions concerning the movement of their troops, as to time, places, and numbers. It was queer for one to be placed in quasi command of soldiers that he had been fighting for four years, and to whom he had surrendered; but I delicately made some suggestions to these officers, which were adopted.
With two or three staff officers, I remained at Meridian until the last man had departed, and then went to Mobile. General Canby most considerately took me, Tom, and my two horses on his boat to New Orleans; else I must have begged my way. The Confederate paper (not currency, for it was without exchangeable value) in my pocket would not have served for traveling expenses; and my battered old sword could hardly be relied on for breakfasts, dinners, and horse feed.
After an absence of four years, I saw my native place and home, New Orleans. My estate had been confiscated and sold, and I was without a penny. The man of Uz admitted that naked he came into the world, and naked must leave it; but to find himself naked in the midst of it tried even his patience. My first care was to sell my horses, and a purchaser was found who agreed to take and pay for them the following morning. I felt somewhat eager to get hold of the "greenbacks," and suffered for my avarice. The best horse, one that had carried me many a weary mile and day without failing, could not move a hoof when the purchaser came to take him. Like other veterans, long unaccustomed to abundance of prog, he had overfed and was badly foundered. Fortunately, the liveryman proposed to take this animal as a consideration for the keep of the two, and the price received for the other would suffice to bring my wife and children from the Red River to New Orleans, and was sent to them for that purpose.
Awaiting the arrival of my family, I had a few days of rest at the house of an old friend, when Generals Price, Buckner, and Brent came from Shreveport, the headquarters of the "Trans-Mississippi Department," under flag of truce, and sent for me. They reported a deplorable condition of affairs in that region. Many of the troops had taken up the idea that it was designed to inveigle them into Mexico, and were greatly incensed. Some generals of the highest rank had found it convenient to fold their tents and quietly leave for the Rio Grande; others, who remained, were obliged to keep their horses in their quarters and guard them in person; and numbers of men had disbanded and gone off. By a meeting of officers, the gentlemen present were deputed to make a surrender and ask for Federal troops to restore order. The officers in question requested me to be present at their interview with General Canby, who also invited me, and I witnessed the conclusion. So, from the Charleston Convention to this point, I shared the fortunes of the Confederacy, and can say, as Grattan did of Irish freedom, that I "sat by its cradle and followed its hearse."
For some weeks after my return to New Orleans, I had various occasions to see General Canby on matters connected with the surrender, and recall no instance in which he did not conform to my wishes. Narrow perhaps in his view, and harsh in discharge of duty, he was just, upright, and honorable, and it was with regret that I learned of his murder by a band of Modoc savages.