General Sherman goes to Kentucky—Muldraugh’s Hill—His army
weakened—General Buckner’s superior force—Succeeds General
Anderson—Writes General McClellan—Interview with Secretary
Cameron—Paducah.
AWAY on the borders of Kentucky the tramp of war was heard. The hero
of Sumter, General Anderson, was in command of the department. With the
advent of autumn, the Union Home Guards of Kentucky, with other troops,
had gathered to the banks of the Rolling Fork of Salt River—a branch
two hundred feet wide and only three feet deep. Two miles from the road
crossing lie the Muldraugh’s Hills, rising in romantic outline. Half way
upon the ascent runs the railroad, whose bridge is trestle-work ninety
feet high; it then enters Tunnel Hill, emerging into an open plain.
General Buckner, the rebel commander, was at Bowling Green, looking
toward Louisville, where he boasted he would spend the winter. General
Sherman was sent to join General Anderson, the second in command, and
moved his force to Muldraugh’s Hills. Buckner had burned the bridge; the
Home Guards were withdrawn; and the enemy’s troops numbered twenty-five
thousand. To retire to Elizabethtown with the five thousand Union
soldiers was the best that General Sherman could do.
At this crisis General Anderson resigned his command on account of ill
health, and the mantle of authority fell on General Sherman; no very
desirable honor at that time, for “most of the fighting young men of
Kentucky had gone to join the rebels. The non-combatants were divided in
sentiment, and most of them far from friendly. He lacked men, and most
of those he had were poorly armed. He lacked, also, means of
transportation and munitions of war; and if the rebel generals had known
his actual condition, they could have captured or driven his forces
across the Ohio in less than ten days. He applied earnestly and
persistently for reënforcements, and, at the same time, took every
possible precaution to conceal his weakness from the enemy, as well as
from the loyal public. At that time newspaper reporters were not always
discreet, and often obtained and published the very facts that should
have been concealed. He issued a stringent order excluding all reporters
and correspondents from his lines. This brought down upon him the
indignation of the press. More unfortunately still, he failed to impress
the Secretary of War with the necessities of his position and the
importance of holding it. On the 3d of November he telegraphed to
General McClellan the condition of affairs, with the number of his
several forces, showing them to be everywhere, except at one single
point, outnumbered, and concluded his despatch with the emphatic remark,
‘Our forces are too small to do good, and too large to be sacrificed.’
“In reply, General McClellan asks, ‘How long could McCook keep Buckner
out of Louisville, holding the railroad, with power to destroy it inch
by inch?’—giving no hint of a purpose to send reënforcements, but
looking to the probable abandonment of Kentucky. Previous to this,
General Sherman had had an interview with Secretary Cameron, in presence
of Adjutant-General Thomas, at Lexington, Kentucky, and fully explained
to him the situation of his command, and also of the armies opposed to
him; and, on being asked what force was necessary for a successful
forward movement in his department, answered, ‘Two hundred thousand
men.’ By the 1st of November, Adjutant-General Thomas’s official report
of this conversation, in all its details, was published in most of the
newspapers of the country, giving the enemy full knowledge of many
important facts relating to General Sherman’s department. He was too
weak to defend his lines; and the enemy knew it. He had no hope of
reënforcements, and, withal, was evidently in discredit with the War
Department, as being too apprehensive of the power, strength, and
resources of the enemy. He, therefore, felt he could not successfully
conduct the campaign, and asked to be relieved. He was succeeded by
General Buell, who was at once reënforced, and enabled to hold his
defensive positions until Grant, the following spring, should advance
down the Mississippi and up the Cumberland.
“General Sherman was now set down as ‘crazy,’ and quietly retired to the
command of Benton Barracks, near St. Louis. The evidence of his insanity
was his answer to the Secretary of War—_that to make a successful
advance against the enemy, then strongly posted at all strategic points
from the Mississippi to Cumberland Gap, would require an army two
hundred thousand strong_! The answer was the inspiration or the judgment
of a military genius; but to the mind of Mr. Secretary Cameron it was
the prophecy of a false wizard.
“It has been said of the Spaniards, ‘that they generally managed to have
an army when they had no general, and a general when they had no army;’
and during the first years of the war we surpassed in folly their
example. It was vainly expected the rebellion could effectually be put
down without either a general or an army, by a mere flourish of
trumpets—as if the foundations of the Confederacy, like the walls of
Jericho, would yield and fall at the blowing of a ram’s horn. Subsequent
events have sufficiently vindicated General Sherman’s opinion expressed
in his reply to the Secretary of War.
“Meantime General Halleck succeeded to the command of the Department of
the West, and General Sherman was not long allowed to remain in charge
of a recruiting-rendezvous at St. Louis. When General Grant moved on
Fort Donelson, Sherman was intrusted with the forwarding to him of
reënforcements and supplies from Paducah. General Grant subsequently
acknowleged himself ‘greatly indebted for his promptness’ in discharging
that duty. After the capture of that stronghold, General Sherman was put
in command of the fifth division of Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing.
At the same time Beauregard was industriously collecting the rebel
forces at Corinth, a strong strategic point, well fortified, thirty
miles distant. Grant had moved up from Fort Donelson, and Buell was on
his way.”
How grandly General Grant and Commodore Foote did their work at Forts
Henry and Donelson! What deeds of valor were performed by our Western
boys, whose couch at night was the snowy earth, reddened with the blood
of carnage!
But while that storm of conflict was raging, an officer who had no
superior, and longed to enter its perils and glory for his native land
and his own loyal West, was patiently, and “without observation,”
sending, with an intelligent appreciation of what was needed, and
remarkable promptness, supplies for the heroes of the great border
battles. General Grant _knew_ the value of that service, and warmly
expressed in his despatches his “indebtedness to General Sherman” for
his activity, his timely and indispensable aid, apart from the bloody
field.
My reader will recollect that the fall of Fort Donelson, about the
middle of February, 1862, startled the whole of “rebeldom.” The
strongest fortress in the West was taken. The next position in
importance was Corinth, because at the junction of the Memphis and
Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads. Memphis, the enemy knew,
must soon be the prize for which our victorious troops would strike.
“Corinth must be defended!” was the cry from the South. General
Beauregard, the hero of Sumter and Bull Run, hastened to the field of
conflict, to lend the power of his name and generalship to the cause of
treason.
General Grant had moved the gunboats after the surrender of Fort
Donelson down the Cumberland and up the Tennessee River to Pittsburg
Landing, making Savannah, ten miles distant, his own headquarters.
General Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, was marching toward this point
to join him, from the pursuit of General Johnston through Nashville. The
rebel officers decided to concentrate their forces, by the railroads in
their possession, unexpectedly upon the Union army before Buell could
get there, and after annihilating it, turn upon him and scatter his
battalions. The enemy kept his counsels well, while preparing to hurl
his legions upon our columns.