WITH THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.
Appointment as Assistant Secretary of War--Again to the far
front--An interesting meeting with Andrew Johnson--Rosecrans's
complaints--His view of the situation at Chattanooga--At General
Thomas's headquarters--The first day of Chickamauga--The battlefield
telegraph service--A night council of war at Widow Glenn's--Personal
experiences of the disastrous second day's battle--The "Rock of
Chickamauga."
I happened to be the first man to reach the capital from Vicksburg, and
everybody wanted to hear the story and to ask questions. I was anxious
to get home and see my family, however, and left for New York as soon as
I could get away. A few days after I arrived in New York I received an
invitation to go into business there with Mr. Ketchum, a banker, and
with George Opdyke, the merchant. I wrote Mr. Stanton of the opening,
but he urged me to remain in the War Department as one of his
assistants, which I consented to do.[C]
The first commission with which Mr. Stanton charged me after my
appointment as his assistant was one similar to that which I had just
finished--to go to Tennessee to observe and report the movements of
Rosecrans against Bragg. General Rosecrans, who, after the battle of
Stone's River, or Murfreesboro, on December 31st to January 2, 1863, had
lain for nearly six months at Murfreesboro, obstructing on various
excuses all the efforts Lincoln and Stanton and Halleck put forth to
make him move against Bragg, who occupied what was known as the
Tullahoma line, had toward the end of June moved on Bragg and driven him
across the Tennessee River. He had then settled down to rest again,
while Bragg had taken possession of his new line in and about
Chattanooga.
Burnside, who was in Kentucky, had been ordered to unite with Rosecrans
by way of East Tennessee, in order that the combined force should attack
Bragg, but, despite the urgency of the administration, no movement was
made by Rosecrans until the middle of August. As soon as it was evident
that he was really going out against the Confederates, Mr. Stanton asked
me to join the Army of the Cumberland. My orders were to report directly
to Rosecrans's headquarters. I carried the following letter of
introduction to that general:
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, _August 30, 1863_.
MAJ.-GEN. ROSECRANS, Commanding, etc.
GENERAL: This will introduce to you Charles A. Dana, Esq., one of
my assistants, who visits your command for the purpose of
conferring with you upon any subject which you may desire to have
brought to the notice of the department. Mr. Dana is a gentleman of
distinguished character, patriotism, and ability, and possesses the
entire confidence of the department. You will please afford to him
the courtesy and consideration which he merits, and explain to him
fully any matters which you may desire through him to bring to the
notice of the department.
Yours truly, EDWIN M. STANTON.
As soon as my papers arrived I left for my post. I was much delayed on
railroads and steamboats, and when I reached Cincinnati found it was
impossible to join Burnside by his line of march to Knoxville and from
him go to Rosecrans, as I had intended. Accordingly I went on to
Louisville, where I arrived on September 5th. I found there that
Burnside had just occupied Knoxville; that the Ninth Corps, which two
months before I had left near Vicksburg, was now about to go to him from
near Louisville; and that Rosecrans had queerly enough telegraphed to
the clergy all over the country that he expected a great battle that day
and desired their prayers.
I went directly from Louisville to Nashville, where I found General
Gordon Granger in command. As he and Governor Johnson were going to the
front in a day or two, I waited to go with them. The morning after my
arrival at Nashville I went to call on Johnson. I had never met him
before.
Andrew Johnson was short and stocky, of dark complexion, smooth face,
dark hair, dark eyes, and of great determination of appearance. When I
went to see him in his office, the first thing he said was:
"Will you have a drink?"
"Yes, I will," I answered. So he brought out a jug of whisky and poured
out as much as he wanted in a tumbler, and then made it about half and
half water. The theoretical, philosophical drinker pours out a little
whisky and puts in almost no water at all--drinks it pretty nearly
pure--but when a man gets to taking a good deal of water in his whisky,
it shows he is in the habit of drinking a good deal. I noticed that the
Governor took more whisky than most gentlemen would have done, and I
concluded that he took it pretty often.
I had a prolonged conversation that morning with Governor Johnson, who
expressed himself in cheering terms in regard to the general condition
of Tennessee. He regarded the occupation of Knoxville by Burnside as
completing the permanent expulsion of Confederate power, and said he
should order a general election for the first week in October. He
declared that slavery was destroyed in fact, but must be abolished
legally. Johnson was thoroughly in favor of immediate emancipation both
as a matter of moral right and as an indispensable condition of the
large immigration of industrious freemen which he thought necessary to
repeople and regenerate the State.
