ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS
DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT, G. A. R.
WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER, 1902
BY MAJOR-GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE
_Comrades of the Sixteenth Army Corps_:
The Sixteenth Army Corps was organized December 18th, 1862, and formed
into two wings. General A. J. Smith commanded the right wing, and General
G. M. Dodge the left wing of the Corps. The left wing was organized with
the Corps, the right wing a year or more afterwards. The Corps, as a body,
was never together, though it probably took part in more widely separated
fields than any other Corps in the Army of the Tennessee. The right wing,
under General Smith, was in the Vicksburg campaign, and after that it went
to the Department of the Gulf, and was with General Banks in his movement
up Red River, and saved that Army from defeat; of this there is no doubt.
After that, it was sent after Forrest, and it was the only command that I
know of that caught and whipped him. The left wing overtook General
Forrest at Town Creek, in 1863, in its march to Decatur in the rear of
Bragg's Army, but he did not stay long enough for us to get a good fight
out of him.
From the campaign after Forrest, General Smith's command was sent to the
Department of the Missouri to drive out Price. There I found them, in
December, 1864, when I took command of that Department, in a deplorable
condition,--without clothing, shoes, or camp equipage. Under an order from
General Grant, I sent them to Nashville, with all the force in my
department, some twenty thousand men all told, to help General Thomas, and
I sent them everything they needed to clothe and equip them. You all
remember how you were frozen in on the Mississippi, and had to take the
cars. One of the pleasantest recollections of my life is that I received
a letter from General Smith, thanking me for appreciating their condition,
and having in Nashville when they arrived, everything they needed. He said
that it was the first time they had been treated decently, and they were
thankful they had fallen into the hands of some one who appreciated them.
At the Battle of Nashville it was General Smith, with the right wing of
the Sixteenth Corps, and the troops of the Department of the Missouri,
that turned the left flank of Hood's Army, and was practically in his rear
when stopped; and I have heard many officers who were there say that if he
had been let alone he would have captured or destroyed that wing of the
Army. Thus ended the eventful career of the right wing, and its fortunes
were cast with the Army of the Cumberland in its chase after Hood.
The left wing was organized from the troops I commanded in the District of
Corinth, and had in it the old Second Division of the Army of the
Tennessee that Grant organized at Cairo, that fought at Belmont, Henry and
Donelson, Shiloh, and the two Corinths. It had on its banners, "First at
Donelson." I took command right after the Battle of Corinth, where it had
been censured by Rosecrans and praised by Grant for the part it took in
the Battle of Corinth. General Grant held us at Corinth as a protection to
his communications while the campaign against Vicksburg was going on. In a
letter to me he said he had left us there to protect that flank, for he
knew that if Bragg endeavored to break that line we would stay; so you see
he still had faith in his old Division. From Corinth we marched with
Sherman in his celebrated trip from Memphis to Chattanooga. We wintered on
the line, and rebuilt the Nashville and Decatur Road, and in his Memoirs
General Grant, after describing the condition of the Army, and the
necessity for rebuilding the railway from Nashville to Decatur, speaks
thus of the work of the Sixteenth Army Corps:
General Dodge had no tools to work with except those of the
pioneer--axes, picks, and spades. With these he was enabled to
intrench his men, and protect them against surprise from small parties
of the enemy, and, as he had no base of supplies until the road could
be completed back to Nashville, the first matter to consider, after
protecting his men, was the getting in of food and forage from the
surrounding country. He had his men and teams bring in all the grain
they could find, or all they needed, and all the cattle for beef, and
such other food as could be found. Millers were detailed from the
ranks to run the mills along the line of the army. Where they were not
near enough to the troops for protection they were taken down and
moved up to the line of the road. Blacksmith shops, with all the iron
and steel found in them, were used up in like manner. Blacksmiths
were detailed and set to work making the tools necessary in railroad
and bridge building. Axemen were at work getting out timber for
bridges, and cutting fuel for locomotives and cars. Thus every branch
of railroad building, making tools to work with, and supplying the
workmen with food, was all going on at once, and without the aid of a
mechanic or workman except what the command itself furnished. General
Dodge had the work assigned to him finished within forty days after
receiving his orders. The number of bridges to rebuild was 182, many
of them over deep and wide chasms. The length of road repaired was 102
miles.
