Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 by Jacob Dolson Cox

J >> Jacob Dolson Cox >> Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

At Jacksboro we entered the theatre of active warlike operations,
and found ourselves in the usual atmosphere of rumors. It was of
course known that Longstreet had retreated to the northeast after
raising the siege, but some insisted that he was moving down the
valley again, and that Foster was to be shut up in Knoxville as
Burnside had been. It was evident that there was no definite
information on which any of these local opinions were based, and I
was satisfied that our road was open and safe. The only risk was
from some raiding column of cavalry, and we must take our chances as
to that. After a good night's rest, I decided on the morning of the
18th to take with me Colonel Strong of General Foster's staff and
Colonel Sterling, and leaving the wagons behind, to make the forty
miles to Knoxville in a single day's ride. What we had heard of the
destitution in the city made it seem best that most of the party
should remain with the wagons and the supplies, and so avoid the
risk of throwing too many guests upon the hospitality of
headquarters. We took a few of the cavalry as an escort, and both
horses and men were in such good condition and so hardened to the
road that we scarcely broke from a trot in the whole distance,
except to stop for resting and feeding our nags at noon.

We reached Knoxville in the afternoon, and Colonel Strong was warmly
welcomed by those of the staff who were present, but the general was
absent at the front. He was expected back the next night, however,
and comfortable quarters were provided for us meanwhile. My
instinctive fears of complications in regard to my own assignment to
duty proved to be true. The very day I left Lexington General Foster
had issued an order assigning me to command the District of
Kentucky, and it had passed me on the road. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 383, 394.] My determination to obey
literally the order from the War Department to report in person, and
the haste with which I had started, proved my salvation from the
kind of duty at the rear which I was bent on escaping. The District
of Kentucky would have been even worse than that of Ohio, for the
strife between political factions embroiled every one who commanded
there, and the order to me had been issued because the officer in
command was obnoxious to one of these factions.

General Foster returned on the 19th, and on my reporting to him I
found at once the benefit of General Burnside's representations in
regard to me. Colonel Strong was also well aware of my earnest wish
for field service, and the friendship which had grown up on the
road, no doubt, made him an influential advocate with his chief. The
general received me very kindly, and said that his action had been
based on the supposition that I would prefer duty in Kentucky during
the winter rather than make the rough journey over the mountains at
that season. On my assuring him that my coming without waiting to
communicate with him was because of my earnest request to the War
Department for service in the field, he was evidently pleased and
immediately revoked the orders already made, and assigned me to the
Twenty-third Corps, to command it as the senior general officer
present. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii, p. 457.]

I had been eight days on the road from Lexington, and the rest of
the party who remained with the wagons were a day longer in reaching
Knoxville. It had given me a vivid appreciation of the impossibility
of supplying an army in East Tennessee by wagon trains over the
mountains. The roads by Cumberland Gap or by Emory Gap were less
precipitous, but they were more muddy. The forage was exhausted
along all the routes, and till grass should grow large trains of
supplies were not to be thought of. The effort to force trains
through in the autumn had been most destructive to the teams.
Noticing how the way was lined by the carcasses of dead horses and
mules, we kept an accurate count one day of the number of these. In
the twenty miles of that day's journey we counted a hundred and
fifty dead draught animals. The movement of wagon-trains had, of
course, been suspended when Longstreet advanced upon Knoxville, and
bad weather had hardly begun then. Beef cattle could be driven in
herds, but the country was so stripped of forage that the danger of
starvation by the way made this mode of supply nearly as hopeless as
the other.

