Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 by Jacob Dolson Cox

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After examining the more important part of the line, we splashed
back to quarters as day was breaking, got a fire built in our
cheerless room, hung my coat, which was heavy with water, before it
to dry, and crossing my mud-cased legs, sat down for half an hour of
rest and revery, listening for carbine shots at the front that would
tell if the scouting party had found an enemy. The rest of the staff
were still sleeping, oblivious of war's alarms and preparing for the
work of the day by trusting the watching to those on duty, as they
would be trusted in turn when similarly on guard. How often were
such incidents repeated, night and day, through campaign after
campaign, till they became so familiar that it seems almost puerile
to mention them!

On beginning the movement to Morristown, orders had been given to
press the rebuilding of the railroad bridge at Strawberry Plains,
for our continuance so far from our supplies depended upon it. We
had no trains of wagons to keep up our communication with our base,
and the utmost we could do was to carry four or five days' supply
with us. We therefore spent three or four days in vigorous efforts
to gain information of the enemy by means of our cavalry. We learned
that Longstreet held the line of Bays Mountain, where the railway
passes through Bull's Gap, thirteen miles above Morristown. His
right flank seemed to be at Rogersville on the Holston, and his left
rested near the Nolachucky beyond Greeneville. We could not learn
that any of his forces except Martin's cavalry had left him, though
we were mystified by the disappearance of Ransom's division from the
accounts of the enemy's organization. The fact was that that officer
was transferred to the cavalry command, and the organization of his
division was merged in the others.

On the 2d of March Grant directed that McCook's division of cavalry
should go back to Thomas as soon as they could possibly be spared,
and on Schofield's reporting the results of our reconnoissances, he
advised the latter not to bring on an engagement, but to content
ourselves with holding as much of the country as we could.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 14.] The bill
creating the grade of lieutenant-general was now the law, and Grant
had been promoted to it. On the invitation of the President he was
about to go to Washington for consultation, keeping in telegraphic
communication with his department commanders. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
17.] Consequently it agreed well with his views to let affairs
remain quiet during his absence. The rains continued, however, and
even if he had desired further advance it would have been out of the
question till the bridge at Strawberry Plains was rebuilt. The
rations brought with us were exhausted, and on the 4th we withdrew
the infantry fourteen miles, to a position four miles above New
Market, where we hoped to be able to feed the troops with our few
wagons, until the railroad should again be available.

Headquarters in the field were established at New Market, and I
remained there with authority to direct and support the cavalry
movements actively kept up in our front. General Schofield was thus
enabled to spend part of his time at Knoxville attending to the
clothing and supply of the troops, the gathering of reinforcements,
return of veterans, and all the matters of department administration
which centred there. In case of the necessity of combined action in
Grant's absence, Thomas was authorized to assume command.

The Holston bridge at Strawberry Plains was completed on March 11th,
and our forces were at once put in motion for Morristown, where we
once more encamped on the 12th. Nothing new had been learned of the
enemy; but there was nothing to learn, for Longstreet quietly
occupied the line of Bays Mountain, and, like ourselves, was busy
getting his troops clothed and shod, while he discussed with the
Richmond authorities various plans of campaign. The cavalry ordered
back to Johnston was making its way along the base of the mountains,
and occasional news of their advance was exaggerated into stories of
all Longstreet's army being in motion. Schofield very wisely thought
the best way to know what his enemy was doing was to be as near him
as practicable without assaulting his strong positions with an
inferior force, and therefore ordered the fresh advance as soon as
the railway could be made to transport supplies.

