THE LIBERATION OF EAST TENNESSEE
News of Grant's victory at Vicksburg--A thrilling scene at the
opera--Burnside's Ninth Corps to return--Stanton urges Rosecrans to
advance--The Tullahoma manoeuvres--Testy correspondence--Its real
meaning--Urgency with Burnside--Ignorance concerning his
situation--His disappointment as to Ninth Corps--Rapid concentration
of other troops--Burnside's march into East Tennessee--Occupation of
Knoxville--Invests Cumberland Gap--The garrison surrenders--Good
news from Rosecrans--Distances between armies--Divergent lines--No
railway communication--Burnside concentrates toward the Virginia
line--Joy of the people--Their intense loyalty--Their faith in the
future.
During the Morgan Raid and whilst we in Ohio were absorbed in the
excitement of it, events were moving elsewhere. Lee had advanced
from Virginia through Maryland into Pennsylvania and had been
defeated at Gettysburg by the National army under Meade. Grant had
brought the siege of Vicksburg to a glorious conclusion and had
received the surrender of Pemberton with his army of 30,000
Confederates. These victories, coming together as they did and on
the 4th of July, made the national anniversary seem more than ever a
day of rejoicing and of hope to the whole people. We did not get the
news of Grant's victory quite so soon as that of Meade's, but it
came to us at Cincinnati in a way to excite peculiar enthusiasm.
An excellent operatic company was giving a series of performances in
the city, and all Cincinnati was at Pike's Opera House listening to
_I Puritani_ on the evening of the 7th of July. General Burnside and
his wife had one of the proscenium boxes, and my wife and I were
their guests. The second act had just closed with the famous trumpet
song, in which Susini, the great basso of the day, had created a
_furore_. A messenger entered the box where the general was
surrounded by a brilliant company, and gave him a dispatch which
announced the surrender of Vicksburg and Pemberton's army. Burnside,
overjoyed, announced the great news to us who were near him, and
then stepped to the front of the box to make the whole audience
sharers in the pleasure. As soon as he was seen with the paper in
his hand, the house was hushed, and his voice rang through it as he
proclaimed the great victory and declared it a long stride toward
the restoration of the Union. The people went almost wild with
excitement, the men shouted hurrahs, the ladies waved their
handkerchiefs and clapped their hands, all rising to their feet. The
cheering was long as well as loud, and before it subsided the
excitement reached behind the stage. The curtain rose again, and
Susini came forward with a national flag in each hand, waving them
enthusiastically whilst his magnificent voice resounded in a
repetition of the song he had just sung, and which seemed as
appropriate as if it were inspired for the occasion,--
"Suoni la tromba, e intrepido
Io pugnerò da forte,
Bello è affrontar la morte,
Gridando libertà!"
The rejoicing and the cheers were repeated to the echo, and when at
last they subsided, the rest of the opera was only half listened to,
suppressed excitement filling every heart and the thought of the
great results to flow from the victories absorbing every mind.
Burnside reckoned with entire certainty on the immediate return of
the Ninth Corps, and planned to resume his expedition into East
Tennessee as soon as his old troops should reach him again. The
Morgan raid was just beginning, and no one anticipated its final
scope. In the dispatch from the Secretary of War which announced
Grant's great victory, Burnside was also told that the corps would
immediately return to him. In answering it on the 8th July, he said,
"I thought I was very happy at the success of General Grant and
General Meade, but I am still happier to hear of the speedy return
of the Ninth Corps." He informed Rosecrans of it on the same day,
adding, "I hope soon to be at work again." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.522, 524.]
