Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 by Jacob Dolson Cox

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Officers were detailed from the line for other staff duty, such as
ordnance officer, commissary of musters, etc., and there was no lack
of good material. The general officer who sought for sober, zealous,
and bright young soldiers for his staff could always find them. They
were his eyes and his hands in the responsible work of a campaign,
yet their service was necessarily hidden a good deal from view, and
their opportunities for personal distinction and rapid promotion
were few compared with those of their comrades in actual command of
troops.

It was interesting to observe the rapid progress in all the
essentials of good discipline made in commands which were permanent
enough to give time for development of order and system. We were
fortunate in Sherman's army in having in himself and in the three
commanders next in rank examples of courteous treatment of
subordinates coupled with steady insistence upon the prompt and
right performance of duty. Under such a _regime_ intelligent men
grow sensitive to the slightest indication of dissatisfaction, and a
superior officer has to weigh his words lest he give more pain than
he intended. An amusing instance of this occurred during the
campaign just ended. Late one evening my division was directed to
make a movement at sunrise next day, and the camp was quiet in sleep
before my orders were sent out to the brigade commanders. He who was
assigned to lead the column was an excellent officer, but irascible,
and a little apt to make his staff officers feel the edge of any
annoyance he himself felt. Some strain of relations among his
assistants at his headquarters happened to be existing when my order
came. He had turned in for the night and was asleep when his
adjutant-general came to his tent to report the order. Not fully
aroused, he made a rough and bluff reply to the call, really meaning
that the staff officer should issue the proper orders to the
brigade, but in form it was a petulant refusal to be bothered with
the business. The adjutant took him literally at his word and left
him. Next morning I was in the saddle at the time set, and with my
staff rode to the brigade to accompany the head of the column, when,
lo, his command was not yet astir, though in the rest of the camp
breakfast was over, the tents struck, and officers and men were
awaiting the signal to fall in. I rapped with my sword-hilt on the
tent-pole, and when the dishevelled head of the colonel appeared,
his speechless astonishment told the story of some great blunder. I
did not stop for particulars, but only said, "Your brigade, colonel,
was to have had the place of honor in an important day's work; as it
is, you will fall in at the rear of the column. Good-morning, sir."
He stood, without a word, till we rode off, and then turning to an
aide who had come to him, exclaimed, "I wish to God he had cursed
me!"

In the movement upon Atlanta, after crossing the Chattahoochee, we
were not met in force till we came to Peachtree Creek and the
extension of that line southward. The country was similar in
character to that near Marietta, with openings of farming lands
along the principal roads, but probably three fourths of the country
was covered with forest. In answer to questions from home as to what
our continuous skirmishing in such advances was like, I took as a
sample the 20th of July, when we were pushing in to connect with
General Thomas's right, and he was making his way to and across
Peachtree Creek, where the battle was to rage in the latter part of
the day.

"My camp last night," I said, "was formed of three brigades in two
lines across the principal road, another brigade in reserve, and the
artillery in the intervals, all in position of battle. A strong line
of pickets and skirmishers covered the front and flanks some three
hundred yards in advance. In the morning we drew in the flanks of
the skirmish line, reducing it to about the length of one brigade
across the road, and it was ordered to advance. The men go forward,
keeping the line at right angles to the road, stopping for neither
creek nor thicket; down ravines, over the hills, the skirmishers
trotting from a big tree to a larger stone, taking advantage of
everything which will cover them, and keeping the general form of
the line and their distance from each other tolerably correct. The
main body of the troops file into the road marching four abreast,
with a battery near the leading brigade. Presently a shot is heard,
off on the right, then two or three more in quick succession, and a
bullet or two comes singing over the head of the column. 'They've
started the Johnnies,' say the boys in the ranks, and we move on,
the skirmish line still pushing right along. It proves to be only a
rebel picket which has fired and run to apprise their comrades that
the 'Yanks' are coming. Forward a few hundred yards, when, bang,
bang, and a rattle of rifles too fast to count. The column is
halted, and we ride to the skirmish line to see what is up. A pretty
strong body of 'rebs' is about some old log houses with a good
skirmish line on either side where our men must approach over two or
three hundred yards of open fields. A regiment is moved up to the
nearest cover on each side of the road, a section of artillery
rattles up to the front, the guns are smartly unlimbered and pointed
and a couple of shells go screaming into the improvised fort,
exploding and scattering logs and shingles right and left. Out run
the rebs in confusion, and forward with a rush and a hurrah go our
men over the open, getting a volley from the other side. Into the
woods they go. The rebs run; two or three are caught, perhaps, as
prisoners, two or three of ours are carried to the rear on
stretchers, and on we go again for a little way. This is light
skirmishing. Sometimes we find extemporized breastworks of rails or
fallen trees, requiring more force to dislodge the enemy, and then,
finally, we push up to well-constructed lines of defence where we
halt for slower and heavier operations."

