UP THE TENNESSEE AND AT PITTSBURG LANDING.
At St. Louis.--Progress of our Arms in the Great Valley.--Cairo.--Its
Peculiarities and Attractions.--Its Commercial, Geographical, and
Sanitary Advantages.--Up the Tennessee.--Movements Preliminary to
the Great Battle.--The Rebels and their Plans.--Postponement of
the Attack.--Disadvantages of our Position.--The Beginning of the
Battle.--Results of the First Day.--Re-enforcements.--Disputes between
Officers of our two Armies.--Beauregard's Watering-Place.
On reaching St. Louis, three weeks after the battle of Pea Ridge, I
found that public attention was centered upon the Tennessee River.
Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Columbus, and Nashville had fallen, and
our armies were pushing forward toward the Gulf, by the line of the
Tennessee. General Pope was laying siege to Island Number Ten, having
already occupied New Madrid, and placed his gun-boats in front of
that point. General Grant's army was at Pittsburg Landing, and General
Buell's army was moving from Nashville toward Savannah, Tennessee.
The two armies were to be united at Pittsburg Landing, for a further
advance into the Southern States. General Beauregard was at Corinth,
where he had been joined by Price and Van Dorn from Arkansas, and by
Albert Sidney Johnston from Kentucky. There was a promise of active
hostilities in that quarter. I left St. Louis, after a few days' rest,
for the new scene of action.
Cairo lay in my route. I found it greatly changed from the Cairo of
the previous autumn. Six months before, it had been the rendezvous of
the forces watching the Lower Mississippi. The basin in which the town
stood, was a vast military encampment. Officers of all rank thronged
the hotels, and made themselves as comfortable as men could be in
Cairo. All the leading journals of the country were represented,
and the dispatches from Cairo were everywhere perused with interest,
though they were not always entirety accurate.
March and April witnessed a material change. Where there had been
twenty thousand soldiers in December, there were less than one
thousand in April. Where a fleet of gun-boats, mortar-rafts, and
transports had been tied to the levees during the winter months, the
opening spring showed but a half-dozen steamers of all classes. The
transports and the soldiers were up the Tennessee, the mortars were
bombarding Island Number Ten, and the gun-boats were on duty where
their services were most needed. The journalists had become war
correspondents in earnest, and were scattered to the points of
greatest interest.
Cairo had become a vast depot of supplies for the armies operating
on the Mississippi and its tributaries. The commander of the post was
more a forwarding agent than a military officer. The only steamers at
the levee were loading for the armies. Cairo was a map of busy, muddy
life.
The opening year found Cairo exulting in its deep and all-pervading
mud. There was mud everywhere.
Levee, sidewalks, floors, windows, tables, bed-clothing, all were
covered with it. On the levee it varied from six to thirty inches
in depth. The luckless individual whose duties obliged him to make
frequent journeys from the steamboat landing to the principal hotel,
became intimately acquainted with its character.
Sad, unfortunate, derided Cairo! Your visitors depart with unpleasant
memories. Only your inhabitants, who hold titles to corner lots, speak
loudly in your praise. When it rains, and sometimes when it does not,
your levee is unpleasant to walk upon. Your sidewalks are dangerous,
and your streets are unclean. John Phenix declared you destitute of
honesty. Dickens asserted that your physical and moral foundations
were insecurely laid. Russell did not praise you, and Trollope uttered
much to your discredit. Your musquitos are large, numerous, and
hungry. Your atmosphere does not resemble the spicy breezes that blow
soft o'er Ceylon's isle. Your energy and enterprise are commendable,
and your geographical location is excellent, but you can never become
a rival to Saratoga or Newport.
Cairo is built in a basin formed by constructing a levee to inclose
the peninsula at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
Before the erection of the levee, this peninsula was overflowed by the
rise of either river. Sometimes, in unusual floods, the waters reach
the top of the embankment, and manage to fill the basin. At the
time of my visit, the Ohio was rising rapidly. The inhabitants were
alarmed, as the water was gradually gaining upon them. After a time it
took possession of the basin, enabling people to navigate the streets
and front yards in skiffs, and exchange salutations from house-tops
or upper windows. Many were driven from their houses by the flood, and
forced to seek shelter elsewhere. In due time the waters receded and
the city remained unharmed. It is not true that a steamer was lost in
consequence of running against a chimney of the St. Charles Hotel.
