FAREWELL TO WEST VIRGINIA--BURNSIDE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO
Desire for field service--Changes in the Army of the
Potomac--Judgment of McClellan at that time--Our defective
knowledge--Changes in West Virginia--Errors in new
organization--Embarrassments resulting--Visit to General
Schenck--New orders from Washington--Sent to Ohio to administer the
draft--Burnside at head of the department--District of
Ohio--Headquarters at Cincinnati--Cordial relations of Governor Tod
with the military authorities--System of enrolment and
draft--Administration by Colonel Fry--Decay of the veteran
regiments--Bounty-jumping--Effects on political parties--Soldiers
voting--Burnside's military plans--East Tennessee--Rosecrans aiming
at Chattanooga--Burnside's business habits--His frankness--Stories
about him--His personal characteristics--Cincinnati as a border
city--Rebel sympathizers--Order No. 38--Challenged by
Vallandigham--The order not a new departure--Lincoln's
proclamation--General Wright's circular.
My purpose to get into active field service had not slept, and soon
after the establishment of a winter organization in the district, I
had applied to be ordered to other duty. My fixed conviction that no
useful military movements could be made across the mountain region
implied that the garrisons of West Virginia should be reduced to a
minimum and confined to the duty of defending the frontier of the
new State. The rest of the troops might properly be added to the
active columns in the field. McClellan had been relieved of command
whilst I was conducting active operations in the Kanawha valley, and
Burnside suffered his repulse at Fredericksburg within a few days
after I was directed to make my headquarters at Marietta and perfect
the organization of the district. I was therefore at a loss to
choose where I would serve, even if I had been given _carte blanche_
to determine my own work. Enough was known of the reasons for the
President's dissatisfaction with McClellan to make me admit that the
change of command was an apparent necessity, yet much was unknown,
and the full strength of the President's case was not revealed till
the war was over. My personal friendship for McClellan remained
warm, and I felt sure that Hooker as a commander would be a long
step downward. In private I did not hesitate to express the wish
that McClellan should still be intrusted with the command of the
Potomac army, that it should be strongly reinforced, and that by
constant pressure upon its commander his indecision of character
might be overcome. Those who were near to McClellan believed that he
was learning greater self-confidence, for the Antietam campaign
seemed a decided improvement on that of the Chickahominy. The event,
in great measure, justified this opinion, for it was not till Grant
took command a year later that any leadership superior to
McClellan's was developed. Yet it must be confessed that we did not
know half the discouragements that were weighing upon the President
and his Secretary of War, and which made the inertia of the Eastern
army demand a desperate remedy.
My personal affairs drifted in this way: the contest over the lists
of promotions, of which I knew next to nothing, prevented any action
on the request for a change of duty, and the close of the session of
Congress brought the official notice that the promotion had expired
by legal limitation. [Footnote: March 24th; received the 30th.] The
first effect was naturally depressing, and it took a little time and
some philosophy to overcome it; but the war was not ended yet, and
reflection made the path of duty appear to be in the line of
continued active service.
To form a new department for General Schenck, West Virginia was
detached from the Department of the Ohio and annexed to Maryland.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxv. pt. ii. p. 145.] This was a
mistake from a military point of view, for not only must the posts
near the mountains be supplied and reinforced from the Ohio as their
base, toward which would also be the line of retreat if retreat were
necessary, but the frequent advances of the Confederate forces,
through the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac, always separated the
West from any connection with Baltimore, and made it impossible for
an officer stationed there (as General Schenck was) to direct
affairs in the western district at the very time of greatest
necessity.
