CHAPTER VII.

PECULIARITIES OF VARIOUS GENERALS.

I was particularly fortunate during the war in coming in frequent

contact with the four great characters who most deeply impressed

themselves upon the public mind, and won the first positions in

the history of the era. Sherman, Thomas, Grant, and Sheridan were

the ablest, and in the end the most successful of our leaders, and

their fame is now a part of that of the country. Hooker and Rousseau

were also representative soldiers, and will be quoted by posterity

as examples, and regarded, not less than the others, as characters

illustrative of the time and its events. Of the many other generals

whom I met, and of whom I have many interesting and pleasing

reminiscences to relate, there are none so distinctly marked for

lasting and permanent fame as the six whom I have sketched in detail.

Still many of those of whom I now propose to speak will attain a place

in future history and obtain a firm hold in the mind of posterity as

characters worthy of emulation or remembrance, as have the others.

Circumstances conspired to rob a few of those whom I knew of their

just fame; temporary greatness was thrust upon some totally unworthy

of such distinction, while most of the others were _mediocre_, and

could only have come to the surface of society in the general upheaval

of a great revolution like that through which this country lately

had the good fortune to pass to greater security and a grander future.

Those I have sketched in detail were endowed with the unmistakable

trait of greatness; the majority of those whom I remember possessed

peculiarities merely, and their reputations were local.

[Illustration: DON CARLOS BUELL.]

Yet some few of them did not lack in ability, or the industry, energy,

and courage which creates opportunity and wins renown. One of those

whom circumstances robbed of his just renown, and who is now generally

looked upon as one of the greatest failures of the war, was to my

mind one of our ablest soldiers, and, as a tactician, was the equal

of Grant or Thomas, or any of their subordinates. General Don Carlos

Buell was a perfect soldier--perfect in manner, bearing, coolness,

courage, energy--physically and mentally a perfect soldier--but he

failed. If he had a fault, it resulted from education, and from this

fault came this failure. "A little learning is a dangerous thing,"

as Pope, Bulwer Lytton, and every other person who has attempted

to dispense knowledge second-handed has discovered to his sorrow;

but there is also such a thing as drinking too deep of the "Pierian

Spring." To be a valedictorian is quite often to be an unfortunate; and

more signal failures have emanated from the first section (Engineer)

graduates of West Point, and the valedictorians of Yale and Hartford,

than from less brilliant, less studious, but more practically educated

classes of the same institutions. Not one of the valedictorians of West

Point, from the time at which class-rank was first established--1820,

I believe--has ever made a great success in practical life, and few

of them have ever been famous outside of the army. They are learned

and able undoubtedly, but they lack in practicability, and, when

they come to wrestle with the world, find themselves ill adapted to

the struggle. The Engineer Corps of the army into which the higher

graduates of the Academy are placed has given us fewer successful

soldiers than the Infantry, which is considered the lowest arm of the

service. All of the engineers have, as generals, been visibly affected

in their administration, strategy, and tactics by their education, and

have preferred to depend more upon mud walls than living phalanges,

and their strategic marches have been more correct in mathematical

calculations than successful in execution. Benham, Stevens, Franklin,

W. H. C. Whiting, McPherson, McClellan, Lee, and dozens of others I

could name, have in the late war proven this to be true; and Quincy A.

Gilmore has proved about the only exception to the rule, doubtless from

the fact that after his graduation he left the Engineer Corps for the

Artillery.

Buell was not exactly a valedictorian, and was not in the Engineer

Corps, but nevertheless he was one to whom all this I have said

and exampled is applicable. He was not made impracticable, but too

methodical by his pupilage. Not too much learning, but too much routine

ruined him. He was not too much of a book-worm, but too much of a red

tapist. His Alma Mater was not West Point, but that more pitiless

school, the adjutant general's office. Thirteen years' constant service

in that department of the army made him too systematic--smothered the

fire in his heart, the impulsive in his nature, and, like Thomas,

he taught himself "not to feel." It rendered him cool in danger,

while not depriving him of his readiness in emergency, but it also

unfortunately made him so systematic that it injured the originality

of his conceptions. The adjutant general's office made him too much of

a regular, so that when he came to command a great volunteer force he

looked for and strove in vain to attain the perfectness in appointment,

organization, drill, and all that routine duty to which he had been

accustomed in the old army. Buell was a thoroughly educated soldier,

as a strategist and tactician the equal of Grant; but he was too much

of an organizer, and this, with a volunteer army to command, really

detracted from his merit. Good organizers of large armies seldom

succeed in handling them to signal advantage. Buell was too good an

organizer. This mere routine duty absorbed too much of his mind; his

mind became too much accustomed to dwell upon that specialty, and

he gave it too much importance and consideration. So thoroughly had

Buell's mind become imbued with the importance of giving to volunteer

armies the precise organization of the regulars, that in taking leave

of the army which he had formed from "Sherman's mob," he congratulated

the soldiers who had saved us Shiloh, first, as more important in his

eye than their victories, on their conversion "from raw levies into

a powerful army, honored by common consent for its discipline and

efficient organization, and for its _esprit de corps_."

And yet this army thus congratulated was the weakest in organization

of any great army that ever existed. It was not imperfect in its

details; on the contrary, it was very admirable in that respect, but

certainly no army was ever so weak in its corps commanders--McCook,

Crittenden, and Gilbert. Circumstances took the organization out of

Buell's hand. On the arrival of the army at Louisville in pursuit of

Bragg, in September, 1862, General Halleck, then commander-in-chief,

concluded that Buell ought to be removed. Halleck was one of those men

who, instead of arguing himself from an array of facts into a correct

position, would first conclude that affairs were in the condition that

he wished or feared, and would then argue himself into the belief that

they undoubtedly were so. He would wish his enemy to occupy a certain

position, and actually bring himself to the belief that he had done so.

Too good a lawyer ever to be a good soldier, he depended for success

on tricks in war as he had on quibbles in the law. He concluded, in

1862, that Buell's army was demoralized through want of confidence in

its commander, and decided upon his removal. The command was tendered

to General George H. Thomas, who not only declined, but promptly urged

the retention of General Buell. The other corps commanders then joined

in this request, and Buell was retained. He was forced to hastily

organize his army in order to continue the pursuit of Bragg, and,

consolidating Nelson's army, decided upon three corps, with Nelson,

McCook, and Crittenden in command, while General Thomas acted as

second under Buell. This last arrangement was very faulty. Thomas was

the best man in the army, and this arrangement virtually deprived the

army of his services, and made him merely an inspector general. Before

the campaign had opened, Nelson, who was a very superior soldier, was

assassinated, and his place was supplied--it is really ridiculous to

say so, however--by General C. C. Gilbert. Never did a single army

possess three such weak corps commanders as Alexander McDowell McCook,

C. C. Gilbert, and Thomas L. Crittenden. They were doubtless brave

and gallant--every soldier is supposed to be that; they doubtless did

their duty to their full ability--every soldier does that, and expects

no particular commendation for it; but these men were not capacitated

by nature or education for the positions they held. Not one of them

had any iron in his nature--neither were deep reasoners or positive

characters. They were of that class of men who "intended to do well,"

but who, without any fixed and unswerving principle to guide them,

vacillated and procrastinated until the great motive and the propitious

time for action had passed, and left them the doers only of positive

evil or negative good, which is just as bad. McCook was an overgrown

school-boy, without dignity (Sherman, once alluding to him, called him

"a juvenile"); Crittenden was a country lawyer with little legal and no

military ability, and Gilbert a martinet, without an idea of discipline

or system--the worst kind of a martinet. It would have been a miracle

had Buell succeeded. His campaign was a failure when the circumstances

of Nelson's death and Halleck's interference made Thomas the "fifth

wheel to the coach," and McCook, Crittenden, and Gilbert the immediate

directors of the corps forming the Army of the Ohio.

Buell was removed for the failure at Perryville, and actually

court-martialed for that crime of McCook and Gilbert. The fact is that

it was fought against Buell's express orders; and McCook, the corps

commander directing it, boasted during the battle to Captain James S.

Stokes (formerly of the regular army, but at that time in command of

the Chicago Board of Trade Battery) that he had General Buell's orders

not to fight in his pocket, and added that if General Buell supposed

that "Aleck McCook was coming in sight of the enemy without fighting

him, he was much mistaken in his man." The fact is that Perryville

was an unnecessary battle, and was fought only through the jealousy

existing between our commanders. The great blessing of the late civil

war in this country--I am not going to stop now to say how it was a

great blessing, taking, as it eventually did, the form of a crusade

against ignorance and slavery--a crusade for knowledge and liberty, in

which all Christendom of this enlightened age should have joined with

the same fervor that in a darker age it did in the crusade against the

Crescent for the Tomb--this great blessing brought with it certain

evils, and the basest of these was jealousy. This most degrading

passion existed in our armies to a most surprising degree--to such

an extent, indeed, that noble actions, instead of being held up as

examples worthy of emulation, were often--in nine cases out of every

ten--in which the actor survived, made the means of bringing him into

ridicule among his immediate associates. Great men were injured in

their prospects--brave men have been debarred from their just reward

of promotion--ay, and even great campaigns retarded and ruined by the

jealous interference of the envious and malicious. Important junctions

of armies were prevented, needed re-enforcements held back, and many a

brave man sacrificed by the jealousy and envy of commanders who would

be great, but who could not suffer to see others great. Jealousy did

more actual damage to the cause during the war than did incompetency,

and I don't think I can put the fact any more forcibly than by saying

that.

Perryville was a battle growing out of jealousy, and lost through

jealousy. The first movement made by our troops, and the one that

induced the attack of the rebels, who would have been glad to lie still

and avoid a conflict which could only interfere with their retreat,

was the result of General James S. Jackson's jealousy of General

Rousseau, into whose line of battle circumstances had placed one of

the former's brigades. Jackson went to McCook and begged to be placed

in position in another part of the field, where he could fight his

command untrammeled. To gratify this desire, McCook moved him nearly

a mile to the front, and, as it happened, directly upon the enemy,

who attacked and surprised him. Jackson was killed, and the brigade

routed. Despite the reverse, McCook was confident he could win the

fight and the glory unaided, and so jealous was he of Gilbert that

he would not ask for assistance, although Gilbert lay with his whole

corps within a stone's throw, looking with interest on the desperate

fight of Rousseau's division, which was all that was left of McCook's

corps after Jackson had been routed. And Gilbert was such a martinet

that he would not tender aid unasked, and so jealous of McCook that he

looked upon his probable defeat with positive pleasure. And although

Generals Steedman and Sheridan begged permission to go to Rousseau's

aid, Gilbert declined to give them permission, because General McCook

had not, and would not ask for assistance. Alas! for the vanity of

human calculations! While McCook and Gilbert thus indulged in criminal

jealousy of each other, Rousseau, a subordinate of both, but greater

than either, stepped in and carried off the laurels by saving that

portion of the army which their jealousy had endangered. For this

failure of McCook's Buell was removed, and Rosecrans given the command.