On the 14th Grant was again at Nashville, and took immediate steps
to send the Ninth Corps to Burnside at Annapolis, [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 67.] in accordance with an
arrangement which was settled at the Washington conferences.
Schofield was directed to have no delay in getting the Ninth Corps
off, and he issued his formal orders to that effect on the 16th.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 82.] This reduced the forces in East Tennessee
to a very small number, but a bold front was preserved and active
reconnoitering kept up. On the 18th Stoneman's infantry was placed
at Mossy Creek, between New Market and Morristown, and Wood with two
brigades of his division was ordered to Rutledge about half-way to
Cumberland Gap. The other brigade was placed at Strawberry Plains to
protect the stores accumulated there. The cavalry which remained to
Schofield was divided, part reporting to Stoneman and part to Wood,
and the country was carefully watched from the Nolachucky on the
east to Cumberland Gap on the northwest. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 88, 89.] I was personally directed
to keep headquarters in the field, with power to act, in emergencies
and in matters of detail, in Schofield's name, while the general
returned to the department headquarters at Knoxville, where he made
to Sherman, as his now superior, a full report of the situation,
with suggestions as to the future work of the army of the Ohio.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 96.] It was now settled that a new campaign,
both East and West, should open in April, if possible, and
everything else was to be made subservient to preparation for it.
Steps were taken to bring back the furloughed veterans, to remount
the cavalry in Kentucky and bring it forward, and to secure such
additional infantry as should enable Schofield to take the field
with three strong divisions of foot, and at least two of horse,
besides leaving about ten thousand men in Kentucky and five thousand
in East Tennessee.

The question what should be the work of the Army of the Ohio had
naturally interested us who belonged to it, and while Grant was in
Washington I prepared and submitted to General Schofield a sketch of
a plan of campaign. It was based on the assumption that the Army of
the Potomac would not operate by its left along the lowlands of
Virginia, as McClellan had done, but would follow the railway
through Culpepper and Orange Court House to Richmond. This route was
in a high and healthy country, the streams would be crossed where
they were comparatively insignificant, and the natural obstacles to
an advance seemed much less formidable than upon the coast line.
True, the army would have to depend upon the railway for its
supplies, but so must Sherman in the West, and the Virginia line was
only a fraction of his in length. It had the advantage of covering
the Shenandoah valley as it advanced, and saving the large
detachment which had to be devoted to that region and to the
protection of Washington. But besides this (and this was the feature
directly affecting us in East Tennessee), it opened for the Army of
the Ohio a role of usefulness which seemed to me very important.

If Schofield were to take the field in Georgia, he could carry to
Sherman, at most, some twelve or fourteen thousand infantry and six
or eight of cavalry. The proper protection of Kentucky and East
Tennessee required just about the same number of troops. His active
column in the decisive campaign would therefore be only half of the
forces in his department. Whenever it should be apparent that
Georgia was our field of operations, Longstreet's twenty thousand
men would be set free to join Lee in Virginia (as actually
happened), or could be used in any other theatre of operations,
whilst our garrisons could not be greatly reduced because small
raids of mounted men could harry the wide expanse of country behind
us unless all the important points were fully guarded. This also was
demonstrated by our actual experience, and was a plain deduction
from facts and principles. To drive Longstreet into Virginia and
destroy the railroad so that he could not return was, therefore, to
force the enemy to do the thing most advantageous to himself; that
is, to concentrate his forces at the East in entire security that he
would not be troubled by any advance on our part into southwestern
Virginia.

If, on the other hand, we could move eastward along the railroad, we
could bring our supplies to our camps as we advanced. Sherman's army
behind us would make our base at Chattanooga safe; the great
mountain barrier on the right would so cover our flank that scarce
any force need be left in Tennessee, but all could be put in the
aggressive column: the troops in Kentucky could be brought forward
as we progressed, for our movement would cover that district;
finally, on reaching the New River valley we could be joined by the
forces in West Virginia. The advance, therefore, instead of being
with a dwindling column would be with a growing one, and when the
Army of the Potomac should approach the valley of the James, we
should be ready with about forty thousand to come into line as the
right wing of that army. Approaching Richmond from the north and
west, the south side railroad would be at once in our grasp, and
that to Petersburg within easy reach.

