Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 by Jacob Dolson Cox

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The longest night must have an end, and early in the morning one of
our black boys found us, bringing with him on horseback a haversack
full of hard-tack, and in his hand a kettle of coffee which we soon
made piping hot at the camp-fire, and found the world looking much
more cheerful. The storm continued, however, and made the pursuit
slower and more difficult than it would have been in better weather.
The cavalry had the advance, supported by A. J. Smith's troops on
the Granny White turnpike, and by Wood's Fourth Corps on the
Franklin turnpike. We were ordered to follow Smith. Our camp on the
evening of the 17th was not far from Brentwood between the two roads
which come together a little further on after crossing the Little
Harpeth, some seven miles from Franklin and the larger stream of the
same name.

Our headquarters the second night after the battle were an
improvement on those of the night before. We found a knoll which was
fairly drained, we borrowed a tarpaulin from a battery, and with
fence-rails made of it a lean-to with back to the storm. A pile of
evergreen boughs made a couch on which we lay, and a camp-fire
blazing high in front made a heat which mitigated even the driving
December storm. Our faithful black boys had coffee-pots and
haversacks, so that we did not go supperless. I wrote home that my
overcoat with large cape weighed about fifty pounds with the water
in it, but it kept my body dry, and I found it better to wear it
than to put on a rubber waterproof, for perspiration did not
evaporate under the latter.

Our private soldiers wore the rubber poncho-blankets above their
overcoats in wet weather, and two "pardners" would make a shelter
tent of the pair of waterproofs which had metal eyelets to adapt
them to this use. Veterans carefully selected the place for the
tent, pitched it in good form, trenched it so that the water would
flow off and not run into the tent; then with their bed of cedar
boughs, their haversacks and coffee-kettles, they were not worse off
than the officers,--better off indeed than their company officers
who trudged afoot like themselves.

Transportation was so difficult to get that, in pressing forward,
baggage was reduced to smallest possible allowance. In bad roads
such wagons as we had were far behind the troops, and the company
officers were exposed to severe hardships by the delay. I laid their
condition before General Schofield, in a letter which better tells
the tale than I could now give it from memory alone. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 312.] "From the time we left
Nashville," I wrote, "until last night [21st December], these
gentlemen had no shelter, and only such food as they could obtain
from the private soldiers, being far worse off than the men, since
the latter had their shelter-tents and their rations in haversacks.
The officers' rations and their cooking utensils are in the
regimental wagons, which are necessarily left behind in movements
such as we have lately made, and they must either furnish themselves
with knapsacks and haversacks, and carry their cooking utensils upon
their own persons or those of their servants, or be utterly
destitute. Even if they do this, the wagons of the commissary of
subsistence are also at the rear, except upon ordinary days of
issue, and it would be necessary to issue to them precisely as is
done to the soldiers in the ranks, and so break down the last
vestige in distinction in mode of life between them and their
commands. As it is, I state what I know from personal observation
when I say that no individuals in any way connected with the army
are enduring so much personal suffering and privation upon the
present campaign as the officers of the line. As I know the
commanding general will be most desirous to make any arrangement
which is feasible to reduce the amount of discomfort, I take the
liberty of suggesting that during the winter campaign the
transportation for each regiment be one wagon for regimental
headquarters and for company books and papers, desks, etc., as now,
and in addition one pack-mule for each company. The pack-mules make
little or no obstruction in the road, are easily moved to flank or
rear in case of manoeuvre of troops, and will be up with the command
when the regiment goes into camp. Unless some such arrangement is
made, I fear many of our officers will break down in health, and
many more, becoming disgusted with the hardships of the service, and
especially with the difference between themselves and their more
fortunate brethren of the staff and staff-corps, will seek to leave
the army. In many commands some similar arrangements to the one I
have suggested have been surreptitiously made; but as I have rigidly
enforced the rule turning over to the quartermaster all unauthorized
animals, I am the more desirous of obtaining for the gentlemen of
the line whom I have the honor to command such authority to regulate
their transportation as will save them from the apparently
unnecessary hardships they have of late endured, without detracting
from the mobility of the division." The plan suggested was one we
had used in exigencies in the Atlanta campaign, and General
Schofield immediately authorized it for winter use.