The latter improved the faulty organization only by returning Thomas

to the immediate command of his corps. It was a fortunate thing that

he did so, for this corps, under Thomas's immediate direction, at

Stone River and Chickamauga, twice saved Rosecrans's army from total

annihilation.

Had the military genius of Buell been developed in 1863 instead of

1861, that officer would have won a splendid reputation with the

public, and a fine position in the army. In 1861 the people were

clamorous for successes, even if bloody; in 1863 they were rapidly

growing wiser, and demanded positive advantages for every drop of

blood. Buell was one of the early developments sacrificed to the

nation's ignorance of war. His policy would have been admired in 1864,

but it ruined him in 1862. Then his policy was misrepresented, his

character maligned, and even his loyalty impeached, and he was placed

on trial before a court, one member of which, General Scheopff, was

openly convicted of having declared that he "believed General Buell

to be a traitor." There were other members of the same court who held

similar opinions, but in the end the court failed to criminate Buell

fully. He was acquitted, and ordered to duty. General Buell believed

that Andrew Johnson, then Governor of Tennessee, and now President of

the United States, was the principal instigator of this persecution

of him, and always entertained toward that officer a very bitter and

hostile feeling. Governor Johnson believed that Buell's usefulness in

Tennessee had departed, was much opposed to his returning to command

in that department, and when its command was again tendered Buell,

he telegraphed to Washington to protest against the appointment.

Before Buell could accept or decline the command, he received a

notice that the order was changed, and that he would assume command

of the Department of the Gulf, relieving General Banks. General Buell

shortly after declined, also, to accept the latter appointment, no

explanation being given. I was much interested in the study of Buell's

character at the time, and wrote him asking his reasons. His reply to

me touched upon several other points of his administration which I

had inquired about in a previous letter, and there was but a single

paragraph explaining his reasons for resigning. He stated that on

receiving notice that he had been transferred from the Tennessee to the

Gulf Department, he had made unofficial inquiries at Washington, and

had discovered that the change had been ordered by President Lincoln

immediately on receipt of the protest of Governor Johnson. On learning

this, Buell resigned. Shortly after this he published a letter, giving

as his grounds for resigning that the officers to whom he had been

ordered to report (Sherman and Canby) were his juniors. I can not but

have wished that he had put his motive for resigning on the higher

grounds upon which he really acted, however unfounded may have been

his prejudice against Governor Johnson; for, though it is doubtful

if the latter acted from personal prejudices, certainly General Buell

would have been justified in declining to serve a government which

removed, transferred, and court-martialed him on the representation of

a single person.

Numerous were the misrepresentations made of the supposed quarrel

between Buell and Johnson, much to the damage of the former and disgust

of the latter. Among the other stories told were two to the effect

that Governor Johnson had forced General Buell to fortify Nashville,

and secondly to garrison instead of evacuating the city. During the

summer of 1862, Governor Johnson became convinced that it would have

a good effect upon the rebel citizens of Nashville to fortify it,

as evidence of the intention of the army to hold the place. In the

absence of General Buell, the governor called upon Major Sidell, who

was Buell's adjutant general stationed at Nashville, and, opening the

subject, got excited in its elaboration, and delivered a stump speech

of half an hour's duration. When he had retired, Sidell came to the

conclusion that the governor had intended what he had said for General

Buell's ear, and immediately wrote out a synopsis of the speech in a

letter to the general, and forwarded it to him. The answer came back,

"Consult with Governor Johnson, and commence the works." Major Sidell

called upon the governor, and the two rode around the city, and at last

decided upon the erection of a stockade fort on what was known as St.

Cloud Hill. This was the commencement of that series of works which now

so formidably environ Nashville, and which formed such an impregnable

barrier to Hood's advance in 1864. The story of the evacuation, as

popularly received, is a very gross exaggeration of Governor Johnson's

would-be, but mistaken friends. When the army was moving through

Nashville in September, 1862, in pursuit of Bragg, it certainly looked

very much like an evacuation was about to take place, and many of the

Union citizens became nervous over the prospect. Governor Johnson,

accompanied by a single aid, waited upon General Buell, and found him

in his quarters poring over a map. Governor Johnson at once opened his

budget--remarked that the movement of the troops had created the fear

on the part of the people that the intention was to abandon Nashville

to the enemy, and if such was the purpose, the Union citizens should be

informed, in order that they might be enabled to leave with the army.

He therefore requested of General Buell to know his intention in that

respect. General Buell laid aside his maps, and with that dignity and

deliberation which characterized his every word and action, replied,

"Governor, according to all the rules of military art, I ought to

evacuate this city, for its possession depends upon the result of the

battle which is to be fought with Bragg in Kentucky, whither he is now

advancing, and where I am pursuing him. To hold this city deprives me

not only of a large force available in a battle, but also places me at

the disadvantage of having to watch two important points, Louisville

and Nashville, at once. If Bragg is attacked and defeated (and the

force necessary to garrison this city can materially contribute to that

result), I can reoccupy Nashville at any moment. If Bragg attacks

and defeats me, the force left here will be endangered, I shall be

powerless to aid it, and it will eventually be sacrificed with the

city. But the moral effect of holding Nashville will be very great upon

my army and upon the people of the North, though it may prevent my

attacking Bragg; and for that reason I have determined to hold it, and

shall leave General Thomas in command, with his corps for its garrison."

To this speech Governor Johnson replied, expressing his gratification,

and immediately retired. General Thomas was left in command, but on

reaching Gallatin, and finding Bragg was still in advance of him,

moving north upon Louisville, General Buell sent orders to General

Thomas to leave General James S. Negley in command of the garrison, and

to join him with the rest of his corps. It was to this movement that

Governor Johnson objected, and on his representation General Thomas so

far disobeyed Buell's orders as to leave General John M. Palmer and his

division, as well as that of General Negley, to hold Nashville.

The speech of General Buell to Governor Johnson embraced his whole plan

of the campaign, and he followed it out faithfully and successfully.

He followed Bragg closely, but refused to fight him, covered Nashville

and protected Louisville, and eventually forced Bragg to retreat from

the state by way of the mountains of East Tennessee. Had he urged

battle and been defeated, or even disabled, General Negley would have

been forced to retreat, harassed at every step, to the Ohio River, at

Paducah. As it was, Bragg accomplished nothing, and had Buell remained

in command he would never have again advanced north of Chattanooga.

Buell having driven Bragg from Kentucky, proposed to go by forced

marches to Murfreesborough, Tennessee, drive Breckinridge from that

point, and reoccupy the rich country of Middle Tennessee. But he was

very unwisely superseded by Rosecrans, who delayed until Bragg had

moved north to Murfreesborough, and had actually advanced to take

Nashville. This delay necessitated the fighting of the battle of Stone

River, and cost us ten thousand men.

In manners and habits, as well as in modesty and sternness, General

Buell is not unlike Thomas, possessing the same dignity of deportment,

and reservedness and imperturbability so characteristic of the latter

officer. He possessed, too, the same regular habits of business, and

is a model of reticence and secrecy. He is, if any thing, too cold in

demonstration, and won in consequence, while in the army, a reputation

for gruffness which he did not deserve. He smiled as seldom as Thomas.

One morning, during a recess of the court which was examining into

his conduct at Nashville in December, 1862, he grew unusually lively

in a playful controversy with a young daughter of General Rousseau,

and perpetrated several rather comical jokes. Miss Rousseau, utterly

astonished at this unexpected liveliness on the general's part,

expressed her surprise by exclaiming, "Why, General Buell, I never knew

you to laugh aloud before."

"Ah! my child," replied the general, suddenly growing serious, "you

never knew me when I felt free to laugh as now."

Although very small of stature, General Buell possesses almost

Herculean strength, and frequently has been known to lift his wife, a

lady of at least 140 pounds' weight, at arm's length, and stand her on

a mantle-shelf nearly as high as himself. His frame, compactly built,

is all muscle and sinew.

When Buell was relieved by Rosecrans, the army threw up its hat in

delight, and the country re-echoed their bravos of approval. Never

was joy so inappropriate--never was there a change of commanders so

injudicious, and it required only a year of time, but, alas! many

a human life, to prove how criminal it was. Politics nor war ever

thrust upon the nation a more incompetent leader than William Starke

Rosecrans. He had not one of the attributes of generalship. He was

neither a strategist nor a tactician, and all he knew of the art of

war were its tricks--the tricks that every Indian and all uncivilized

nations most excel in. He inspired dread in his enemies only by his

reputation for trickery, and was known throughout the camps of the foe

as "that wily Dutchman, Rosecrans." He was eminently fitted by nature

and education to be the provost-marshal and chief of spies to a great

army like that which he commanded, but nothing more.

Nature unfitted him for the task of directing a great army by making

him extremely nervous. His nervousness, unlike that of Sherman, was a

weakness. His excitability rendered it not only impossible for him to

execute, but it made him incoherent, and he could not direct others. I

have known him, when merely directing an orderly to carry a dispatch

from one point to another, grow so excited, vehement, and incoherent

as to utterly confound the messenger. In great danger as in small

things, this nervousness incapacitated him from the intelligible

direction of his officers or effective execution of his plans. He

possessed no control over himself, and consequently was not capable of

directing others.

[Illustration: WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS.]

Rosecrans was not an impressive man. It was too apparent that all

he did was for "effect," in the theatrical sense. He possessed very

little dignity, and he dwindled terribly as you came to know him most

intimately. He did not "wear well" even with the troops, who are the

last of an army to give up their worship of a general. He was not long

admired by his subordinate officers, and, though a great favorite

with his soldiers, they never lavished upon him that intense devotion

which they felt for Thomas, and which seldom found utterance in noisy

demonstration. Rosecrans had a system by which to gain the affections

of his men totally different from that of Thomas or Grant. It was,

however, the false system of the demagogue. He never passed a regiment

without having a pleasant word for the men. He chatted freely and even

jocularly with them. He blamed the officers for every thing--the men

for nothing. If a knapsack was put on carelessly, he told the guilty

man's captain that he "didn't know how to strap on a knapsack." If a

canteen was missing, he ridiculed the soldier who thought he could

fight without water, and scolded his officer. All this pleased the men,

without exactly offending the officer, and the whole army had a hearty

laugh over every such scene, and felt an increased admiration for the

general. But this admiration died out on the first apparent failure of

the idol, and transferred itself to the successor, who had won their

confidence by saving their former idol and themselves. Shortly after

the retirement from Chickamauga to Chattanooga, and while the whole of

his army was engaged in building the defenses of that place, Rosecrans,

accompanied by Thomas, rode around the line to examine the works. It

happened that this was also General Thomas's first public appearance

after the battle of Chickamauga, and whenever the two made their

appearance, the troops threw down their spades and picks, gathered

in tumultuous and noisy crowds around the person of Thomas, grasped

and kissed his hands and embraced his legs, to the total neglect of

Rosecrans, and much to the latter's disgust and Thomas's confusion. The

distinction was too marked to remain unnoticed, and Rosecrans saw in

that demonstration his approaching downfall.