The objection to such a plan which would first occur to a critic,
would be that convergent movements from so distant bases are
proverbially uncertain; but this objection is greatly weakened by a
study of the topography of the country. The Holston valley is so
isolated that, approached by the railway line with a good base
behind the column, it is strongly defensible, and if the advance is
so timed as not to pass the New River before the Army of the Potomac
should be swinging in toward Richmond from the northwest, Lee's army
would be too fully occupied to make a detachment strong enough to
oppose us, and the line by which he would operate against us would
be threatened by the army of our friends. There would also be a safe
line of retreat always open for us, in case of check. [Footnote:
Napoleon was a master of strategy who fully appreciated the
objections to exterior lines, but in the campaign of Wagram in 1809
he ordered Marmont to lead a column from Italy to Vienna by a route
having strong resemblances to that which I have sketched. He
regarded the character of the route itself, protected as it was by
mountain ranges, and giving the assurance of a line of retreat, as
making an exception to ordinary cases and overcoming the objections
which would have been conclusive against attempting it in an open
country.] Another interesting feature in this plan is that if
railway communication between Sherman and the Potomac Army had been
opened in the summer of 1864, it would have been an interior line of
immense importance, not improbably modifying essentially the final
campaign of the war.

General Schofield thought well enough of my sketch to adopt it as a
suggestion to General Grant, which he submitted as soon as the
latter returned from the East. The General-in-Chief had, however,
already made arrangements which committed him to operating by the
left of the Potomac Army. He had sent General W. F. Smith to
Fortress Monroe for the purpose of taking the field at the head of
the movable part of Butler's Army of the James, and Burnside's
command at Annapolis was at that time expected to make another line
of operations from the seacoast in North Carolina. There was also a
disposition to leave in Sherman's hands all the departments which
constituted the Military Division of the Mississippi, and allow him
to concentrate the movable forces of all in his operations against
Johnston. Grant therefore adhered to his original purpose of
destroying enough of the railroad near the Watauga River to make a
serious obstruction to hostile movements against East Tennessee from
the east, and turn everything that could be spared into the advance
upon Atlanta. Another thing which had weight with him was the fact
that Schofield's confirmation as major-general was still delayed and
opposed in the Senate, and he intended, if it were finally defeated,
to consolidate the Department of the Ohio with that of the
Cumberland under General Thomas. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxii. pt. iii. p. 11.]

On the 29th of March General Sherman visited Schofield at Knoxville,
and a full understanding was reached regarding the place the Army of
the Ohio was to take in the great campaign of the spring. All the
troops in the department were to constitute the Twenty-third Corps,
and Schofield was to command the moving column in the field as well
as the department. To avoid the inconvenience of having a double
head to this column, Stoneman was to be transferred to the command
of the cavalry in place of Sturgis, and Schofield was to be assigned
to the formal command of the corps. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 221, 268, 312.] Sturgis was then to be sent
to Memphis to take command of the column there organizing for the
purpose of operating against Forrest.

As to operations in the upper valley of the Holston, it was
determined to occupy Bull's Gap at an early day, and to keep up such
an apparent purpose of advancing as should detain Longstreet in East
Tennessee as long as possible. If he retreated he was to be
followed, so as to induce him to burn the railway bridges, and thus
to avoid disclosing our own purpose of leaving that portion of the
valley which we should plainly proclaim if we ourselves should
destroy the railway. Everything was to be ready for movement, and at
the last moment, if the enemy had not already done it, we were to
burn railway bridges and tear up the track for a considerable
distance. Then the divisions which were to take the field in Georgia
were to march rapidly to Cleveland, and come in on the left of
Sherman's grand army as he advanced from Chattanooga.