Another important fact was overlooked. The river counties of Ohio
formed part of the district, and the depots on the river were
supplied from Cincinnati. Not only was Gallipolis thus put in
another department from the posts directly dependent on that depot
as a base of supplies and the principal station for hospitals, but
the new boundary line left me, personally, and my headquarters in
the Department of the Ohio. I at once called the attention of the
War Department to these results, sending my communication in the
first instance through General Wright. He was in the same boat with
myself, for his rank had also been reduced on the 4th of March, but
he thought the intention must have been to transfer me with the
district to the Eastern Department. On this I wrote to Washington
direct, asking for definite orders. I also wrote to General Schenck,
telling him of General Wright's supposition that I was transferred
with the district, and inquiring if he had any definite decision of
the question. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 159, 160.]
About the 3d of April I was directed to report in person to General
Schenck at Baltimore, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 175.] and reached that
city on the 4th. My relations with General Schenck had been,
personally, cordial, and our friendship continued till his death,
many years after the war. Whatever plans he may have had were set
aside by orders from Washington, which met me at his headquarters,
ordering me to report at Columbus, Ohio, to assist the governor in
organizing the troops to be called out under the new enrolment and
conscription law. This was accompanied by the assurance that this
duty would be but temporary, and that my desire to be assigned to
active field duty would then be favorably considered. It is not
improbable that my report on army organization, which has been
mentioned, had something to do with this assignment; but I did not
ask permission to visit Washington, though within a couple of hours'
ride of the capital, and hastened back to my assigned post. Besides
my wish to cut my connection with West Virginia on general military
theories of its insignificance as a theatre of war, my stay there
would have been intolerable, since General Milroy, in whose judgment
I had less confidence than in that of any of my other subordinates,
was, by the curious outcome of the winter's promotions, the one of
all others who had been put over my head. I could not then foresee
the cost the country would pay for this in the next summer's
campaign in the Shenandoah, but every instinct urged me to sever a
connection which could bode no good. The reasonableness of my
objection to serving as a subordinate where I had been in command
was recognized, and the arrangement actually made was as acceptable
as anything except a division in an active army.
It greatly added to my contentment to learn that General Burnside
had been ordered to the Department of the Ohio, and would be my
immediate superior. I hastened back to Marietta, closed up the
business pending there, and went to Columbus on the 9th of April.
The arrangement between Governor Tod and General Burnside proved to
be the formation of the Military District of Ohio, including the
whole State. I was placed in command of this district, reporting
directly to the general, who himself conferred with the governor. My
own relations to my superiors were thus made strictly military,
which was a much pleasanter thing for me than direct connection with
the civil authorities would be; for this involved a danger of
cross-purposes and conflicting orders. Brigadier-General John S.
Mason, an excellent officer, was ordered to report to me as my
immediate subordinate in command of the camps and the post at
Columbus, and before the end of the month Burnside directed me to
fix my own headquarters at Cincinnati, where I could be in constant
communication with himself. All this was done with the most cordial
understanding between Burnside and the governor. Indeed, nothing
could be more perfect than the genial and reasonable tone of
Governor Tod's intercourse with the military officers stationed in
Ohio.
My duties under the Enrolment Act turned out to be very slight. The
Act (passed March 3, 1863) made, in general, each congressional
district an enrolment district under charge of a provost-marshal
with the rank of captain. A deputy provost-marshal supervised the
enrolment and draft for the State, and the whole was under the
control of the provost-marshal-general at Washington, Colonel James
B. Fry. The law provided for classification of all citizens capable
of military duty between the ages of twenty and forty-five, so as to
call out first the unmarried men and those not having families
dependent on them. The exemptions on account of physical defects
were submitted to a board of three, of which the local
provost-marshal was chairman, and one was a medical man. Substitutes
might be accepted in the place of drafted men, or a payment of three
hundred dollars would be taken in place of personal service, that
sum being thought sufficient to secure a voluntary recruit by the
government. The principal effect of this provision was to establish
a current market price for substitutes.
The general provisions of the law for the drafting were wise and
well matured, and the rules for the subordinate details were well
digested and admirably administered by Colonel Fry and his bureau.