The immediate cause of Rosecrans's removal was his failure at

Chickamauga. There were other offenses laid to his charge, but this

was enough to condemn him; and he would have been relieved immediately

after that event had it not been necessary, in Mr. Lincoln's opinion,

to retain him in the position until after the Ohio election for

governor. So little were the people understood, and so little was

their deep earnestness appreciated, that there were wise counselors

of the President who believed that the removal of Rosecrans at that

time would strengthen Vallandigham, and perhaps secure his election

over Brough. As soon as the election was over, however, Rosecrans was

removed, and very properly too, for his entire campaign had been one

series of great mistakes, which circumstances have served to hide from

general observation. I am in some measure responsible for the false

impressions prevailing about that campaign, for I was so placed--as

correspondent for a leading paper of the country--that I could have

given them publication, but the sin was one of omission only. A

little circumstance prevented me at the time from telling the whole

truth about the battle of Chickamauga, or even all I had proposed

to tell. As it was, I was condemned, abused, and ridiculed by half

the papers in the country for what little I did say, and for a few

weeks I felt myself the best abused man in the country. It was not

until Rosecrans, and McCook, and Crittenden were relieved that people

began to understand that I was right, and I to feel that I had made a

mistake in not giving the whole story in full. The circumstance which

induced me to do otherwise was this: A week or two before the battle of

Chickamauga, the Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana, arrived

at Rosecrans's head-quarters, and he was received by the army as if he

was a bird of evil omen. It was whispered at head-quarters that he had

come as the spy of the War Department, and to find justification for

Rosecrans's intended removal; the rumor spread to the camp; officers

looked upon him with scowls, and the men ridiculed him by pretending

to mistake him for a sutler, and by calling after him as he would ride

by in the wake of Rosecrans, "Hey, old sutler! when are you going to

open out?" Mr. Dana's position must have been very unpleasant to him,

for he was evidently an object of suspicion in every body's eyes, and

his mission "to ruin Rosecrans" was the talk of the whole camp. On

the morning after the battle, when about leaving Chattanooga for New

York, in order to write up an account of the battle for the Herald,

I waited on General Rosecrans to obtain his approval to a dispatch

to be forwarded by telegraph. The general, Garfield, Dana, and one

or two aids, were at lunch. While General Garfield read and approved

the dispatch, General Rosecrans asked me, among other questions, what

I proposed to tell about the late battle. I answered, "The plain,

unvarnished truth, I hope." Soon after I left, and Mr. Dana arose and

followed me to the telegraph office. Here he very officiously told

the telegraph operators to see that my dispatch went through without

delay, and otherwise showed almost too plainly a disposition to serve

me. Before I could leave the house and mount my horse to ride to the

nearest railroad station, I heard two operators talking of collusion

between myself and Mr. Dana, while a third told me very plainly "that

it was evident that Mr. Dana and myself were both disposed to blame

Rosecrans for the defeat." To have written what I had intended would

have been to justify this suspicion, and hence much that I would liked

to have said of the battle at that time in the Herald I was compelled

to defer until the present time and the present book.

In the first place, I would have liked to have said then that the

battle of Chickamauga was useless; that there was not the slightest

necessity for fighting it, and, despite all that has been said, and

written, and misrepresented to the contrary, to have shown that the

troops could have been easily concentrated in Chattanooga without

fighting a battle of any dimensions. The campaign was well managed

until the occupation of Chattanooga, and the crossing of Lookout

Mountain excited Rosecrans so that he lost his self-possession, when

he made the gross mistake of sending his three corps in pursuit, by

widely divergent lines, of a foe concentrated immediately in front

of his centre. General Thomas made the discovery of this position of

the enemy, and without consulting Rosecrans, who was some distance

away, ordered McCook, already fifty miles distant on his way to Rome,

to return immediately. For this Rosecrans blamed Thomas at first,

but allowed himself to be argued into confirming the orders, which

order really saved McCook, for another twenty-four hours' delay would

have prevented him from reaching the main army. Nevertheless, having

retreated west of Lookout Mountain, McCook was safe and could have

pursued his way to Chattanooga, whither Thomas, and Crittenden too,

could have fallen back had they not waited for McCook to recross

the mountain and concentrate upon the west bank of the Chickamauga.

Forty-eight valuable hours were lost by this movement, and made the

battle of Chickamauga not only a necessity, but a failure. Had the

proper plan been pursued, the campaign of Rosecrans would have ended

with the successful siege and battles of Chattanooga, without their

terrible precursor, Chickamauga.

The engagement itself was the worst managed battle of the war. The

public blamed Rosecrans, and the President relieved him for leaving the

field and retiring to Chattanooga, but it is not generally known that

Rosecrans never saw the battle-field of Chickamauga; yet such is the

fact; and he has to this day no knowledge of the roads or configuration

of that field from personal examination. He did not actually see a

gun fired on that field except when Longstreet broke McCook's corps

and pushed through Rosecrans's quarters, which were in the rear of

that part of the field. On the first day his quarters were a mile to

the right and rear of the line of battle, and two miles from the main

fight, which Thomas conducted. During this day's battle Rosecrans

paced up and down his quarters, while his engineer sat near by with

a map, a pencil, and a compass, endeavoring to locate on the map the

line of the battle by its sounds! Never was any thing so ridiculous as

this scene. A countrywoman named Glenn, who resided at the house, was

called into requisition as an aide, and, standing by the engineer's

side, would, in reply to his questions, "guess" the locality of the

firing as "about a mile fornenst John Kelly's house," or "nigh out

about Reid's bridge somewhar." The firing could be distinctly heard,

and as on one or two occasions the cannonading and musketry grew more

rapid, I heard Rosecrans, rubbing his hands and fairly quivering with

excitement, exclaim, "Ah! there goes Brannin!" or "That's Negley going

in!" and really understanding no more about the actual situation than

the poor woman who aided Garfield and St. Clair Morton to locate the

line on the map. Meantime, on the field, each corps commander fought

"on his own hook," and thus Crittenden, who never, on the battle-field,

had an opinion of his own, or ever assumed any responsibility that he

could possibly avoid, failed to advance his corps when that of Thomas

charged and drove the enemy. Had he done so, all the force which Bragg,

on that first day of the engagement, had on our side of the Chickamauga

River must have inevitably been driven into that stream. As it was,

the right flank of Thomas's advancing corps became exposed and turned,

and he was forced to retire from the field he had won, the fruits of

his victory frittered away by Crittenden's negativeness. All this was

undoubtedly owing to Rosecrans's absence from the field. The whole

story of this terrible mistake was told that night by General John M.

Palmer in an incident which illustrated it very handsomely. I had met

him during the day when his troops were somewhat scattered. During the

night ensuing, I was sitting at the table of the telegraph operators at

Rosecrans's quarters, writing a dispatch, when General Palmer came in.

"Since I saw you this morning," he said, addressing me, "I have got my

troops together again. They are in good spirits, and ready for another

fight. I have no hesitation in saying to you"--at this moment he saw

Assistant Secretary of War Dana at the other end of the table, and

would have liked to stop, but had gone too far, and so he added, "and I

have no hesitation in saying to _you_, Mr. Dana, that this battle has

been lost because we had no supreme head to the army on the field to

direct it."

Nothing was ever truer than this. All that was at one time needed

to have secured us a great victory was to have had some one to tell

Crittenden that it was his manifest duty to charge with Thomas. The

next day was too late; Longstreet was then across the river; McCook

was routed; he, Crittenden, and Rosecrans were in Chattanooga (the

latter had already telegraphed to Washington that his army was totally

defeated and routed); and all that Thomas could hope to do with his

remnant of the army was to cover the retreat. This he was enabled to

do by the timely appearance of the reserve corps and its two very able

leaders, Granger and Steedman.

Granger was the character, Steedman the remarkable man of these two,

and both such men as Thomas needed in his emergency. They brought with

them the reserve corps of twenty-five thousand men--fifteen thousand

of them enlisted men, the other ten thousand were Steedman and Granger

themselves. They were each men in whom their troops had implicit

confidence, and this doubled their strength, or rather was their

strength, for no army can be said to have any strength if it has not

confidence in its leaders.

[Illustration: GORDON GRANGER.]

Gordon Granger is a rude, rough, and tough soldier, and the confidence

of his men was inspired not so much by their knowledge of his ability

as of admiration of his bravery. His ability as a director is not

great, but he is a good leader of men. Granger is a man without any

sense of fear--is more thoroughly indifferent to the dangers of battle

than any man I ever remember to have met. He was not the coolest man

I have seen on a battle-field; on the contrary, he was what might be

called fidgety, in order to avoid saying that he was excitable, which

would not be true; but so totally and absolutely fearless that it

was not merely apparent, but remarkable, and called forth frequent

allusion from his fellow-officers, and the constant admiration of

his men. This quality of his nature constituted him a leader, as

inspiring the confidence of his men, and this confidence formed the

discipline and the morale of his command. Granger ought to have been

an artillerist rather than an infantry-man, for he was devoted to

the artillery, and the greatest fault of his character as a leader

was this predilection for artillery. Not unfrequently Granger would

abandon the direction of a corps to command a battery. At Chickamauga

he left Steedman to lead his corps while he mounted a battery on

General Woods's front, and opened on the enemy a fire which had the

effect of calling forth a reply which made Thomas's quarters too hot to

be comfortable even for that old salamander. During the first day of

the battles of Chattanooga, in November, 1863, Granger devoted himself

in the same way to the big guns in Fort Wood, Grant's head-quarters,

and so disturbed Grant by his repeated firing of the monsters that the

latter had to order him to the front, where his troops had carried a

position. The ruling passion was too strong in Granger to be exorcised

by a hint, and he had hardly been on the front line five minutes when

he had a battery mounted, and was firing away at the rebels at a

shorter range.

Granger was a man equally courageous morally as physically, and pursued

an object, or criticised a subject or person without the slightest

regard to others' opinions. He never shirked a responsibility--in

fact, would rather act without authority than not, as giving zest to

the undertaking. He was free in his criticisms as Hooker, but ruder.

He had as little policy in such things as "Fighting Joe," but nothing

of the sarcastic bitterness of that officer. Granger was almost gruff,

not only in his criticisms, but in his language, and never disliked a

man without showing it. When the army occupied East Tennessee, after

the expulsion of Longstreet from the vicinity of Knoxville, Sherman

left Granger in command at Loudon with but little food for his troops,

and almost no provender for his animals. Granger complained of his

wants to Grant, who referred the matter to Sherman. The latter declared

that there was plenty of all kinds of supplies in East Tennessee, and

in indorsing the papers, advised Granger to live off the country.

