RETREAT OF THE ARMY--COMMENDABLE SPIRIT OF
THE TROOPS--HURRICANE CREEK--OUR DIVISION
LEFT HERE TO COVER THE RETREAT--MARCH TO THE
TALLAHATCHIE--RIDICULOUS RUMORS--CHRISTMAS--WE GO
INTO CAMP--RETURN OF DICKEY'S RAID--OUR CONDITION
AS TO SUPPLIES--THE NEW YEAR--GOOD NEWS--MARCH
TO HOLLY SPRINGS--ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CAPTURE OF
VICKSBURG--IT IS CONTRADICTED--WE GO INTO CAMP--MARCH
OF DENVER'S DIVISION--OUR SITUATION--BURNING OF HOLLY
SPRINGS--MARCH AGAIN TO THE NORTH--BIVOUAC AT COLD
WATER--BROODING AND SPECULATING OVER THE RESULT OF THE
CAMPAIGN--ARRIVAL AT MOSCOW.
Reveille beat at 3-1/2 o'clock, and at sunrise we turned our faces to
the north and our backs upon all our dreams of conquest and glory.
We began to retreat. The rubbish of our camps was on fire, and the
mill which had been impressed to grind corn for us, wrapt in flames,
sent a column of dense smoke into the air. The 41st Illinois was
detailed to tear up the railroad. We looked upon all this with blank
astonishment. But it was no fiction; the campaign was abandoned;
the whole army was in retreat! We were bewildered. But out of this
disappointment we endeavored to kindle a glow of hope; and out of
this failure, we endeavored to persuade ourselves that victory would
yet come. All felt the event keenly, and it could not be expected
that there would be no murmurings. But the army of the Tennessee
was too patriotic in spirit and too brave in heart to be demoralized
at this. Each soldier endeavored to put on a cheerful air, and each
sought for hope in the countenances and conversation of his comrades.
I will not endeavor to recount the reasonings and conjectures with
which we endeavored to justify and excuse the retreat; nor the manner
in which others more despondent complained of it. Many, however,
seemed to think that we could have taken Grenada and maintained
ourselves there, subsisting on the country, until communication by
railroad could have been opened with Memphis.
Passing through Oxford, we camped on Hurricane Creek where we had
camped on the night of the 11th. The 41st came up before dark and
reported that they had performed their job quite to their own
satisfaction. We believed them. All night the cars plied rapidly
between Oxford and Abbeville removing cotton and Government stores.
A bright light shone over the city during the entire night, and we
judged that the troops remaining there were setting fire to portions
of it, but never received any direct confirmation of our conjectures.
In the morning, our trains were sent forward under a strong guard,
and during the forenoon, Quimby's Division filed past us. Thus the
4th Division was left to cover and protect the retreat. Orders
were had for the men to remain by their colors in readiness for
anything that might occur. To prevent straggling Major Brown ordered
roll-call in our regiment every two hours, the results to be reported
in writing to him. We remained here another night, and heard the
frequent noise and whistle of the cars--sounds which seemed more in
keeping with a time of peace than of war.
Next morning, the drums beat early, and we received orders to prepare
for action or a march at a moment's notice. We had been exposed all
night to the luxury of a drizzling rain, which still continued, and
made the prospect of the day anything but agreeable. At eight o'clock
we slung knapsacks and fell in, but were kept standing in ranks till
afternoon before commencing the march.
Late in the afternoon we passed Abbeville, and there saw a small
garrison protecting the depot inside of a redoubt of cotton bales. It
looked decidedly aristocratic. Dirt breastworks would not do. It was
too cheap. They must have it made out of something worth fifty cents
a pound. Well, luxuries among soldiers are so rare, who could envy
them that? We camped a short distance from the enemy's rifle pits
north of the Tallahatchie.
Here coming up with our comrades of the train, we found they had balm
for our wounded spirits in the shape of prodigious camp reports of
victories at all points. Burnside had not only defeated the enemy
on the Rappahannock and taken Richmond--Sherman had not only taken
Vicksburg and Banks Port Hudson, but peace was actually declared!
There were men in the 27th Iowa and 33d Wisconsin that would bet
their bounties on it. Of course we did not believe these reports to
their full extent, but, we thought there might be something in them,
and the thought encouraged us greatly.
The following day was Christmas. We ate our 3/4 rations and
celebrated it soberly and seriously. Our example would have been
an excellent one to those Christians, who, under more favorable
circumstances, celebrate the birth of Christ by stimulating
their animal propensities with rich meat and strong wine. We
fasted somewhat; and if yearning is prayer, we prayed--prayed for
deliverance from our gloomy situation, and to be put on a new road of
victory.
We changed camp two miles to the northeast, and camped in line on the
extreme left of the army, looking to the south. We sent out a forage
train which came in abundantly loaded.
