Mistakes.--Affair at Mansfield.--Peach Hill.--Freaks of the
Imagination.--After Peach Hill.--General William Dwight.--Retreat to
Pleasant Hill.--Pleasant Hill.--General Dick Taylor.--Taylor and
the King of Denmark.--An Incident.
I think it was on the 20th of March that we left for the Red River.
We marched the whole distance, arriving at Natchitoches about the
3d of April. From Alexandria to Natchitoches we followed the Red
River. Here began our mistakes. Banks arrived from New Orleans, and
ordered us to take the inland road to Shreveport. Franklin suggested
the river road, where the army and the fleet could render mutual
support. Banks said no; that the other was the shorter route. It
was the shorter in distance, but for the greater part of the way
it was a narrow wood road, unfitted for the march of troops and
the movement of artillery and wagons. We marched two or three days
without interruption. Lee, who commanded the cavalry in advance, had
often applied for a brigade of infantry to support him. Franklin
had always declined to separate his infantry, answering that if Lee
found the enemy too strong for him, to fall back, and we would come
up with the whole infantry force and disperse them. On the evening
of the 6th of April, I think it was, Banks came up at Pleasant Hill,
and assumed command. The next day we were beaten; for that evening
Lee again applied for his infantry, and got them. Franklin sent in a
written remonstrance against the danger of separating the infantry,
and having it beaten in detail. He was disregarded; and we marched to
certain defeat.
The battle of Sabine Forks--Mansfield, the rebels call it; and as
they won it, they have a right to name it--scarcely rises to the
dignity of a battle. We had our cavalry and one brigade of infantry
only engaged. We lost heavily, however, in guns and wagons, for the
wagon-train of the cavalry followed close upon its heels, and blocked
up the narrow road, so that the guns could not be got off. When
Franklin heard from Banks that the cavalry and infantry brigade were
seriously engaged, and that he must send re-enforcements, he at once
ordered Emory up with the First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, and
then rode forward himself to the scene of action. Here he lost his
horse and was wounded in the leg, while one of our staff officers
was killed. When our cavalry and brigade were finally defeated, the
rebels advanced upon us. It was a striking and beautiful sight to
see a column of their best infantry--the "Crescent City Regiment," I
think it was--marching steadily down the road upon us, while their
skirmishers swarmed through the woods and cotton fields. The column
offered so beautiful a mark for a shell or two, that the general rode
up to a retreating gun, and tried hard to get it into position, but
the stampede was too general, and we had to look to our own safety.
When he found how things were likely to turn out, Franklin had sent
an aid-de-camp to Emory with orders to select a good position, come
into line, and check the advancing enemy. Meantime, we retreated,
abandoning the road--it was too blocked up--and taking to the woods
and across the cotton fields, not knowing our whereabouts, or
whether we should land in the rebel lines or in our own. At length
we caught sight of Emory's red division flag, and a joyful sight it
was. We soon reached it, and found that "Bold Emory" had chosen
an excellent position on the summit of a gentle eminence, called
Peach Hill, and had already got his men into line. His division had
behaved admirably. In face of cavalry and infantry retreating in
disorder--and every officer knows how contagious is a panic--the
First Division of the Nineteenth Army Corps steadily advanced, not a
man falling out, fell into line, and quietly awaited the enemy. They
did not keep us waiting long. In less than half an hour after we had
joined the division, they appeared, marching steadily to the attack.
But they were received with a fusillade they had not counted upon,
and retreated in confusion. Again they attempted an attack on our
right, but with no better success. They were definitively repulsed.
In this skirmish Franklin had another horse killed under him, shot in
the shoulder, for the enemy's fire was very sharp for a few minutes.
I offered him my horse, but he refused it. The captain of our
head-quarters cavalry company offered him his, and he accepted it.
The captain dismounted a private.
I saw here a striking instance of the effect produced by the
imagination when exalted by the excitement of battle. A staff officer
by my side dropped his bridle, threw up his arms, and said, "I am
hit." I helped him from his horse. He said, "My boot is full of
blood." We sent him to the ambulance. I said to myself, "Good-bye to
---- I shall go to his funeral to-morrow." Next day he appeared at
head-quarters as well as ever. He had been struck by a spent ball.
It had broken the skin and drawn a few drops of blood, but inflicted
no serious injury. At Port Hudson I saw the same effect produced
by a spent ball. A man came limping off the field supported by two
others. He said his leg was broken. The surgeon was rather surprised
to find no hole in his stocking. Cutting it off, however, he found
a black-and-blue mark on the leg--nothing more. The chaplain was
reading to him, and the man was pale as death. I comforted him by
telling him to send the stocking to his sweetheart as a trophy.
As we lay on our arms that night at Peach Hill without fire, for we
were permitted to light none, lest we should reveal our small numbers
to the enemy, we could hear distinctly the yells of the rebels as
they found a fresh "cache" of the good things of the cavalry. It was
very aggravating. They got our head-quarters ambulance too, but there
was precious little in it. Expecting to bivouac, we had thrown a few
things hastily into it. All they got of mine was a tooth-brush. I
comforted myself with the reflection that they would not know what
use to put it to.
Banks now sent for Franklin, and communicated to him his intention
to remain on the battle-field all night, and renew the fight in
the morning. Franklin represented that we had six thousand men at
most, and the rebels thirteen thousand. Banks replied that A. J.
Smith would be up. (Smith was thirteen miles in the rear, with eight
thousand men.) "But how is he to get up, sir? The road is blocked up
with the retreating troops and wagons, and is but a path, after all.