It was a delicate and difficult task, but it was carried out with
such patience, honesty, and thoroughness that nothing better could
be done than copy it, if a future necessity for like work should
arise. There was no good ground for complaint, and in those cases
where, as in New York, hostile political leaders raised the cry of
unfairness and provoked collision between the mob and the National
authorities, the victims were proved to be the dupes of ignorance
and malice. The administration of the law was thoroughly vindicated,
and if there were to be a draft at all, it could not be more fairly
and justly enforced.
There was room for difference of opinion as to some of the
provisions of the law regarding exemption and substitution, but the
most serious question was raised by the section which applied to old
regiments and which had nothing to do with the enrolment and draft.
This section directed that when regiments had become reduced in
numbers by any cause, the officers of the regiment should be
proportionately diminished. As new regiments were still received and
credited upon the State's liability under the draft, it of course
resulted that the old regiments continued to decay. A public
sentiment had been created which looked upon the draft as a
disgrace, and the most extraordinary efforts were made to escape it.
Extra bounties for volunteering were paid by counties and towns, and
the combination of influences was so powerful that it was successful
in most localities, and very few men were actually put in the ranks
by the draft.
The offer of extra bounties to induce volunteering brought into
existence "bounty-jumping," a new crime analogous to that of
"repeating" at elections. A man would enlist and receive the bounty,
frequently several hundred dollars, but varying somewhat in
different places and periods. He would take an early opportunity to
desert, as he had intended to do from the first. Changing his name,
he would go to some new locality and enlist again, repeating the
fraud as often as he could escape detection. The urgency to get
recruits and forward them at once to the field, and the wide country
which was open to recruiting, made the risk of punishment very
small. Occasionally one was caught, and he would of course be liable
to punishment as a deserter. The final report of the
provost-marshal-general mentions the case of a criminal in the
Albany penitentiary, New York, who confessed that he had "jumped the
bounty" thirty-two times. [Footnote: Provost-Marshal-General's
Report, p. 153.]
Another evil incidental to the excessive stimulus of volunteering
was a political one, which threatened serious results. It deranged
the natural political balance of the country by sending the most
patriotic young men to the field, and thus giving an undue power to
the disaffected and to the opponents of the administration. This led
to the State laws for allowing the soldiers to vote wherever they
might be, their votes being certified and sent home. In its very
nature this was a makeshift and a very dubious expedient to cure the
mischief. It would not have been necessary if we had had at an early
day a system of recruiting that would have drawn more evenly from
different classes into the common service of the country.
The military officers of the department and district had nothing to
do with the enrolment and drafting, unless resistance to the
provost-marshals should make military support for these officers
necessary. We had hoped to have large camps of recruits to be
organized and instructed, but the numbers actually drafted in Ohio,
in 1863, were insignificant, for reasons already stated. Three or
four very small post garrisons were the only forces at my command,
and these were reduced to the minimum necessary to guard the prison
camps and the depots of recruiting and supply.
General Burnside had not come West with a purpose to content himself
with the retiracy of a department out of the theatre of actual war.
His department included eastern Kentucky, and afforded a base for
operations in the direction of East Tennessee. Mr. Lincoln had never
lost his eagerness and zeal to give assistance to the loyal
mountaineers, and had arranged with Burnside a plan of co-operation
with Rosecrans by which the former should move from Lexington, Ky.,
upon Knoxville, whilst the latter marched from Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
upon Chattanooga. This was better than the impracticable plan of
1861, which aimed at the occupation of East Tennessee before
Chattanooga had been taken, and the task was at last accomplished by
the method now used. It was by no means the best or most economical
method, which would have been to have but one strong army till
Chattanooga were firmly in our hands, and then direct a subordinate
column upon the upper Holston valley. It was utterly impossible to
keep up a line of supply for an army in East Tennessee by the wagon
roads over the mountains. The railroad through Chattanooga was
indispensable for this purpose. But Mr. Lincoln had not fully
appreciated this, and was discontented that both Buell and Rosecrans
had in turn paid little attention, as it seemed, to his desire to
make the liberation of East Tennessee the primary and immediate aim
of their campaigns. He had therefore determined to show his own
faith in Burnside, and his approval of the man, by giving him a
small but active army in the field, and to carry out his cherished
purpose by having it march directly over the Cumberland Mountains,
whilst Rosecrans was allowed to carry out the plan on which the
commanders of the Cumberland army seemed, in the President's
opinion, too stubbornly bent.