On the 10th of September we started for the front, going by rail to
Bridgeport, on the Tennessee River. This town at that date was the
terminus of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The bridge across
the river and part of the railroad beyond had been destroyed by Bragg
when he retreated in the preceding summer from Tullahoma. It was by way
of Bridgeport that troops were joining Rosecrans at the far front, and
all supplies went to him that way. On reaching the town, we heard that
Chattanooga had been occupied by Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army
the day before, September 9th; so the next day, September 11th, I pushed
on there by horseback past Shellmound and Wauhatchie. The country
through which I passed is a magnificent region of rocks and valleys, and
I don't believe there is anywhere a finer view than that I had from
Lookout Mountain as I approached Chattanooga.
When I reached Chattanooga I went at once to General Rosecrans's
headquarters and presented my letter. He read it, and then burst out in
angry abuse of the Government at Washington. He had not been sustained,
he said. His requests had been ignored, his plans thwarted. Both Stanton
and Halleck had done all they could, he declared, to prevent his
success.
"General Rosecrans," I said, "I have no authority to listen to
complaints against the Government. I was sent here for the purpose of
finding out what the Government could do to aid you, and have no right
to confer with you on other matters."
He quieted down at once, and explained his situation to me. He had
reached Chattanooga, he said, on the 10th, with Crittenden's troops, the
Twenty-first Corps, the town having been evacuated the day before by the
Confederates. As all the reports brought in seemed to indicate that
Bragg was in full retreat toward Rome, Ga., Crittenden had immediately
started in pursuit, and had gone as far as Ringgold. On the night before
(September 11th) it had seemed evident that Bragg had abandoned his
retreat on Rome, and behind the curtain of the woods and hills had
returned with the purpose of suddenly falling with his whole army upon
the different corps and divisions of our army, now widely separated by
the necessity of crossing the mountains at gaps far apart.
This was a serious matter for Rosecrans, if true, for at that moment his
army was scattered over a line more than fifty miles long, extending
from Chattanooga on the north to Alpine on the south. Rosecrans pointed
out to me the positions on the map. Crittenden, he explained, had been
ordered immediately to leave Ringgold and move westward to the valley of
the West Chickamauga. He was near a place known as Lee and Gordon's
Mills. General Thomas, who commanded the Fourteenth Corps, had marched
across Lookout Mountain and now held Stevens's Gap, perhaps twenty-five
miles south of Chattanooga. McCook, with the Twentieth Corps, had been
ordered, after crossing the Tennessee, to march southeast, and now was
at Alpine, fully thirty-five miles south of Crittenden. Orders had been
sent McCook, when it was found that Bragg had made a stand, to rest his
left flank on the southern base of Mission Ridge, and, extending his
line toward Summerville, fall on the flank of the enemy should he follow
the valley that way. The reserve, under Gordon Granger, was still north
of the Tennessee, although one division had reached Bridgeport and the
rest were rapidly approaching. Notwithstanding the signs that Bragg
might not be retreating so fast as he at first appeared to have been,
Rosecrans was confident as late as the 12th that the Confederate
commander was merely making a show of the offensive to check pursuit,
and that he would make his escape to Rome as soon as he found our army
concentrated for battle east of Lookout Mountain.
The next day (the 13th) I left Chattanooga with Rosecrans and his staff
for Thomas's headquarters at Stevens's Gap. We found everything
progressing favorably there. The movements for the concentration of the
three corps were going forward with energy. Scouts were coming in
constantly, who reported that the enemy had withdrawn from the basin
where our army was assembling; that he was evacuating Lafayette and
moving toward Rome. It seemed as if at last the Army of the Cumberland
had practically gained a position from which it could effectually
advance upon Rome and Atlanta, and deliver there the finishing blow of
the war. The difficulties of gaining this position, of crossing the
Cumberland Mountains, passing the Tennessee, turning and occupying
Chattanooga, traversing the mountain ridges of northern Georgia, and
seizing the passes which led southward had been enormous. It was only
when I came personally to examine the region that I appreciated what had
been done. These difficulties were all substantially overcome. The army
was in the best possible condition, and was advancing with all the
rapidity which the nature of the country allowed. Our left flank toward
East Tennessee was secured by Burnside, and the only disadvantage which
I could see was that a sudden movement of the enemy to our right might
endanger our long and precarious line of communications and compel us to
retreat again beyond the Tennessee. I felt this so keenly that I urged
Mr. Stanton, in a dispatch sent to him on the 14th from Thomas's
headquarters, to push as strong a column as possible eastward from
Corinth, in northeastern Mississippi. It seemed to me that it would be
better to recall the troops from the West rather than to risk a check
here, where the heart of rebellion was within reach and the final blow
all prepared.
