Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 by Jacob Dolson Cox

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CHAPTER XXV

THE LIBERATION OF EAST TENNESSEE

News of Grant's victory at Vicksburg--A thrilling scene at the
opera--Burnside's Ninth Corps to return--Stanton urges Rosecrans to
advance--The Tullahoma manoeuvres--Testy correspondence--Its real
meaning--Urgency with Burnside--Ignorance concerning his
situation--His disappointment as to Ninth Corps--Rapid concentration
of other troops--Burnside's march into East Tennessee--Occupation of
Knoxville--Invests Cumberland Gap--The garrison surrenders--Good
news from Rosecrans--Distances between armies--Divergent lines--No
railway communication--Burnside concentrates toward the Virginia
line--Joy of the people--Their intense loyalty--Their faith in the
future.

CHAPTER XXVI

BURNSIDE IN EAST TENNESSEE

Organizing and arming the loyalists--Burnside concentrates near
Greeneville--His general plan--Rumors of Confederate
reinforcements--Lack of accurate information--The Ninth Corps in
Kentucky--Its depletion by malarial disease--Death of General Welsh
from this cause--Preparing for further work--Situation on 16th
September--Dispatch from Halleck--Its apparent purpose--Necessity to
dispose of the enemy near Virginia border--Burnside personally at
the front--His great activity--Ignorance of Rosecrans's
peril--Impossibility of joining him by the 20th--Ruinous effects of
abandoning East Tennessee--Efforts to aid Rosecrans without such
abandonment--Enemy duped into burning Watauga bridge
themselves--Ninth Corps arriving--Willcox's division garrisons
Cumberland Gap--Reinforcements sent Rosecrans from all
quarters--Chattanooga made safe from attack--The supply
question--Meigs's description of the roads--Burnside halted near
Loudon--Halleck's misconception of the geography--The people
imploring the President not to remove the troops--How Longstreet got
away from Virginia--Burnside's alternate plans--Minor operations in
upper Holston valley--Wolford's affair on the lower Holston.

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF

THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER I

THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR

Ohio Senate April 12--Sumter bombarded--"Glory to God!"--The
surrender--Effect on public sentiment--Call for troops--Politicians
changing front--David Tod--Stephen A. Douglas--The insurrection must
be crushed--Garfield on personal duty--Troops organized by the
States--The militia--Unpreparedness--McClellan at Columbus--Meets
Governor Dennison--Put in command--Our stock of munitions--Making
estimates--McClellan's plan--Camp Jackson--Camp Dennison--Gathering
of the volunteers--Garibaldi uniforms--Officering the troops--Off
for Washington--Scenes in the State Capitol--Governor Dennison's
labors--Young regulars--Scott's policy--Alex. McCook--Orlando
Poe--Not allowed to take state commissions.

On Friday the twelfth day of April, 1861, the Senate of Ohio was in
session, trying to go on in the ordinary routine of business, but
with a sense of anxiety and strain which was caused by the troubled
condition of national affairs. The passage of Ordinances of
Secession by one after another of the Southern States, and even the
assembling of a provisional Confederate government at Montgomery,
had not wholly destroyed the hope that some peaceful way out of our
troubles would be found; yet the gathering of an army on the sands
opposite Fort Sumter was really war, and if a hostile gun were
fired, we knew it would mean the end of all effort at arrangement.
Hoping almost against hope that blood would not be shed, and that
the pageant of military array and of a rebel government would pass
by and soon be reckoned among the disused scenes and properties of a
political drama that never pretended to be more than acting, we
tried to give our thoughts to business; but there was no heart in
it, and the morning hour lagged, for we could not work in earnest
and we were unwilling to adjourn.