The Washington authorities very naturally and very properly wished
that the tide of success should be kept moving, and Secretary
Stanton had exhorted Rosecrans to further activity by saying, on the
7th, "You and your noble army now have the chance to give the
finishing blow to the rebellion. [Footnote: _Id_., p.518.] Will you
neglect the chance?" Rosecrans replied: "You do not appear to
observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from
middle Tennessee, of which my dispatches advised you. I beg in
behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so
great an event because it is not written in letters of blood." He,
however, did not intimate any purpose of advancing. No doubt the
manoeuvering of Bragg out of his fortified positions at Shelbyville
and Tullahoma had been well done; but its chief value was that it
forced Bragg to meet the Army of the Cumberland in the open field if
the advantage should be promptly followed up. If he were allowed to
fortify another position, nothing would be gained but the ground the
army stood on. Had Rosecrans given any intimation of an early date
at which he could rebuild the Elk River bridge and resume active
operations, it would probably have relieved the strain so noticeable
in the correspondence between him and the War Department. He did
nothing of the kind, and the necessity of removing him from the
command was a matter of every-day discussion at Washington, as is
evident from the confidential letters Halleck sent to him. The
correspondence between the General-in-Chief and his subordinate is a
curious one. A number of the most urgent dispatches representing the
dissatisfaction of the President and the Secretary were accompanied
by private and confidential letters in which Halleck explains the
situation and strongly asserts his friendship for Rosecrans and the
error of the latter in assuming that personal hostility to himself
was at bottom of the reprimands sent him on account of his delays.
It was with good intentions that Halleck wrote thus, but the wisdom
of it is very questionable. It gave Rosecrans ground to assume that
the official dispatches were only the formal expression of the ideas
of the President and Secretary whilst the General-in-Chief did not
join in the condemnation of his dilatory mode of conducting the
campaign. To say to Rosecrans, as Halleck did on July 24th, "Whether
well founded or without any foundation, the dissatisfaction really
exists, and I deem it my duty as a friend to represent it to you
truly and fairly," [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii.
pp. 552, 555, 601.] is to neglect his duty as commander of the whole
army to express his own judgment and to give orders which would have
the weight of his military position and presumed knowledge in
military matters. When, therefore, a few days later he gave
peremptory orders to begin an active advance, these orders were
interpreted in the light of the preceding correspondence, and lost
their force and vigor. They were met by querulous and insubordinate
inquiries whether they were intended to take away all discretion as
to details from the commander of an army in the field. [Footnote:
Aug. 4, _Id_., p. 592.] It has been argued that Rosecrans's weakness
of character consisted in a disposition to quarrel with those in
power over him, and that a spirit of contradiction thwarted the good
military conduct which his natural energy might have produced. I
cannot help reading his controversial correspondence in the light of
my personal observation of the man, and my conviction is that his
quarrelsome mode of dealing with the War Department was the result
of a real weakness of will and purpose which did not take naturally
to an aggressive campaign that involved great responsibilities and
risks. Being really indecisive in fixing his plan of campaign and
acting upon it, his infirmity of will was covered by a belligerence
in his correspondence. A really enterprising commander in the field
would have begun an active campaign in the spring before any
dissatisfaction was exhibited at Washington; and if he had a decided
purpose to advance at any reasonably early period, there was nothing
in the urgency shown by his superiors to make him abandon his
purpose. He might have made testy comments, but he would have acted.
Halleck's correspondence with Burnside in July is hard to
understand, unless we assume that it was so perfunctory that he did
not remember at one time what he said or did earlier. In a dispatch
to the General-in-Chief dated the 11th, Rosecrans had said, "It is
important to know if it will be practicable for Burnside to come in
on our left flank and hold the line of the Cumberland; if not, a
line in advance of it and east of us." [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 529.] It was already understood between
Rosecrans and Burnside that the latter would do this and more as
soon as he should have the Ninth Corps with him; and the dispatch
must be regarded as a variation on the form of excuses for inaction,
by suggesting that he was delayed by the lack of an understanding as
to co-operation by the Army of the Ohio. On receipt of Rosecrans's
dispatch, Halleck answered it on the 13th, saying, "General Burnside
has been frequently urged to move forward and cover your left by
entering East Tennessee. I do not know what he is doing. He seems
tied fast to Cincinnati." On the same day he telegraphed Burnside,
"I must again urge upon you the importance of moving forward into
East Tennessee, to cover Rosecrans's left." [Footnote: _Id_., p.
