WITH THE ARMIES OF THE WEST
We are at Memphis,--for a while,--and the Christmas season is approaching
once more. And yet we must remember that war recognizes no Christmas, nor
Sunday, nor holiday. The brown river, excited by rains, whirled seaward
between his banks of yellow clay. Now the weather was crisp and cold, now
hazy and depressing, and again a downpour. Memphis had never seen such
activity. A spirit possessed the place, a restless spirit called William
T. Sherman. He prodded Memphis and laid violent hold of her. She groaned,
protested, turned over, and woke up, peopled by a new people. When these
walked, they ran, and they wore a blue uniform. They spoke rapidly and
were impatient. Rain nor heat nor tempest kept them in. And yet they
joked, and Memphis laughed (what was left of her), and recognized a bond
of fellowship. The General joked, and the Colonels and the Commissary and
the doctors, down to the sutlers and teamsters and the salt tars under
Porter, who cursed the dishwater Mississippi, and also a man named Eads,
who had built the new-fangled iron boxes officially known as gunboats.
The like of these had never before been seen in the waters under the
earth. The loyal citizens--loyal to the South--had been given permission
to leave the city. The General told the assistant quartermaster to hire
their houses and slaves for the benefit of the Federal Government.
Likewise he laid down certain laws to the Memphis papers defining
treason. He gave out his mind freely to that other army of occupation,
the army of speculation, that flocked thither with permits to trade in
cotton. The speculators gave the Confederates gold, which they needed
most, for the bales, which they could not use at all.
The forefathers of some of these gentlemen were in old Egypt under
Pharaoh--for whom they could have had no greater respect and fear than
their descendants had in New Egypt for Grant or Sherman. Yankees were
there likewise in abundance. And a certain acquaintance of ours
materially added to his fortune by selling in Boston the cotton which
cost him fourteen cents, at thirty cents.
One day the shouting and the swearing and the running to and fro came to
a climax. Those floating freaks which were all top and drew nothing, were
loaded down to the guards with army stores and animals and wood and men,
--men who came from every walk in life.
Whistles bellowed, horses neighed. The gunboats chased hither and
thither, and at length the vast processions paddled down the stream with
naval precision, under the watchful eyes of a real admiral.
Residents of Memphis from the river's bank watched the pillar of smoke
fade to the southward and ruminated on the fate of Vicksburg. The General
paced the deck in thought. A little later he wrote to the
Commander-in-Chief at Washington, "The valley of the Mississippi is
America."
Vicksburg taken, this vast Confederacy would be chopped in two.
Night fell to the music of the paddles, to the scent of the officers'
cigars, to the blood-red vomit of the tall stacks and the smoky flame of
the torches. Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted
two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the
morning sun. Vicksburg, the well-nigh impregnable key to America's
highway. When old Vick made his plantation on the Walnut Hills, he chose
a site for a fortress of the future Confederacy that Vauban would have
delighted in.
Yes, there were the Walnut Hills, high bluffs separated from the
Mississippi by tangled streams and bayous, and on their crests the
Parrotts scowled. It was a queer Christmas Day indeed, bright and warm;
no snow, no turkeys nor mince pies, no wine, but just hardtack and bacon
and foaming brown water.
On the morrow the ill-assorted fleet struggled up the sluggish Yazoo,
past impenetrable forests where the cypress clutched at the keels, past
long-deserted cotton fields, until it came at last to the black ruins of
a home. In due time the great army was landed. It spread out by brigade
and division and regiment and company, the men splashing and paddling
through the Chickasaw and the swamps toward the bluffs. The Parrotts
began to roar. A certain regiment, boldly led, crossed the bayou at a
narrow place and swept resistless across the sodden fields to where the
bank was steepest. The fire from the battery scorched the hair of their
heads. But there they stayed, scooping out the yellow clay with torn
hands, while the Parrotts, with lowered muzzles, ploughed the slope with
shells. There they stayed, while the blue lines quivered and fell back
through the forests on that short winter's afternoon, dragging their
wounded from the stagnant waters. But many were left to die in agony in
the solitude.