The inhabitants within our lines about Atlanta had a hard time of
it, in spite of all efforts to mitigate their suffering. Their
unwillingness to abandon their homes was very great, and it was very
natural, for all they had was there, and to leave it was to be
beggared. They sometimes, when within range of the artillery, built
bomb-proofs near their houses, and took refuge in them, much as the
people of the Western plains seek similar protection from tornadoes.
In closing in on the west side of the town, near the head of Utoy
Creek, we took in a humble homestead where the family tried to stay,
and I find that I preserved, in another of my home letters, a
description of the place and their life there.

"Just within my lines" (this was written on August 11th), "and not
ten paces from the breastworks, stands a log house owned by an old
man named Wilson. A little before the army advanced to its present
position, several relatives of his, with their families, came to him
from homes regarded as in more imminent danger, and they united
their forces to build, or dig, rather, a place of safety. They
excavated a sort of cellar just in rear of the house, on the
hillside, digging it deep enough to make a room some fifteen feet
square by six feet high. This they covered over with a roof of
timbers, and over that they piled earth several feet thick, covering
the whole with pine boughs, to keep the earth from washing. In this
bomb-proof four families are now living, and I never felt more pity
than when, day before yesterday, I looked down into the pit, and saw
there, in the gloom made visible by a candle burning while it was
broad day above, women sitting on the floor of loose boards, resting
against each other, haggard and wan, trying to sleep away the days
of terror, while innocent-looking children, four or five years old,
clustered around the air-hole, looking up with pale faces and great
staring eyes as they heard the singing of the bullets that were
flying thick above their sheltering place. One of the women had been
bed-ridden for several years before she was carried down there. One
of the men was a cripple, the others old and gray. The men ventured
up and took a little fresh air behind the breast-works; but for the
women there is no change unless they come out at night. Still, they
cling to home because they have nowhere else to go, and they hope we
may soon pass on and leave them in comparative peace again."

In an earlier chapter I have spoken of the easy descent from careful
respect for the rights of property to reckless appropriation of what
belongs to another, to robbery and pillage. [Footnote: _Ante_, pp.
233-235.] I find an instance of it given in one of the letters I
have been quoting, which is the contemporary record of the thing
itself which we had to deal with. It occurred on July 5th, when the
whole army was in motion, hurrying past our position southeast of
Marietta and following up Johnston's retreating army. "Some soldiers
went to a house occupied only by a woman and her children, and after
robbing it of everything which they wanted, they drove away the only
milch cow the woman had. She pleaded that she had an infant which
she was obliged to bring up on the bottle, and that it could not
live unless it could have the milk. They had no ears for the appeal
and the cow was driven off. In two days the child died, of
starvation chiefly, though the end was hastened by disease induced
by the mother's trying to keep it alive on food it could not digest.
I heard of the case when the child was dead and two or three of the
neighbors were getting together stealthily to dig its grave." One of
them came to me to beg permission to assist, and to explain that the
little gathering meant nothing hostile to us. I got the facts only
by cross-questioning, for the old man was abject in his solicitude
not to seem to be complaining, and did not give the worst of the
story till my hot indignation at what I heard assured him of
sympathy and of a desire to punish the crime.