531.] It is possible that Burnside's telegraphic correspondence with
the Secretary of War was not known to Halleck, but it is hard to
believe that the latter was ignorant of the proportions the Morgan
raid had taken after the enemy had crossed the Ohio River. The 13th
of July was the day that Morgan marched from Indiana into Ohio and
came within thirteen miles of Cincinnati. Burnside was organizing
all the militia of southern Ohio, and was concentrating two
divisions of the Twenty-third Corps to catch the raiders. One of
these was on a fleet of steamboats which reached Cincinnati that
day, and the other, under Hobson, was in close pursuit of the enemy.
Where should Burnside have been, if not at Cincinnati? If the raid
had been left to the "militia and home guards," as Halleck afterward
said all petty raids should be, this, which was not a petty raid,
would pretty certainly have had results which would have produced
more discomfort at Washington than the idea that Burnside was "tied
fast to Cincinnati." Burnside was exactly where he ought to be, and
doing admirable work which resulted in the capture of the division
of 3000 rebel cavalry with its officers from the general in command
downward. That the General-in-Chief was entirely ignorant of what
was going on, when every intelligent citizen of the country was
excited over it and every newspaper was full of it, reflects far
more severely upon him than upon Burnside.
But this was by no means the whole. He forgot that when he stopped
Burnside's movement on 3d June to send the Ninth Corps to Grant, it
was with the distinct understanding that it prevented its resumption
till the corps should return. He had himself said that this should
be as early as possible, and meanwhile directed Burnside to
concentrate his remaining forces as much as he could. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.384.] Burnside had been told
on the 8th of July, without inquiry from him, that the corps was
coming back to him, and had immediately begun his preparation to
resume an active campaign as soon as it should reach him. Not
hearing of its being on the way, on the 18th he asked Halleck if
orders for its return had been given. To this dispatch no answer was
given, and it was probably pigeonholed and forgotten. Burnside
continued his campaign against Morgan, and on the 24th, when the
last combinations near Steubenville were closing the career of the
raider, Halleck again telegraphs that there must be no further delay
in the movement into East Tennessee, [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p.553.] and orders an immediate report of the
position and number of Burnside's troops organized for that purpose!
He was still ignorant, apparently, that there had been any occasion
to withdraw the troops in Kentucky from the positions near the
Cumberland River.
Burnside answered temperately, reciting the facts and reminding him
of the actual state of orders and correspondence, adding only, "I
should be glad to be more definitely instructed, if you think the
work can be better done." Morgan's surrender was on the 26th, and
Burnside immediately applied himself with earnest zeal to get his
forces back into Kentucky. Judah's division at Buffington was three
hundred miles from Cincinnati and five hundred from the place it had
left to begin the chase. Shackelford's mounted force was two hundred
miles further up the Ohio. This last was, as has been recited, made
up of detachments from all the divisions of the Twenty-third Corps,
and its four weeks of constant hard riding had used up men and
horses. These all had to be got back to the southern part of central
Kentucky and refitted, returned to their proper divisions, and
prepared for a new campaign. The General-in-Chief does not seem to
have had the slightest knowledge of these circumstances or
conditions.
On the 28th another Confederate raid developed itself in southern
Kentucky, under General Scott. It seemed to be intended as a
diversion to aid Morgan to escape from Ohio, but failed to
accomplish anything. Scott advanced rapidly from the south with his
brigade, crossing the Cumberland at Williamsburg and moving through
London upon Richmond. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt.
ii. p. 568.] Colonel Sanders endeavored to stop the enemy at
Richmond with about 500 men hastily collected, but was driven back.
He was ordered to Lexington and put in command of all the mounted
men which could be got together there, 2400 in all, and advanced
against Scott, who now retreated by Lancaster, Stanford, and
Somerset. At Lancaster the enemy was routed in a charge and 200 of
them captured. Following them up with vigor, their train was
destroyed and about 500 more prisoners were taken. At the Cumberland
River Sanders halted, having been without rations for four days. The
remnant of Scott's force had succeeded in crossing the river after
abandoning the train. Scott claimed to have taken and paroled about
200 prisoners in the first part of his raid, but such irregular
paroles of captured men who could not be carried off were
unauthorized and void. The actual casualties in Sanders's command
were trifling. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. pp. 828-843; pt. ii. pp.
568, 589.]
