Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 by Jacob Dolson Cox

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Our stay at Dalton gave me the opportunity in the intervals of the
storm to ride out and carefully examine the positions the enemy had
held at the beginning of May. In the progress of an active campaign
the soldier rarely has an opportunity to make such an examination of
fortified positions out of which the enemy has been manoeuvred, and
I had eagerly seized every chance to do this interesting and
instructive work as we had come back through our lines about
Marietta and Allatoona. Here at Dalton Johnston's positions had been
plainly impregnable, and I congratulated myself that my division had
not been ordered to assault them when we made our reconnoissance in
force, before Sherman began the turning movement through Snake Creek
Gap.

Whilst waiting for our railway trains we heard of Hood's
demonstration at Decatur, and of his repulse and his march toward
Florence. We knew that he had not yet crossed the Tennessee, and
that our delay was not causing embarrassment to General Thomas at
Nashville. I got one of my brigades away on November 6th, and the
others on the 7th, going with Casement's, which was the last.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 655, 673.] As
we ran into Chattanooga, we were all alert to see the place which
had become of such historical importance, for we had advanced into
Georgia in the spring by roads far to the east, and I had never
visited it. We reached the town just as the sun was setting and the
long storm was breaking. My headquarters were in a freight car, and
with the side doors slid wide open, we sat on our camp-stools in the
doorway watching our progress. Fort Phelps on its isolated hill
stood up black and sharp against the western sky, which was
gray-clouded, with a long rift, blood red where the sun was breaking
through, whilst still further to the left the huge shoulder of
Lookout Mountain threw its deep shadows over the landscape. From the
other side a fine reach of the Tennessee River opened before us,
backed by the mountainous ridges on the north, gleaming in the level
sunlight.

We did not leave our train, but after a short delay started again
for Nashville. The crowded state of the road made frequent halts
necessary, and when day broke we had made only eight miles. As we
ran between the high hills, they were in their most gorgeous autumn
dress; and, free from care, we enjoyed it all as a holiday outing,
calling each other's attention to every new combination of mountain
and river, and of changing schemes of brilliant color. It was the
Presidential election-day, and in accordance with the provisions of
the statutes, we opened the polls in my box car, and the officers
and men voted at the halts of the train when they could get to the
voting place. Colonel Doolittle of the Eighteenth Michigan,
commandant of the post at Decatur, joined us at Stevenson, coming
into my car to vote. From him we learned the details of Hood's
attempt upon the Decatur post, and got interesting news, throwing
light upon the situation before us. At my invitation he remained
with us till we reached Nashville, and the acquaintance thus formed
led to an arrangement for his temporary service with me after the
battle of Franklin. As I wrote home, we voted by steam for "A.
Linkum," seeing the end of the war manifestly approaching. The
election for Ohio State officers had occurred in October when we
were on the march after Hood, and at a noon halt we turned an
ambulance into a polling booth in a grove on the banks of the Etowah
River, where I voted with one of the Ohio regiments.

Our little October campaign had been a good example of what soldiers
regard as pleasant work. There had been constant activity, with no
severe fighting, and the weather had been, for the most part,
magnificent. The rains had ceased at the end of the first week of
the month, and from that time till we halted from our chase on the
banks of the Coosa in the edge of Alabama we had a succession of
bright, cool days, and comfortable nights. It had been like a hunt
for big game on a grand scale, with excitement enough to keep
everybody keyed up to a high pitch of physical enjoyment, ready for
every call to bodily exertion. The foliage was ripening and changing
in the equable autumnal airs without frost, and the results were
often very surprising and very beautiful. The gum-tree [Footnote:
Liquidambar Styraciflua.] is very common in the open fields of that
part of Georgia, and each fine rounded mass had its own special
tint, bright crimson, green-bronze, maroon, or pure green; and when
a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect
was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were
all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the
halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained
pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in
teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of
bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At
a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end
and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at
speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over,
and so force him to drop the brand. The second would then grasp it
and the chase would be renewed, doubling in and out, over logs, or
through a group of lounging men, scattering them right and left, the
yelp of the chasing dog accompanying the blazing meteor as it cut
odd figures in the darkness, and the shouting laughter of the men
encouraging the dogs to new efforts to outdo each other. The
intelligence of the dogs in playing the game with apparent
recklessness, yet without getting burnt, was something wonderful.