But, after all, there was something of a mystery about the real location
of Bragg's army, its strength, and the designs of its chief. At any rate
it was soon manifest that Bragg was not withdrawing to the southward, as
at first supposed. Some queer developments down the Chickamauga on the
16th and 17th caused Rosecrans considerable anxiety for Chattanooga. The
impression began to grow, too, that Bragg had been playing 'possum, and
had not retreated at all. Rosecrans at once abandoned all idea of
operations against the Confederate line of retreat and supply, drew his
army in rapidly, and began to look sharply after his own communications
with Chattanooga, which had now become his base.
By noon of September 18th the concentration was practically complete.
Our army then lay up and down the valley, with West Chickamauga Creek in
front of the greater part of the line. The left was held by Crittenden,
the center by Thomas, and the right by McCook, whose troops were now all
in the valley except one brigade. The army had not concentrated any too
soon, for that very afternoon the enemy appeared on our left, and a
considerable engagement occurred. It was said at headquarters that a
battle was certain the next day. The only point Rosecrans had not
determined at five o'clock on the afternoon of the 18th was whether to
make a night march and fall on Bragg at daylight or to await his onset.
But that night it became pretty clear to all that Bragg's plan was to
push by our left into Chattanooga. This compelled another rapid movement
by the left down the Chickamauga. By a tiresome night march Thomas moved
down behind Crittenden and below Lee and Gordon's Mills, taking position
on our extreme left. Crittenden followed, connecting with Thomas's
right, and thus taking position in the center. McCook's corps also
extended down stream to the left, but still covered the creek as high up
as Crawfish Spring, while part of his troops acted as a reserve. These
movements were hurriedly made, and the troops, especially those of
Thomas, were very much exhausted by their efforts to get into position.
Rosecrans had not been mistaken in Bragg's intention. About nine o'clock
the next morning at Crawfish Spring, where the general headquarters
were, we heard firing on our left, and reports at once came in that the
battle had begun there, Bragg being in command of the enemy. Thomas had
barely headed the Confederates off from Chattanooga. We remained at
Crawfish Springs on this day until after one o'clock, waiting for the
full proportions of the conflict to develop. When it became evident that
the battle was being fought entirely on our left, Rosecrans removed his
headquarters nearer to the scene, taking a little house near Lee and
Gordon's Mills, known as the Widow Glenn's. Although closer to the
battle, we could see no more of it here than at Crawfish Springs, the
conflict being fought altogether in a thick forest, and being invisible
to outsiders. The nature of the firing and the reports from the
commanders alone enabled us to follow its progress.
That we were able to keep as well informed as we were was due to our
excellent telegraphic communications. By this time the military
telegraph had been so thoroughly developed that it was one of the most
useful accessories of our army, even on a battlefield. For instance,
after Rosecrans had taken Crawfish Springs as his headquarters, he had
given orders, on September 17th, to connect the place with Chattanooga,
thirteen miles to the northwest. The line was completed after the battle
began on the 19th, and we were in communication not only with
Chattanooga, but with Granger at Rossville and with Thomas at his
headquarters. When Rosecrans removed to the Widow Glenn's, the
telegraphers went along, and in an hour had connections made and an
instrument clicking away in Mrs. Glenn's house. We thus had constant
information of the way the battle was going, not only from the
orderlies, but also from the wires.
This excellent arrangement enabled me also to keep the Government at
Washington informed of the progress of the battle. I sent eleven
dispatches that day to Mr. Stanton. They were very brief, but they
reported all that I, near as I was to the scene, knew of the battle of
September 19th at Chickamauga.