Burnside's old corps, the Ninth, was taken from the Army of the
Potomac and sent to Kentucky, and a new corps, to be called the
Twenty-third, was soon authorized, to contain the Tennessee
regiments which had been in General Morgan's command, and two
divisions made up of new regiments organized in Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois under the last call for volunteers. To these were added
several Kentucky regiments of different ages in service. General
Parke, so long Burnside's chief of staff, was to command the Ninth
Corps, and Major-General George L. Hartsuff was assigned to the
Twenty-third. In a former chapter I have spoken of Hartsuff's
abilities as a staff officer in West Virginia. [Footnote: Chap, vi.,
_ante_.] His qualities as a general officer had not been tried. He
was wounded at the beginning of the engagement at Antietam, where he
commanded a brigade in Hooker's corps. [Footnote: Chap, xv.,
_ante_.] That was his first service under his appointment as
brigadier, and he had necessarily been out of the field since that
time. My own expectation was that he would make an excellent
reputation as a corps commander, but it was not his fortune to see
much continuous field service. His health was seriously affected by
his wounds, and after a short trial of active campaigning he was
obliged to seek more quiet employment.
The establishment of my headquarters at Cincinnati threw me once
more into close personal relations with Burnside, and enabled me to
learn his character more intimately. His adjutant-general's office
was on East Fourth Street, and most of the routine work was done
there. The general had his own quarters on Ninth Street, where he
had also an office for himself and his aides-de-camp. My own office
and the official headquarters of the district were on Broadway below
Fourth, in the house now occupied by the Natural History Society.
There was thus near half a mile between us, though I was but a
little way from the adjutant-general of the department, through
whose office my regular business with the general went. Burnside,
however, loved to discuss department affairs informally, and with
the perfect freedom of unrestrained social intercourse. When he gave
his confidence he gave it without reserve, and encouraged the
fullest and freest criticism of his own plans and purposes. His
decisions would then be put in official form by the proper officers
of the staff, and would be transmitted, though I was nearly always
personally aware of what was to be ordered before the formal papers
reached me. He had very little pride of opinion, and was perfectly
candid in weighing whatever was contrary to his predilections; yet
he was not systematic in his business methods, and was quite apt to
decide first and discuss afterward. He never found fault with a
subordinate for assuming responsibility or acting without orders,
provided he was assured of his earnest good purpose in doing so. In
such cases he would assume the responsibility for what was done as
cheerfully as if he had given the order. In like manner he was
careless of forms himself, in doing whatever seemed necessary or
proper, and might pass by intermediate officers to reach immediately
the persons who were to act or the things to be done. There was no
intentional slight to any one in this: it was only a characteristic
carelessness of routine. Martinets would be exasperated by it, and
would be pretty sure to quarrel with him. No doubt it was a bad
business method, and had its mischiefs and inconveniences. A story
used to go the rounds a little later that soldiers belonging to the
little army in East Tennessee were sometimes arrested at their homes
and sent back as deserters, when they would produce a furlough
written by Burnside on a leaf of his pocket memorandum-book, which,
as they said, had been given by him after hearing a pitiful story
which moved his sympathies. Such inventions were a kind of popular
recognition of his well-known neglect of forms, as well as of his
kind heart. There was an older story about him, to the effect that,
when a lieutenant in the army, he had been made post-quartermaster
at some little frontier garrison, and that his accounts and returns
got into such confusion that after several pretty sharp reminders
the quartermaster-general notified him, as a final terror, that he
would send a special officer and subject him and his papers to a
severe scrutiny. As the story ran, Burnside, in transparent honesty,
wrote a cordial letter of thanks in reply, saying it was just what
he desired, as he had been trying hard to make his accounts up, but
had to confess he could do nothing with them, but was sure such an
expert would straighten them. In my own service under him I often
found occasion to supply the formal links in the official chain, so
that business would move on according to "regulations;" but any
trouble that was made in this way was much more than compensated by
the generous trust with which he allowed his name and authority to
be used when prompt action would serve the greater ends in view.