I had myself an interesting experience with a beautiful little
creature. Coming one day suddenly into my tent, I surprised a little
gold and green lizard on my camp desk. The desk was a small portable
one, with lid falling to make the writing-table, set on a trestle,
and my appearance scared the little animal into a pigeon-hole, which
it took for a way of escape. I sat down on my camp stool in front of
the desk, and resumed my writing, watching, also, to see what my
prisoner would do. Its little jewel eyes shone in the recess of its
prison cell, and soon it cautiously came to the front; but the first
move of my hand toward it made it dodge back into the darkness. Two
or three times this was done, and I got no nearer to it; so I
changed my tactics. I placed my hand against the next pigeon-hole,
extending one finger over the occupied one, and waiting in perfect
quiet for a few moments, my beauty came slowly forward over the
paper files to the mouth of the pigeon-hole near my finger. With
great caution and gentleness I stroked its head and it remained
quiet. A few more strokes and it seemed pleased and rapidly grew
tame. It ceased to be afraid of my motions, and did not try to get
away. At intervals, as I sat, the acquaintance was renewed, and the
little thing seemed to become fond of me, running about on my
papers, climbing my arm to my shoulder, and running back to its home
if any one entered the tent. In short, I had followed the example of
the private soldiers and had a pet. When we marched I put it on my
hat rim as I mounted my horse, thinking it would soon leave me; but
it did not. It sat on my hat-crown like a most gorgeous aigrette, or
took a little tour around the hat-band or down on my shoulders. I
forgot it when busy, but it stayed by, and at the end of a march,
when my tent was pitched again and my desk in the usual place, it
resumed its home there and thrived on the flies it caught. It was
with me for some weeks and became known at headquarters as an
attache of the staff. The day we followed Hood westward from Resaca
through Snake Creek Gap, I had dismounted, and was talking with
General Whitaker, commanding a brigade in the Fourth Corps, whose
men with mine were cutting out the timber blockade in the Gap. I had
no thought of my lizard, but one of his orderlies caught sight of it
on my shoulder. With the common prejudice among the soldiers that
the harmless thing was a deadly poisonous reptile, he stood a moment
staring and half transfixed, thinking me in deadly peril. Then, with
a jump, he struck it off my shoulder with his open hand, and stamped
it dead with his heavy boot heel, sure he had saved my life. But
when one of my attendants exclaimed reproachfully, "There, you've
killed the general's pet," the poor fellow slunk away, the picture
of shame and remorse. Pets were sacred by the law of the camp, and
he felt and looked as if he were a murderer. No doubt he was also
stupefied at the idea that such a thing could be a pet, but in the
matter of pets, as in some other things, he bowed to the law, "His
not to reason why!"

CHAPTER XLIII

NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE

Schofield to command the army assembled at Pulaski--Forrest's
Tennessee River raid--Schofield at Johnsonville--My division at
Thompson's--Hastening reinforcements to Thomas--Columbia--The
barrens--Pulaski--Hood delays--Suggests Purdy as a base--He advances
from Florence--Our march to Columbia-Thomas's distribution of the
forces--Decatur evacuated--Pontoon bridge there--Withdrawing from
Columbia--Posts between Nashville and Chattanooga--The cavalry on
29th November--Their loss of touch with the army.