"A woman came to me the same morning, and said the cavalry had taken
the last mouthful from her, telling her they were marching and
hadn't time to draw their rations, but that she would be fed by
applying to us of the infantry column. The robbers well knew that we
were forbidden to issue rations to citizens. They sacked the house
of an old man with seven daughters by a second wife, all young
things. He came to me in utter distress--not a mouthful in that
house for twenty-four hours, their kitchen garden and farm utterly
ruined, the country behind in the same condition, and he without
means of travelling or carrying anything if he tried to move away."
I added, "Of course in such extreme cases I try to find some way of
keeping people from death, and usually send them to the rear in our
empty wagon trains going back for supplies, but their helpless
condition is very little bettered by going."

Such things were done chiefly by the professional stragglers and
skulkers, and the stringent orders which were issued in both
Sherman's and Hood's armies did not easily reach men who would not
report for duty if they could help it. The country people could not
tell who had done them the mischief, and the rascals would be gone
before the case came before any superior officer who would interest
himself in it. I must not, however, suppress the comment I made in
the letter quoted. "The evil is the legitimate outgrowth of the hue
and cry raised by our Christian people of the North against
protecting rebel property, etc. Officers were deterred from
enforcing discipline in this respect by public opinion at home, and
now the evil is past remedy. The war has been prolonged, the army
disintegrated and weakened, and the cause itself jeoparded, because
discipline was construed as friendliness to rebels." Straggling and
its accompanying evils may be said to be the gauge of discipline in
an army. There were brigades and divisions in which it hardly
occurred; there were others in which the stragglers were a
considerable fraction of the whole.

During the evacuation of Atlanta by the citizens, there was a good
deal of migration beyond our lines among those who were not
compelled to go. In Decatur applications were made to me daily, and
we kept a record of the passes we issued, trying to know the purpose
and motives of those going away, for, of course, a good deal of it
was with the intent to carry intelligence to the enemy. The reasons
given were often amusing. Two ladies applied, one day, for leave to
go to Florida, which they claimed as their home. They said they had
been visiting kinsmen in Decatur when the advance of our army
brought them within our lines before they were aware of it. When
asked why not stay with their friends till the armies should move
away, they answered that they were sure they could not endure the
rigors of the climate! The phrase became a byword at our
headquarters, where we were longing for the invigorating breezes of
the North.

We had a visit, about the middle of September, from two gentlemen of
some prominence in the public affairs of Georgia,--Mr. Hill and Mr.
Foster. They came ostensibly to seek to obtain and remove the body
of Mr. Hill's son, who had fallen in the campaign, but I suspected
that they represented Governor Brown, who was known to be in a state
of exasperation at the results to Georgia of a war begun to assert
an ultra doctrine of State rights, but which had destroyed every
semblance of State independence and created a centralized government
at Richmond which ruled with a rod of iron. Mr. Hill was the same
who had represented Governor Brown and General Johnston at Richmond
in the mission in July, [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 272.] and whilst he
did not formally present any subject except that of getting his
son's body, our conversation gave me sufficient knowledge of his
views on the subjects of controversy to make me deeply interested in
the outcome of the visit to General Sherman which I arranged for
him. [Footnote: See Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 137.] Nothing of
present practical importance came of the interviews, but the
voluminous and bitterly controversial correspondence between the
Georgia Governor and the War Department of the Confederacy is a
curious revelation of the antagonistic influences which had sprung
up in the progress of the war. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
lii. pt. ii. pp. 736, 754, 778, 796, 803.]

The death of General McPherson in the battle of Atlanta had been a
great loss to the army, but to Sherman it was the loss of an
intimate friend as well as an able subordinate. They had been
closely associated under Grant in all the campaigns of the Army of
the Tennessee, and their mutual attachment and confidence was as
strong as their devoted loyalty to their great chief. My own
acquaintance with McPherson had been slight, but yet enough to
enable me to understand the warm personal regard he inspired in
those who came to know him well. I met him first on the day we
passed through Snake Creek Gap into Sugar Valley, before the battle
of Resaca. We had to learn from him the positions of the troops
already advancing toward the town, and I rode with General Schofield
to his tent for this purpose. Schofield and he had been classmates
and room-mates at West Point, and McPherson revealed himself to his
old friend as he would not be likely to do to others. His affability
and cordial good-will struck one at once. His graceful bearing and
refined, intelligent face heightened the impression, and one could
not be with him many minutes without seeing that he was a lovable
person. An evenly balanced mind and character had given him a high
grade as a cadet, and at the beginning of the war he was serving as
a captain of engineers. Being appointed to General Grant's staff, he
won completely the general's confidence, and his promotion was
rapid, following closely behind that of Sherman.