Like a tall emblem of energy, General Sherman stood watching the attack
and repulse, his eyes ever alert. He paid no heed to the shells which
tore the limbs from the trees about him, or sent the swamp water in thick
spray over his staff. Now and again a sharp word broke from his lips, a
forceful home thrust at one of the leaders of his columns.
"What regiment stayed under the bank?"
"Sixth Missouri, General," said an aide, promptly.
The General sat late in the Admiral's gunboat that night, but when he
returned to his cabin in the Forest Queen, he called for a list of
officers of the Sixth Missouri. His finger slipping down the roll paused
at a name among the new second lieutenants.
"Did the boys get back?" he asked. "Yes, General, when it fell dark."
"Let me see the casualties,--quick."
That night a fog rolled up from the swamps, and in the morning jack-staff
was hid from pilot-house. Before the attack could be renewed, a political
general came down the river with a letter in his pocket from Washington,
by virtue of which he took possession of the three army core, and their
chief, subpoenaed the fleet and the Admiral, and went off to capture
Arkansas Post.
Vicksburg had a breathing spell.
Three weeks later, when the army was resting at Napoleon, Arkansas, a
self-contained man, with a brown beard arrived from Memphis, and took
command. This way General U. S. Grant. He smoked incessantly in his
cabin. He listened. He spoke but seldom. He had look in his face that
boded ill to any that might oppose him. Time and labor be counted as
nothing, compared with the accomplishment of an object. Back to Vicksburg
paddled the fleet and transports. Across the river from the city, on the
pasty mud behind the levee's bank were dumped Sherman's regiments,
condemned to week of ditch-digging, that the gunboats might arrive at the
bend of the Mississippi below by a canal, out of reach of the batteries.
Day in and day out they labored, officer and men. Sawing off stumps under
the water, knocking poisonous snakes by scores from the branches, while
the river rose and rose and rose, and the rain crept by inches under
their tent flies, and the enemy walked the parapet of Vicksburg and
laughed. Two gunboats accomplished the feat of running the batteries,
that their smiles might be sobered.
To the young officers who were soiling their uniform with the grease of
saws, whose only fighting was against fever and water snakes, the news of
an expedition into the Vicksburg side of the river was hailed with caps
in the air. To be sure, the saw and axe, and likewise the levee and the
snakes, were to be there, too. But there was likely to be a little
fighting. The rest of the corps that was to stay watched grimly as the
detachment put off in the little 'Diligence' and 'Silver Wave'.
All the night the smoke-pipes were batting against the boughs of oak and
cottonwood, and snapping the trailing vines. Some other regiments went by
another route. The ironclads, followed in hot haste by General Sherman in
a navy tug, had gone ahead, and were even then shoving with their noses
great trunks of trees in their eagerness to get behind the Rebels. The
Missouri regiment spread out along the waters, and were soon waist deep,
hewing a path for the heavier transports to come. Presently the General
came back to a plantation half under water, where Black Bayou joins Deer
Creek, to hurry the work in cleaning out that Bayou. The light transports
meanwhile were bringing up more troops from a second detachment. All
through the Friday the navy great guns were heard booming in the
distance, growing quicker and quicker, until the quivering air shook the
hanging things in that vast jungle. Saws stopped, and axes were poised
over shoulders, and many times that day the General lifted his head
anxiously. As he sat down in the evening in a slave cabin redolent with
corn pone and bacon, the sound still hovered among the trees and rolled
along the still waters.
The General slept lightly. It was three o'clock Saturday morning when the
sharp challenge of a sentry broke the silence. A negro, white eyed,
bedraggled, and muddy, stood in the candle light under the charge of a
young lieutenant. The officer saluted, and handed the General a roll of
tobacco.
"I found this man in the swamp, sir. He has a message from the Admiral--"
The General tore open the roll and took from it a piece of tissue paper
which he spread out and held under the candle. He turned to a staff
officer who had jumped from his bed and was hurrying into his coat.
"Porter's surrounded," he said. The order came in a flash. "Kilby Smith
and all men here across creek to relief at once. I'll take canoe through
bayou to Hill's and hurry reenforcements."
The staff officer paused, his hand on the latch of the door.
