GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON AND OTHER OFFICERS.
The Confederate army had five full generals, ranking in date of their
commission as follows: Samuel Cooper, whose headquarters were at
Richmond, Va., the capital, and who was never assigned to the field;
Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, and G. P.
Beauregard. All of them had resigned from the United States army to
join the Confederate States army.
Joseph E. Johnston was fourth on the list, but he was the highest
ranking officer who had thus resigned. He was assigned to the command
of the Army of Tennessee in 1864, when it had expended its greatest
strength, there being no resources to draw upon. He was confronted
by an army double the numerical strength of his own, with all the
resources at hand that could be asked for. Much of the territory
of the Confederate States and its most resourceful sections were
in the hands of the enemy. The Mississippi River had been closed
to Confederate navigation, foreign intervention had become a dead
letter, the exchange of prisoners had indefinitely ceased, and the
blockade of Southern ports completed the hope of receiving resources
from the outside. Truly was the South hermetically sealed.
Who can say that the tactics assumed by General Johnston in his
Atlanta campaign were not the best that could be used under all
the circumstances? Or that, if he could have succeeded at all, it
must have been by the military operations he adopted? Do not the
operations of General Hood in a few weeks thereafter prove this to
be true? For, after fighting a few battles around Atlanta, losing as
many men as Johnston did in his campaign from Dalton to Atlanta, and
then falling back to Jonesboro, thirty miles south, where he fought
Sherman, all without material results, he then moved to the rear of
Atlanta, continuing his campaign against Nashville, that terminated
so disastrously. Again, were they not the same tactics that General
Lee was inaugurating when he left Petersburg with his little army,
retreating to Appomattox, which movement, we can see now, was made
when it was too late?
I am not able to say what would have been the result of Johnston’s
proposed movement at Atlanta, but I can say this: that it promised
more success than any that was attempted later. The restoration of
General Johnston to the command of the Army of Tennessee looked
as if Mr. Davis was repudiating his order of a few months before.
General Johnston in accepting it displayed a magnanimity of character
and patriotism never excelled. The army from which he had been so
summarily dismissed was now shattered and broken to pieces, and the
Confederacy itself was staggering to its downfall. His desire to
share the fate of his soldiers and countrymen must have been the
only motive.
When Joseph E. Johnston died, in 1891, a large and representative
meeting of the citizens of Nashville was held in the First
Presbyterian Church to do honor to his memory, and the following
preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted--to wit:
_Mr. Chairman_: Your committee to whom was referred the
resolutions touching upon the life and character of Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston beg leave to submit the following:
General Johnston died in the City of Washington on the
evening of March 21, 1891. Society is so constructed that
individual character becomes prominent and conspicuous by
deed and action no less than by expressed thought. As we
look back through the ages, we mark some names that shine as
beacon lights along the way, whose characters we accept as
prototypes of all their contemporaries. Joseph E. Johnston
is the Confederate soldier’s model--not from the fact alone
that he was a good soldier, but time, having dealt gently
with him, lengthening his days through the trying years that
have passed since the war, has completed the picture, and
as we behold the man we cannot but exclaim: “As grand in
peace as he was valiant in war.” It is hardly permissible by
resolution to speak at length of our deceased comrade; and
it is sufficient for this occasion to say that he was born
in Old Virginia in 1807; was educated at West Point Military
Academy, graduating thirteenth in the distinguished class of
1829, numbering forty-six graduates; was a lieutenant upon
the staff of General Scott during the Indian War of 1832-36;
was a soldier in the war with Mexico, was wounded three
times in action, was promoted three times for gallantry
during the war, and was carried from the field of Cerro
Gordo desperately wounded; in 1855 was made Lieutenant
Colonel of the First United States Cavalry, and in 1860 was
made a brigadier general and assigned to the position of
Quartermaster General of the United States army.
Upon the secession of his State, he resigned the position
and repaired to Richmond. He was the highest ranking
officer who resigned from the United States army to join
the Confederacy. He was placed in command at Harper’s Ferry,
at that time thought to be its most important position.