The only permanent solution of the subsistence problem was to be
found in enlarging the facilities for railway communication at
Chattanooga so that that town might become a great depot from which
the East Tennessee troops could draw as soon as the railroad to
Knoxville should be repaired, or light steamboats be brought to the
upper Tennessee and Holston rivers. They showed us at Knoxville
samples of the bread issued to the garrison during the siege. It was
made of a mixture of all the breadstuffs which were in store or
could be procured, but the chief ingredient was Indian corn ground
up cob and all. It was not an attractive loaf, but it would support
life, though the bulk was out of proportion to the nutriment. The
cattle had been kept in corral till they were too thin and weak to
be fit for food, but there was no other, and the commissaries killed
the weakest and issued them as rations because these would otherwise
die a natural death. Sherman and his staff had expressed their
astonishment that an appetizing dinner had been spread for them at
Burnside's headquarters; [Footnote: Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p.
368.] but they would have wondered more if they had known of the way
in which the town and vicinity had been ransacked to do honor to the
welcome guests who had relieved the beleaguered army. General Poe
vividly describes the straits they were in, and the heroic sort of
hospitality which had hunted far and wide for something fit to set
before the leader of the column which had raised the siege.
[Footnote: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. iii. p. 745.]
There had been no danger of actual starvation, but only the coarsest
of bread and the poorest of beef could be distributed. Eating, in
such circumstances, was not a pleasure, and the pangs of real hunger
were necessary to make the ration at all palatable. The withdrawal
of the enemy relieved the situation somewhat, for it opened the
country to foraging parties, and every kind of produce which money
could tempt the people to part with was bought and brought into the
camps. It was little enough at best, and three months of pinching
want were to be endured before anything like regular supplies could
be furnished to the army. It was to such a house of destitution we
had come, but we had come voluntarily to share the labors and the
triumphs of our comrades in the field and we had no regrets.

CHAPTER XXXI

WINTER BIVOUACS IN EAST TENNESSEE

Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty
welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good
quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of
clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country
mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A
Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment
at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a
knoll-A night scene-Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy
Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the
troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather.

The Twenty-third Corps was encamped at Blain's Cross-roads,
seventeen miles northeast of Knoxville, on the road to Rutledge,
where Longstreet was supposed to be. The Fourth Corps, under General
Granger, and the Ninth, under General Parke, were in the same
neighborhood. The cavalry corps covered the front and flanks on both
sides of Holston River. A concentration of the Army of the Ohio and
its reinforcements had been made there to meet a rumored return of
the Confederates toward Knoxville after an affair at Rutledge in
which Longstreet had captured a wagon-train loaded with supplies for
us. I left Knoxville on the morning of the 21st of December,
accompanied by my staff officers, and rode to Blain's Cross-roads. I
found the corps under temporary command of Brigadier-General Mahlon
D. Manson, of Indiana, who had commanded one of the divisions in the
preceding campaign. Manson occupied an old log house too small for
himself and staff. There was but one bed in it, and at night the
general occupied this, whilst his staff slept in their blankets on
the floor. We had travelled leisurely, as I wished to study the
country between Knoxville and the camp, and we reached the corps too
late to make any arrangement for the night, and had to cast
ourselves on our comrades' hospitality. I was most heartily welcomed
by General Manson, who did the best he could for me by offering me
the half of his own bed, whilst the staff took similar lodgings with
his officers in a shed veranda at the back of the house lying snugly
together, wrapped in their blankets. Manson was a burly,
whole-souled man, brave and loyally unselfish, and turned over the
command to me with a sincerity of subordination which won my
confidence at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii.
pp. 462, 463.] It was not a comfortable night in the overcrowded log
house for either hosts or guests, but it was made cheery by the
hearty soldiers' welcome we received, and we sat late around the
crackling fire in the stone chimney after we had eaten with a
relish, known only in camp, the best supper which the meagre rations
of the army could furnish.