Suddenly a senator came in from the lobby in an excited way, and
catching the chairman's eye, exclaimed, "Mr. President, the
telegraph announces that the secessionists are bombarding Fort
Sumter!" There was a solemn and painful hush, but it was broken in a
moment by a woman's shrill voice from the spectators' seats, crying,
"Glory to God!" It startled every one, almost as if the enemy were
in the midst. But it was the voice of a radical friend of the slave,
who after a lifetime of public agitation believed that only through
blood could freedom be won. Abby Kelly Foster had been attending the
session of the Assembly, urging the passage of some measures
enlarging the legal rights of married women, and, sitting beyond the
railing when the news came in, shouted a fierce cry of joy that
oppression had submitted its cause to the decision of the sword.
With most of us, the gloomy thought that civil war had begun in our
own land overshadowed everything, and seemed too great a price to
pay for any good; a scourge to be borne only in preference to
yielding the very groundwork of our republicanism,--the right to
enforce a fair interpretation of the Constitution through the
election of President and Congress.

The next day we learned that Major Anderson had surrendered, and the
telegraphic news from all the Northern States showed plain evidence
of a popular outburst of loyalty to the Union, following a brief
moment of dismay. Judge Thomas M. Key of Cincinnati, chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, was the recognized leader of the Democratic
party in the Senate, [Footnote: Afterward aide-de-camp and acting
judge-advocate on McClellan's staff.] and at an early hour moved an
adjournment to the following Tuesday, in order, as he said, that the
senators might have the opportunity to go home and consult their
constituents in the perilous crisis of public affairs. No objection
was made to the adjournment, and the representatives took a similar
recess. All were in a state of most anxious suspense,--the
Republicans to know what initiative the Administration at Washington
would take, and the Democrats to determine what course they should
follow if the President should call for troops to put down the
insurrection.

Before we meet again, Mr. Lincoln's proclamation and call for
seventy-five thousand militia for three months' service were out,
and the great mass of the people of the North, forgetting all party
distinctions, answered with an enthusiastic patriotism that swept
politicians off their feet. When we met again on Tuesday morning,
Judge Key, taking my arm and pacing the floor outside the railing in
the Senate chamber, broke out impetuously, "Mr. Cox, the people have
gone stark mad!" "I knew they would if a blow was struck against the
flag," said I, reminding him of some previous conversations we had
had on the subject. He, with most of the politicians of the day,
partly by sympathy with the overwhelming current of public opinion,
and partly by reaction of their own hearts against the false
theories which had encouraged the secessionists, determined to
support the war measures of the government, and to make no factious
opposition to such state legislation as might be necessary to
sustain the federal administration.

The attitude of Mr. Key is only a type of many others, and makers
one of the most striking features of the time. On the 8th of January
the usual Democratic convention and celebration of the Battle of New
Orleans had taken place, and a series of resolutions had been
passed, which were drafted, as was understood, by Judge Thurman. In
these, professing to speak in the name of "two hundred thousand
Democrats of Ohio," the convention had very significantly intimated
that this vast organization of men would be found in the way of any
attempt to put down secession until the demands of the South in
respect to slavery were complied with. A few days afterward I was
returning to Columbus from my home in Trumbull County, and meeting
upon the railway train with David Tod, then an active Democratic
politician, but afterward one of our loyal "war governors," the
conversation turned on the action of the convention which had just
adjourned. Mr. Tod and I were personal friends and neighbors, and I
freely expressed my surprise that the convention should have
committed itself to what must be interpreted as a threat of
insurrection in the North if the administration should, in opposing
secession by force, follow the example of Andrew Jackson, in whose
honor they had assembled. He rather vehemently reasserted the
substance of the resolution, saying that we Republicans would find
the two hundred thousand Ohio Democrats in front of us, if we
attempted to cross the Ohio River. My answer was, "We will give up
the contest if we cannot carry your two hundred thousand over the
heads of your leaders."