He withdrew from the enemy’s front at Harper’s Ferry and
came upon the field of Manassas in time to turn the tide
of battle and rout the army of General McDowell. He was in
command of the Army of Virginia in 1862 and resisted the
advance of General McClelland as he approached Richmond by
way of the Peninsula. He was seriously wounded at Seven
Pines on the 31st of May, 1862, while leading his columns
to the attack. This-wound incapacitated him for service for
many months. General Lee succeeded him in command of that
army. General Johnston was in command in Mississippi for a
short time, and in the first months of 1864 he superseded
General Bragg in the command of the Army of Tennessee
after the disaster at Missionary Ridge. It was here that
he displayed his wonderful talent in reorganizing that
army and bringing it to its highest state of perfection
in a few months’ time. When Sherman began his move on
Atlanta in the spring of 1864, and as he approached Tunnel
Hill, Ga., on his first day’s march, the battle opened in
earnest, and for seventy days and seventy nights its roar
never ceased to reverberate. Outnumbered almost two to
one, every flank movement of the enemy was met by a line
of battle. At Resaca, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain,
and Marietta the heavy skirmishing resulted in battles,
but in no instance in a general engagement. Some days upon
the skirmish line and when the fighting would not rise to
the dignity of battle the loss would be almost as great as
the United States suffered in any battle in the war with
Mexico. Well-authenticated battle reports show that General
Sherman’s loss on his march to Atlanta was fully 40,000,
while Johnston’s was less than 10,000. During the seventy
days’ fighting and moving from position to position it is
a remarkable fact that no ammunitions or provisions of any
description were lost, except some siege guns that were left
at Resaca, having no transportation for their removal. The
morale of the army was not impaired in any particular, and
its movements were executed with the precision of a dress
parade. No commander could have possessed to a greater
degree the supreme confidence of his men, and no general
rested more securely upon the courage of his soldiers.
Upon reaching the front at Atlanta in 1864, General Johnston
was relieved and General Hood placed in command of the Army
of Tennessee. It is impossible to express the surprise this
order created, from the highest officer to the humblest
private. A great calamity seemed to have spread itself over
the army, and the developments a week or ten days thereafter
confirmed the great mistake that had been made.
When the broken fragments of the Army of Tennessee assembled
in North Carolina in the spring of 1865, General Johnston
was called to its command again. A forlorn hope, indeed! His
presence revived the spirits of those of his old soldiers
who were left, and they felt strong and confident again,
as was shown in the hotly contested battle of Bentonville
near the close of the war. The end came in a few weeks
thereafter. General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. Two
hundred thousand soldiers were concentrating under General
Sherman, and nothing was left to Johnston but to surrender
his less than 20,000 soldiers upon the best terms possible.
In the negotiations that followed General Johnston showed
himself to be a diplomatist and statesman.
In his farewell address to the army Johnston urged his
soldiers “to observe faithfully the terms of pacification,
and to discharge the obligations of good and peaceful
citizens as well as you have performed the duties of
thorough soldiers in the field.” Such, in brief, is his
military history. He was the last of the great commanders
of the Army of Tennessee.
Albert Sidney Johnston fell at Shiloh, Gen. Braxton Bragg
died soon after the war, and Gen. J. B. Hood a few years
later. Under their leadership the Army of Tennessee made
its glorious history and won imperishable honor. The
circumstances that molded the character of the soldiery
who composed that army and the facts that precipitated the
contest in which they fought can never exist again.
The people of this Southland give Joseph E. Johnston a place
in their hearts and affections alongside those of Sidney
Johnston, Lee, and Jackson. Memory’s sweetest retrospect
will be to contemplate the character of each, great and
good, brave and honorable in their lives, and glorious
in their death. Sleep on, great soldiers! Most of your
lieutenants, with the long line of nameless heroes, have
preceded you in crossing the river. Your names and fame will
be secure in the keeping of grateful and admiring countrymen.
In summing up the public services of General Johnston, we
conclude that as a civilian he had attained an honorable
citizenship. He was called to represent Virginia in
Congress, and was given high position in State and
national affairs. He has discharged his trust ably,
faithfully, and with an eye single to the public weal
and the reëstablishment of the fraternity of the American
people. That he was wounded seven times in battle attests
his courage as a soldier. “Beware of Johnston’s retreats”
relieves him of its usual disaster. Aggressive at the
beginning of the war, he was forced to accept the Fabian
tactics, and we learned too late that if the Confederacy
could have succeeded it must have been through this
policy. His magnanimous patriotism cannot be overestimated
when we see him again accepting, in North Carolina, the
command of the broken and shattered fragments of his once
well-appointed army. Therefore be it
_Resolved by this vast assemblage of comrades and
sympathizing friends_: 1. That we recognize in the life
and character of General Johnston the noblest and highest
type of the true Confederate soldier and American citizen,
true to every profession and trust confided to his care. We
commend his character as worthy of emulation, view his death
as a national calamity, and extend to the members of his
bereaved family our condolence sincere and heartfelt.