Our railway train reached Nashville in the forenoon of Wednesday the
9th of November, and I at once visited General Schofield to report
my arrival and get further orders. He had himself reported to
General Thomas by telegraph when we reached Calhoun on the last day
of October, and Pulaski, eighty miles south of Nashville, had been
given as the rendezvous for our corps with the Fourth. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 538.] Thomas was taking a
cheerful view of the situation now that the Twenty-third Corps had
been ordered to him, and on the 3d of November, in giving Sherman an
outline of the progress of events, said that if Beauregard "does not
move before Sunday (6th), I will have Schofield and Stanley together
at Pulaski, and he can then move whenever he pleases." [Footnote:
Id., p. 618.] Schofield got part of Cooper's division off on
Thursday, with arrangements for the rest to follow, and took the
railway train himself next day. Thomas's plans then were to send the
troops through Nashville without stopping, but he asked Schofield to
stop for a short consultation. [Footnote: Id., p. 624.] Without
waiting for this, however, he issued his order on Friday, assigning
Schofield to command the troops assembling at Pulaski to operate in
front of that place. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiv. pt.
iii. p. 638.] This was a graceful act toward an officer of his own
grade as a department commander, when as yet it was an open question
whether the assignment by the President to command a department and
army in the field gave precedence over officers in other
organizations, senior in date of commission, but not so assigned.
[Footnote: The matter has been decided in the affirmation by the War
department and the decision had been transmitted in Halleck's letter
to Sherman dated October 4th, but the interruption of communications
had prevented its reaching Sherman for some time, and Thomas had not
received it when he made the order. For the whole discussion and
correspondence, see _Id_., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 734, 753, 797;
vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 64, 638, 666, 684, 685, 691, 692, 703, 704;
vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 959.]

When Schofield reached Nashville on the 5th, he found Thomas busy
with a new problem. Forrest had set for him by his raid down the
Tennessee valley on the west side. A gunboat had been captured, and
demonstrations opposite Johnsonville by the raiders had been
followed by the unnecessary destruction of a fleet of transports,
three gunboats at the landing, and vast quantities of stores.
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. i. p. 861, 864, 866.] The place
was the terminus of a railway from Nashville to the Tennessee River,
and was an intermediate depot of supplies in a low stage of water in
the rivers. At other times steamboats could ascend the Cumberland
all the way to Nashville. The exaggerated reports of the enemy's
force and apparent purpose to cross the river there made Thomas
think it wise to modify his plans for the moment, and he ordered
Schofield to proceed at once to Johnsonville with the two brigades
of the Twenty-third Corps then in hand, Moore's and Gallup's,
intending to concentrate the whole corps there as fast as they
should come from Georgia. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p.
647.]

As soon as Sherman could decipher Thomas's dispatches, he warned the
latter of the danger of a false move, as only Forrest's cavalry was
down the river, and Hood's army was known to be at Florence.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 647.] When
Schofield got to Johnsonville, he soon saw the real state of
affairs, and advised Thomas that the two brigades were enough. He
instructed General Cooper as to improving the defences of the town,
and returned to Nashville on the 7th. Next day he made a hurried
visit to Pulaski to examine the situation there, [Footnote: _Id_.,
p. 708.] where was now the railway terminus of the line to Decatur,
the bridges and trestles about Athens having been destroyed by
Forrest in his September raid. He got back to Nashville before day
on the 9th, and was ready to meet me on my arrival there. From him I
got full information of the situation, and orders to take my
division to Columbia, where he expected to join me in two or three
days.

Leaving Nashville in the afternoon, we learned on reaching Franklin
that a wreck on the railway near Spring Hill obstructed the track,
and our trains were halted till the way should be cleared. We had
made only twenty miles; the weather had changed again to a cold,
drenching rain. Thursday, the 10th, was clear and cold, and whilst
waiting for the railway to be open again, I made my first
acquaintance with the pretty village on the banks of the Harpeth in
which I was to feel a much more lively interest three weeks later.
As soon as the railway officials could put the trains in motion we
resumed our journey. Reilly's brigade gets to Spring Hill, half-way
to Columbia, but the insufficiency of siding at that place makes it
impracticable to handle all the trains there, and the rest of us are
stopped at Thompson's Station, three miles short. We leave the cars
and go into camp so as to release the trains for other work, whilst
we organize again for field operations, though our wagons had not
reached us. Strickland's brigade of Cooper's division has
accompanied us and is attached to my command temporarily. Some five
miles north of Columbia there is a break in the railway, and we are
delayed till it can be repaired and communication with Columbia
fully opened. The two or three days intervening are spent in getting
forward horses for the artillery, rations, and advance stores, so as
to become again a self-dependent unit of the army. We found the
country in this part of Tennessee richer and finer than any we had
campaigned in, much more open, with well-tilled farms.