I only quote a small part of what General Grant says in this connection,
to show you that while the Sixteenth Corps had its share of fighting, and
praise for it, still it was a Corps that Grant called upon in an
emergency, and when he wanted great deeds done; and proves not only what
they could turn their hands to when necessary, but is also a sample of
what our great army was made of.
In the spring of 1864 we became a part of the great Army in the Atlanta
campaign. When we arrived at Chattanooga, on the 5th of May, I called at
General Sherman's headquarters. General McPherson, our Army Commander, was
there. Sherman said to him: "You had better send Dodge to take Ship's
Gap." "Why, General," replied McPherson, "that is thirty miles away, and
Dodge's troops are not yet unloaded, and he has no transportation with
him." Sherman said: "Let him try it, and have the transportation follow."
We struck out, and that night at midnight Sprague's Brigade of the Fourth
Division of the Sixteenth Corps had gained the Gap. The enemy appeared the
next morning. This opened the way through Snake Creek Gap, planting us in
the rear of Johnston's Army, and forcing him to abandon his impregnable
position at Dalton.
Our battles in the Atlanta campaign were those of the Army of the
Tennessee. The left wing received continual commendation until the great
battle of the 22d, when it happened to be in the rear of our Army, and
received and defeated the celebrated movement of Hood to our rear.
Sprague's Brigade fought all day at Decatur, and saved our trains. In the
battle of the 22d of July we had only five thousand men in line, but met
and repulsed three Divisions of Hardee's Corps, and McPherson, who stood
on our right and witnessed the fight, watching the charge of Fuller and
Mersey, and the breaking of two of the enemy's columns, spoke of us in the
highest terms, and five minutes later was dead. Our Army, who knew and
loved him, never could reconcile ourselves to his great loss.
The Battle of Atlanta was one of the few battles of the war where the
attack on the Sixteenth Army Corps caught it on the march in the rear of
the Army, without intrenchments or protection of any kind, both sides
fighting in the open.
In his address describing the battle of the 22d of July, General Strong,
of General McPherson's staff, says:
General McPherson and myself, accompanied only by our orderlies, rode
out and took position on the right of Dodge's line, and witnessed the
desperate assaults of Hood's army. General McPherson's admiration for
the steadiness and bravery of the Sixteenth Corps was unbounded. Had
the Sixteenth Corps given way the rebel army would have been in the
rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps, and would have swept like
an avalanche over our supply-trains, and the position of the Army of
the Tennessee would have been very critical.
General Frank P. Blair pays this tribute to the fighting of the Sixteenth
Army Corps, in his official report of the Battle of Atlanta:
I started to go back to my command, and witnessed the fearful assault
made on the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse
by that command. It was a most fortunate circumstance for the whole
army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occupied the position I have
attempted to describe at the moment of attack; and, although it does
not belong to me to report upon the bearing and conduct of the
officers and men of that Corps, still I cannot withhold my expression
of admiration for the manner in which this command met and repulsed
the repeated and persistent attacks of the enemy. The attack upon our
flank and rear was made by the whole of Hardee's corps.
Under General Howard, a part of the left wing took part in the battle of
the 28th of July. On August 19th I was given a Confederate leave, when
that _beau-ideal_ of a soldier, my old schoolmate and comrade, General T.
E. G. Ransom, took command of the Corps. The right wing knew him, for he
was with you in the Red River campaign. He died on a stretcher in command
of the Corps in the chase after Hood. The old Second Division had its
innings with General Corse, at Altoona, where the fighting has been
immortalized in verse and song. My fortunes took me away to the command of
the Army and Department of the Missouri, and the two Divisions of the left
wing were merged one into the Fifteenth and the other into the Seventeenth
Corps, and, so far as the campaigns were concerned, the Corps fought in
two units, the right and left wings, and each was a Corps command.
The grave of that remarkable soldier, General A. J. Smith, whose
distinguished services were so often recognized by Generals Grant and
Sherman, has not a stone to designate it. The Society of the Army of the
Tennessee is aiding in raising the funds to commemorate his memory and
deeds by erecting a monument in his home in St. Louis.
The Sixteenth Army Corps had great opportunities in the campaigns it took
part in, and never failed to make the most of them. They went cheerfully
to any work assigned to them. They have left in the war records a history
that they may well be proud of, and every work they have undertaken has
received the strong commendation of their superior officers.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE
Commander
Army of the Potomac
1864]