His death was sincerely mourned, and his place as a soldier was not
easy to fill. Sherman would have given the command of the Army of
the Tennessee to General Logan, who was next in rank in it, but the
strong opposition of General Thomas made him conclude that this
would be unwise. [Footnote: See Sherman, in The Great Commanders
Series, pp. 229, 332.] If he made a selection outside of the Army of
the Tennessee, Hooker had first claim by seniority of rank, but both
Sherman and Thomas lacked confidence in him. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 272.] When Howard was selected on
Thomas's suggestion, Hooker was doubly offended, for Howard had been
his subordinate at the beginning of the year, and there had been no
love lost between them. Hooker now asked to be relieved from further
service in Sherman's army, and he retired from active field
service,--Slocum, another of his former subordinates, with whom he
had a violent quarrel, being appointed to the command of his corps
on Thomas's nomination. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 272, 273.] Halleck, in
a letter to Sherman of September 16th, gave pointed testimony to
facts which showed why Hooker was personally an unacceptable
subordinate. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 857.] Sherman insisted, with good
reason, that Hooker had no real grievance, as he was left in command
of his corps, and Howard's promotion was in another and independent
organization, the Army of the Tennessee. He also declared that no
indignity was intended or offered, and that he simply performed his
own duty of selection in accordance with what he believed to be
sound reasons. As to Logan, he took pains to praise his handling of
the Army of the Tennessee after McPherson's death, and to emphasize
his own high opinion of him as an officer and the respect in which
he was held by the whole army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxviii. pt. v. p. 522.]

CHAPTER XLII

CAMPAIGN OF OCTOBER--HOOD MOVES UPON OUR COMMUNICATIONS

Hood's plan to transfer the campaign to northern Georgia--Made
partly subordinate to Beauregard--Forrest on a raid--Sherman makes
large detachments--Sends Thomas to Tennessee--Hood across the
Chattahoochee--Sherman follows--Affair at Allatoona--Planning the
March to the Sea--Sherman at Rome--Reconnoissance down the
Coosa--Hood at Resaca--Sherman in pursuit--Hood retreats down the
Chattooga valley--We follow in two columns--Concentrate at
Gaylesville--Beauregard and Hood at Gadsden--Studying the
situation--Thomas's advice--Schofield rejoins--Conference regarding
the Twenty-third Corps--Hood marches on Decatur--His explanation of
change of plan--Sherman marches back to Rome--We are ordered to join
Thomas--Hood repulsed at Decatur marches to Tuscumbia--Our own march
begun--Parting with Sherman--Dalton--Chattanooga--Presidential
election--Voting by steam--Retrospect of October camp-life--Camp
sports--Soldiers' pets--Story of a lizard.

General Hood had been pretty well informed of what was going on in
Sherman's army, and was disposed to take advantage of the reduction
of our forces by furloughs and the absence of numerous officers on
leave. The Confederate President had visited him, and changes in his
army had been ordered which made the organization more to his mind.
Hardee being sent to Savannah to command a department on the coast,
General Cheatham succeeded to the command of the corps. Hood
proposed to cross the Chattahoochee some twenty miles west of
Atlanta, and move on Powder Springs, where he could reach the
railroad and force Sherman to attack him or to move south. In the
latter case he proposed to follow, and had urged that the forces in
central Georgia be increased so as to resist Sherman's progress if
it should be toward Augusta or Macon. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 847, 862.]