Our first occupation next day was to establish my own headquarters,
for a military man does not feel at home until his little camp is
set in some decent nook with the regularity and order which shows
good system, and with the sentinel pacing before the entrance. I
have always found it most comfortable and most healthful to live
under canvas, even in winter, in the sparsely settled parts of the
country. It might be different in Europe or in the more densely
peopled States at the East, but in the West and South a house cannot
always be found in proper proximity to the line, and changing from
house to tent and back again is much more dangerous to health than
adherence to what seems the more exposed kind of life. There is also
a question of discipline and _morale_ involved, and the effect of
example at headquarters is felt through the whole command. With no
little difficulty we found four old tents without flies, but these
were carefully pitched in a clean place accessible to all parts of
the corps, and when we were installed in them we had a real
satisfaction in being at home and ready for business. Our difficulty
in procuring four poor tents was simply an index of the scarcity of
all supplies and equipments. The depots at Cincinnati and Nashville
were packed with everything we wanted, but there had been no time to
get them forward when the siege began, and now the impassable
mountain roads cut us off as completely as a circle of hostile
camps. We especially felt the lack of the flies for the tents in
roughing it. This extra roof makes as great a difference in keeping
a tent habitable in wet weather, as an extra cape or a poncho does
in keeping the rain off one's person, or in civil life the
omnipresent umbrella. Our overcoats and ponchos kept out the wet in
the longest march, but without a fly the tent roof and walls would
drip with moisture. In Captain Day, however, I had a quartermaster
whose indomitable energy would not be long baffled, and in his
journeys to and fro in charge of the supply trains of the corps he
kept a sharp eye out for whatever would make our headquarters outfit
more efficient. The warehouses at Knoxville were searched, and a
better tent found in one place and a fly in another gradually
brought our little camp into what soldiers regard as a home-like
condition. The clerical work and the official correspondence of the
command could then go on; for the headquarters of an army corps in
the field is as busy a place as a bank or counting-house in a city.
It is the business centre for a military population of 12,000 or
15,000 men, where local government is carried on, and where their
feeding, clothing, arming, and equipping are organized and directed,
to say nothing of the military conduct in regard to the enemy, or of
the administration of affairs relating to the neighboring
inhabitants.

The troops were in bivouac, generally in the woods about us, where
shelter could be made in ways well known to lumbermen and hunters.
The most common form was a lean-to, made by setting a couple of
crotched posts in the ground with a long pole for a ridge. Against
this were laid other poles and branches of trees sloping to the
ground on the windward side. The roof was roughly thatched with
evergreen branches laid so that rain would be shed outward. A bed of
small evergreen twigs within made a comfortable couch, and unlimited
firewood from the forest made a camp fire in front that kept
everybody toasting warm in ordinary weather. The regimental and
company officers had similar quarters, improved sometimes by a roof
of canvas or tarpaulin beneath the evergreen thatch. There were but
few days in the East Tennessee winters when such shelter was not a
sufficient protection for men young and accustomed to hardship. It
was in fact more comfortable than life in tents at division and
corps headquarters, but with us tents were a necessity on account of
the clerical business which I have mentioned.

The want most felt was that of clothing and shoes. The supply of
these had run very low by the time Burnside had marched through
Kentucky and Tennessee to Knoxville, and almost none had been
received since. Many of the soldiers were literally in rags, and
none were prepared for winter when Longstreet interrupted all
communication with the base of supplies. Their shoes were worn out,
and this, even more than their raggedness, made winter marching out
of the question. The barefooted men had to be left behind, and of
those who started the more poorly shod would straggle, no matter how
good their own will was or how carefully the officers tried to
enforce discipline and keep their men together.

The food question was in a very unsatisfactory way, but had improved
a good deal after the siege of Knoxville was raised. Some herds had
been brought part of the way, and had been kept together, so that
they were driven in as soon as the road was open. Some were captured
and some were lost, but enough arrived so that the meat ration was
pretty regularly issued in full weight. A large amount of pork had
been salted and packed at Knoxville, and was issued as an occasional
change from the ordinary ration of fresh beef. The "small rations"
of coffee, sugar, salt, etc., were almost wholly wanting, and our
soldiers had been so accustomed to a regular issue of these that the
deprivation was a very serious matter. As to breadstuffs, none could
be got from our depots and we were wholly dependent upon the
country. We put all the mills within our lines under military
supervision, and systematized the grinding so that the supply of
meal and flour should be equitably distributed to the army and to
the inhabitants. As the people were loyal, there was no wish on the
part of the military authorities to take corn or other grain without
payment, and the people brought in freely or sold to us on their
farms all that they could spare. Still the supply was short, and was
soon exhausted in the vicinity of the army, so that we had to send
forage trains to great distances and with very unsatisfactory
results. During the whole winter we rarely succeeded in obtaining
half rations of bread, and oftentimes the fraction was so small as
to be hardly worth estimating. In such a situation corn could not be
taken for horse-feed, and as the long forage in our vicinity was
exhausted, the animals were in pitiful condition. In many instances
artillery horses dropped dead of starvation at the picket rope.