As the plan of campaign thus took definite shape, it gave the
occasion also for a settlement of my personal problem of permanent
assignment to duty. It had become evident that there was no room for
transfer to another command, and the active part marked out for the
Twenty-third Corps removed the only ground for wishing it. No better
soldiers could be found than those which made up our divisions, and
my acquaintance with General Schofield had ripened into a confidence
which made me entirely content to follow him as my commander. He
warmly invited me to continue permanently in the position of chief
of staff, but gave me the alternate choice of one of the divisions
of the active column. My preference for responsible command in the
field decided me to take a division, and by his further permission I
chose the third, in which were a considerable number of officers who
had served with me in other campaigns. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 245.] I would not be understood, however, to
depreciate the position of chief of staff of such a department and
army. Properly filled, few positions in active service could be
pleasanter or more useful. I had tested this during the six weeks
preceding, and had found the associations and the duty every way
most agreeable. The general was always prompt to assume his proper
responsibility and to order the movements or the administrative acts
which are peculiarly the province of the commander; but he gave me
the task of arranging the subordinate details, and the authority to
direct them in his name. To distribute the parts each corps or
division was to perform; to co-ordinate all the arrangements so that
they should move harmoniously; to bring to a common centre all the
information, external and internal, which affected the conduct and
efficiency of the whole; to supervise the matters of organization,
of equipment, and of supply; to consult with the medical director as
to hospital work and the sanitary condition of the army, and to be
guarantor that the common end is vigorously and intelligently
pursued by every part of the army,--all this, as scarcely needs
telling, makes a chief of staff the right arm of the commander, and
his most trusted adviser and confidant. He makes his commander feel
free to give his own thought to the larger problems of a campaign,
with confidence that the whole machinery of the army will work
smoothly toward the object which he has in view. I did not then, nor
do I now, underestimate the importance of the duty which an
industrious staff officer may thus perform, and I had found it made
personally pleasant by the even temper and appreciative justice of
General Schofield's rule. I had, however, formed so strong a
predilection for the immediate and active conduct of troops in the
field, that this determined me to choose the division command. In
the new organization of the corps I should, in this, report directly
to the general, and should be next in rank to him (in the infantry)
by virtue of seniority, so that in his absence, or when two
divisions were temporarily detached from the army, I should exercise
a superior command. These were advantages which every experienced
soldier estimates highly, and I was to enjoy them, until good
fortune and the steady friendship of my superiors gave me, a second
time, and this time in permanent form, the corps command with the
rank belonging to it. There was no mistake, therefore, in my choice
of duty; and considering the part Sherman's whole army was to play
in the remaining campaigns of the war, it was a matter of personal
good fortune also that the Army of the Ohio became an integral part
of the great western organization, and marched southward, not
eastward.

On the staff I had been thrown into intimate relations to Colonel
William M. Wherry, senior aide-de-camp, and Major J. A. Campbell,
adjutant-general. These officers continued to the end of the war in
these positions, which they filled with great credit and usefulness.
Major Campbell was admirably fitted for the supervision of the
records and the correspondence of the army, and for reducing to the
form of clear and succinct orders the directions of the general. He
was accurate, systematic, and untiring; always at his post, whether
it were at his desk in camp, or by the side of his chief in the
field. Of slight, almost frail body, with an intellectual face, he
looked unequal to rough field work, but showed a stamina in fact
which many a more robust man envied. Colonel Wherry was the
incessantly active personal representative of the general, intrusted
with his oral orders, and making for him those examinations and
investigations which are only satisfactory when the commander has
learned to trust the eye and the cool judgment of his assistant as
his own. Wherry had been with General Schofield from the first
campaign in Missouri in 1861, and both were with Lyon when he fell
at Wilson's Creek. He remained his confidential aide through the
whole war, and for years afterward, being early appointed from
Missouri to the line of one of the new regiments of the regular
army. Lithe, graceful, and genial, he was always welcome, when he
came to a point where fighting was going on, to learn for the
general the actual situation or to bring his orders. [Footnote:
Wherry is now (1899) Brigadier-General of the United States Army,
retired, after brilliant service in the campaign of Santiago, Cuba.]

During the winter the division of the Fourth Corps commanded by
Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood had been in closest connection with
us. It had taken part in all the marchings and countermarchings of
the period when I was chief of staff, and I had thus begun an
acquaintance with its commander which was to grow into lasting
friendship. General Wood was colonel of the Second Regular Cavalry,
a Kentuckian who had earnestly taken the National side, and an
influential officer of the old army. His intelligence and activity
were very marked, and his courage was of the cool indomitable
character most highly prized in divisions of a great army. Of medium
height, solid but not large build, dark hair and complexion, high
forehead, he was a noticeable man in any assemblage of officers. A
fluent talker, attentive to polite forms of speech as well as of
conduct, he was liked and respected throughout the army, and
especially in the Army of the Cumberland, where he had served
throughout the war. He had won promotion by gallant and meritorious
services again and again, when at the battle of Chickamauga it was
his ill fortune to receive the famous order to "close up on Brannan
and support him." The situation made the order ambiguous, but Wood
understood it to mean that he should move to the left till he should
find himself in rear of Brannan's division, since another division
was between them in the line. He thought it a strange order, but
thought also that Rosecrans must know why he sent it, and that it
was "his not to reason why" but to obey. The obedience opened the
gap through which Longstreet's men poured, breaking the line and
routing part of the right wing. Wood took the place assigned him by
Thomas in the horse-shoe curve around the Snodgrass hill, and did
his full share of the desperate fighting which held that part of the
field. But he had thus become the subject of a controversy, and the
friends of Rosecrans charged him with a too literal obedience, and a
failure to use a sound discretion in his action. The result was that
whilst Rosecrans was removed from active field service, Wood still
found himself under a cloud, and opposed by influences which stood
in the way of his promotion till the war was almost ended. He
continued to be distinguished in every engagement of the Atlanta
campaign and that of Nashville, and no division saw harder or more
honorable service than his.