The result proved how hollow the party professions had been; or
perhaps I should say how superficial was the hold of such party
doctrines upon the mass of men in a great political organization. In
the excitement of political campaigns they had cheered the
extravagant language of party platforms with very little reflection,
and the leaders had imagined that the people were really and
earnestly indoctrinated into the political creed of Calhoun; but at
the first shot from Beauregard's guns in Charleston harbor their
latent patriotism sprang into vigorous life, and they crowded to the
recruiting stations to enlist for the defence of the national flag
and the national Union. It was a popular torrent which no leaders
could resist; but many of these should be credited with the same
patriotic impulse, and it made them nobly oblivious of party
consistency. Stephen A. Douglas passed through Columbus on his way
to Washington a few days after the surrender of Sumter, and in
response to the calls of a spontaneous gathering of people, spoke to
them from his bedroom window in the American House. There had been
no thought for any of the common surroundings of a public meeting.
There were no torches, no music. A dark crowd of men filled full the
dim-lit street, and called for Douglas with an earnestness of tone
wholly different from the enthusiasm of common political gatherings.
He came half-dressed to his window, and without any light near him,
spoke solemnly to the people upon the terrible crisis which had come
upon the nation. Men of all parties were there: his own followers to
get some light as to their duty; the Breckinridge Democrats ready,
most of them, repentantly to follow a Northern leader, now that
their recent candidate was in the rebellion; [Footnote: Breckinridge
did not formally join the Confederacy till September, but his accord
with the secessionists was well known.] the Republicans eagerly
anxious to know whether so potent an influence was to be
unreservedly on the side of the country. I remember well the serious
solicitude with which I listened to his opening sentences as I
leaned against the railing of the State House park, trying in vain
to get more than a dim outline of the man as he stood at the
unlighted window. His deep sonorous voice rolled down through the
darkness from above us,--an earnest, measured voice, the more
solemn, the more impressive, because we could not see the speaker,
and it came to us literally as "a voice in the night,"--the night of
our country's unspeakable trial. There was no uncertainty in his
tone: the Union must be preserved and the insurrection must be
crushed,--he pledged his hearty support to Mr. Lincoln's
administration in doing this. Other questions must stand aside till
the national authority should be everywhere recognized. I do not
think we greatly cheered him,--it was rather a deep Amen that went
up from the crowd. We went home breathing freer in the assurance we
now felt that, for a time at least, no organized opposition to the
federal government and its policy of coercion would be formidable in
the North. We did not look for unanimity. Bitter and narrow men
there were whose sympathies were with their country's enemies.
Others equally narrow were still in the chains of the secession
logic they had learned from the Calhounists; but the broader-minded
men found themselves happy in being free from disloyal theories, and
threw themselves sincerely and earnestly into the popular movement.
There was no more doubt where Douglas or Tod or Key would be found,
or any of the great class they represented.

Yet the situation hung upon us like a nightmare. Garfield and I were
lodging together at the time, our wives being kept at home by family
cares, and when we reached our sitting-room, after an evening
session of the Senate, we often found ourselves involuntarily
groaning, "Civil war in _our_ land!" The shame, the outrage, the
folly, seemed too great to believe, and we half hoped to wake from
it as from a dream. Among the painful remembrances of those days is
the ever-present weight at the heart which never left me till I
found relief in the active duties of camp life at the close of the
month. I went about my duties (and I am sure most of those I
associated with did the same) with the half-choking sense of a grief
I dared not think of: like one who is dragging himself to the
ordinary labors of life from some terrible and recent bereavement.

We talked of our personal duty, and though both Garfield and myself
had young families, we were agreed that our activity in the
organization and support of the Republican party made the duty of
supporting the government by military service come peculiarly home
to us. He was, for the moment, somewhat trammelled by his
half-clerical position, but he very soon cut the knot. My own path
seemed unmistakably clear. He, more careful for his friend than for
himself, urged upon me his doubts whether my physical strength was
equal to the strain that would be put upon it. "I," said he, "am big
and strong, and if my relations to the church and the college can be
broken, I shall have no excuse for not enlisting; but you are
slender and will break down." It was true that I looked slender for
a man six feet high (though it would hardly be suspected now that it
was so), yet I had assured confidence in the elasticity of my
constitution; and the result justified me, whilst it also showed how
liable to mistake one is in such things. Garfield found that he had
a tendency to weakness of the alimentary system which broke him down
on every campaign in which he served and led to his retiring from
the army much earlier than he had intended. My own health, on the
other hand, was strengthened by out-door life and exposure, and I
served to the end with growing physical vigor.