2. That a copy of these resolutions be sent to his nearest
kinsman.
GEORGE B. GUILD, _Chairman_;
W. H. JACKSON, J. H. HAYES,
R. LIN CAVE, J. A. RIDLEY,
M. B. PILCHER, J. H. NEAL.
The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment served in Wheeler’s corps after
it was first organized in 1862 till the surrender. Maj. Gen. Joe
Wheeler was a graduate of West Point Academy, and was assigned to
the artillery, which is taken as an honor preferment at the Academy.
He was among the first to resign from the United States army and
tender his services to the Confederate government. He recruited an
infantry regiment in Alabama and saw his first service at the battle
of Shiloh. Immediately afterwards he was made chief of the cavalry,
with rank of major general, and assigned to the Army of Tennessee.
He was brave, energetic, and indefatigable in his efforts to obtain
correct information of the enemy, their movements, their forces, and
the topography of the surrounding country, for reliable information
concerning these essentials was necessary. I have known him time and
again to take a reliable squad and go in person on the most daring
and hazardous excursions to obtain needed information.
Lieut. Gen. A. P. Stewart said to the writer since the war that
General Wheeler was what a cavalry officer ought to be, the eyes
and ears of the army; that he excelled all cavalry officers we had
in this regard: that he was obedient to orders, vigilant, prompt
to act; and that the Army of Tennessee rested in perfect security
when Wheeler was on the front. He fought many hard-contested battles
during his four years of service, killing, wounding, and capturing
thousands of the enemy. He conducted many of the longest and most
successful raids against the enemy, notably the raid he made into
Middle Tennessee after the battle of Chickamauga, when he burned
one thousand of the enemy’s wagons loaded with the richest stores,
besides wounding and capturing more of the enemy than his own command
numbered.
General Wheeler was a member of Congress from the State of Alabama
when he was appointed brigadier general in the United States army
and fought in the Spanish-American war. He fought the largest and
most noted battle of the land forces on San Juan Hill, at Santiago,
Cuba, in which he contributed more to its success than any other
general, its result being the defeat and capitulation of the Spanish
forces. Among the many notable cavalry generals I would enroll the
name of General Wheeler next to that of Tennessee’s great general,
Bedford Forrest, and superior to him in many essentials as a great
cavalryman. General Wheeler died in Washington soon after the
Spanish-American War, where he had been serving the State of Alabama
as a conspicuous Congressman for fifteen or twenty years, and was
buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington.
Col. Baxter Smith. Lieut. Col. Paul F. Anderson, and Maj. W. Scott
Bledsoe were respectively the field officers of the Fourth Tennessee
Cavalry Regiment. Young, active, patriotic, brave in battle, each of
them was called at times to the command and had the full confidence
and support of the soldiers.
At the breaking out of the war Colonel Smith recruited a company
at his old home, Gallatin, Sumner County, Tenn., and was elected
captain of the company, which, upon organization, became a part of
a battalion of cavalry of which James D. Bennett became lieutenant
colonel and Baxter Smith major. Their first service was with Gen.
Albert Sidney Johnston at Bowling Green. Ky. When Johnston evacuated
the place, the battalion retreated with him to Shiloh and fought
in that hotly contested battle. After the battle of Shiloh Major
Smith was ordered to Knoxville; and when Gen. (then Col.) N. B.
Forrest organized a command for an advance into Middle Tennessee,
Major Smith was assigned to the command of a battalion of four or
five companies that afterwards became a part of his regiment. They
participated under General Forrest in that most brilliant battle
at Murfreesboro, July 13, 1863, resulting in the capture of a large
force of the enemy’s infantry and artillery. A force much larger
than that of General Forrest occupied Murfreesboro, and were all
captured. On Forrest’s return to McMinnville with his captures, he
encountered a force of the enemy occupying a blockhouse at Morrison
Station, on the railroad. Major Smith was ordered to dismount his
companies or a part of them and take the blockhouse. They dismounted,
and, charging up to the fort, twelve of them were killed and a large
number of them wounded in a few minutes’ time. They were repulsed,
and that ended the affair. This affair taught the cavalry a lesson
and afterwards they carried a section of light artillery with them
on their raids. Major Smith’s battalion accompanied General Bragg on
his raid into Kentucky, participating in the battle of Perryville,
and was at the capture and surrender of four thousand Federals at
Munfordville. On Bragg’s return to Tennessee, this battalion, with
other companies, was organized into the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry, of
which the gentlemen mentioned became the field officers. On reaching
home immediately after the surrender, Colonel Smith moved to the
city of Nashville to practice law, where he remained a well-known
and successful lawyer, except for serving one term in the State
Senate, till two or more years ago, when he was appointed one of the
secretaries of the Chickamauga Park Commission, which necessitated
his removal to Chattanooga, where he now resides. He is the only
surviving field officer of the Regiment.