The news we got indicated that Forrest had joined Hood at Florence,
and that the enemy was preparing there for a forward movement. I
opened communication with the Fourth Corps at Pulaski, and was under
orders, to join them whenever an advance of Hood should make it
necessary. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp.
748, 749.] On the 11th Sherman still inclined to the opinion that
Beauregard would order Hood to follow him, as soon as his southward
march should really begin. "I rather think you will find commotion
in his camp in a day or two," he said to Thomas; for his own
preparations were now complete, and his communications with the
North were to be cut next day. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 746.] The
humorous side of things struck him forcibly, and in giving to
Captain Poe, his engineer, directions to destroy the foundries,
workshops, and railway buildings at Atlanta, he had added,
"Beauregard still lingers about Florence, afraid to invade
Tennessee, and I think slightly disgusted because Sherman did not
follow him on his fool's errand." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 680.] The
irony fitted Hood better than Beauregard, for the latter had not
taken personal direction of the active army; but the relations
between the two Confederate generals were very imperfectly known to
us, and we naturally assumed that Beauregard was himself responsible
for the immediate conduct of the whole.

The progress of the work of reinforcing Thomas was not quite as
rapid as it seemed. Grant had sent General Rawlins, his chief of
staff, from Petersburg to St. Louis to see that A. J. Smith's corps
went promptly forward from Rosecrans's department. Besides the 9000
in Smith's immediate command, 5200 men were collected from posts on
the Mississippi and Ohio, and were put in motion toward Nashville.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 684.] Rawlins's
report on the 7th, that these were starting, was understood by
Thomas to apply to the whole of Smith's force, and he therefore
reckoned on their reaching him in a few days. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
685.] Rawlins in fact expected Smith's own divisions to leave St.
Louis on the 10th, but even this was much sooner than they reached
the river. The same news was sent to Sherman, and he expressed his
joy that these veteran reinforcements were on the way, and his
confidence that the enemy was now checkmated. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
686.] The result was a little over-confidence in all quarters, which
probably had its influence in making Thomas less energetic in
concentrating the troops available in Tennessee than he would have
been had he known that Smith's 9000 would not reach Nashville till
the last day of the month. [Footnote: See "Franklin and Nashville,"
pp. 132 _et seq_.; "Battle of Franklin," pp. 40, 41.]

On the 13th I marched to Columbia, and Schofield went in person to
Pulaski, where he assumed command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxix. pt iii. pp. 764, 768.] Wooden pontoons were sent the same day
to Columbia for the crossing of the Duck River there, and the bridge
was completed at ten o'clock in the evening. [Footnote: _Id_., pt.
i. p. 795.] As the river was too high to ford, we had encamped on
the north side, in the tongue made by the horse-shoe bend to the
southward. We occupied the fine open wood on rolling ground, and
made ourselves as well acquainted with the village and surrounding
country as time would allow. Columbia, on the south bank of the
river, had been a centre of education and refinement, and several
college buildings were there, surrounded by ample groves. The
neighborhood was the home of the Polks and the Pillows and other
people of national reputation, whose ample estates lay on the roads
diverging from the town. Between the village and the railway bridge
below the place was an isolated hill on which was an enclosed
redoubt, commanding the crossing. It was a strong position when
connected with sufficient forces near by, but too small and too
detached to have much independent value.

Leaving Strickland's brigade as a garrison for the town, the rest of
my command marched next morning toward Pulaski, reaching Lynnville,
eighteen miles south of the river, where a road from Lawrenceburg
comes into the turnpike. I was pretty strong in artillery, having
five batteries, two of which properly belonged to the second
division. Ten miles south of Columbia we left the open country and
entered a hilly, forest-covered region, with cultivation only in the
narrow valleys of small streams. This high water-shed between the
Duck River and the Elk extends nearly all the way from the plateau
of the Cumberland westward to the Tennessee River, where it has made
its great bend to the north. It is known as the "barns" (barrens),
and is desolate enough. In many places one may travel for miles
without seeing a house. Wood-chopping and charcoal-burning for
smelting furnaces seemed to be the principal industry.