"Living off the country" was a favorite idea with Sherman, but Granger

saw greater difficulty in it, and nearly starved in trying to do so.

Shortly after this Grant went to the Potomac, and Sherman succeeded him

in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. While making

an inspection of his command in the ensuing spring, Sherman one day

arrived at Loudon, Granger's head-quarters. On jumping off the cars at

that place, Sherman saw Granger in front of his quarters, and, going up

to him, began, in that quick, nervous manner in which Sherman always

speaks,

"I say, Granger, I wish you would give me and my staff something to

eat--only a mouthful--only a mouthful, and a cup of coffee. Haven't had

any thing to eat since daylight."

"See you starved first," muttered Granger _sotto voce_, but still loud

enough to be heard. "Why don't you 'live off the country?'"

He did, however, give Sherman his rations--of the plainest materials he

could gather--"Lincoln platform" (hard bread) and rye coffee, but could

not avoid the temptation to repeatedly apologize for the plain fare by

the remark,

"You see, general, we have to 'live off the country.'"

Although a great admirer of Rosecrans, Granger was not more particular

in his language to him than to Sherman. After Thomas had fallen back

to Rossville, after the battle of Chickamauga, he sent General Granger

to Chattanooga to represent the situation to Rosecrans, and obtain his

order to retire upon Chattanooga. Granger found Rosecrans, and had very

little difficulty in arguing him into adopting Thomas's ideas. He sat

down at a table, and, with Granger looking over his shoulder, began to

write the order to Thomas to fall back. Instead of making it a brief

command, Rosecrans went on to detail how the retreat must be conducted,

how the troops should be marshaled, this division here and another

there, who should be in the van and who in the rear, and was adding

that great fires must be built all along the line before the retreat

began, in order to deceive the enemy into the belief that they were

going to stay there (a favorite _trick_ of the wily Rosecrans), when

Granger interrupted him--

"Oh, that's all nonsense, general! Send Thomas an order to retire. He

knows what he's about as well as you do."

Rosecrans silently obeyed, tore up the order, and wrote another, which

proved a model of brevity, and fully as satisfactory to Thomas.

This independence in speech rather interfered with Granger's character

for gallantry--sadly so on one occasion, in the estimation of a

charming Miss Saunders, of Nashville, step-daughter of Governor

Aaron V. Brown, and a niece of the rebel General Gideon Pillow. Miss

Saunders was particularly proud of her uncle Gideon, and never lost an

opportunity of sounding his praise. On one occasion she was indulging

in this praise of Pillow to Granger, and among other things remarked

that her uncle "would have held a very high rank in the Confederate

army had it not been for the personal enmity existing between him and

Jeff Davis. Very unexpectedly, the ungallant and over-candid Granger

replied,

"General Pillow never amounted to much."

The brow of the charming young lady contracted, and her eyes flashed

fire as she exclaimed,

"General Granger, how dare you speak so of my uncle?"

"Oh," answered Granger, "you can't fool me with 'painted mules.'"

(Granger had been a quarter-master, and in his early days had

frequently been imposed upon by traders in repaired condemned animals.)

"I knew Gid Pillow in Mexico, and he always was an old fool."

The disgust of the niece can be better imagined than described, and

the ungallant and rough Granger was forever after banished from her

presence.

Like most similarly candid men, Granger was a firm, warm, and constant

friend. I had quite a quarrel with him during the battle of Mission

Ridge for having alluded to a story told me by Senator Nesmith,

of Oregon, of his comical adventures in escaping from capture at

Chickamauga, and his retreat to civilization. I could not for some time

understand Granger's wrath, until he told me that Senator Nesmith was a

particular and intimate friend of his, and he should not be abused in

his presence. It was not until I had explained that Nesmith had himself

told me the story, and that it was highly creditable to his nerve and

courage, though comical in the extreme, that Granger at last became

mollified.

General Granger was fond of the young, men associated with him at

head-quarters as members of his staff, and particularly so of Captain

Russell, his adjutant general. During the battle of Chickamauga, he

sent Captain Russell to some part of the line to carry an order to

General Steedman. While riding along a ridge over which he had to pass,

Russell became exposed to the rebel fire, and fell pierced by several

balls. His horse was wounded in the hip, and, riderless, came back to

where Granger was then engaged in fighting, firing and almost loading

a battery which he had placed in position, and upon which the enemy

were at the time charging. The horse singled Granger out in the crowd

and excitement, ran up to him, fondled about him with his head, and did

every thing that a dumb brute could do to attract attention. At first,

Granger, busy at the guns, did not notice the horse, until the animal

grew troublesome. His own horse and that of Captain Russell were very

much alike, and, mistaking the animal for his own, Granger called to

his orderly to take him away. The orderly explained that it was not his

horse, and Granger then saw that it was Russell's, and noticed that it

had been wounded. The truth flashed across his mind at once, and he

sent several of his body-guard in search of the body of his adjutant,

the faithful horse guiding them to where his master had fallen. Granger

forgot "his ruling passion," the artillery--forgot to send another aid

with the order which Russell had, of course, failed to deliver, and

when the orderlies returned with the dead body of the captain, Granger

gave himself up to his grief. At last his great sorrow vented itself in

an exclamation addressed to General Thomas--

"By G--d, general, he was the best soldier I ever knew!"

After this, the fountain of his tears seemed to dry up. He ordered the

body to be cared for, returned to his artillery, and became again the

rough soldier of the moment before.

[Illustration: JAMES B. STEEDMAN.]

"Old Steady," as the soldiers affectionately called General James B.

Steedman, possessed, perhaps, not greater, but certainly more available

talents than Gordon Granger. He was more practical, of equally

effective presence, equal daring morally, and greater daring mentally.

Gordon Granger delights in responsibilities. Steedman dares to assume

responsibilities which are at times appalling, and does so with so much

cool impudence as silences you in astonishment, and such sublime nerve

and boldness as hushes you in admiration. He defies argument by the

preposterousness of his plans, and silences opposition by the daring

with which he executes them. He hesitates at nothing. The magnitude of

an undertaking has a charm for him, and he accomplishes great things in

the most unexpected of ways. He is never so great as when struggling

against great obstacles, or fighting against great odds. He is a

positive and decided man; not merely opinionated and obstinate, but

firm, unflinching, and resolute. Clear-headed and cool-headed--a man of

uncommonly strong common sense--he always knows his own mind and always

follows it. No man was ever less in want of advice, or ever treated it

with such contempt. "Never, under any circumstances, take any body's

advice, nor refuse any body's information," is an accepted motto with

Steedman. He did not adopt it from actual experience, but received

it intuitively, and is constituted, not educated, to depend upon and

decide for himself. Experience, education, and natural shrewdness have

taught him to instinctively divine the true in principle and character,

and he seldom fails to correctly analyze men and motives. The same long

experience, thorough education, and natural shrewdness have made him

a splendid administrative officer, full of resources and ingenuity,

which, added to the boldness, or perhaps it is best described by

calling it the impudence, with which he acts, gives assured success to

all his plans.

These traits of extravagance in the formation and boldness in

the execution of his plans find many illustrations in Steedman's

public career. Before the war one of the great men among Ohio local

politicians and a leading spirit of the Democrats, he was the ruler

of all the Democratic Conventions of his state from 1850 to 1860, and

was noted for the ingenuity with which he pulled the political wires

of his party. And not the least remarkable fact in connection with

this matter is, that he attained this controlling position through

his election as Superintendent of Public Works, an office which had

previously been of minor importance and little patronage, but which

Steedman made, by his positiveness and boldness, of such influence and

power as to make its occupant a--in fact, _the_ power in the party.

And by his audacity and strong will, exercised with wonderful success

over men, he retained, and still retains, this power to this day. His

bolder confederates used to declare that he was destroying the party by

the irregularity and impossibility of his schemes, and thus endeavor

to impair his influence; but as, after each election, the party under

his leadership came out ahead, faith in his boldness of manœuvre was

restored, and his ambitious comrades, who wished to be also his rivals,

would, like the more obedient of the party, rally again to his support

and fight under his leadership. His boldness was really nothing more

than the clear defining of the principle fought for, and in this lay

the secret of success. It is related of Steedman that on one occasion

he concocted a curious scheme for reconciling the discordant elements

which threatened the unity of a State Convention of the party called to

meet at Columbus. He went to the proprietor of the hotel at which the

delegation usually boarded, and told him that when certain men whom he

named, and who were the leaders of the two factions, arrived in town

and called for rooms, they were to be told that the house was full, but

that "probably Mr. Steedman might accommodate them in his room," which

Steedman had taken care should be the largest in the house. The trick

succeeded, and the leaders of the rival factions found themselves, much

to their surprise, domiciled together in Steedman's room, and so intent

on watching each other that neither faction could hold its proposed

caucus. The evening before the Convention, having succeeded in getting

the leaders of the two factions closeted in his room, Steedman exposed

to each the private schemes of the other, and thus disarmed both. By

the plentiful use of argument and the judicious use of ridicule, he

reconciled the oil and water (not by _lie_ however), and at last got

them to agree on his platform and his candidate. I am not certain that

he was not himself the candidate selected. The joke was too good to

keep, and the hotel proprietor exposed it to the leaders, who went

home declaring that they had one satisfaction, and that was, that "Jim

Steedman had to sleep on the floor during the whole of the Convention,

while they slept in his beds."

Sleeping on a carpeted floor was not a particularly severe hardship for

the sinewey Steedman, for when under great mental or nervous excitement

he can not sleep at all. At the Cincinnati Convention of 1856, in which

he was the leading Ohio wire-puller, he went for four days and nights

without closing his eyes, and three fourths of the time he was on his

feet on the cold stone floor of the Burnett House, "manipulating" the

politicians. He can neither eat nor drink under great excitement. At

the battle of Chickamauga he ate nothing for two days, and though he

carried a canteen of whisky through the entire battle, he forgot all

about it until after the retreat to Rossville, when a wounded soldier

in the hospital asked for a drink, and Steedman gave him his canteen.

Steedman was a Douglas Democrat of very strong proclivities, and

very much astonished his friends, when the war was about beginning,

by arguing in his paper, the Toledo Herald and Times, the propriety

of permitting the Southern states "to go out," _i.e._, to peaceably

secede. Such a doctrine from a Douglas Democrat was astonishing, and

the article created much comment. Without saying that the states

ought to be allowed to depart, he argued that secession was its own

punishment; that the seceded states could not hold together if allowed

to secede; and that a few years only would elapse before they would be

begging their way back into the Union; and that, while it would cost a

river of blood to keep them in, a war would not more effectually settle

the question of secession than if allowed to fall of its own weight.