When Mr. Lincoln issued his first call for troops, the existing laws
made it necessary that these should be fully organized and officered
by the several States. Then, the treasury was in no condition to
bear the burden of war expenditures, and till Congress could
assemble, the President was forced to rely on the States to furnish
the means necessary for the equipment and transportation of their
own troops. This threw upon the governors and legislatures of the
loyal States responsibilities of a kind wholly unprecedented. A long
period of profound peace had made every military organization seem
almost farcical. A few independent military companies formed the
merest shadow of an army; the state militia proper was only a
nominal thing. It happened, however, that I held a commission as
Brigadier in this state militia, and my intimacy with Governor
Dennison led him to call upon me for such assistance as I could
render in the first enrolment and organization of the Ohio quota.
Arranging to be called to the Senate chamber when my vote might be
needed upon important legislation, I gave my time chiefly to such
military matters as the governor appointed. Although, as I have
said, my military commission had been a nominal thing, and in fact I
had never worn a uniform, I had not wholly neglected theoretic
preparation for such work. For some years the possibility of a war
of secession had been one of the things which would force itself
upon the thoughts of reflecting people, and I had been led to give
some careful study to such books of tactics and of strategy as were
within easy reach. I had especially been led to read military
history with critical care, and had carried away many valuable ideas
from this most useful means of military education. I had therefore
some notion of the work before us, and could approach its problems
with less loss of time, at least, than if I had been wholly
ignorant. [Footnote: I have treated this subject somewhat more fully
in a paper in the "Atlantic Monthly" for March, 1892, "Why the Men
of '61 fought for the Union."]

My commission as Brigadier-General in the Ohio quota in national
service was dated on the 23d of April, though it had been understood
for several days that my tender of service in the field would be
accepted. Just about the same time Captain George B. McClellan was
requested by Governor Dennison to come to Columbus for consultation,
and by the governor's request I met him at the railway station and
took him to the State House. I think Mr. Larz Anderson (brother of
Major Robert Anderson) and Mr. L'Hommedieu of Cincinnati were with
him. The intimation had been given me that he would probably be made
major-general and commandant of our Ohio contingent, and this,
naturally, made me scan him closely. He was rather under the medium
height, but muscularly formed, with broad shoulders and a
well-poised head, active and graceful in motion. His whole
appearance was quiet and modest, but when drawn out he showed no
lack of confidence in himself. He was dressed in a plain travelling
suit, with a narrow-rimmed soft felt hat. In short, he seemed what
he was, a railway superintendent in his business clothes. At the
time his name was a good deal associated with that of Beauregard;
they were spoken of as young men of similar standing in the Engineer
Corps of the Army, and great things were expected of them both
because of their scientific knowledge of their profession, though
McClellan had been in civil life for some years. His report on the
Crimean War was one of the few important memoirs our old army had
produced, and was valuable enough to give a just reputation for
comprehensive understanding of military organization, and the
promise of ability to conduct the operations of an army.

I was present at the interview which the governor had with him. The
destitution of the State of everything like military material and
equipment was very plainly put, and the magnitude of the task of
building up a small army out of nothing was not blinked. The
governor spoke of the embarrassment he felt at every step from the
lack of practical military experience in his staff, and of his
desire to have some one on whom he could properly throw the details
of military work. McClellan showed that he fully understood the
difficulties there would be before him, and said that no man could
wholly master them at once, although he had confidence that if a few
weeks' time for preparation were given, he would be able to put the
Ohio division into reasonable form for taking the field. The command
was then formally tendered and accepted. All of us who were present
felt that the selection was one full of promise and hope, and that
the governor had done the wisest thing practicable at the time.