"But your escort, General. You're not going through that sewer in a canoe
without an escort!"
"I guess they won't look for a needle in that haystack," the General
answered. For a brief second he eyed the lieutenant. "Get back to your
regiment, Brice, if you want to go," he said.
Stephen saluted and went out. All through the painful march that
followed, though soaked in swamp water and bruised by cypress knees, he
thought of Sherman in his canoe, winding unprotected through the black
labyrinth, risking his life that more men might be brought to the rescue
of the gunboats.
The story of that rescue has been told most graphically by Sherman
himself. How he picked up the men at work on the bayou and marched them
on a coal barge; how he hitched the barge to a navy tug; how he met the
little transport with a fresh load of troops, and Captain Elijah Brent's
reply when the General asked if he would follow him. "As long as the boat
holds together, General." And he kept his word. The boughs hammered at
the smoke-pipes until they went by the board, and the pilothouse fell
like a pack of cards on the deck before they had gone three miles and a
half. Then the indomitable Sherman disembarked, a lighted candle in his
hand, and led a stiff march through thicket and swamp and breast-deep
backwater, where the little drummer boys carried their drums on their
heads. At length, when they were come to some Indian mounds, they found a
picket of three, companies of the force which had reached the flat the
day before, and had been sent down to prevent the enemy from obstructing
further the stream below the fleet.
"The Admiral's in a bad way, sir," said the Colonel who rode up to meet
the General. "He's landlocked. Those clumsy ironclads of his can't move
backward or forward, and the Rebs have been peppering him for two days."
Just then a fusillade broke from the thickets, nipping the branches from
the cottonwoods about them.
"Form your line," said the General. "Drive 'em out."
The force swept forward, with the three picket companies in the swamp on
the right. And presently they came in sight of the shapeless ironclads
with their funnels belching smoke, a most remarkable spectacle. How
Porter had pushed them there was one of the miracles of the war.
Then followed one of a thousand memorable incidents in the life of a
memorable man. General Sherman, jumping on the bare back of a scrawny
horse, cantered through the fields. And the bluejackets, at sight of that
familiar figure, roared out a cheer that might have shaken the drops from
the wet boughs. The Admiral and the General stood together on the deck,
their hands clasped. And the Colonel astutely remarked, as he rode up in
answer to a summons, that if Porter was the only man whose daring could
have pushed a fleet to that position, Sherman was certainly the only man
who could have got him out of it.
"Colonel," said the General, "that move was well executed, sir. Admiral,
did the Rebs put a bullet through your rum casks? We're just a little
tired. And now," he added, wheeling on the Colonel when each had a glass
in his hand, "who was in command of that company on the right, in the
swamp? He handled them like a regular."
"He's a second lieutenant, General, in the Sixth Missouri. Captain
wounded at Hindman, and first lieutenant fell out down below. His name is
Brice, I believe."
"I thought so," said the General.
Some few days afterward, when the troops were slopping around again at
Young's Point, opposite Vicksburg, a gentleman arrived on a boat from St.
Louis. He paused on the levee to survey with concern and astonishment the
flood of waters behind it, and then asked an officer the way to General
Sherman's headquarters. The officer, who was greatly impressed by the
gentleman's looks, led him at once to a trestle bridge which spanned the
distance from the levee bank over the flood to a house up to its first
floor in the backwaters. The orderly saluted.
"Who shall I say, sir?"
The officer looked inquiringly at the gentleman, who gave his name.
The officer could not repress a smile at the next thing that happened.
Out hurried the General himself, with both hands outstretched.
"Bless my soul!" he cried, "if it isn't Brinsmade. Come right in, come
right in and take dinner. The boys will be glad to see you. I'll send and
tell Grant you're here. Brinsmade, if it wasn't for you and your friends
on the Western Sanitary Commission, we'd all have been dead of fever and
bad food long ago." The General sobered abruptly. "I guess a good many of
the boys are laid up now," he added.
"I've come down to do what I can, General," responded Mr. Brinsmade,
gravely. "I want to go through all the hospitals to see that our nurses
are doing their duty and that the stores are properly distributed."