The first week in April saw the changes in the organization of the
Twenty-third Corps which I have indicated. On the 3d I was relieved
of staff duty and assigned to the third division, with orders to
proceed at once to Bull's Gap and take temporary command of the
corps whilst General Stoneman should hasten to Kentucky to prepare
the cavalry corps for active service. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxii. pt. iii. pp. 245, 259, 268.] I think the change was
agreeable to Stoneman, for he was most at home with mounted troops
and liked that service. Schofield's permanent assignment to the
Twenty-third Corps was made on April 4th by the President, though
the general had still to await for some time the action of the
Senate on the confirmation of his promotion. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxii. pt. iii. p. 258.] His enemies were still
persistent, and even succeeded in obtaining a report of the Senate
committee against his confirmation. General Sherman wrote to his
brother, the senator, in behalf of his subordinate;[Footnote: _Id_.,
pp. 332, 343.] but it was not till General Grant was back in
Washington and used his powerful personal influence that the
confirmation was finally secured after the campaign had opened. It
seemed at one time that not even the manifest mischief of deranging
the organization of the army, as deliberately settled by both Grant
and Sherman, would overcome the political hostility arrayed against
him. This was without any reasonable foundation. Although Schofield
was not given to political discussion, my closeness to him enabled
me to know that he was an earnestly loyal man whose heart was warmly
engaged in the National cause. He believed in emancipation as a
right and politic war measure, and in fighting the rebellion
vigorously till it should be conquered. He had made enemies among
the Kansas politicians because he tried to prevent the war on that
frontier from degenerating into a vendetta when murder and robbery
should take the place of civilized warfare. Some influential
radicals in Missouri were hostile because he held the scales even
between them and the conservative Union men.

At Bull's Gap I found the corps headquarters in a shingle-palace
which had been built for a hotel at the railway station, and which
was now the only house there. It was empty as a barn and fast going
to ruin, but it gave shelter for our office work. Wood's division of
the Fourth Corps was put in march to join the Army of the
Cumberland, and we were left to watch the enemy and await the moment
when the destruction of the railway and our own march southward
should begin. We soon had a curious bit of evidence that Longstreet
had finally abandoned the expectation of re-occupying East
Tennessee. It was found in the applications made by women to join
their husbands who were in the Confederate service. The "grapevine
telegraph" was an "institution" during the whole war. News which was
either interesting or important was passed on through the lines, and
it was impossible to be so rigid in precautions as greatly to delay
it. To stop it was utterly futile. Longstreet had hardly received
the orders from his government to prepare to rejoin Lee's army in
Virginia, when the headquarters of our army at Knoxville felt the
pressure of applications for leave to pass the lines. On the 6th of
April a party of forty women and children came up by railway, to be
sent through the lines under a flag. They were of course without
tents or any means of camping out, and the crazy building in which I
had my quarters was that night as crowded and as picturesque as an
Asiatic caravanserai. The rain and the almost impassable roads made
their journey anything but one of pleasure, but by the aid of the
few wagons at the post they went forward in a day or two. A second
party, about as large, followed in the course of a week, and had
even a rougher time than the first. There were delays on the part of
their friends, in sending trains and escort to meet them at the
break in the railway, but the hope of rejoining loved ones gave them
courage, and they bore cheerfully their sufferings and privations.