The Fourth Corps was no better off than ourselves. Granger had left
the Army of the Cumberland immediately after the battle of
Missionary Ridge, and although the situation at Chattanooga had been
a good deal mitigated, no considerable supplies of clothing had then
arrived. The distress was therefore universal in our East Tennessee
army. Learning that Sheridan's division was encamped not far from us
at Blain's Cross-roads, I rode over to find Colonel Emerson Opdycke
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Ohio, who was in that division.
He was a townsman of mine, and our families were intimate, and other
neighbors and friends were with him. I could give them later news
from home than any of them had, for until the end of the year the
newspapers I brought from Cincinnati were the latest in camp. I
found Opdycke's camp like our own. He was in the woods, under a
lean-to shelter such as I have described, with a camp-fire of great
logs in front of it. He was just opening the first letters he had
got from home since the battle of Chickamauga in September, and
these had been a long time on the way, for they had gone to
Chattanooga and had come by casual conveyance from there. His
statements fully agreed with the reports I had got from the
Twenty-third Corps officers in regard to the condition of the
troops. It was the same with all. They would not suffer greatly if
they could remain in the forest encampments till shoes and clothing
could come to us, but any active campaigning must produce
intolerable suffering.

Our mess wished to celebrate Christmas by a dinner at which a few of
our comrades might share the luxury of some canned vegetables and
other stores we had brought from Ohio, and we sent a man with a
foraging party that was going twenty miles away for hay and corn.
After a diligent search he succeeded in getting a turkey and a pair
of fowls, and we kept the festival in what seemed luxurious style to
our friends who had been through the campaign. The spirit of
officers and men was all that could be wished, for they thoroughly
understood the causes of their privation, and knew that it was
unavoidable. Their patriotism and their moral tone were
magnificently shown in the re-enlistments which were at this time
going on. The troops of the original enlistment of 1861 were now
near the end of their term of three years, and it was the wise
policy of the government to let the question of a new term be
settled now while the winter was interrupting active operations.
Regiments whose term of service would expire in the spring or summer
of 1864 were offered a month's furlough at home and the title of
"veterans" if they would re-enlist. The furlough was to be enjoyed
before the opening of the next campaign, and the regiments were to
be sent off as fast as circumstances would permit. We knew that the
home visit would be a strong inducement to many, but we were
astonished and awed at the noble unanimity of the popular spirit of
the men. Almost to a man they were determined to "see it out," as
they said. The re-enlistment was accepted by companies, but there
was great pride in preserving the regimental organization as well.
The closing week of the year was devoted to this business, other
duty being suspended as far as circumstances would permit. When a
company had "veteranized" by the re-enlistment of a majority, they
announced it by parading on the company street and giving three
rousing cheers. These cheers were the news of the day, and the
company letter and the number of the regiment passed eagerly from
mouth to mouth as the signal of a new veteran company was heard.
Some companies re-enlisted without an exception. In one regiment
there were only 15 men in the ten companies who did not sign the new
rolls. In fact only the physically disabled with here and there a
discontented man were omitted in the veteran enlistment. It was a
remarkable incident in the history of the war and a speaking one. It
illustrates better than anything, except the original outburst of
patriotism in 1861, the character of the men who formed our rank and
file. Could we only have had then an efficient system of filling up
these veteran regiments by new recruits, the whole would have made
an incomparable army; but, alas, we were to see them reduced to a
handful while new regiments were organized, only (as it looked to us
in the field) to give the "patronage" of the appointments to
politicians, or to reward successful recruiting instead of soldierly
ability tested in action.