The effect of this last raid was still further to wear out
Burnside's mounted troops, but he pressed forward to the front all
his infantry and organized a column for advance. In less than a
week, on August 4, he was able to announce to the War Department
that he had 11,000 men concentrated at Lebanon, Stanford, and
Glasgow, with outposts on the Cumberland River, and that he could
possibly increase this to 12,000 by reducing some posts in guard of
the railway. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 591.] Upon this, Halleck gave to
Rosecrans peremptory orders for the immediate advance of the Army of
the Cumberland, directing him also to report daily the movement of
each corps till he should cross the Tennessee. On the next day
Burnside was ordered in like manner to advance with a column of
12,000 men upon Knoxville, on reaching which place he was to
endeavor to connect with the forces under Rosecrans. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.592-593.] The dispatch
closed with what was called a repetition of a former order from the
Secretary of War for Burnside to leave Cincinnati and take command
of his moving column in person. Burnside had never dreamed of doing
anything else, as everybody near him knew, though he had in fact
been quite ill during the latter part of July. The mention of a
former order was another sheer blunder on General Halleck's part,
and Burnside indignantly protested against the imputation contained
in it. [Footnote: _Id_., pp.593, 594.] The truth seems to be that
Halleck was in such a condition of irritation over his
correspondence with Rosecrans, that nothing pertaining to the
Department of the Ohio was accurately placed in his mind or
accurately stated when he had occasion to refer to it. In cutting
the knot by peremptory orders to both armies to move, he was right,
and was justified in insisting that the little column of 12,000
under Burnside should start although it could only be got together
in greatest haste and with the lack of equipment occasioned by the
"wear and tear" of the operations against Morgan. If, in insisting
on this, he had recognized the facts and given Burnside and his
troops credit for the capture of the rebel raiders and the
concentration, in a week, of forces scattered over a distance of
nearly a thousand miles, no one would have had a right to criticise
him. The exigency fairly justified it. But to treat Burnside as if
he had been only enjoying himself in Cincinnati, and his troops all
quietly in camp along the Cumberland River through the whole
summer,--to ignore the absence of the Ninth Corps and his own
suspension of a movement already begun when he took it away,--to
assume in almost every particular a basis of fact absolutely
contrary to the reality and to telegraph censures for what had been
done, under his own orders or strictly in harmony with them,--all
this was doing a right thing in as absurdly wrong a way as was
possible. A gleam of humor and the light of common sense is thrown
over one incident, when Mr. Lincoln, seeing that Burnside had full
right from the dispatches to suppose the Ninth Corps was to come at
once to him from Vicksburg and that no one had given him any
explanation, himself telegraphed that the information had been based
on a statement from General Grant, who had not informed them why the
troops had not been sent. "General Grant," the President quaintly
added, "is a copious worker and fighter, but a very meagre writer or
telegrapher. No doubt he changed his purpose for some sufficient
reason, but has forgotten to notify us of it." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 561.] The reference to copious work
as contrasted with the _copia verborum_ gains added point from a
dispatch of Halleck to Rosecrans, quite early in the season, in
which the latter is told that the cost of his telegraph dispatches
is "as much or perhaps more than that of all the other generals in
the field." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 255.] The form of the reference to
Grant enables us also to read between the lines the progress he was
making in reputation and in the President's confidence. He kept
"pegging away," and was putting brains as well as energy into his
work. The records show also that Burnside took the hint, whether
intended or not, and in this campaign did not err on the side of
copiousness in dispatches to Washington.
To avoid the delay which would be caused by the distribution of his
mounted force to the divisions they had originally been attached to,
Burnside organized these into a division under Brigadier-General S.
P. Carter, and an independent brigade under Colonel F. Wolford. He
also reorganized the infantry divisions of the Twenty-third Corps.
The first division, under Brigadier-General J. T. Boyle, was to
remain in Kentucky and protect the lines of communication. The
second was put under command of Brigadier-General M. D. Manson, and
the third under Brigadier-General M. S. Hascall. Each marching
division was organized into two brigades with a battery of artillery
attached to each brigade. Three batteries of artillery were in
reserve. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp.
553-555.]