On the 15th we continued our march in a heavy, cold rain to Pigeon
Creek, two miles north of Pulaski, making sixteen miles. General
Schofield met me there, and we examined the country westward some
three miles, our reconnoissance determining him to keep the division
at the turnpike crossing of the creek, where we accordingly
encamped. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 357.] It
had been confidently expected that Hood would march northward by the
time we could reach Pulaski, but he delayed, and it was a week later
before he really opened his new campaign. Various things combined to
give plausible reasons for his delay. He could not get the supply of
stores which he needed. The gap in his railroad from Cherokee to
Tuscumbia was not rebuilt. The weather was continuously cold with
heavy rains, and the roads going from bad to worse. The truth, no
doubt, was that Sherman's march southward had a most perplexing
effect, raising portentous problems as to its result upon the
Confederacy, and reducing Hood's own campaign to a secondary place
in the general progress of the war. Torn by doubts, he seemed
willing to find excuses for postponing action, hoping to see clearer
light on the future before committing himself to a decisive
movement. An interesting item in the discussion between the
Confederate generals was that Hood suggested Purdy as a better base
than Tuscumbia, and proposed to abandon the work of rebuilding the
railroad near that place. Purdy was some twenty-five miles north of
Corinth on the Mobile and Ohio Railway, and not far from the old
battlefield of Shiloh. Its landing-place on the Tennessee River was
nearly opposite Savannah, and it was there that Grant had stopped
his steamboat for a conference with General Lew Wallace on his way
to Pittsburg Landing the morning of the great battle. It is probable
that Hood thought it advantageous to take a line by which he might
avoid the risk of expeditions from Decatur, and could more safely
turn Schofield's position at Pulaski, by operating further from our
line of railroad and making it necessary for us either to retire
rapidly toward Nashville, or meet him so far from our supply line as
to be dependent, like himself, on wagon transportation. Beauregard
approved the change of base if made after the first stage of the
campaign should be complete, and planned a scheme of floating booms
armed with torpedoes to protect the pontoon bridge when it should be
laid there. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp.
900, 905; vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1210.] The road from Savannah through
Waynesborough to Columbia was a turnpike, and would be safer for
wagon trains than that from Florence, because so much further from
posts on our railway. It would also be a better line of retreat in
case of disaster. The plan was not tried, because the withdrawal of
our forces from Decatur and Pulaski removed the dangers which Hood
apprehended, and made his communications secure. The rains raised
the river so much that the bridge laid at Florence was no longer
protected by its situation between Muscle Shoals above and Colbert
Shoals below, and the Confederates had reason to fear that it would
be destroyed by gunboats coming up the river. The navy had been
unfortunate in the destruction of gunboats at Johnsonville, but
Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee had been sent to take command of the river
fleets co-operating with Thomas, and was planning active work with
heavier vessels. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 734.]

On the 14th the river had risen eighteen feet at Florence, and
Hood's bridge was with great difficulty kept in its place.
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 887.] The same day General
Wheeler informed him of Sherman's concentration at Atlanta, the
destruction of the railroad above, and the strong rumors of the
march on Augusta and Savannah. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 1206.] Forrest
had not yet joined Hood, but did so in two days. Beauregard heard,
through Taylor, of the movement of reinforcements to Thomas from
Memphis and below, as well as of A. J. Smith's from St. Louis.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 1208-1209.] On the 17th he got authentic news
of Sherman's start from Atlanta, and ordered Hood to "take the
offensive at the earliest practicable moment, and deal the enemy
rapid and vigorous blows, striking him while thus dispersed, and by
this means to distract Sherman's advance into Georgia." Hood replied
that he had only one third of the quantity of rations accumulated
which he needed for beginning the campaign. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 1215.] Beauregard himself left
Tuscumbia for Montgomery and Macon, giving Hood the choice either to
send part of his troops to Georgia or to take the offensive
immediately. Under this spur Hood gave orders for an advance on the
19th, but there was still some cause of delay, and Beauregard
reiterated, on the 20th, the peremptory order to "push an active
offensive immediately." Next day all were in motion, and Hood issued
a brief address to his troops, saying, "You march to-day to redeem
by your valor and your arms one of the fairest portions of our
Confederacy." [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 1220, 1225,1226,1236.]