"You shall, sir, this minute," said the General. He dropped instantly the
affairs which he had on hand, and without waiting for dinner the two
gentlemen went together through the wards where the fever raged. The
General surprised his visitor by recognizing private after private in the
cots, and he always had a brief word of cheer to brighten their faces, to
make them follow him with wistful eyes as he passed beyond them. "That's
poor Craig," he would say, "corporal, Third Michigan. They tell me he
can't live," and "That's Olcott, Eleventh Indiana. Good God!" cried the
General, when they were out in the air again, "how I wish some of these
cotton traders could get a taste of this fever. They keep well--the
vultures--And by the way, Brinsmade, the man who gave me no peace at all
at Memphis was from your city. Why, I had to keep a whole corps on duty
to watch him."
"What was his name, sir?" Mr. Brinsmade asked.
"Hopper!" cried the General, with feeling. "Eliphalet Hopper. As long as
I live I shall never forget it. How the devil did he get a permit? What
are they about at Washington?"
"You surprise me," said Mr. Brinsmade. "He has always seemed inoffensive,
and I believe he is a prominent member of one of our churches."
"I guess that's so," answered the General, dryly. "I ever I set eyes on
him again, he's clapped into the guardhouse. He knows it, too."
"Speaking of St. Louis, General," said Mr. Brinsmade, presently, "have
you ever heard of Stephen Brice? joined your army last autumn. You may
remember talking to him one evening at my house."
"He's one of my boys!" cried the General. "Remember him? Guess I do!" He
paused on the very brink of relating again the incident at Camp Jackson,
when Stephen had saved the life of Mr. Brinsmade's own son. "Brinsmade,
for three days I've had it on my mind to send for that boy. I'll have him
at headquarters now. I like him," cried General Sherman, with tone and
gesture there was no mistaking. And good Mr. Brinsmade, who liked
Stephen, too, rejoiced at the story he would have to tell the widow. "He
has spirit, Brinsmade. I told him to let me know when he was ready to go
to war. No such thing. He never came near me. The first thing I hear of
him is that he's digging holes in the clay of Chickasaw Bluff, and his
cap is fanned off by the blast of a Parrott six feet above his head. Next
thing he turns up on that little expedition we took to get Porter to sea
again. When we got to the gunboats, there was Brice's company on the
flank. He handled those men surprisingly, sir--surprisingly. I shouldn't
have blamed the boy if one or two Rebs got by him. But no, he swept the
place clean." By this time they had come back to the bridge leading to
headquarters, and the General beckoned quickly to an orderly.
"My compliments to Lieutenant Stephen Brice, Sixth Missouri, and ask him
to report here at once. At once, you understand!"
"Yes, General."
It so happened that Mr. Brice's company were swinging axes when the
orderly arrived, and Mr. Brice had an axe himself, and was up to his boot
tops in yellow mud.
The orderly, who had once been an Iowa farmer, was near grinning when he
gave the General's message and saw the lieutenant gazing ruefully at his
clothes.
Entering headquarters, Stephen paused at the doorway of the big room
where the officers of the different staffs were scattered about, smoking,
while the negro servants were removing the dishes from the table. The
sunlight, reflected from the rippling water outside, danced on the
ceiling. At the end of the room sat General Sherman, his uniform, as
always, a trifle awry. His soft felt hat with the gold braid was tilted
forward, and his feet, booted and spurred, were crossed. Small wonder
that the Englishman who sought the typical American found him in Sherman.
The sound that had caught Stephen's attention was the General's voice,
somewhat high-pitched, in the key that he used in telling a story. These
were his closing words.
"Sin gives you a pretty square deal, boys, after all. Generally a man
says, 'Well, I can resist, but I'll have my fun just this once.' That's
the way it happens. They tell you that temptation comes irresistibly.
Don't believe it. Do you, Mr. Brice? Come over here, sir. Here's a friend
of yours."
Stephen made his way to the General, whose bright eyes wandered rapidly
over him as he added:
"This is the condition my officers report in, Brinsmade,--mud from head
to heel."
Stephen had sense enough to say nothing, but the staff officers laughed,
and Mr. Brinsmade smiled as he rose and took Stephen's hand.