Cairo has prospered during the war, and is now making an effort
to fill her streets above the high-water level, and insure a dry
foundation at all seasons of the year. This once accomplished, Cairo
will become a city of no little importance.
Proceeding up the Tennessee, I reached Pittsburg Landing three days
after the great battle which has made that locality famous.
The history of that battle has been many times written. Official
reports have given the dry details,--the movements of division,
brigade, regiment, and battery, all being fully portrayed. A few
journalists who witnessed it gave the accounts which were circulated
everywhere by the Press. The earliest of these was published by _The
Herald._ The most complete and graphic was that of Mr. Reid, of _The
Cincinnati Gazette._ Officers, soldiers, civilians, all with greater
or less experience, wrote what they had heard and seen. So diverse
have been the statements, that a general officer who was prominent in
the battle, says he sometimes doubts if he was present.
In the official accounts there have been inharmonious deductions, and
many statements of a contradictory character. Some of the participants
have criticised unfavorably the conduct of others, and a bitterness
continuing through and after the war has been the result.
In February of 1862, the Rebels commenced assembling an army at
Corinth. General Beauregard was placed in command. Early in March,
Price and Van Dorn were ordered to take their commands to Corinth,
as their defeat at Pea Ridge had placed them on the defensive against
General Curtis. General A. S. Johnston had moved thither, after the
evacuation of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and from all quarters
the Rebels were assembling a vast army. General Johnston became
commander-in-chief on his arrival.
General Halleck, who then commanded the Western Department, ordered
General Grant, after the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, to move
to Pittsburg Landing, and seize that point as a base against Corinth.
General Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, was ordered to join him from
Nashville, and with other re-enforcements we would be ready to take
the offensive.
Owing to the condition of the roads, General Buell moved very slowly,
so that General Grant was in position at Pittsburg Landing several
days before the former came up. This was the situation at the
beginning of April; Grant encamped on the bank of the Tennessee
nearest the enemy, and Buell slowly approaching the opposite bank. It
was evidently the enemy's opportunity to strike his blow before our
two armies should be united.
On the 4th of April, the Rebels prepared to move from Corinth to
attack General Grant's camp, but, on account of rain, they delayed
their advance till the morning of the 6th. At daylight of the 6th our
pickets were driven in, and were followed by the advance of the Rebel
army.
The division whose camp was nearest to Corinth, and therefore the
first to receive the onset of the enemy, was composed of the newest
troops in the army. Some of the regiments had received their arms less
than two weeks before. The outposts were not sufficiently far from
camp to allow much time for getting under arms after the first
encounter. A portion of this division was attacked before it could
form, but its commander, General Prentiss, promptly rallied his men,
and made a vigorous fight. He succeeded, for a time, in staying the
progress of the enemy, but the odds against him were too great. When
his division was surrounded and fighting was no longer of use, he
surrendered his command. At the time of surrender he had little more
than a thousand men remaining out of a division six thousand strong.
Five thousand were killed, wounded, or had fled to the rear.
General Grant had taken no precautions against attack. The
vedettes were but a few hundred yards from our front, and we had no
breast-works of any kind behind which to fight. The newest and least
reliable soldiers were at the point where the enemy would make his
first appearance. The positions of the various brigades and divisions
were taken, more with reference to securing a good camping-ground,
than for purposes of strategy. General Grant showed himself a soldier
in the management of the army after the battle began, and he has since
achieved a reputation as the greatest warrior of the age. Like the
oculist who spoiled a hatful of eyes in learning to operate for the
cataract, he improved his military knowledge by his experience at
Shiloh. Never afterward did he place an army in the enemy's country
without making careful provision against assault.
One division, under General Wallace, was at Crump's Landing, six miles
below the battle-ground, and did not take part in the action till the
following day. The other divisions were in line to meet the enemy soon
after the fighting commenced on General Prentiss's front, and made a
stubborn resistance to the Rebel advance.