The cavalry brigade which had been sent to make a raid on the Mobile
and Ohio Railroad, returned, successful, having torn up several miles
of track, burned a warehouse of rebel stores, and made large captures
of horses. Indeed every soldier of the 4th Illinois Cavalry seemed
to have brought with him at least two horses and one contraband.
The news of this little success, however unimportant, did something
toward mitigating our gloom.
Meanwhile our provisions, "like the lingering sands of an hour
glass," were fast running out. To prolong, if possible, the expected
period of final starvation, Gen. McPherson issued another order
reducing us to half rations. Lumkin's mills, six miles to the north,
were put to grinding corn for our division; but the supply of meal
thus obtained fell far short of furnishing us with bread-stuff, but
we found an excellent substitute in hulled corn and in black peas
which abounded in the corn-fields adjacent to our camp. We had
also a corral which was supplied with beef (?) cattle, picked up in
the surrounding country. And _such cattle_! Some were so poor as to
be almost transparent. The boys actually averred that the butchers
had to prop up one or two old oxen to shoot them! Our forage trains
penetrated the country in all directions to find subsistence for
the animals; in one instance going twenty-two miles from camp, and
being gone two days. Thus the sweets of the enemy's success at Holly
Springs was embittered to the whole country for many miles around,
our army being put under tribute to supply its wants. And it must be
confessed that notwithstanding the vigilance of the provost marshal
who was now getting to be a most unpopular individual, the people
suffered more from unauthorized seizures by soldiers who accompanied
forage trains, or who, impelled by hunger, scouted the vicinity of
the camps in bands, than in any legitimate way.
In the midst of this, we had our full rations of parades, inspections
and reviews, and we more than once wondered if the generals were on
half rations like the men. I do not believe they were.
The new year came; but it brought no rejoicings, no feastings, no
comforts, no news from home. There was nothing to alleviate the
general despondency, if we except an order from General McPherson
announcing General Sullivan's victory at Parker's Cross Roads over
Forest who had been destroying our railroad communications north of
Jackson; also, that he had received a telegram from General Grant at
Holly Springs, announcing a sharp fight near Nashville, with Johnson
badly cut up and falling back. The order closed with the words,
"Bully for New Years, with the compliments of General McPherson."
So far the winter had been mild. We had had but little snow. We had
had none of those cold winds which, at this season of the year, sweep
over our northern prairies. The ground had not been frozen so deep
but that a half day's sun sufficed to thaw it out. We had had spells
of very warm weather, warm as September in the North, followed by
the inevitable soaking rains of the South. And yet, if we except the
traveled roads and level bottoms, the ground had not been muddy. The
clay hills seemed impervious to water, which, flowing from them,
cut immense ditches down which great quantities of soil are yearly
washed away. But it was a question whether this waste of soil was
much of a loss to the fields; for on the surface the soil seemed to
be of the same consistence it was six feet below. They are compelled
to plow around these hills and circle them with ditches to prevent
this wasteful washing. If the climate were not favorable to the
production of cotton, it was the universal verdict of my comrades
that they would not give a dollar an acre for the uplands of northern
Mississippi. But it is not surprising that we should be unfavorably
impressed with a country that afforded us such meager hospitalities.
Our picket duty was quite heavy. The details were made by regiments.
For instance, on a given day the 3d Iowa would be required to
furnish 300 men, embracing a specified proportion of officers and
non-commissioned officers. Other regiments would furnish a similar
number, and so the detail would go round the division.
On the 3d of January we received a meager mail from home, and the
following day papers arrived announcing for the first time that
General Burnside had been defeated at Fredericksburg. We also learned
to our mortification that Vicksburg was not taken. But this news had
a transient compensation in reports, coming from no one knows what
source, that Burnside had again crossed the Rappahannock and gained
a great victory, and that Sherman was only waiting the arrival of
Banks, when Vicksburg would certainly fall. At any rate we were
always in luck or about to be. But what was still more agreeable
was the arrival of a day's full rations, and news that our railroad
communications were open to Memphis by way of LaGrange.
On the 5th of January, our division broke up camp on the
Tallahatchie, and again took up the northward march. When the column
had formed on the main road, General Lauman rode along and the boys
of our regiment cheered him lustily. The country through which we
passed, particularly in the vicinity of Waterford and Lumkin's Mills
was putrid with the offal of slaughtered animals and the _debris_ of
deserted camps. The animals in our beef corral were driven along with
us. They were the most motley looking herd we ever beheld; oxen that
could not make a shadow; cows of the most lilliputian dimensions;
embryo calves (for indeed they seemed intended for calves); and sheep
that would not make a meal for a rat terrier. These, we were told
were a fair specimen of Mississippi cattle! The herd would have made
a menagerie worth a northern man's fifty cents in the hardest times.