Steedman's friends declared him crazy, but he only laughed at them, and

in the next issue of his paper finished his argument, or rather gave

the other side of the question. Claiming that the first conclusion was

correct, and that the course suggested would be equally effective with

war, he then went on to show that it was not the one which a great

people could pursue; that peaceable secession was a doctrine we ought

not to admit merely for the sake of the humanitarian argument of "no

bloodshed," and that nothing was left for the loyal people but the

other bitter alternative of war. That alternative the people of the

North, he declared, would unanimously accept in the spirit of right and

justice, and that it became the people to prepare for the blood-letting

which was to ensue. The first of these articles eventually found its

way into Congress at a time when Steedman's confirmation as brigadier

general was pending, and being construed into "Copperheadism," retarded

that confirmation for nearly two years, Mr. Ashley, who had defeated

Steedman for Congress, holding it over his head as a balance of power

to keep the general from running against him for that position. At the

next election, instead of agreeing to abandon the field to Ashley, and

thus secure his confirmation, Steedman took the very opposite grounds,

and announced his intention, since he was not likely to be confirmed a

brigadier general, of running against Mr. Ashley. This had the desired

effect, and Ashley hastened, by his recommendation and influence, to

secure Steedman's confirmation in the Senate, and shortly after, also,

that of major general, to which Steedman was nominated after the battle

of Chickamauga.

Steedman's admiration of Douglas amounted almost to idolatry, and to

such excess that Douglas's _political_ enemies were held by Steedman

to be his _personal_ foes, and more than one of them was treated so

by him. When Steedman was public printer at Washington, Isaac Cook,

postmaster of Chicago, and a former Douglas Democrat, but who had, in

order to retain his position, sided with Buchanan in his famous quarrel

with Douglas, came into his office complaining that Douglas had abused

him for his defection. In relating what had taken place, and in what

manner Douglas had denounced him, Cook remarked to Steedman that he

had just met Douglas in the Capitol, and was prepared, in case the

"Little Giant" spoke to him, to "give him a good caning." The picture

of Stephen A. Douglas being caned by "Ike" Cook was too much for

Steedman. Clearing a table which stood between him and Cook at a bound,

he seized the astonished postmaster by the collar, and with a furious

oath exclaimed,

"You cane Douglas! You strike Stephen A. Douglas, who made you all you

are! Get out of this office, or I'll kick you out!"

Cook began to expostulate, when the infuriated Steedman carried out his

threat, and Cook made a hasty and inelegant retreat.

Next day President Buchanan sent for Steedman, and lectured him

regarding his treatment of Cook. Steedman had by this time began to

look at the comic side of the affair, and listened patiently and

good-humoredly to the President's lecture, until Mr. Buchanan alluded

to Douglas contemptuously as "the little traitor." Steedman's blood

boiled with fury, but by a great effort he controlled his passion, and,

rising, said, with a voice of measured calmness,

"Mr. President, I have been a warm friend of Stephen A. Douglas for

many years. I supported him in the convention which nominated you for

the Presidency because I believed him to be incomparably the ablest and

the best man for the position. _I think so still._ Good-morning, sir."

A few hours after, Steedman received a note from the Postmaster General:

"SIR,--I am directed by the President to inform you that in future Mr.

Cornelius Wendell will do the printing of this department."

This was followed by a general withdrawal of government patronage where

it was possible, and thus Steedman lost a great deal of his business in

consequence of his candor.

I have intimated in the sketch of General Thomas that the famous charge

of the reserve corps at Chickamauga was made at Steedman's suggestion.

The idea of advancing at that time was a most preposterous one--it

looked simply suicidal--and I would have been less surprised if the

army had made arrangements to surrender than I was to see Steedman's

corps charging and carrying the ridge against Longstreet's corps,

which had a few hours before scattered a larger force than that of

Steedman's at a single blow. The charge was not less of a surprise to

the enemy, and the fact that it was unexpected and unaccountable under

the circumstances had much to do with its success, since it puzzled

and confused both Longstreet and Bragg so much as to convince them

that Thomas had a large reserve force, and to cause a long and highly

important delay and cessation of hostilities.

During this famous charge of Steedman's occurred an incident which

at once illustrates the boldness and extravagance of the man. The

fighting was very heavy, the ridge which Longstreet held very high

and difficult, and at one time Steedman saw a portion of his line

wavering. Before he could ride forward to their position, this wavering

brigade broke and began to retire, following a flag in the hands of

a color-bearer, who had taken the lead in retreating. Meeting the

retiring brigade, Steedman grasped the flag from the bearer and waved

it above his head. All the line saw the action, but only a part of it

heard his stentorian voice as he cried,

"Run away, boys--run away like cowards; but the flag can't go with you."

Not the words, but the advancing flag had the desired effect, and

these men returned to the charge, and, led by the broad-shouldered,

broad-breasted old soldier, they carried the hill before them.

Before going into this battle, Steedman became strangely impressed with

the idea that he was to lose his right leg, and, though no believer in

presentiments, so forcibly and frequently did the thought occur to his

mind, that he confided his feelings to some of his staff and friends.

Among others to whom he mentioned it was Gordon Granger, who laughed at

the idea, and jocosely asked Steedman what he could do for him in case

he was wounded or killed.

"Yes," said Steedman to his inquiry, "you can do me a great favor, and

I beg that you will attend to it."

"What is it?" asked Granger. "I swear to do it."

"See that my name is spelled right in the newspapers. The printers

always spell it Ste_a_d."

And with this request Steedman rode into the battle. An hour or two

after it had begun, his horse was shot under him, and another was

brought for him. He mounted him, but the right stirrup-leather becoming

twisted, he raised the stirrup with his foot, lifting his leg at the

same time, in order to reach down and catch hold of the leather and

take the twist out of it, when a musket-ball struck the strap, and,

cutting it in two, passed between his leg and the saddle.

"By George!" exclaimed Steedman, "I'm all right!" and the troublesome

presentiment passed away from his mind, for he was now firmly convinced

that the bullet which had cut the leather was the one which he had had

intimations to fear.

It is not generally known, I believe, that Granger and Steedman got

to the battle-field of Chickamauga against orders. Rosecrans had

assigned to the reserve corps the duty of guarding Rossville Gap, a

very important position; but when the straggling troops of McCook began

to pour into Chattanooga by this gap, Granger began looking about for

Rosecrans, in the hope of getting orders to advance to Thomas's aid.

While Granger was looking for orders, Steedman marched forward, and it

was thus that he happened to reach Thomas's position before Granger

did. Steedman has acted without orders in this way on more than one

important occasion. He fought the battle of Carnifex Ferry, Western

Virginia, without either orders or assistance, and defeated Floyd's

brigade with a single regiment. He was ordered to hold Chattanooga

when Hood marched against Nashville; but, finding no very formidable

force near him, and being cut off from communication with Thomas at

Nashville, Steedman left a small force of negro troops in Chattanooga,

and started with a large force of white and negro volunteers for

Nashville. Hood's cavalry advance cut the railroad and precipitated his

trains into Mill Creek, a small stream a few miles from Nashville, but

he fought his way through on foot to the city, and appeared with his

ten thousand men before General Thomas's head-quarters. To Thomas's

look of inquiry, and perhaps of censure, Steedman replied,

"General, I was cut off from communication, and have come here in hopes

I may get leave to re-enforce Nashville, and take a hand in the battle."

He got the order and the opportunity. In his report of his

participation in the battle, he states that he made the movement by

General Thomas's order, but does not explain how he obtained it.

Steedman had great faith in negro troops. One of his most daring

efforts was that of leading a thousand negroes in a charge at Dalton,

Georgia, upon Wheeler's cavalry, twenty-five hundred strong, defeating

them, and capturing the place. His main force at the battle of

Nashville was two brigades of negro troops, and their conduct was

highly commended by him. He made much character and great personal

popularity, while in command of the Department of Georgia, by his

efforts in alleviating the condition of the freedmen. An incident

illustrative of his policy with the freedmen, and his ideas of justice

as applied to them, is told of him while stationed at Augusta, Georgia.

A railroad contractor came to him one day and asked for a military

force to compel the negroes to work in repairing the line from Savannah

to Augusta.

"They won't work, general," said the contractor.

"How much do you pay them?" asked the general.

"Ten dollars per month," was the answer.

"The devil!" exclaimed Steedman. "Give 'em thirty, and see whether

they'll work then. I never gave a man less than eighty-seven and a half

cents a day in my life. I think I could get a brigade at that price

here. You try it; and, I say," he added, "if I hear of your offering

less, I'll _try_ you."

The contractor tried the plan, and found he had no use for a military

guard, and no work for half the applicants who swarmed about his office.

Steedman in appearance is like a hale, hearty farmer, with stout, burly

form, largely made, and of great physical power and endurance. He

weighs over two hundred pounds, and is one of the strongest men in the

country. He is as frank as he is bold, and as honest as impudent.

When General Rosecrans retired to Chattanooga during the battle of

Chickamauga, thus abandoning his army, he committed the grand mistake

of his military career. He soon found this to be so, and soon felt and

knew that his unfortunate retreat had left him utterly defenseless.

He feared at first to condemn any one, and endeavored to make friends

with all. He could not condemn McCook and Crittenden, for in running

away from the battle-field they had only followed his example, and to

condemn them for this was to condemn himself. Some victim was necessary

as an explanation of his defeat and retreat, and Generals Thomas J.

Wood and James S. Negley were selected, the latter before and Wood

after the removal of Rosecrans. Negley was a volunteer officer, who

had incurred the enmity of Brannin, Davis, Baldy Smith, and one or two

regular officers of inferior rank, and he was sacrificed by Rosecrans

in order to obtain the support of what was known as the "regular

clique" of the army, and which embraced these and other regular

officers. Wood was not relieved by Rosecrans as Negley was, nor did

Rosecrans venture to publicly censure him until after his own removal,

when, very much to every body's surprise, Rosecrans condemned Wood

in his official report for having caused the disaster to the army.

The fact is that Rosecrans was not entitled to make a report of the

battle of Chickamauga, for he did not see it, was not present, and, as

written, his report, after its description of the general topography of

North Alabama and Georgia, is merely a lame apology for his own strange

conduct.

The two men thus made the scapegoats of Rosecrans were men of more

than ordinary abilities, and it is a great pity that the reputation

of such men should ever be placed in the hands of such generals as

Rosecrans. General Negley, though not educated for the army, was one of

the best-read officers in military matters that we had in the volunteer

service, and possessed a natural adaptation for, and many qualities

as a leader. He was a man of quick perception and decided judgment,

intuitive talents which "stood him in hand" on more than one occasion,

as, for instance, at Stone River, where he replied to Breckenridge's

assault of his troops by a counter-charge which, made with great force

and rapidity, turned the fortunes of the day, and won an advantage

which decided Bragg to abandon the field of which he was still master.

Bragg relieved Breckenridge from his command for his defeat by Negley.

Among the most important services rendered by General Negley, or by

any other general officer of the army, were the operations embracing

the reconnoissance and battle at Dug Gap, Georgia, on September 11,

1863. He commanded the advance of the centre column of Rosecrans's

army in crossing Lookout Mountain. The three columns had been widely

separated--fifty miles intervening between the right wing and centre,

and about thirty between the centre and left wing. Knowing this,

Bragg had concentrated his forces in front of the centre, abandoning

Chattanooga in such a way as to indicate he was in full retreat.