The next morning McClellan requested me to accompany him to the
State Arsenal, to see what arms and material might be there. We
found a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued
to militia companies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No
belts, cartridge-boxes, or other accoutrements were with them. There
were two or three smooth-bore brass fieldpieces, six-pounders, which
had been honeycombed by firing salutes, and of which the vents had
been worn out, bushed, and worn out again. In a heap in one corner
lay a confused pile of mildewed harness, which had probably been
once used for artillery horses, but was now not worth carrying away.
There had for many years been no money appropriated to buy military
material or even to protect the little the State had. The federal
government had occasionally distributed some arms which were in the
hands of the independent uniformed militia, and the arsenal was
simply an empty storehouse. It did not take long to complete our
inspection. At the door, as we were leaving the building, McClellan
turned, and looking back into its emptiness, remarked, half
humorously and half sadly, "A fine stock of munitions on which to
begin a great war!" We went back to the State House, where a room in
the Secretary of State's department was assigned us, and we sat down
to work. The first task was to make out detailed schedules and
estimates of what would be needed to equip ten thousand men for the
field. This was a unit which could be used by the governor and
legislature in estimating the appropriations needed then or
subsequently. Intervals in this labor were used in discussing the
general situation and plans of campaign. Before the close of the
week McClellan drew up a paper embodying his own views, and
forwarded it to Lieutenant-General Scott. He read it to me, and my
recollection of it is that he suggested two principal lines of
movement in the West,--one, to move eastward by the Kanawha valley
with a heavy column to co-operate with an army in front of
Washington; the other, to march directly southward and to open the
valley of the Mississippi. Scott's answer was appreciative and
flattering, without distinctly approving his plan; and I have never
doubted that the paper prepared the way for his appointment in the
regular army which followed at so early a day. [Footnote: I am not
aware that McClellan's plan of campaign has been published. Scott's
answer to it is given in General Townsend's "Anecdotes of the Civil
War," p. 260. It was, with other communications from Governor
Dennison, carried to Washington by Hon. A. F. Perry of Cincinnati,
an intimate friend of the governor, who volunteered as special
messenger, the mail service being unsafe. See a paper by Mr. Perry
in "Sketches of War History" (Ohio Loyal Legion), _vol. iii._ p.
345.]

During this week McClellan was invited to take the command of the
troops to be raised in Pennsylvania, his native State. Some things
beside his natural attachment to Pennsylvania made the proposal an
attractive one to him. It was already evident that the army which
might be organized near Washington would be peculiarly in the public
eye, and would give to its leading officers greater opportunities of
prompt recognition and promotion than would be likely to occur in
the West. The close association with the government would also be a
source of power if he were successful, and the way to a chief
command would be more open there than elsewhere. McClellan told me
frankly that if the offer had come before he had assumed the Ohio
command, he would have accepted it; but he promptly decided that he
was honorably bound to serve under the commission he had already
received and which, like my own, was dated April 23.

My own first assignment to a military command was during the same
week, on the completion of our estimates, when I was for a few days
put in charge of Camp Jackson, the depot of recruits which Governor
Dennison had established in the northern suburb of Columbus and had
named in honor of the first squelcher of secessionism. McClellan
soon determined, however, that a separate camp of instruction should
be formed for the troops mustered into the United States service,
and should be so placed as to be free from the temptations and
inconveniences of too close neighborhood to a large city, whilst it
should also be reasonably well placed for speedy defence of the
southern frontier of the State. Other camps could be under state
control and used only for the organization of regiments which could
afterward be sent to the camp of instruction or elsewhere. Railway
lines and connections indicated some point in the Little Miami
valley as the proper place for such a camp; and Mr. Woodward, the
chief engineer of the Little Miami Railroad, being taken into
consultation, suggested a spot on the line of that railway about
thirteen miles from Cincinnati, where a considerable bend of the
Little Miami River encloses wide and level fields, backed on the
west by gently rising hills. I was invited to accompany the general
in making the inspection of the site, and I think we were
accompanied by Captain Rosecrans, an officer who had resigned from
the regular army to seek a career as civil engineer, and had lately
been in charge of some coal mines in the Kanawha valley. Mr.
Woodward was also of the party, and furnished a special train to
enable us to stop at as many eligible points as it might be thought
desirable to examine. There was no doubt that the point suggested
was best adapted for our work, and although the owners of the land
made rather hard terms, McClellan was authorized to close a contract
for the use of the military camp, which, in honor of the governor,
he named Camp Dennison.