Before we reached Holly Springs, Gen. McPherson received a dispatch
from General Grant stating that Sherman had captured Vicksburg with
20,000 prisoners. The report was circulated along the column and
caused great rejoicing. Reaching Holly Springs we found conflicting
reports among the troops; and though the latest dispatches did not
warrant the belief that Vicksburg was taken, we clung to the pleasant
delusion, and for a long time would not believe that Sherman had been
defeated.
We found Denver's Division here. The 109th Illinois was also here,
and, with the exception of Company K, was in confinement for mutiny.
The case of these traitors has become a matter of history. As
regiment after regiment of the division passed their guard house, the
boys growled and hooted at them in the most decisive manner.
We camped on the beautiful level ground north of the city. Gen.
Grant still had his head quarters at Holly Springs, and our regiment
furnished his head quarter guard.
At two o'clock the following morning, reveille began to beat in
the camps of Denver's Division, and we knew they were preparing to
march. No sooner had they evacuated their camps than our boys rushed
to them, bearing away tables, bunks, boards, everything that could
assist in furnishing our tents, or making them more comfortable.
All the troops except the 4th Division were withdrawn to the line of
the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Our division was left to cover
the evacuation of the country and protect the removal of property.
The 1st and 2d brigades occupying Holly Springs; the 3d yet remaining
at Lumkin's Mills. On the 7th, a guard was sent to the latter place
to bring forward a wagon train. It returned without molestation.
The next day, the 3d Brigade joined us, which was quite a relief,
as hitherto our picket duty had been very heavy. The cars were busy
night and day removing stores, cotton, and negro women and children.
The same day, January 8th, the cavalry, which had been watching the
front, moved to the rear, and all felt confident the infantry and
artillery would go the next day. And now we were to witness a tragedy
which reflects infamy upon its perpetrators, and a dishonor upon the
4th Division.
Under the belief that we would move in the morning, a number of
soldiers of the different regiments met and concerted a scheme
for firing the city. Shortly after dark, the flames broke out in
its eastern limits, and did not spread, but soon rose in another
quarter. We saw it from our camp with little amazement; for we could
not but expect that there would be found some reckless enough to
undertake to execute the threats of vengeance made by exasperated
soldiers against the citizens, on account of their conduct towards
our prisoners captured by Van Dorn in his raid. The provost guards
in some instances did their duty, arresting the incendiaries; but
generally they connived at their operations. The flames spread and
broke out in new directions. Two additional regiments were ordered
on duty as provost guards. Generals McPherson and Lauman rode through
the city with their escorts and endeavored to arrest the work of
barbarism. But their efforts were unavailing. Men, seizing their guns
and accoutrements, ran into the city from all the camps, and filled
the streets with bogus guards, whose purpose was to counteract the
operations of the real ones. By 9 o'clock the confusion was at its
hight--hideous and indescribable. The fiendish yells of the assassins
and their accomplices, the shrieks of women and children, the shouts
of the swaying crowds, applauding or rebuking, the commands of
officers, the rushing sounds of the devouring flames, and the crash
of falling timbers, mingled all their noises together. Citizens
assisted by soldiers vainly endeavored to arrest the flames. The rich
and the poor; the friendly and the unfriendly were served alike. The
most stately residences and the meanest hovels were alike consumed.
Not even the negro quarters were spared. To whatever could make a
blaze, the incendiaries applied the torch. In the midst of it all,
but few collisions took place, and but one casualty was reported, the
wounding of a member of the 41st Illinois by a provost guard.
From our camp, the spectacle was grand in the extreme. The flames
illuminated the heavens far around, and sent up huge columns of red
smoke, which, driven by the south wind, rolled over our heads in
clouds reflecting the yellow light and shutting out the dark storm
clouds above. We saw from our camp the splendid sight; but we did not
hear the cries of the helpless around the flames and over the ashes
of their once happy homes.
The conflagration raged unabated till midnight, when the long roll
beat in all the camps. The men sprang from their sleep, gathered
their arms and accoutrements and fell in line. Presently an orderly
came along with an order for roll-call to be had in each company, and
the absentees noted and reported to head quarters. It is due to the
good name of our regiment, to say that but two men were found absent
at this time. Indeed, it would be an unusual thing, when camped in
the vicinity of a large city, for a sudden midnight roll-call to find
all the men in their quarters.
Comrades, I have pictured this scene as we saw and heard it. If it
was right for soldiers to behave thus, let no one be ashamed that
those who did so belonged to the 4th Division. If it was wrong, as
the guilty ones are unknown, the disgrace falls upon us in common.
That many justified it who did not participate in it, can not be
denied. It is equally true, that many denounced it.