It was not till after dark that firing ceased and final reports began
to come in. From these we found that the enemy had been defeated in his
attempt to turn and crush our left flank and secure possession of the
Chattanooga roads, but that he was not wholly defeated, for he still
held his ground in several places, and was preparing, it was believed,
to renew the battle the next day.
That evening Rosecrans decided that if Bragg did not retreat he would
renew the fight at daylight, and a council of war was held at our
headquarters at the Widow Glenn's, to which all the corps and division
commanders were summoned. There must have been ten or twelve general
officers there. Rosecrans began by asking each of the corps commanders
for a report of the condition of his troops and of the position they
occupied; also for his opinion of what was to be done. Each proposition
was discussed by the entire council as it was made. General Thomas was
so tired--he had not slept at all the night before, and he had been in
battle all day--that he went to sleep every minute. Every time Rosecrans
spoke to him he would straighten up and answer, but he always said the
same thing, "I would strengthen the left," and then he would be asleep,
sitting up in his chair. General Rosecrans, to the proposition to
strengthen the left, made always the same reply, "Where are we going to
take it from?"
After the discussion was ended, Rosecrans gave his orders for the
disposition of the troops on the following day. Thomas's corps was to
remain on the left with his line somewhat drawn in, but substantially as
he was at the close of the day. McCook was to close on Thomas and cover
the position at Widow Glenn's, and Crittenden was to have two divisions
in reserve near the junction of McCook's and Thomas's lines, to be able
to succor either. These orders were written for each corps commander.
They were also read in the presence of all, and the plans fully
explained. Finally, after everything had been said, hot coffee was
brought in, and then McCook was called upon to sing the Hebrew Maiden.
McCook sang the song, and then the council broke up and the generals
went away.
This was about midnight, and, as I was very tired, I lay down on the
floor to sleep, beside Captain Horace Porter, who was at that time
Rosecrans's chief of ordnance. There were cracks in the floor of the
Widow Glenn's house, and the wind blew up under us. We would go to
sleep, and then the wind would come up so cold through the cracks that
it would wake us up, and we would turn over together to keep warm.
At daybreak we at headquarters were all up and on our horses ready to go
with the commanding general to inspect our lines. We rode past McCook,
Crittenden, and Thomas to the extreme left, Rosecrans giving as he went
the orders he thought necessary to strengthen the several positions. The
general intention of these orders was to close up on the left, where it
was evident the attack would begin. We then rode back to the extreme
right, Rosecrans stopping at each point to see if his orders had been
obeyed. In several cases they had not been obeyed, and he made them more
peremptory. When we found that McCook's line had been elongated so that
it was a mere thread, Rosecrans was very angry, and sent for the
general, rebuking him severely, although, as a matter of fact, General
McCook's position had been taken under the written orders of the
commander in chief, given the night before.
About half past eight or nine o'clock the battle began on the left,
where Thomas was. At that time Rosecrans, with whom I always remained,
was on the right, directing the movements of the troops there. Just
after the cannon began I remember that a ten-pound shell came crashing
through our staff, but hurting nobody. I had not slept much for two
nights, and, as it was warm, I dismounted about noon and, giving my
horse to my orderly, lay down on the grass and went to sleep. I was
awakened by the most infernal noise I ever heard. Never in any battle I
had witnessed was there such a discharge of cannon and musketry. I sat
up on the grass, and the first thing I saw was General Rosecrans
crossing himself--he was a very devout Catholic. "Hello!" I said to
myself, "if the general is crossing himself, we are in a desperate
situation."
I was on my horse in a moment. I had no sooner collected my thoughts and
looked around toward the front, where all this din came from, than I saw
our lines break and melt away like leaves before the wind. Then the
headquarters around me disappeared. The gray-backs came through with a
rush, and soon the musket balls and the cannon shot began to reach the
place where we stood. The whole right of the army had apparently been
routed. My orderly stuck to me like a veteran, and we drew back for
greater safety into the woods a little way. There I came upon General
Porter--Captain Porter he was then--and Captain Drouillard, an
aide-de-camp infantry officer attached to General Rosecrans's staff,
halting fugitives. They would halt a few of them, get them into some
sort of a line, and make a beginning of order among them, and then there
would come a few rounds of cannon shot through the tree-tops over their
heads and the men would break and run. I saw Porter and Drouillard plant
themselves in front of a body of these stampeding men and command them
to halt. One man charged with his bayonet, menacing Porter; but Porter
held his ground, and the man gave in. That was the only case of real
mutiny that I ever saw in the army, and that was under such
circumstances that the man was excusable. The cause of all this disaster
was the charge of the Confederates through the hiatus in the line caused
by the withdrawal of Wood's division, under a misapprehension of orders,
before its place could be filled.