Mr. Davis had been convinced by the campaign just ended that Hood's
fiery energy needed the guidance of a better military intellect, and
the plan of placing a common head over Hood's and Taylor's
departments had occurred to him. Beauregard was the officer whose
rank, next to Johnston, indicated him for the command, but he was
disaffected toward Davis, and his friends in Congress were active in
opposition to the government. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 183.] General
Lee had suggested Beauregard to take Hood's place, and had sounded
him as to his willingness to do so after discussing with him the
whole situation in Georgia. Lee felt able, thereupon, to assure the
President that Beauregard would accept the assignment; saying, "I
think you may feel assured that he understands the general condition
of affairs, the difficulties with which they are surrounded, and the
importance of exerting all his energies for their improvement."
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 846.] But having
learned Hood's plan of operating upon Sherman's communications, and
being impressed anew by his visit with the energy of Hood's nature,
which quickly reacted from the discouragement following the fall of
Atlanta, he partly accepted Lee's suggestion, modifying it by giving
Beauregard the supreme direction of affairs in Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi, whilst leaving Hood free to carry out the plan of
campaign which he proposed, and to retain the command of his army
except when Beauregard might be actually present with it. [Footnote:
_Id_., p. 880.]

General Forrest with his cavalry corps had already been ordered to
make a raid upon the railways in Tennessee in pursuance of a
suggestion of his own, and on September 16th he started northward.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 818, 835.] This plan very well accorded with
Hood's, and when the latter determined, later in the campaign,
himself to invade Tennessee, Forrest's orders were extended so as to
direct a junction with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix.
pt. iii. p. 843.]

On September 24th Sherman learned that Forrest was at Athens and
Pulaski on the railway from Decatur to Nashville. He had sent a
detachment to burn bridges on the Memphis road also, and the whole
of middle and western Tennessee was afire with the excitement of the
new raid by the doughty Confederate leader. He received the
surrender of the garrison at Athens without serious resistance, but
by the time he approached Pulaski, burning bridges as he went,
General Rousseau, who was in command of the district, had
concentrated force enough to repulse him. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii.
pp. 450, 455, 456, 870, 876, 879.] After that Forrest attacked no
considerable post, and did not reach Sherman's principal line of
communications, but making circuitous routes in the region about
Columbia, finally retreated across the Tennessee River at Florence
on the 5th and 6th of October. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 547.]

On getting the news of Forrest's raid, Sherman sent back two
divisions of the Army of the Cumberland to Chattanooga, and one from
the Army of the Tennessee to Rome. He also sent General Thomas to
Chattanooga to bring into co-operation all the troops posted in
Tennessee and northern Georgia. This scattering of his forces to
protect his railways proves how low an estimate he put upon the
efficiency of Hood's army, and his willingness to receive an attack
from it. When he moved northward after Hood, a week later, he left
the Twentieth Corps to hold Atlanta, and had with him little more
than half of the forces with which he had made the Atlanta campaign;
but they proved enough.

My own command had been quietly resting at Decatur with nothing more
exciting to do than to send out foraging parties and
reconnoissances, when on Friday, September 30th, I got a dispatch
from General Sherman which put us on the alert. He told me that Hood
had part of his infantry over the Chattahoochee, and was evidently
combining desperate measures to destroy our railways. After
referring to his arrangements to checkmate Forrest, he gave the
"nub" of his own ideas as follows: "I may have to make some quick
countermoves east and southeast. Keep your folks ready to send
baggage into Atlanta and to start on short notice.... There are fine
corn and potato fields about Covington and the Ocmulgee bottoms. We
are well supplied with bread, meat, etc., but forage is scarce, and
may force us to strike out. If we make a countermove, I will go out
myself with a large force and take such a route as will supply us
and at the same time make Hood recall the whole or part of his
army." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 540.] I
answered that we would be "minute men," and also informed General
Schofield by telegraph that we might resume active work any moment.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 541.]

Next day Sherman had evidence that Hood was crossing the
Chattahoochee with his whole army, and wrote to General Howard and
to me that if Hood should swing over to the Alabama railroad and try
to get into Tennessee, he would, if Grant consented, draw to him the
troops south of the Etowah, leave Thomas with the rest, and make for
Savannah or Charleston by way of Milledgeville and Millen. By the
destruction of the east and west roads, Georgia would thus become a
break in the Confederacy. But should Hood move upon our
communications between the Chattahoochee and the Etowah, he would
turn upon him. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 6.] The
latter was the movement Hood actually made, and the March to the Sea
was postponed for a few weeks.