The cold rainstorm, in which the battle of Nashville had ended,
lasted for a week, turning to sleet and snow on the 20th and
clearing off with sharp cold on the 24th. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. pp. 360, 361.] Worse weather for field
operations it would be hard to imagine. The ordinary country roads
were impassable, and even the turnpikes became nearly so. They had
never been very solidly made, and had not been repaired for three
years. In places the metalling broke through, making holes similar
to holes in thick ice, with well-defined margin. These were filled
to the brim with water, and churned into deep pits by the wheels of
loaded wagons. It required watchfulness to see them, as the whole
surface of the road was flowing with slush and mud. When a wheel
went into one, the wagon dropped to the axle, and even where there
was no upset it was a most difficult task to pry the wagon out and
start it on the way again. The wagon-master was lucky if it did not
stop his whole train, and it was no uncommon thing for a mule to be
drowned by getting down in one of these pits. Hood's rear-guard
under Forrest and Walthall destroyed bridges behind them, of course,
and that our cavalry with the head of our infantry column were able
to keep close on the enemy's rear till they passed Pulaski is good
proof of the energy with which the pursuit was conducted. Yet it was
necessarily slow, for it was confined to one road, the rest being
impassable, and flanking operations could only be made on a small
scale when in contact with the enemy.

When we reached Franklin on our southward march, we were halted for
a day, so that we might not crowd too much upon the rest of the
column, and I took advantage of the opportunity to study the
condition of the battlefield there. My division camped between the
Columbia and the Lewisburg turnpikes, on the ground over which the
Confederates had advanced to attack it in the battle. Portions of
the second line of works close to the Carter house and the
retrenchment across the Columbia road had been levelled, but the
principal defences were as we had left them. The osage orange-trees
which we had used for abatis had been evenly cut away by the
bullets, and the tough fibres hung in a fringe of white strings, the
upper line quite even, and just a little lower than the top of the
parapet. The effect was a curiously impressive one as we looked down
the line we had held and thought what a level storm of lead was
indicated by this long white fringe, and what desperate charges of
Hood's divisions they were that came through it, close up to the
line of this abatis. Every twig was weeping with the cold pouring
rain of the dark midwinter storm, and this did not lessen the gloomy
effect of the scene. At the Carter house we learned from the family
many incidents of their own experience during the battle and of the
scenes of the next day. [Footnote: See "Franklin," chap. xv.]

Our position in the rear of the marching columns put upon us the
duty of building bridges, repairing roads, and improving the means
of supplying the troops in front. We consequently made halts, one of
two or three days at Spring Hill, and another in our old camps north
of Duck River, where we had held the line of the river on the 28th
and 29th of November. The day after Christmas we moved over the
river and encamped in front of Columbia, on the Pulaski turnpike. We
remained here for several days, whilst the Fourth Corps and the
cavalry, making Pulaski their depot for supplies, followed Hood
until he crossed the Tennessee on the 28th and 29th of December. The
line of the Confederate retreat was stripped bare of supplies and
forage, and every energy was devoted to rebuilding railroad bridges
and getting the road opened to Pulaski so that wagon transportation
might be limited to the region beyond the head of the rails. Thomas
had ordered Steedman's and R. S. Granger's divisions to Decatur by
rail, going by way of Stevenson. Once there, they were to operate in
the direction of Tuscumbia and Florence, seeking to destroy Hood's
pontoon bridges crossing the Tennessee. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 260.] The light steamboats in the upper river
were reckoned on to take supplies from Chattanooga, where an
abundance was in depot. Steedman reached Decatur on the 27th of
December, and Granger joined him from Huntsville, but Hood had
reached Bainbridge, at the foot of Muscle Shoals on the 25th;
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 731.] and next day had a bridge there, built in
part of our pontoons which had been floated down from Decatur.
[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 343.] He assembled the remnants of his army at
Tupelo, Miss., fifty miles south of Corinth. The inspection report
of January 20th showed 18,708, infantry and artillery, present for
duty; Forrest's cavalry not reported. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 664.] Thomas's prizes in the two days' fighting
at Nashville were reported by him as amounting to 4462 prisoners and
fifty-three pieces of artillery. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 40.] The
pursuit after the battle doubled the number of the prisoners,
gathered large numbers of deserters, and considerably increased the
number of guns captured. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 46, 48, 51.]