I attempted to make my way from this point in the woods to Sheridan's
division, but when I reached the place where I knew it had been a little
time before, I found it had been swept from the field. Not far away,
however, I stumbled on a body of organized troops. This was a brigade of
mounted riflemen under Colonel John T. Wilder, of Indiana. "Mr. Dana,"
asked Colonel Wilder, "what is the situation?"
"I do not know," I said, "except that this end of the army has been
routed. There is still heavy fighting at the left front, and our troops
seem to be holding their ground there yet."
"Will you give me any orders?" he asked.
"I have no authority to give orders," I replied; "but if I were in your
situation I should go to the left, where Thomas is."
Then I turned my horse, and, making my way over Missionary Ridge, struck
the Chattanooga Valley and rode to Chattanooga, twelve or fifteen miles
away. The whole road was filled with flying soldiers; here and there
were pieces of artillery, caissons, and baggage wagons. Everything was
in the greatest disorder. When I reached Chattanooga, a little before
four o'clock, I found Rosecrans there. In the helter-skelter to the rear
he had escaped by the Rossville road. He was expecting every moment that
the enemy would arrive before the town, and was doing all he could to
prepare to resist his entrance. Soon after I arrived the two corps
commanders, McCook and Crittenden, both came into Chattanooga.
The first thing I did on reaching town was to telegraph Mr. Stanton. I
had not sent him any telegrams in the morning, for I had been in the
field with Rosecrans, and part of the time at some distance from the
Widow Glenn's, where the operators were at work. The boys kept at their
post there until the Confederates swept them out of the house. When they
had to run, they went instruments and tools in hand, and as soon as out
of reach of the enemy set up shop on a stump. It was not long before
they were driven out of this. They next attempted to establish an office
on the Rossville road, but before they had succeeded in making
connections a battle was raging around them, and they had to retreat to
Granger's headquarters at Rossville.
Having been swept bodily off the battlefield, and having made my way
into Chattanooga through a panic-stricken rabble, the first telegram
which I sent to Mr. Stanton was naturally colored by what I had seen and
experienced. I remember that I began the dispatch by saying: "My report
to-day is of deplorable importance. Chickamauga is as fatal a name in
our history as Bull Run." By eight o'clock that evening, however, I
found that I had given too dark a view of the disaster.
Early the next morning things looked still better. Rosecrans received a
telegram from Thomas at Rossville, to which point he had withdrawn after
the nightfall, saying that his troops were in high spirits, and that he
had brought off all his wounded. A little while before noon General
James A. Garfield, who was chief of Rosecrans's staff, arrived in
Chattanooga and gave us the first connected account we had of the battle
on the left after the rout. Garfield said that he had become separated
from Rosecrans in the rout of our right wing and had made his way to the
left, and spent the afternoon and night with General Thomas. There he
witnessed the sequel of the battle in that part of the field. Thomas,
finding himself cut off from Rosecrans and the right, at once marshalled
the remaining divisions for independent fighting. Refusing both his
right and left, his line assumed the form of a horseshoe, posted along
the slope and crest of a partly wooded ridge. He was soon joined by
Granger from Rossville, with Steedman and most of the reserve; and with
these forces, more than two thirds of the army, he firmly maintained
the fight till after dark. Our troops were as immovable as the rocks
they stood on. Longstreet hurled against them repeatedly the dense
columns which had routed Davis and Sheridan in the early afternoon, but
every onset was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Falling first on one
and then another point of our lines, for hours the rebels vainly sought
to break them. Thomas seemed to have filled every soldier with his own
unconquerable firmness, and Granger, his hat torn by bullets, raged like
a lion wherever the combat was hottest with the electrical courage of a
Ney. When night fell, this body of heroes stood on the same ground they
had occupied in the morning, their spirit unbroken, but their numbers
greatly diminished.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] Although appointed some months before, Mr. Dana was not nominated in
the Senate as Second Assistant Secretary of War until January 20, 1864;
the nomination was confirmed on January 26.