Let us give both sides a fair hearing. Those who justified it said,
that when the place was captured on the 20th by Van Dorn, the women
insulted our comrades who had surrendered, firing pistols and
throwing bricks at them. There was not a Union man in the city. It
had been in the past, and if not destroyed, would be in the future, a
rendezvous for the enemy. Every family would give him aid; every roof
would give him comfort. We had tried the kid glove policy and it had
failed. Our enemies were traitors to a Government, the noblest in the
world, and which had never wronged them. They were neither legitimate
nor honorable enemies. We must teach them that we looked upon their
treason as a crime. Had we left our homes and all the comforts of
life, and come here to guard rebel property? If the contrary policy
were adopted, the rebels would soon yield. They would not endure to
see their property destroyed and their families brought to distress.
Desertion would soon disorganize their armies, and leave us no more
fighting to do.
On the other hand, it was said the war should be conducted honorably
and according to the rules of warfare among civilized nations. War
had its reciprocal justice; and we should not do to our enemies what
we would not expect them to do to us, under like circumstances. The
enemy was a traitor; that was true; but he was also a formidable
power; and if we were to carry on the war with violence and outrage,
he could and would retaliate. Until we had shown ourselves able
to destroy the rebel hosts in the field, we should not direct our
warfare against the women and children. All the advantages we had
gained over the enemy had been gained by bravery in battle; not by
cruelty elsewhere. Violence was not vigor. Energy in prosecuting the
war, did not imply cruelty toward those whom its fortunes had placed
in our hands. Let us march against the enemy's armies; defeat, pursue
and destroy them. Then would the world applaud our valor. And, if we
protected the unarmed, the helpless and innocent, it would applaud
our magnanimity. If the contrary policy were adopted,--if we burned
down over their heads the homes of women and children; if we left
them shelterless in mid-winter and without food;--if we thus turned
a deaf ear to the common appeals of humanity, what sympathy could we
expect from civilized nations? How, under such circumstances, could
we expect neutrality from them, to say nothing of friendship? It
would exasperate our enemies in arms to new vigor as well as to new
cruelty; it would cause non-combatants to take up arms, and bring
against us foreign powers. Thus would we be overwhelmed with our own
wickedness and folly.
But, more than this, respect for our duties as soldiers,--respect for
the oath we had taken, should restrain us from violating the positive
and repeated orders of our commanding generals. If the Government
chose to inaugurate the policy of burning and laying waste, and we
were commanded to execute it, we would obey; the responsibility
would not be ours. We had enlisted, not to be the Government, but to
serve it; and until we were commanded to commit such acts, our moral
instincts should teach us to refrain from committing them. That our
generals had been compelled to issue orders admonishing us against
such conduct, was itself a humiliation. Every soldier in our ranks
should understand the dignity of his mission, and feel that the cause
of civilization needs not the weapons of barbarism for its defense.
When the morning came the conflagration had not ceased; but, from
hour, to hour the flames continued to break out in different places
in the suburbs of the city. At 10 A. M., we received orders to
prepare to march immediately. Our wagons were soon loaded and sent
forward, and the troops were called into line. But trains of cars
continued to arrive and depart, loaded to their utmost capacity with
negro women and children. Still we were kept in line, doubtless with
the object of preventing a further destruction of the city. It was
not till eight o'clock at night that we began to move. The roads were
slippery and deep with mud. There was no moon in the early part of
the night, and our only light was the conflagration, still raging
behind us, and the blaze of burning fences and buildings on either
hand. It was nearly midnight, when we reached Cold Water, and halted
for rest and sleep.
Early in the morning, we took up the march on the Moscow road.
We passed a camp of cavalry north of the stream as we crossed
it,--all that now remained of the invading army fronting the
enemy in Mississippi. And here we could not help but contrast our
present feelings with those with which we had entered upon the
campaign. Then in Virginia, in Middle Tennessee, and with us in
Mississippi,--everywhere victory seemed preparing. Now, looking
around us, we saw how our dream of victory and peace had vanished.
Defeated at Fredericksburg; repulsed at Vicksburg; a hard earned,
fruitless victory at Murfreesborough,--checked everywhere except in
Mississippi, and here we had retreated.
But when we began to look at the chief difficulties of the
campaign,--that of keeping open two to three hundred miles of
railroad communication in the face of a bold and enterprising enemy,
it was not so much a surprise to us that it had proved a failure,
as that it had been undertaken at all. Our only source of hope now
was, that Grant would undertake the capture of Vicksburg by the more
practicable route of the Mississippi.
The road was well beaten by previous columns of troops, and a
vigorous march brought us to Wolf River, where we passed the night.
In the morning we crossed the river and went into camp around Moscow,
relieving a part of Logan's division.