On the 29th of December Thomas indicated to General Halleck his
opinion that all had been done which was now practicable, and his
purpose to put his forces into winter quarters,--A. J. Smith's corps
with most of the cavalry at Eastport, where the Mississippi and
Alabama line reaches the Tennessee River; the Fourth Corps at
Huntsville, Ala., and the Twenty-third at Dalton, Ga. Steedman's and
Granger's divisions were already at Decatur, and would hold that
important position, with which direct railway communication from
Nashville would be opened as quickly as the road could be repaired
from Pulaski southward. Thomas also outlined for the spring a
concerted advance of the columns into southern Alabama. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 402.] The same day he issued
his order to Schofield to prepare at once for the march of a hundred
and fifty miles to northern Georgia. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 409.] A
march of the same distance southward along the Mobile and Ohio
Railway would have carried us to Hood's camps at Tupelo, with a
prospect of immediate results, and we were not exhilarated by the
order, which, however, was countermanded on the 30th in consequence
of dispatches received by Thomas from Halleck.

General Grant had, on the 16th, authorized Sherman to make his own
plan for a new campaign, and the latter had indicated the march from
Savannah to Columbia and thence to Raleigh as that which he would
make if left to himself. [Footnote: _Id._, vol. xliv. pp. 727-729.]
The necessity of reducing the war expenses as soon as possible, as
well as more purely military reasons, seemed to the General-in-Chief
to make a continuous winter campaign imperative, and by his orders
Halleck had directed Thomas not to go into winter quarters, but to
assemble his army at Eastport and prepare for further active work.
[Footnote: _Id._, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 441.] Grant rightly concluded
that Hood's army would be sent to the Carolinas as soon as Sherman
marched northward. He was therefore considering combinations of
Thomas's with Canby's forces for the capture of Mobile and a
movement on Selma, Ala., which was the only great armory and
manufacturing centre now remaining to the Confederates in the Gulf
States. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 419,
420.] Our army was a good deal worn with the hardships of the
campaign, our wagon trains had not been brought up to the
requirements for full field service, and we were receiving new
troops which were not yet fully assimilated to the old; but the
advantages of following up our successes by unflagging efforts in
the West as well as in the East, and of making the "long pull and a
pull all together" which would end the war, were so plain that all
responded cheerily to the call.

But in the Twenty-third Corps a new element entered into the debate,
which resulted, a fortnight later, in orders for us to move in a
widely different direction. On the 27th, the day that we received at
Columbia the news that Sherman had taken Savannah, Schofield wrote
an unofficial letter to Grant, suggesting that the corps would no
longer be needed for the spring campaign which Thomas was then
planning, and that with its increase of strength it might be of more
use in Grant's own operations in Virginia if it was not practicable
for us to rejoin Sherman. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 377.] Circumstances
were making Schofield's situation in Tennessee uncomfortable, for,
as he said in the same letter, he was in an anomalous position,
nominally commanding a department and an army, but practically doing
neither. Such considerations reinforced the military reasons, but
the latter were strong enough to establish the wisdom of his
suggestion to Grant. He wrote at the same time to General Sherman,
indicating that his strongest wish would be to join the army at
Savannah if it should be feasible, for he recognized the great
military importance of now concentrating against Lee. [Footnote:
"Forty-six Years," p. 254.] It happened that on the same day that
Schofield was writing these letters, Grant was writing to Sherman,
expressing his pleasure in the latter's confidence of his ability to
march through the Carolinas, and his own belief that it could be
done. "The effect of such a campaign," he said, "will be to
disorganize the South, and prevent the organization of new armies
from their broken fragments." [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xliv. p. 820.] Giving a sketch of the situation in the West, he
thought Sherman's advance would force the Confederacy to use Hood's
broken army without allowing it time to collect its deserters and
reorganize. As it would thus be "wiped out for present harm," he was
considering the plan of ordering A. J. Smith away from his temporary
connection with Thomas's main army, and bringing him with ten or
fifteen thousand men to Virginia to make his own army strong enough
to deal effectually with Lee, whether the Confederate general
continued to defend Richmond or should abandon that city. [Footnote:
_Ibid_.] Schofield's suggestion fitted so well the plan Grant was
revolving in his mind, that he decided to bring the Twenty-third
Corps East, instead of Smith's. On the 7th of January he directed
Thomas to send Schofield and the corps to him with as little delay
as possible, if he were sure that Hood had gone further south than
Corinth. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 529.] When Thomas
received the order on the 11th, he was at Paducah on the Ohio River,
and about to start up the Tennessee by steamboat. We were at Clifton
on the Tennessee, after a hard march of some seventy miles southwest
from Columbia, and were awaiting steamboats to take us up to
Eastport, wholly ignorant of the surprise that was in store for us.
[Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 363.] Even Schofield had received no
word from Grant as to his action.