Rosecrans ordered him to be pursued, and General Negley, debouching

from Stevens's Gap of Lookout Mountain, was ordered to take Lafayette,

Georgia. General Negley was advised and had reported that Bragg was

concentrating his forces at that very point, but the report was

discredited by General Rosecrans, and Negley was ordered forward. He

advanced cautiously on the morning of September 11, in command of his

own and Baird's divisions, and, as he anticipated, soon encountered

the enemy. He drove them for some time, but soon found that he had

Bragg's whole army in his front and on his flanks. It was subsequently

discovered that Bragg had issued positive and peremptory orders to

Generals Hindman, Hill, Buckner, and Polk, to attack and destroy

Negley, promising himself the easy capture of the other columns in

detail. But Negley was too shrewd to be caught thus; although his

trains and those of Baird encumbered the road in his rear, which the

enemy soon threatened by moving on his flanks, he succeeded in saving

every wagon and in slowly retiring on Stevens's Gap, where he could

afford to battle with thrice his numbers. This engagement, which lasted

all the day, was the first convincing proof which Rosecrans had of the

presence of Bragg, and the first premonition of danger. It induced him

to gather his scattered columns together. General Negley's discretion

and valor on this occasion were not only alike commended by Generals

Rosecrans and Thomas, but by General Bragg, who, in his anger at their

failure to destroy him, arrested Hindman and Polk, and preferred

charges against them. These charges, which attributed Negley's escape

from this danger to delay on the part of the rebel officers arrested,

were never sustained, and they were returned to duty. The fact was that

Negley had outwitted them, and had forewarned Rosecrans in time to save

the army.

When the battle of Chickamauga began, General Negley's division was

on the move, marching to the sound of the artillery, and it reached

the field just in time to push forward on the right and fill up a gap

created by the dispersion of General Van Cleve's division. In the

desperate fight which ensued, the rebel General Preston Smith was

killed, and the enemy driven in confusion. On the second day of the

battle General Negley's division was not so fortunate. One brigade

was sent to the extreme left, another was placed in the centre, and

the third held in reserve. Later in the day the general himself was

taken from the command of the division and ordered to the command of a

number of batteries which were concentrated on a hill on a new line to

which it was proposed to retire, and which were intended to cover the

retrograde movement. Before this manœuvre could be executed, however,

the right wing and centre of the army were broken, and the troops fell

back in confusion. The enemy charged upon the guns of General Negley

in great force, and, moving upon the flanks, greatly threatened their

capture. By great exertions the general succeeded in carrying them from

the field without the aid of any infantry supports, and thus saved

about fifty guns from capture.

On retiring to Rossville, he found himself, in the absence of

Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden at Chattanooga, the senior

officer in that part of the field, and he immediately began the

work of reorganizing the troops of the several divisions gathered

indiscriminately there. He succeeded in reorganizing a large number of

men, and, selecting a strong position at Rossville Gap, endeavored to

open communication with General Thomas. This was found impracticable,

however. During the night General Thomas retired to this position,

and, forming a junction with General Negley, ordered him to post the

forces along the line selected by him, and prepared to give the enemy

a warm reception on the next morning. Bragg was too wise to attack,

and contented himself with merely reconnoitering the position. On the

succeeding day the troops were retired to Chattanooga, and preparations

were made for the siege which followed. During this siege General

Negley was relieved from duty by General Rosecrans in such a manner

and so unjustly that he was induced to demand an examination into his

official conduct. This was granted; a court of inquiry was convened and

an investigation made, resulting in General Negley's acquittal. The

official record of the court states in conclusion "that General Negley

exhibited throughout the day (the second day of the battle) and the

following night great activity and zeal in the discharge of his duties,

and the court do not find in the evidence before them any ground for

censure." General Negley, on the conclusion of the trial, was ordered

to report to the Adjutant General at Washington, and did so, but soon

after resigned. He is now engaged in the cultivation of his farm near

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Negley is one of the most accomplished horticulturists in the country,

and when in the field of war his leisure hours were devoted to the

study of various fruits, flowers, and shrubs in which the Southern

fields and woods abounded. Many a march, long, tedious, exhausting, has

been rendered delightful to his staff by his interesting descriptive

illustrations of the hidden beauties and virtues of fragrant flowers

and repulsive weeds. I have known him to spend hours in explaining the

properties of shrubs and wild-flowers which grew about his bivouac or

head-quarters, and he would, when on the march, frequently spring from

his saddle to pluck a sensitive plant, that he might "point a moral"

in showing how soon it, like life or fame, withered at the touch of

death or disgrace. He was a remarkably well-made man--something of the

robust, sinewy frame of Steedman and Buell. His grasp was like a vice.

He was as tough as he was strong, and as elastic as enduring. He was

an exceedingly prompt and active man, and his division of the Army of

the Cumberland was by far its best in drill, appointments, and in its

commissariat. Negley's troops used to boast that while he commanded

they had never, under any circumstances, wanted for food or clothing,

and they used frequently to call him "Commissary General Negley."

General Thomas J. Wood might in some slight respects be compared to

Negley, but they appear to better effect when drawn in contrast.

Negley was considered a martinet among volunteers, Wood a martinet

among regulars. I do not mean martinet in the sense which a few

brainless officers have given the title by their illustrations of

it, but in its proper sense, as indicating a thorough and efficient

disciplinarian. Both Negley and Wood made their men soldiers through

discipline, and there were no better soldiers in the army. Their fate,

too, was similar. The advancement of each was slow and labored, and

their friends began to fear that their promotion was to be of that

ungenerous, posthumous order which was too frequent, and which always

looked to me like giving a handsome tomb-stone to a man unjustly

treated all his life.

General Wood was a captious officer, but a decided, brave, and

energetic one. History, which is rapidly beginning to be just,

and which will grow harsher every day, and more just with all her

harshness, will say that it was highly proper that the appointment of

General Wood as major general should read as it did--"vice Crittenden,

resigned." The place which that clever gentleman, but very poor

soldier, Thomas L. Crittenden, filled, was properly Tom Wood's years

before he got it, for he really filled it. Always under the command of

Crittenden, he was ever at his right hand and as his right hand, and

furnished him with all the military brains, and formed for him all the

military character he ever had. It may be impolite to say this now, but

it is anticipating history but a short time. This is a decree which

must be submitted to eventually, and why not now?

When the army of Rosecrans was drawing itself up in front of

Murfreesborough, Tennessee, the very day before the battle of

December 31, 1862, Crittenden's wing was on the left, and Tom Wood's

division held its advance. On approaching the rebel position, Wood,

of course, came to a halt, and, reconnoitering the position, reported

to Crittenden that the enemy were intrenched in his immediate front.

Crittenden went forward to Wood's position and satisfied himself of

the presence of the enemy in force, and approved the halt. A short

time after he received a communication from General Rosecrans stating

that General David S. Stanley, who, with his cavalry corps, had gone

to Murfreesborough, reported that the enemy had evacuated, and he

therefore ordered Crittenden to cross Stone River and occupy the

town. Crittenden showed the order to Wood, and told him that he must

advance and occupy the town. Wood argued that Rosecrans's information,

to his own and to Crittenden's knowledge, was incorrect, and that,

of course, it would not do to implicitly obey the order. Crittenden

thought that its terms were positive, and no course was left him but to

obey it. Wood urged Crittenden to report the circumstances, announce

to Rosecrans that the movement was delayed an hour in order to report

those facts, and stand ready to obey it if then repeated. It was some

time before Wood could make Crittenden understand that this was the

proper proceeding under the circumstances. He rode back to Rosecrans

and reported the facts, when that officer, examining for himself,

approved of the course pursued, and taught Crittenden that positive

orders were not always to be implicitly obeyed.

In three years of active warfare Tom Wood won honor from every

action, from Shiloh to Nashville. The disasters of his corps

were not disasters for him. He came out of the crucibles refined

and sparkling with renewed glory. Whether proving, as he did at

Shiloh, that he had made by his discipline veterans out of men who

had never seen a battle--whether stemming the adverse current of

battle at Chickamauga--whether scaling with irresistible power the

heights of Mission Ridge, and carrying at the point of the bayonet

the strongly-manned position, which looked strong enough to hold

itself--whether repulsing the charge at Franklin, or making it

at Nashville, he stands forth prominent as one of the coolest,

self-possessed, and gallant spirits of the day. I was glad to

see him at the close of the war joining hands with his noble friend

Rousseau for the redemption of Kentucky from slavery, and uniting

with that band of progressive spirits to whom she will in a few years

acknowledge that she owes her prosperity and welfare.

[Illustration: OLIVER O. HOWARD.]

Among the many original characters whom I met, and who had been

developed by the war, and by no means the least remarkable of them,

was Major General Oliver Otis Howard. In many respects he was not

unlike General George H. Thomas, possessing the same quiet, dignified,

and reserved demeanor, the same methodical turn of mind, and the same

earnest, industrious habits; but Howard was Thomas with the addition

of several peculiarities, not to say eccentricities. He had none of

General Thomas's cold-bloodedness, and though, like him, a statue in

dignity of demeanor, Howard, unlike Thomas, had blood in him that often

flowed warm with sympathy, and pulses that sometimes beat quicker with

excitement. General Thomas guided himself in his course through life

by his immediate surroundings, adapting himself, without sycophancy,

however, to present circumstances without regard to past consistency,

and was in power and favor at all times, because content to obey as

long as he remained a subordinate. Howard began life with certain aims

in view, and sailed a straight course, remaining always constant to his

principles, and consequently finding himself, like all men with either

firm principles or advanced ideas, at times unpopular. He had little

of General Thomas's practicability, and General Thomas had little of

Howard's faith in the strength and final triumph of great principles.

One trusted in the physical strength, the other in the innate power

of the principles of a great cause. Thomas believed the late war the

triumph of good soldiers over their inferiors--the triumph of numbers,

skill, and strength; Howard will tell you, with a flush of feeling

and a slight touch of the extravagance of an enthusiast, that it was

the triumph of right over wrong. Thomas thinks, with Napoleon, that

God sides with the force that has the most cannon; Howard believes,

with Bryant, that "the eternal years of God" are truths; and with the

Psalmist, that

"Great is truth, and mighty above all things."

The faith of Howard in the principles which he advocated was sublime.