"I am delighted to see that you are well, sir," said he, with that formal
kindliness which endeared him to all. "Your mother will be rejoiced at my
news of you. You will be glad to hear that I left her well, Stephen."
Stephen inquired for Mrs. Brinsmade and Anne.
"They are well, sir, and took pleasure in adding to a little box which
your mother sent. Judge Whipple put in a box of fine cigars, although he
deplores the use of tobacco."
"And the Judge, Mr. Brinsmade--how is he?"
The good gentleman's face fell.
"He is ailing, sir, it grieves me to say. He is in bed, sir. But he is
ably looked after. Your mother desired to have him moved to her house,
but he is difficult to stir from his ways, and he would not leave his
little room. He is ably nursed. We have got old Nancy, Hester's mother,
to stay with him at night, and Mrs. Brice divides the day with Miss Jinny
Carvel, who comes in from Bellegarde every afternoon."
"Miss Carvel?" exclaimed Stephen, wondering if he heard aright. And at
the mention of her name he tingled.
"None other, sir," answered Mr. Brinsmade. "She has been much honored for
it. You may remember that the Judge was a close friend of her father's
before the war. And--well, they quarrelled, sir. The Colonel went South,
you know."
"When--when was the Judge taken ill, Mr. Brinsmade?" Stephen asked. The
thought of Virginia and his mother caring for him together was strangely
sweet.
"Two days before I left, sir, Dr. Polk had warned him not to do so much.
But the Doctor tells me that he can see no dangerous symptoms."
Stephen inquired now of Mr. Brinsmade how long he was to be with them.
"I am going on to the other camps this afternoon," said he. "But I should
like a glimpse of your quarters, Stephen, if you will invite me. Your
mother would like a careful account of you, and Mr. Whipple, and--your
many friends in St. Louis."
"You will find my tent a little wet, air," replied Stephen, touched.
Here the General, who had been sitting by watching them with a very
curious expression, spoke up.
"That's hospitality for you, Brinsmade!"
Stephen and Mr. Brinsmade made their way across plank and bridge to
Stephen's tent, and his mess servant arrived in due time with the package
from home. But presently, while they sat talking of many things, the
canvas of the fly was thrust back with a quick movement, and who should
come stooping in but General Sherman himself. He sat down on a cracker
box. Stephen rose confusedly.
"Well, well, Brice," said the General, winking at Mr. Brinsmade, "I think
you might have invited me to the feast. Where are those cigars Mr.
Brinsmade was talking about?"
Stephen opened the box with alacrity. The General chose one and lighted
it.
"Don't smoke, eh?" he inquired. "Why, yes, sir, when I can."
"Then light up, sir," said the General, "and sit down, I've been thinking
lately of court-martialing you, but I decided to come 'round and talk it
over with you first. That isn't strictly according to the rules of the
service. Look here, Mr. Brice, why did you leave St. Louis?"
"They began to draft, sir, and I couldn't stand it any longer."
"But you wouldn't have been drafted. You were in the Home Guards, if I
remember right. And Mr. Brinsmade tells me you were useful in many ways
What was your rank in the Home Guards?"
"Lieutenant colonel, sir."
"And what are you here?"
"A second lieutenant in temporary command, General." "You have commanded
men?"
"Not in action, sir. I felt that that was different."
"Couldn't they do better for you than a second-lieutenancy?"
Stephen did not reply at once, Mr. Brinsmade spoke up, "They offered him
a lieutenant-colonelcy."
The General was silent a moment: Then he said "Do you remember meeting me
on the boat when I was leaving St. Louis, after the capture of Fort
Henry?"
Stephen smiled. "Very well, General," he replied, General Sherman leaned
forward.
"And do you remember I said to you, 'Brice, when you get ready to come
into this war, let me know.' Why didn't you do it?"
Stephen thought a minute. Then he said gravely, but with just a suspicion
of humor about his mouth:-- "General, if I had done that, you wouldn't be
here in my tent to-day."
Like lightning the General was on his feet, his hand on Stephen's
shoulder.
"By gad, sir," he cried, delighted, "so I wouldn't."