In making this outline of the changing plans of our superiors, I
have outrun the current of my personal experience in which some
things may be worth noting. On the day after the battle of
Nashville, I was conscious of malarial poisoning from the specially
unwholesome conditions of our bivouac on the night of the 16th, but
was so confident in the vigor of my constitution in throwing off
such ailments that I paid no attention to my health, and kept about
my duties with my ordinary activity. I found, however, that my
strength was not equal to the demands upon it, and by the time we
reached the Duck River on the 23d of December, I was glad to find
quarters at the house of Mrs. Porter, in the bend of the river,
where we had been during the two days before the battle of Franklin,
and where we were again received with a kindness and hospitality
which was wonderful when one considers how the passing and repassing
of armies had ruined the country and overstrained the sympathies of
the people.

Fortunately for me, our movements were suspended for a week and we
made but one change of camp, crossing to the south side of the
river, and taking the position in front of Columbia which I have
already mentioned. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 373.] My medical director,
Surgeon Frink, gave me heroic treatment, and by the time we marched
again on the 2d of January, I was able to do my ordinary duties,
though I did not become quite well again till I reached the
sea-coast and got a complete change of climate. At this time we were
expecting to go into winter quarters, and when, on 29th December, I
learned that orders were issued for the corps to winter at Dalton, I
requested and received a leave of absence for thirty days, to go
home and recover my health. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv.
pt. i. p. 361.] My order had been issued, turning over the command
to Colonel Doolittle, the senior brigade commander present,
[Footnote: _Id._, pt. ii. p. 476.] when I learned from General
Schofield that the active campaign was to be resumed and that he had
abandoned the purpose he had formed of going north himself as far as
Louisville. I immediately rescinded my own order, and marched with
the command. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 426, 474, 475, 486.]

During the pursuit of Hood from Nashville, Thomas had followed in
person the Fourth Corps, which was in advance of ours, and Schofield
had no opportunity of personal conference with him, so that our only
knowledge of his purposes was got from the formal correspondence
with his headquarters. When Colonel Doolittle sent forward his
communication reasserting the capture of the battery in the curtain
of the Confederate works on the 16th of December, [Footnote: _Ante_,
p. 366.] it was accompanied by my own and indorsed by General
Schofield. It reached Thomas at Duck River, and he made it the
occasion of indorsing upon it a recommendation for my promotion to
the grade of Major-General. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv.
pt. ii. pp. 234, 235.] On the 19th, from Franklin, General Schofield
made his own recommendation in terms which I may be pardoned for
feeling more pride in than in the promotion itself. [Footnote: See
Appendix C.] This was earnestly supported by General Thomas and
forwarded on the 20th. The only vacancy in the grade was one made by
the resignation of General McClernand, and to this I was assigned,
as of the 7th of December, the date of General Schofield's report of
the battle of Franklin, though the official notice of the promotion
did not reach me till the 15th of January, at Clifton, as we were
about to take steamboats for our movement to the East. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 273, 274; _Id_., pt. i. p.
364. Army Register for 1865, pp. 54, 95. Another vacancy occurred on
the 13th December, by the resignation of General Crittenden, and to
this General W. B. Hazen was appointed for his assault of Fort
McAllister near Savannah. (_Ibid_.) On December 22d Mr. Stanton
asked Thomas to make a list of promotions he desired to recommend,
but informed him that there was then no vacancy in the grade of
Major-General, and only two in that of Brigadier. (Official Records,
vol. xlv. pt. ii. p. 307.) General Schofield thinks that Stanton, in
the dispatch last mentioned, referred only to vacancies in the
regular army. (Forty-six Years, p. 279.) The circumstances and the
whole correspondence seem to me inconsistent with this view. Thomas
made out his list on the 25th, and it was for promotions in the
volunteer service only. (Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. p.
343.) Thomas's own promotion as Major-General in the regular army
was made on the 24th. (_Id_., pp. 318, 329.)]