The Rebels well knew they would have no child's play in that battle.
They came prepared for hot, terrible work, in which thousands of men
were to fall. The field attests our determined resistance; it attests
their daring advance. A day's fighting pushed us slowly, but steadily,
toward the Tennessee. Our last line was formed less than a half mile
from its bank. Sixty pieces of artillery composed a grand battery,
against which the enemy rushed. General Grant's officers claim that
the enemy received a final check when he attacked that line. The
Rebels claim that another hour of daylight, had we received no
re-enforcements, would have seen our utter defeat. Darkness and a
fresh division came to our aid.
General Buell was to arrive at Savannah, ten miles below Pittsburg,
and on the opposite bank of the river, on the morning of the 6th. On
the evening of the 5th, General Grant proceeded to Savannah to meet
him, and was there when the battle began on the following morning.
His boat was immediately headed for Pittsburg, and by nine o'clock
the General was on the battle-field. From that time, the engagement
received his personal attention. When he started from Savannah, some
of General Buell's forces were within two miles of the town. They were
hurried forward as rapidly as possible, and arrived at Pittsburg, some
by land and others by water, in season to take position on our left,
just as the day was closing. Others came up in the night, and formed a
part of the line on the morning of the 7th.
General Nelson's Division was the first to cross the river and form
on the left of Grant's shattered army. As he landed, Nelson rode among
the stragglers by the bank and endeavored to rally them. Hailing a
captain of infantry, he told him to get his men together and fall into
line. The captain's face displayed the utmost terror. "My regiment
is cut to pieces," was the rejoinder; "every man of my company is
killed."
"Then why ain't you killed, too, you d----d coward?" thundered Nelson.
"Gather some of these stragglers and go back into the battle."
The man obeyed the order.
[Illustration: NELSON CROSSING THE TENNESSEE RIVER.]
General Nelson reported to General Grant with his division, received
his orders, and then dashed about the field, wherever his presence was
needed. The division was only slightly engaged before night came on
and suspended the battle.
At dawn on the second day the enemy lay in the position it held When
darkness ended the fight. The gun-boats had shelled the woods during
the night, and prevented the Rebels from reaching the river on our
left. A creek and ravine prevented their reaching it on the right.
None of the Rebels stood on the bank of the Tennessee River on that
occasion, except as prisoners of war.
As they had commenced the attack on the 6th, it was our turn to begin
it on the 7th. A little past daylight we opened fire, and the fresh
troops on the left, under General Buell, were put in motion. The
Rebels had driven us on the 6th, so we drove them on the 7th. By noon
of that day we held the ground lost on the day previous.
The camps which the enemy occupied during the night were comparatively
uninjured, so confident were the Rebels that our defeat was assured.
It was the arrival of General Buell's army that saved us. The history
of that battle, as the Rebels have given it, shows that they expected
to overpower General Grant before General Buell could come up. They
would then cross the Tennessee, meet and defeat Buell, and recapture
Nashville. The defeat of these two armies would have placed the Valley
of the Ohio at the command of the Rebels. Louisville was to have been
the next point of attack.
The dispute between the officers of the Army of the Tennessee and
those of the Army of the Ohio is not likely to be terminated until
this generation has passed away. The former contend that the Rebels
were repulsed on the evening of the 6th of April, before the Army of
the Ohio took part in the battle. The latter are equally earnest in
declaring that the Army of the Tennessee would have been defeated had
not the other army arrived. Both parties sustain their arguments by
statements in proof, and by positive assertions. I believe it is the
general opinion of impartial observers, that the salvation of General
Grant's army is due to the arrival of the army of General Buell. With
the last attack on the evening of the 6th, in which our batteries
repulsed the Rebels, the enemy did not retreat. Night came as the
fighting ceased. Beauregard's army slept where it had fought, and
gave all possible indication of a readiness to renew the battle on the
following day. So near was it to the river that our gun-boats threw
shells during the night to prevent our left wing being flanked.
Beauregard is said to have sworn to water his horse in the Tennessee,
or in Hell, on that night. It is certain that the animal did not
quench his thirst in the terrestrial stream. If he drank from springs
beyond the Styx, I am not informed.