He can't get up." "Oh! he'll be up--he'll be up;" and the interview
ended. On his return to head-quarters, partly under a tree and partly
on a rail fence, Franklin told me what had happened.
General William Dwight, of Boston, commanded the First Brigade of
Emory's division. I knew Dwight well, for he had succeeded Sherman in
command of our division at Port Hudson. I had recommended him highly
to Franklin, when he was offered his choice of two or three generals
for commands in the Nineteenth Corps, as an officer who could be
thoroughly relied upon in an emergency. Dwight had said to me,
"Major, if Franklin ever wants Banks to do any thing, and he won't
do it, do you come to me." I thought that the time had arrived to go
to him; so I found my way through the darkness. "Well, general, we've
got to stay here all night, and fight it out to-morrow." Dwight, who
is quick as a flash, and whose own soldierly instinct told him what
ought to be done, said at once, "Does Franklin think Banks ought to
fall back upon A. J. Smith?" "Yes, he does." "Then I'll be d--d if
he sha'n't do it. Wait here a minute." Dwight disappeared in the
darkness. In ten minutes he returned and said, "It's all right; the
order is given."
That night we fell back upon Pleasant Hill, Dwight bringing up the
rear with his brigade. Franklin asked him if he could hold his
position till half-past ten. "Till morning," he replied, "if you say
so."
At Pleasant Hill we found General Smith with his "gorillas," as they
were profanely called. Smith's command boasted that they had been in
many a fight, and had never been defeated. I believe it was a true
boast. It was partly luck, partly their own courage, and partly the
skill with which they were handled. They were a rough lot, but good
soldiers. I have seen them straggling along, one with a chicken hung
to his bayonet, another with a pig on his back: turkeys, ducks, any
thing of the kind came handy to them. The alarm sounded, and in an
instant every man was in the ranks, silent, watchful, orderly, the
very models of good soldiers.
The battle which now ensued at Pleasant Hill formed no exception
to the rule which Smith's corps had established. The rebels, too,
had been re-enforced, and attacked us in the afternoon with great
spirit. But they soon found the difference between an affair with
a single brigade of infantry, and one with three divisions fully
prepared and admirably handled; for Franklin and Smith had made all
the dispositions. They drove in the left of our first line, where
we had a Five Points New York regiment (rowdies, by-the-way, always
make the poorest troops); but they could make no impression on the
second line, composed of Smith's "gorillas," and were beaten off with
considerable loss.
General Dick Taylor, son of the President, commanded the rebel army
in these engagements, and received much credit, and deservedly, for
the manner in which he had defeated us at Mansfield. It was reported
that General Smith, who commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department
of the Confederacy, found fault with Taylor for attacking us, as
he had intended to draw us on to Shreveport, and there, with the
help of Magruder from Texas, and Price from Arkansas, overwhelm us
disastrously. Perhaps it was as well that we had it out at Mansfield.
As regards the affair at Pleasant Hill, it was a mistake of the
rebels. They were not strong enough to attack us in position. Taylor
has since said that the attack was against his better judgment, but
that the officers who had come up the night before wanted their share
of glory. Perhaps, too, they had tasted the cavalry Champagne, and
liked the brand. They might not have been quite so eager for the fray
had they known what force they had to deal with at Mansfield, and
what lay before them at Pleasant Hill.
The writer has since met General Taylor in London, and a most
agreeable companion he is. He is a great favorite in court circles,
largely for his own merits, but partly as "Prince Dick." In
monarchical countries they can not divest themselves of the idea that
our presidents are monarchs, and their children princes. "Prince
John," "Prince Dick," "Prince Fred," all received quasi-royal honors.
At Constantinople, when Fred Grant was with Sherman, a lieutenant
on his staff, it was to Grant that the Sultan addressed his remarks.
Grant tried to stop it, but could not.
They tell an amusing story of Dick Taylor in London. Taylor plays
a good game of whist. The King of Denmark was on a visit to his
daughter, and she sent for Taylor to make up a game with her father.
Taylor won largely, and laughingly said to the king, "Your majesty
can not find fault; I am only getting back those 'Sound Dues' my
country paid Denmark for so many years."
Banks now wanted to continue his onward march to Shreveport, but A.
J. Smith opposed it. He said that he belonged to Sherman's command,
and had been lent to Banks for a season only; that he was under
orders to return to Sherman by a certain day; that much time had been
lost; and that if he undertook the march to Shreveport, he could not
return by the date appointed. Our supplies, too, were rather short,
the cavalry having lost their wagon-train. We fell back, therefore,
upon Grand Ecore, where we rejoined the fleet. And here a curious
incident occurred. An officer in high position came to Franklin and
said that the army was in a very critical situation; that it required
generalship to extricate it; that under Banks it would probably
be captured or destroyed; and proposed to put Banks on board of a
steamer, and send him to New Orleans, and that Franklin should take
command. "And my men, general," he said, "will stand by you to the
last man." Of course Franklin treated it as a joke, and laughed it
off. But there can be no doubt that the officer was in earnest.
General Banks did not command the confidence of his troops,
especially of the Western men. They generally spoke of him as "_Mr._
Banks." It was a great pity that his undoubted talent could not have
been utilized in the civil service. As it turned out, he was perhaps
the most striking instance in our service of the grave, almost fatal,
mistake we made at the beginning of the war. He had been a good
Speaker, so we made him a major-general; he had roused a certain
interest in Massachusetts in her militia, so we gave him command of
armies, and sent him out to meet trained soldiers like Stonewall
Jackson and Dick Taylor. The result was a foregone conclusion.