I knew of but one other who began the war with loftier purposes of

universal good, purer motives of right, justice, and liberty, or truer

ideas of the nature of the struggle as a crusade against slavery and

ignorance, and he was not a general--only a major of infantry, though a

brilliant "first section" graduate at West Point, but worthy ten times

over of greater rank than the army could grant. Nothing could have been

more beautiful than the firm faith which William H. Sidell felt from

the first in the final triumph of the right, not merely in restoring

the country to its former glory, unity, and strength, but in restoring

and rejuvenating it, purified of that which was at once its weakness

and its shame. It is somewhat of a digression to run off from Howard

in this manner to speak of Major Sidell, but every reader who knew the

man will think it pardonable. Sidell was a man of firm convictions,

and hence a man of great influence. It used to seem to me that he was

intended for the single purpose of making up other people's minds,

and deciding for his acquaintances what was right and what wrong. He

possessed a singularly effective, epigrammatical style of conversation,

and his generally very original ideas were always expressed with great

force and vigor. When he got hold of a great idea, he would talk it at

you without cessation, repeating it as frequently as he found a hearer,

and persist with something of the manner of those religious preachers

who pride themselves on "preaching in season and out of season" until

conviction followed. His ideas possessed not only value, but his

language had a stamp as coinage has, and both ideas and language passed

current. His ideas, oft repeated, thoroughly inculcated, found wide

circulation in the army with which he served, and it was often amusing

to hear his language repeated in places where they were least expected,

and by persons who were never suspected of possessing minds capable

of retaining grand ideas, or hearts true enough to comprehend great

principles. His ideas were traceable in the language of the soldiers,

relieved and often illustrated by the happy use of their familiar,

commonplace "slang." They got strangely mixed up in the orders of

commanding generals with whom he served, and I have even detected

Sidell's undeniable stamp in one of the Executive documents.

The great charm of the man was the effective style in which he

advocated the firm convictions of his mind, and expressed the deep

sympathies of his nature; and no man could rise from a conversation on

the topics to which his mind naturally reverted, whenever he found a

willing listener, without feeling the better for it, and with a better

opinion of humanity in general. If he had a fault, it was that he

conceived too much. His was

"A vigorous, various, versatile mind,"

which grasped a subject as if to struggle with it, and pursued an

idea "to the death." It was, however, only his convictions in regard

to great principles that he inculcated and forced upon others. He

originated so much that he executed too little, and never gave

practical effect to two or three of his mechanical inventions which

have made fortunes for more practical and more shallow men. Sidell was

in some respects the only counterpart I ever met to Sherman, and the

parallel between them only held good with regard to their head work.

They conceived equally, but Sherman executed most.

General Howard possessed these same attributes of firm, honest

conviction, and the same fixedness of principles which distinguished

Sidell. His moral honesty won him more admiration than his speeches

or his abilities as a soldier; for, though energetic and persevering

in his administration as a commander, and generally successful in his

military efforts, his reputation in the army was more that of the

Christian gentleman than of the great soldier. It was through the

constant observation of his Christian duties that he won the title of

the "Havelock of the war" and the reputation of an exemplar. He was

strictly temperate, never imbibing intoxicating drinks, never profane,

and always religious. There was not a great excess of religion in the

army, particularly among the general officers, and Howard therefore

became a prominent example, the more particularly as religion was

looked upon by a great majority of the men only to be ridiculed. There

was very little of religious feeling among the men of the army, save

among those in the hospital. The hospital was the church of the camp,

and there was little religious fervor among our veterans which did not

date from the hospital. The soldier in the hospital was another being

from the soldier in camp. He abandoned his bad habits when he lost his

health or received his wound, and grew serious as he grew sick. The

lion of the camp was invariably the lamb of the hospital. The almost

universal habit of swearing in camp was abandoned in the hospital;

profanity gave place to prayer, and the sick veteran became meek,

talked in soft tones, and never failed to thank you for the smallest

kindnesses where before he had laughed at them. I have often seen

the convalescents gather in the sunshine to sing familiar hymns, and

generally the wildest in camp were the most earnest in these religious

exercises.

When Howard took command of the Army of the Tennessee, an old officer

remarked that there was at last one chaplain in it. That particular

army had not paid much attention to religion, believing, like Sherman,

that crackers and meat were more necessary; and at first the men

displayed but little respect for the "intruder from the Potomac," as

much, indeed, from the fact that he came from the Potomac army as

that he was what the men called "nothing but a parson." A very short

time after taking command of this army, Howard gave orders that the

batteries of his command, then in position besieging Atlanta, should

not fire on the enemy on the Sabbath, unless it became absolutely

necessary. The enemy soon heard of this order, and generally busied

themselves on the Sabbath in casemating their guns and otherwise

strengthening their works in Howard's front, exposing themselves with

impunity, satisfied that Howard's men would keep the Sabbath holy,

though doing so under compulsion. The soldiers did not like this forced

silence, declaring that "it wasn't Grant's nor Sherman's way, nor Black

Jack's (Logan) neither;" and one of the general officers went so far

as to say that "a man who neglected his duty because it happened to

be Sunday was doubtless a Christian, but not much of a soldier." The

troops soon learned, however, that Howard was also a soldier; and when,

a year afterward, he was relieved of the command by General Logan, he

had won the love and admiration of his men.

General Howard would have liked to have been thought the representative

man of the Army of the Tennessee, but there were no points of

resemblance between him and the real representative man of that

army. The Western soldiers were of a peculiar race, and under Grant

the Army of the Tennessee, the representative army of the West, was

drilled, marched, and fought into a peculiar type of an army. Sherman

took command of it subsequently, and gave it many peculiarities, not

all of which were creditable; but neither Grant nor Sherman were its

representatives. Howard endeavored to reform the army morally and

in its discipline, which even under Grant had been bad, and under

Sherman very lax indeed, but failed to impart to it as a body any of

the qualities which shone so prominently in his character. The real

representative man of that remarkable army was General John A. Logan,

of Illinois.

[Illustration: JOHN A. LOGAN.]

"Black Jack Logan," as he was facetiously called by his soldiers, in

consequence of his dark complexion, is the very opposite in appearance

and manner of Howard. Logan is a man of Sheridan's short and stumpy

style of figure. Sheridan used to be called by the card-playing

soldiers the "Jack of Clubs," and Logan was known as the "Jack of

Spades." Logan is, too, the same daring, enthusiastic, and vigorous

fighter that Sheridan is. He will always be prominent among the Marshal

Neys of the war for the Union, and belongs to that representative class

of fighting generals of which Sheridan, Hancock, Rousseau, and Hooker

are the most distinguished graduates. A man of great daring, and full

of dash and vim, Logan was, like the others, great only as a leader,

and made no pretensions to generalship. He had the habit of decision

to perfection, and went at every thing apparently without previous

thought. He is a man who, possessing all that vigor and boldness of

heart which great physical strength and health gives, united with a

naturally warm, enthusiastic, and daring temperament, engaged heart and

soul in every task that allured or interested him, and never abandoned

it as a failure. A man of action, he was untiring, and, did he more

definitely lay out his plans in life, would win a front place among the

great men of the age. Not that he is vacillating, nor yet indecisive,

but simply because he is not thoughtful, far-seeing, and politic, but

impulsive. He is, indeed, too passionate to ever be politic.

With little prudence in planning, Logan had the daring to act, and his

decision was shown in frequent emergencies. During the battle of Hope

Church, Georgia, the rebels made a sudden charge upon a battery posted

in Logan's line, and, before being repulsed, had secured two of the

guns, which they attempted to carry off with them. Logan was busy in

another part of the field, but, seeing the rebels retiring unpursued

with the trophies of their charge, he dashed up to one of the regiments

which had repulsed them, and exclaiming to his men, "Bring back those

guns, you d--d rascals," led them in a charge for their recovery. The

men followed him without regard to formation, and overtook and defeated

the rebels before they could reach their lines, and secured the

captured artillery.

On another occasion, when new to the service, a portion of Logan's

regiment mutinied, and, stacking arms, refused to do duty. The

adjutant informed Colonel Logan of the difficulty, and he, on hearing

it, exclaimed, "Stacked arms! the devil they have!" Then, pausing a

second as he considered the emergency, he continued, "Well, adjutant,

I'll give them enough of stacking arms!" Accordingly, he formed the

remaining four companies in line with loaded muskets, and stood them

over the malcontents, whom he compelled to stack and unstack arms for

twelve hours.

Logan's readiness to act was not always acceptable to his immediate

commanders, because perhaps in some instances his activity was a

reproach to less decisive men. Indecision and too great precaution in

others was revolting to him; and I think I never saw a more thoroughly

disgusted man than Logan was on the occasion of the failure before

Resaca, Georgia, on May 9, 1864, consequent on the refusal of McPherson

to assault the town. Not only was Logan's offer to accomplish the

desired object declined as impracticable, but the campaign was robbed

of its promised fruits by that refusal, and not only Logan, but the

whole country had reason to be disgusted. Logan took no pains to

conceal his chagrin and disgust. The facts of the unfortunate affair

were about these:

The Army of the Tennessee, at the time forming the right wing of

Sherman's Grand Army, had, on the morning of May 9, debouched through

the narrow defile of Snake Creek Gap, and appeared before Resaca,

McPherson having positive orders to occupy the place. The movement

through the Gap had turned Joe Johnston's position at Dalton, placed

the Army of the Tennessee in his rear, and, if Resaca had been taken,

would have closed the direct route to Atlanta, and forced the rebels

to retreat by circuitous and almost impracticable roads, and at the

probable cost of all his trains and heavy guns. There was no good

reason, had Resaca been carried, why Johnston should not have been

seriously damaged, and perhaps his army dispersed; and there is no good

reason why Resaca was not taken on this occasion. The force defending

it was the small garrison of a ten-gun fort and sixteen hundred

dismounted cavalry under the rebel General Canty, who were engaged in

patroling and observing the Oostanaula River. Johnston could not, on

May 9, have concentrated two thousand men at Resaca for its defense.

General McPherson had not less than thirty thousand men in front of

the position, and not a mile distant from the fort. Unfortunately,

General Granville M. Dodge, commanding the Sixteenth Corps, and a man

of even less decision than McPherson, happened on that morning to be

in advance, and Logan was in reserve. On approaching Resaca, and after

occupying a low ridge of hills commanding the town and the river in its

front, General Dodge halted his command and began to reconnoitre. The

delay in the advance brought McPherson and Logan to the front, and from

a prominent knob of the range of hills which had been carried by Dodge,

they examined the town and calculated in their own minds the chances of

carrying the position. Dodge finally reported the passage of the river

and the capture of the fort as impracticable, and declared it as his

belief that a large force was then in the town. Logan rather warmly and

hastily disputed this, and declared that he could carry the fort and

town with his corps. General McPherson revolved the matter over in his

mind, and as the woman who hesitates is lost, so with the commander

who in an emergency stops to calculate, he lost the opportunity. While

he was hesitating and doubting between the arguments of Dodge and the

assertions and declarations of Logan--for Logan is not the man to offer

arguments when the opportunity for demonstration is at hand--time was

consumed, and finally, much to the disgust of every body who had come

out to fight, McPherson ordered the whole army back to Snake Creek Gap,

and employed a large part of it all the ensuing night in throwing up

works to defend a defile which was apparently strong enough to defend

itself.