Soon after General Foster was assigned to the department he reissued
an order which Burnside had made earlier but had revoked, by which
Brigadier-General Samuel D. Sturgis was appointed to the command of
the cavalry corps. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii,
p. 394.] Sturgis had commanded a division of the Ninth Corps in
Maryland and Virginia, and was one of those whose dismissal Burnside
had demanded for the insubordination which followed the battle of
Fredericksburg. Good policy would have dictated that he should be
sent to some other command; but he was ordered to report to
Burnside, and had no active employment until Foster arrived. The
cavalry corps had had several lively engagements with the
Confederate horse, and was now concentrated near Mossy Creek, where
it was supported by a brigade of infantry from the second division
of the Twenty-third Corps, in command of Colonel Mott of the One
Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 488, 489, 562.]
Our information showed that Longstreet's forces were now
concentrated about Morristown, and that nothing larger than scouting
parties came across to the west side of the Holston. It became
prudent, therefore, to transfer part of our forces from the Rutledge
road over to that which runs from Knoxville along the line of the
railroad to Morristown. Both the railroad and the wagon-road cross
the Holston at Strawberry Plains and go up the valley on the east
side of the river by way of New Market and Mossy Creek. On the 24th
and 25th I was directed to send two more brigades to Strawberry
Plains, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 490.]one of which was put over the
river to cover the reconstruction of the railway bridge which was
going on. This was the long trestle which had been burned by Sanders
in the preceding summer, and had since been repaired and destroyed
by the opposing armies alternately. On the 27th I was ordered to
move the other division of the corps to Strawberry Plains, thus
concentrating my command in that vicinity. Our distance from
Knoxville would be about the same as at Blain's Cross-roads, but the
divergence of the roads made our march some six or eight miles
across the country.

It was a great hardship to the men to abandon the huts they had made
with a good deal of labor, and which were the more necessary for
them by reason of the destitution which I have described. Nor was it
pleasant for us at headquarters, for we had got our own
establishment into a condition of tolerable comfort. Some brick had
been got from a ruined and abandoned house, and with them a chimney
with an open fireplace had been built at the back of one of our
tents, which thus made a cheerful sitting-room for our mess. It is a
soldier's proverb that comfortable quarters are sure to bring
marching orders, and we were only illustrating the rule. The march
was made in the afternoon through rain and mud, and we reached
Strawberry Plains just before nightfall in the short midwinter day.
The Plains were a nearly level space in a curve of the river, though
the village of the name was on some rough hills on the other bank at
the end of the long trestle bridge. The level lands had been for
some time occupied by the cavalry, and were so cut into mud-holes
and defiled in every way as to be unfit for an infantry camp. A
little on one side, however, was an isolated gently rounded hill
covered with a mixed forest of oak and pine. With a little crowding
this would make a clean and well-drained camp for the division I had
brought with me. The brigades were placed so that they encircled the
hill on the lower slopes with openings between leading to the top,
on which I placed my headquarters. The little quadrangle of tents on
the top, the forest-covered slopes, the busy soldiery below making
new camps for themselves, made a romantic picture despite the
discomforts. I cannot better show the impression made at the moment
than by quoting from a letter written home the next day: "When we
arrived, the rain was pouring in torrents, the dead leaves, wet and
deep, soaked our boots and made it slow work to kindle a fire, and
as we stood about in our overcoats heavy with water, we were not
especially impressed with the romance of the scene; but when we had
found a few old pine-knots to start the fire with, and the heavy
smoke of the damp leaves changed to a bright flame,--when the tents
were pitched, a cup of hot coffee made, and we sat about the fire
watching the flashing light on the deep green of the pines and the
beautiful russet of the oak leaves with the white of the tents
beneath, the few square yards about us were made as lovely as a
fairy scene shut in by the impenetrable gloom beyond. The old
witchery of camp life now came over us, we forgot rain and cold,
singing and chatting as merrily as if care were dead, till finally
rolling in our blankets under our tents, we went to sleep as sweetly
and soundly as children."