My habit was to go to his private quarters on Ninth Street, when the
regular business of the day was over, and there get the military
news and confer with him on pending or prospective business
affecting my own district. His attractive personality made him the
centre of a good deal of society, and business would drop into the
background till late in the evening, when his guests voluntarily
departed. Then, perhaps after midnight, he would take up the arrears
of work and dictate letters, orders, and dispatches, turning night
into day. It not unfrequently happened that after making my usual
official call in the afternoon, I had gone to my quarters and to bed
at my usual hour, when I would be roused by an orderly from the
general begging that I would come up and consult with him on some
matter of neglected business. He was always bright and clear in
those late hours, and when he buckled to work, rapidly disposed of
it.
He did not indulge much in retrospect, and rarely referred to his
misfortunes in the Army of the Potomac. On one or two occasions he
discussed his Fredericksburg campaign with me. The delay in sending
pontoons from Washington to Falmouth, which gave Lee time to
concentrate at Fredericksburg, he reasonably argued, was the fault
of the military authorities at Washington; but I could easily see
that if his supervision of business had been more rigidly
systematic, he would have made sure that he was not to be
disappointed in his means of crossing the Rappahannock promptly. As
to the battle itself he steadily insisted that the advance of
Meade's division proved that if all the left wing had acted with
equal vigor and promptness, Marye's heights would have been turned
and carried. It is due to him to repeat that in such discussions his
judgment of men and their motives was always kind and charitable. I
never heard him say anything bitter, even of those whom I knew he
distrusted.
At the time I am speaking of, Cincinnati was in a curious political
and social condition. The advance through Kentucky of Bragg and
Kirby Smith in the preceding year had made it a centre for "rebel
sympathizers." The fact that a Confederate army had approached the
hills that bordered the river had revived the hopes and the
confidence of many who, while wishing success to the Southern cause,
had done so in a vague and distant way. Now it seemed nearer to
them, and the stimulus to personal activity was greater. There was
always, in the city, a considerable and influential body of business
men who were of Southern families; and besides this, the trade
connections with the South, and the personal alliances by marriage,
made a ground of sympathy which had noticeable effects. There were
two camps in the community, pretty distinctly defined, as there were
in Kentucky. The loyal were ardently and intensely so. The disloyal
were bitter and not always restrained by common prudence. A good
many Southern women, refugees from the theatre of active war, were
very open in their defiance of the government, and in their efforts
to aid the Southern armies by being the bearers of intelligence. The
"contraband mail" was notoriously a large and active one.
Burnside had been impressed with this condition of things from the
day he assumed command. His predecessor had struggled with it
without satisfactory results. It was, doubtless, impossible to do
more than diminish and restrain the evil, which was the most
annoying of the smaller troubles attending the anomalous
half-military and half-civil government of the department. Within
three weeks from his arrival in Cincinnati, Burnside was so
convinced of the widespread and multiform activity of the disloyal
element that he tried to subdue it by the publication of his famous
General Order No. 38. The reading of the order gives a fair idea of
the hostile influences he found at work, for of every class named by
him there were numerous examples.
[Footnote: The text of the order is as follows:
"General Orders.
No. 38.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
CINCINNATI, OHIO, April 13, 1863.
The commanding general publishes, for the information of all
concerned, that hereafter all persons found within our lines who
commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, will be
tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death.