The next day Sherman began moving the rest of the army through Snake

Creek Gap, and at the same time Johnston evacuated Dalton, and began

marching on Resaca. At night on that or the next day, May 11th,

while General Logan and staff and myself were at supper, General John

M. Palmer and others on the march stopped at Logan's tent, and were

asked to take a cup of coffee. While we were eating, the conversation

turned on the situation, and I remarked that evidently "Joe Johnston

had been caught sleeping." Logan and Palmer both in a breath answered

that it wasn't at all certain that Johnston was napping, but that, on

the contrary, it was very improbable that we could do more than strike

his rear guard at Resaca. This turned out, in the end, to be the case.

The whole of Sherman's army was not ready to advance until the 12th of

May, when it moved forward, Logan this time in advance, and occupied,

after considerable hard fighting with Johnston's rear division, the

very same position which McPherson had previously held on the 9th, and

from which, even with Resaca uncaptured, Johnston would have had great

difficulty in dislodging him. But now, three days behind time, Sherman,

and Thomas, and Logan, and a number of others who had gathered on the

bald knob to which I have before alluded as overlooking Resaca, had the

melancholy pleasure of witnessing Joe Johnston's army filing through

the town and taking up positions defending it, and covering the bridges

and fords of the Oostanaula.

When he had first secured this position, Logan ordered one of his

batteries, commanded by Captain De Gress, to take position on the knob

I have mentioned, and open upon the bridge and fort. The order was

obeyed with alacrity. Courage is a sort of magnet which attracts its

like; it surrounded Logan with men of his own stamp, among whom were

Major Charles J. Stolbrand and Captain Francis De Gress, and it was

not long before these two had the battery posted and ready to open

at Logan's command. I was at the time on this knob, and anticipated

seeing some handsome artillery practice and a great scattering among

the rebels, very plainly visible below, crossing the river and moving

about in the fort, not much over a mile distant. But it was destined

that the scattering should be among our own forces supporting De

Gress's battery and lying along the ridge, and particularly was there

to be "much scattering" on my part. I had noticed, as had others,

the peculiar appearance of the hill on which the battery was posted

and on which I stood, but had not suspected why the change had been

wrought. The trees, with the exception of a single tall, straight oak

left standing in the centre and on the very summit of the knob, had

been carefully felled, and the tops thrown down the sides and slope

of the hill, forming a sort of abatis, and making the approach to

the summit rather difficult. Several persons had made inquiries and

suggestions as to the purpose of the rebels in clearing the hill and

forming the abatis around it, but it was not until De Gress had opened

fire on Resaca that the mystery was solved. Then it suddenly flashed

on the minds of all simultaneously with the flash of the first rebel

gun in the fort in Resaca. The first round of De Gress came very near

being his last, for the ten guns in the rebel fort beyond the river

opened simultaneously on him, and every shot fell among the guns and

troops supporting them. It was then discovered that the hill on which

De Gress had posted his guns had been cleared by the rebels and one

tree left standing as a target for artillery practice. For at least a

year the gunners in the fort in Resaca had been practicing by firing

at this tree, and they had the range of the hill to such accuracy that

every shot fell in our midst. The first broadside sent me to cover,

and I hastily dropped behind a huge oak stump left standing, and which

afforded ample protection. Here I could see the rebels at their guns,

watch De Gress and Stolbrand at theirs, and, by turning half around,

see the troops which lay near me supporting the battery. The first

shells thrown by the rebels had wounded several of these, and their

cries of pain, as they were carried to the rear, could be plainly

heard, and did not in any great measure add to my comfort, or increase

my confidence in the invulnerability of my position, and I began

to conclude it was not bomb proof. Meantime the rebels were firing

vigorously, and after two or three shots De Gress was silenced--not

that his guns were disabled, but that the men could not work them. The

place was literally too hot to allow of a man exposing himself, and all

but Logan, Stolbrand, and De Gress sought cover, and clung as closely

as possible to the ground. These three, however, stood their ground,

very foolishly I thought at the time, and how they escaped being struck

I can not conceive. The fire of the rebels was singularly accurate,

and from the cries of our wounded it was apparent that it was also

very effective. I had been lying behind the stump whose protection I

had sought for twenty minutes, looking with interest at the firing of

the rebels, when a shell from one of their guns struck directly in

front of the stump, entered and plowed up the ground for a distance

of ten feet, sending the soil high in the air like spray, and then,

striking the stump, bounded high above it, and fell about five feet

behind me with a heavy _thug_! The soil which had been thrown up by it

descended about me, and, as I crouched low, making myself as small as

possible, and wishing myself even smaller, literally buried me alive.

I thought every piece of the soil which struck me was going through

me. At last, when the shell descended near me, my demoralization was

complete. Fearing that it would explode, I sprang up from my recumbent

position and ran with all my speed to the left of the line. As I did

so I came to the abatis of timber, heaped at least four feet high. I

never stopped to consider, but, without hesitation, made a tremendous

leap, and cleared the obstructions at a bound, amid the loud laughter

of a whole brigade, which, looking on, actually rose up to laugh at and

applaud my hasty retreat. When I reached a place of safety out of range

of the rebels, and beyond reach of the particular shell which I had so

much dreaded, I found that the confounded thing had not exploded. I

was too much demoralized, however, to contemplate going back while the

rebels held the range of that hill, and so sat down, carefully getting

behind another stump, to receive the congratulations of the colonel and

adjutant of one of the supporting regiments on the gymnastic abilities

which I had just displayed.

It was not until sundown and after the cessation of the firing that

I ventured to return to the hill. Here Logan and Stolbrand still

remained, and Sherman, Thomas, and others had also come up. While

the others consulted together Logan sat aside, leaning against _my_

stump, and looking exceedingly glum and disgusted. When I approached

him he looked up and laughed, evidently at the recollection of my

demoralization and flight. I sat down beside him and said,

"Well, general, you see I was right last night. Some body was asleep."

"Yes," said he, in answer, "but you was mistaken in the person. It was

not Joe Johnston who was napping."

There was good reason to be morose over this affair. The failure of

McPherson on the 9th of May made the campaign of Atlanta a necessity.

Had Logan, instead of Dodge, been in advance of McPherson's army on the

9th of May, there would have been no Hope Church affair, no Kenesaw

Mountain sacrifice, no battles on the Chattahoochee, or before Atlanta,

or at Jonesborough, for the campaign would have been ended, and Atlanta

captured at Resaca in the dispersion of Joe Johnston's army.

[Illustration: JOHN W. GEARY.]

Something of this same ability in execution which was developed in

Logan and the others to whom I have alluded characterized General John

W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, and few officers labored more zealously or

more effectively than he did. His adventurous disposition, developed

early in life, and leading him to a remarkably varied career, could

not be other than the result of a bold and daring nature, which led

him early to seek activity when he might have chosen a more passive

but less glorious life. His enthusiastic ardor for military life

rendered him in his youth an adept in all military matters, and led him

naturally into the military service of the country. He was built, too,

for a soldier, possessing a rare _physique_, his tall, burly figure

reminding one of Rousseau or Steedman. His adventurous career began

in Mexico, where, as colonel of the Second Pennsylvania, he served

with distinction under Scott, from Vera Cruz to the capital, suffering

wounds at Chepultepec and at the assault of the city of Mexico. After

the war, sighing, like Hooker, for the excitements of California, he

went to San Francisco, and was soon after appointed postmaster, and

subsequently elected mayor. President Pierce appointed him Governor of

Kansas, but Buchanan decapitated him on account of his adherence to

the person and principles of Douglas. He early entered the war for the

Union as Colonel of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry, and fought

through each grade to the position of major general, winning a bright

reputation as a bold and unflinching fighter.

The most remarkable of Geary's exploits was the famous "midnight

battle of Wauhatchie," a sort of companion picture to Joe Hooker's

"battle above the clouds." It took place, too, at the foot of the

mountain on which Hooker fought, and was, in a measure, preliminary

to that struggle. It was fought for position, but a position of vital

importance to both the rebels and Union forces, and consequently it

was fought for with great desperation. The movement which brought it

about was the first of those looking to the relief of the starving army

at Chattanooga, and the purpose was to occupy a position which would

cover a road by which provisions could be brought from the railroad

terminus at Bridgeport. The occupation of this position was absolutely

necessary, and Geary was fully impressed with the importance of quickly

seizing and desperately holding on to it. By the success of the

movement the route to Bridgeport would be shortened by many miles; on

its being thus shortened depended the provisioning of Chattanooga; on

this contingency depended the holding of that position, and on the

retention of that position the safety of the army and its immense and

valuable material.

Geary seized the position with great alacrity, and much to the

astonishment of the rebel Longstreet, who watched him from the summit

of Lookout Mountain. From his position on "Signal Rock"--an overarching

rock on the western side of the mountain--Longstreet had before his

eyes the whole country as on a map, and when, in the dusk of evening,

the camp-fires of Geary and Howard's troops located the positions which

Hooker had seized and was fortifying, the importance of the success

attained flashed upon Longstreet's mind in an instant, and he saw, in

the seizure of Wauhatchie by Geary, the virtual relief of the besieged

garrison of Chattanooga. He at once communicated with Bragg, and on

explaining the altered situation to that officer, the latter at once

directed Longstreet to attack Geary and Howard, and drive them back

at all hazards. Longstreet returned to his position on "Signal Rock,"

and soon had his troops in readiness to descend from their position on

the mountain, and assault Geary at Wauhatchie. From his position on

"Signal Rock" Longstreet directed the assault by signals, and to this

circumstance, singularly enough, he owed his defeat. Geary's force was

totally inadequate to contend with the superior forces of the enemy.

General Schurz, who was sent by Hooker to re-enforce him, never reached

the position, and but from the fact that Geary's signal-officers

could read the rebel signals, he must have been overwhelmed and

driven from the position. For some months previous to this battle our

signal-officers had been in possession of the rebel signal code, and

hence the flaming torches of Longstreet's signal-officers on "Signal

Rock" revealed to Geary every order given to the rebel troops advancing

against him. He was thus made aware of Longstreet's plan of attack,

was enabled to anticipate and meet every movement of the rebels, and,

thus forewarned, so to employ his small force by concentration in the

critical part of the field at the critical moment of attack as to

repulse every assault which was made, either by counter-charges or

rapid flank movements. After repeatedly throwing themselves against

Geary's force in vain, the rebels at length drew off discomfited.

During the whole battle the flaming torch of Longstreet flashed orders

that showed, after each repulse, his increased desperation, and

finally, much to Geary's gratification, he saw it signal the recall.

All the while the figure of Longstreet on "Signal Rock," standing out

boldly against the dark sky, was plainly visible, and, as Geary once

remarked, forcibly reminded him of a picture which he had once seen

of Satan on the mountain pointing out the riches of the world to the

Tempted, save that only the figure of the Tempter was visible.