Lieut. Col. Paul F. Anderson was a native of Wilson County, Tenn.,
but a few years before the War between the States he was residing in
the State of Texas. He attached himself to the Eighth Texas Cavalry
Regiment, which was organized among the first Confederate troops, and
went with that regiment to Gen. Albert S. Johnston’s army, then at
Bowling Green, Ky. He was with Colonel Terry, commanding the Eighth
Texas, at Woodsonville, above Bowling Green, when that most gallant
officer was killed. John A. Wharton, who succeeded Terry in command
of the regiment, gave Anderson authority to go to his old home at
Lebanon, Tenn., and recruit a company, which he did, enlisting the
celebrated “Cedar Snags,” composed of young men of the best families
from the counties of Wilson, Davidson, and Sumner, afterwards
becoming Company K of the Regiment. At the date of the organization
of the Regiment Col. John A. Wharton had become a major general and
took Company K as his escort. Anderson becoming lieutenant colonel
of the Regiment, James H. Britton succeeded him as captain of Company
K, both holding their ranks till the surrender, in 1865. Lieutenant
Colonel Anderson was a brave and most gallant officer. To hear him
talk one would conclude that he was too rash; but, really, he was one
of the most discreet officers that were to be found. He knew better
when to make or decline a fight than any officer of my acquaintance.
His quaint sayings became proverbial in the army, and the infantry
especially would cry out as he passed: “Here comes Paul.” It seemed
that he knew everybody and everybody knew him. I have heard Major
General Hume, who was commanding the division, say to Lieutenant
Colonel Anderson as he passed his line of battle: “Well, Colonel
Paul, you know better than I can tell you what to do if the enemy
approaches your line.” Anderson was wounded slightly at Fort Donelson
in February, 1863, and in the Kilpatrick fight at Fayetteville.
A few days or a week before the surrender he was absent for some
cause, and I do not think he was with the Regiment at the time of the
surrender. I know that Colonel Smith was in command of the brigade
and Major Bledsoe was in command of the Regiment. Anyhow, he had
fought the fight to a finish and had won all the honors a parole
could confer upon him. After the surrender he settled in Helena, Ark.
He died there of yellow fever some years ago, greatly respected by
the citizens, who buried him near the monument erected to Gen. Pat
Cleburne.
Maj. Scott Bledsoe was a practicing lawyer in Fentress County,
Tenn., when the war broke out. He was a descendant of the famed
Bledsoe family that settled in Sumner County. He recruited and was
elected captain of a company that afterwards became Company I in the
Regiment. He, with his company, participated in the battle of Fishing
Creek under the lamented Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer, who fell upon
that unfortunate field. The poet has most beautifully said of General
Zollicoffer:
“First in fight and first in the arms
Of the white-winged angel of glory,
With the heart of the South at the feet of God,
And his wounds to tell the story.”
Major Bledsoe, with his company, was in General Bragg’s Kentucky
campaign in 1862, returning with General Bragg to Tennessee. In
October, 1862, when the Regiment was organized at Nolensville,
Tenn., he was appointed major, and his company became Company I (as
before stated) of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. He served
continually with the Regiment until the surrender, and was in all of
its battles and campaigns. His brother, Robert Bledsoe, afterwards
killed in Wheeler’s raid into Middle Tennessee, succeeded him as
captain of the company. Major Bledsoe was a true and brave soldier
and a most affable and intelligent gentleman. After the surrender he
and many of his old company moved to other parts of the country. In
fact, a local warfare existed in their section between the clans of
Champ Ferguson on the Confederate side and those of “Tinker Dave”
Beatty on the part of the Union men, and many revolting killings
occurred. This lasted several years after peace was declared. Maj.
Scott Bledsoe died at Cleburne, Tex., some years ago, one of its most
prominent and wealthy citizens.