This order includes the following classes of persons: Carriers of
secret mails; writers of letters sent by secret mails; secret
recruiting officers within the lines; persons who have entered into
an agreement to pass our lines for the purpose of joining the enemy;
persons found concealed within our lines, belonging to the service
of the enemy; and, in fact, all persons found improperly within our
lines who could give private information to the enemy; and all
persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe,
or in any way aid the enemies of our country. The habit of declaring
sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department.
Persons committing such offences will be at once arrested with a
view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into
the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that
treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this
department. All officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the
execution of this order,
By command of Major-General Burnside,
LEWIS RICHMOND,
Assistant Adjutant General."]
It was no doubt true that the Confederate authorities had constant
correspondence with people in the Northern States, and that
systematic means were used to pass information and contraband
merchandise through the lines. Quinine among drugs, and percussion
caps among ordnance stores were the things they most coveted, and
dealers in these carried on their trade under pretence of being
spies for each side in turn. But besides these who were merely
mercenary, there were men and women who were honestly fanatical in
their devotion to the Confederate cause. The women were especially
troublesome, for they often seemed to court martyrdom. They
practised on our forbearance to the last degree; for they knew our
extreme unwillingness to deal harshly with any of their sex.
Personally, I rated the value of spies and informers very low, and
my experience had made me much more prone to contempt than to fear
of them. But examples had to be made occasionally; a few men were
punished, a few women who belonged in the South were sent through
the lines, and we reduced to its lowest practical terms an evil and
nuisance which we could not wholly cure. The best remedy for these
plots and disturbances at the rear always was to keep the enemy busy
by a vigorous aggressive at the front. We kept, however, a species
of provost court pretty actively at work, and one or two officers
were assigned to judge-advocate's duty, who ran these courts under a
careful supervision to make sure that they should not fall into
indiscretions.
So long as the hand of military power was laid only on private
persons who were engaged in overt acts of giving aid and comfort to
the rebellion in the ways specified in Order No. 38, there was
little criticism. But the time came when General Burnside seemed to
be challenged by a public character of no little prominence to
enforce his order against him. The Vallandigham case became the
sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance.
The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion
that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No.
38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so. In
the preceding year, and about the time of his Emancipation
Proclamation, the President had also proclaimed against treasonable
practices in very emphatic terms. He had declared that "all rebels
and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States,
and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting
militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid
and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States,
shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment
by courts-martial or military commission." [Footnote: Messages and
Papers of the Presidents, vol. vi. p. 98. See also Order No. 42 of
General Burbridge, commanding District of Kentucky. Official
Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 27.]
Burnside's order was in strict accordance with this authority, and
he had no ultimate responsibility for the policy thus proclaimed. He
was simply reiterating and carrying out in his department the
declared purpose of the administration. Even in the matter of
newspaper publications, his predecessor, General Wright, had felt
obliged, upon Bragg and Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky, to put a
stop to treasonable editorials and to the publication of military
information likely to benefit the enemy. He issued a circular on
September 13, 1862, notifying the publishers of the Cincinnati
papers that the repetition of such offence would be immediately
followed by the suppression of the paper and the arrest and
confinement of the proprietors and writers. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 514. See a characteristic letter by
Sherman on this subject, _Id_., vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 765: "Now I am
again in authority over you, and you must heed my advice. Freedom of
speech and freedom of the press, precious relics of former history,
must not be construed too largely. You must print nothing that
prejudices government or excites envy, hatred, and malice in a
community. Persons in office or out of office must not be flattered
or abused. Don't publish an account of any skirmish, battle, or
movement of an army, unless the name of the writer is given in full
and printed. I wish you success; but my first duty is to maintain
'order and harmony.'" (To editors of "Memphis Bulletin.")] It is
necessary to keep these facts in mind if we would judge fairly of
Burnside's responsibility when it was his fortune to apply the rule
to a case attracting great public attention.