Before leaving Columbia, General Schofield had, on the 28th of
December, a consultation with his three division commanders in
regard to the assignment of the new regiments, to the number of
twelve or thirteen, which had been added to the corps. [Footnote:
These included two or three which had been temporarily attached at
Franklin, but were now made permanent parts of the organization.] It
was agreed that it was best to preserve the older organizations of
divisions and brigades, and to strengthen these by some new
regiments, while the rest of the new regiments were organized into a
division under General Ruger. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv.
pt. ii. p. 409.] Schofield had the promise of several other
regiments whenever they should come forward; and by correspondence
with Halleck and with the Governor of Illinois, as well as with
Thomas, he was actively striving to bring the corps to the proper
strength of three full divisions. At the end of the month we had
15,000 men, with at least two other regiments ordered to join us,
one of them convalescing from the measles, which was very apt to run
through a new organization taking the field. [Footnote: _Id._, pp.
426, 436, 445, 461, 473, 475.] The new troops were nearly all
officered by men of experience, and contained many veterans who had
re-enlisted. We thus welcomed back valuable men who had served in
the corps, and came to us with increased rank and a renewed zeal
which made our reinforcements at once nearly equal to seasoned
troops.

Our orders to march from Columbia on the 1st of January were in
pursuance of the orders Thomas had received to concentrate his army
at Eastport and Tuscumbia for the continuance of the campaign. The
Fourth Corps was _en route_ to Huntsville, and Thomas did not change
its destination, as he thought it could take part in new movements
as well from that position as from Tuscumbia. A. J. Smith's corps
had already been ordered to Eastport for winter quarters, and had
marched from Pulaski by way of Lawrenceburg and Waynesborough,
reaching Clifton on the 2d of January, where it awaited steamboat
transportation. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp.
396, 410, 420, 427, 486. Clifton is called Carrollville in official
Atlas, pl. cxlix. The former name is that used in the dispatches and
which we found in use by everybody. The roads and topography in the
map are very incorrect.] Thomas himself was at Pulaski, and went
back by rail to his headquarters at Nashville, whence he took a
steamer to convey his field headquarters and staff by way of the
Cumberland and Tennessee rivers to Eastport. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xlv. pt. ii. pp. 470, 530, 567.]

We marched from Columbia on the morning of the 2d of January, 1865,
following the turnpike to Mt. Pleasant, ten miles, through some of
the finest farms in the State. The afternoon was spent in organizing
the corps to move in separate columns by division, each with its own
supply train; for the information we got as to the condition of the
roads made it wise to try any country roads which had not been used
by the armies. It was arranged that Couch's division should march by
the turnpike to Waynesborough, wind by a ridge road through the
"barrens" north of the turnpike, and Ruger should follow me some
distance, and then take an intermediate road through Laurel-Hill
Factory, leaving an interval of a day's march between our columns.
Couch's division was preceded by the engineer battalion of the
corps, as pioneers to repair the turnpike. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.
475, 486.] Promptly at six o'clock on the 3d, my division marched
from Mt. Pleasant, continuing for five miles on the Waynesborough
turnpike, then turning to the right upon the Gordon road, we climbed
by a steep and long hill to the barren ridge which is the watershed
between the Duck River and Buffalo River. Five miles from the
turnpike our way ran into the Beaverdam road, which we kept for five
miles further to the fork of the Ashland road, turning to the left.
Here we camped and waited for our trains, which had slow work in
climbing the ridge, for it had rained all the morning, and the roads
were slippery. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 362; pt. ii. p. 498.]