On the 11th of August General Burnside went to Hickman's Bridge, and
the forward movement was begun. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 16.
Hickman's Bridge, as has already been mentioned, was at the terminus
of the Central Kentucky Railroad. There, on the bank of the Kentucky
River, Burnside made a fortified depot from which his wagon trains
should start as a base for the supply system of his army in East
Tennessee. It was called Camp Nelson in honor of the dead Kentucky
general.] At this date the Confederate forces in East Tennessee
under General Buckner numbered 14,733 "present for duty," with an
"aggregate present" of 2000 or 3000 more. Conscious that the column
of 12,000 which Halleck had directed him to start with was less than
the hostile forces in the Holston valley, Burnside reduced to the
utmost the garrisons and posts left behind him. Fortunately the
advanced division of the Ninth Corps returning from Vicksburg
reached Cincinnati on the 12th, and although the troops were wholly
unfit for active service by reason of malarial diseases contracted
on the "Yazoo," they could relieve some of the Kentucky garrisons,
and Burnside was thus enabled to increase his moving column to about
15,000 men. The earlier stages of the advance were slow, as the
columns were brought into position to take up their separate lines
of march and organize their supply trains for the road. On the 20th
Hanson's division was at Columbia, Hascall's was at Stanford,
Carter's cavalry division was at Crab Orchard, and independent
brigades of cavalry under Colonels Wolford and Graham were at
Somerset and Glasgow. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 548.] On that day
orders were issued for the continuous march. General Julius White
relieved Manson in command of the second division, and the two
infantry divisions were to move on Montgomery, Tenn., Hascall's by
way of Somerset, Chitwoods, and Huntsville, and White's by way of
Creelsboro, Albany, and Jamestown. Carter's cavalry, which covered
the extreme left flank, marched through Mt. Vernon and London to
Williamsburg, where it forded the Cumberland, thence over the
Jellico Mountains to Chitwoods where it became the advance of
Hascall's column to Montgomery. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxx. pt. ii. p. 548.] At this point the columns were united and all
moved together through Emory Gap upon Kingston. Burnside accompanied
the cavalry in person, and sent two detachments, one to go by way of
Big Creek Gap to make a demonstration on Knoxville, and the other
through Winter's Gap for the same purpose of misleading the enemy as
to his line of principal movement.
[Illustration: Map of East Tennessee.]
Nothing could be more systematic and vigorous than the march of
Burnside's columns. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 569.] They made from
fifteen to twenty or twenty-five miles a day with the regularity of
clock-work, though the route in many parts of it was most difficult.
There were mountains to climb and narrow gorges to thread. Streams
were to be forded, roads were to be repaired and in places to be
made anew. On the 1st of September Burnside occupied Kingston,
having passed through Emory Gap into East Tennessee and communicated
with Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army. [Footnote: Itinerary,
Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. pp. 576-578.] Here he learned
that upon the development of the joint plan of campaign of the
National commanders, Bragg had withdrawn Buckner's forces south of
the Tennessee at Loudon, there making them the right flank of his
army about Chattanooga. There was, however, one exception in
Buckner's order to withdraw. Brigadier-General John W. Frazer was
left at Cumberland Gap with 2500 men, and though Buckner had on
August 30th ordered him to destroy his material and retreat into
Virginia, joining the command of Major-General Samuel Jones, this
order was withdrawn on Frazer's representation of his ability to
hold the place and that he had rations for forty days. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 608.] There being therefore
no troops in East Tennessee to oppose its occupation, Burnside's
advance-guard entered Knoxville on the 3d of September. Part of the
Twenty-third Corps had been sent toward London on the 2d, and upon
their approach the enemy burned the great railroad bridge at that
place. A light-draught steamboat was building at Kingston, and this
was captured and preserved. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 333.] It
played a useful part subsequently in the transportation of supplies
when the wagon-trains were broken down and the troops were reduced
nearly to starvation. No sooner was Burnside in Knoxville than he
put portions of his army in motion for Cumberland Gap, sixty miles
northward. He had already put Colonel John F. DeCourcey (Sixteenth
Ohio Infantry) in command of new troops arriving in Kentucky, and
ordered him to advance against the fortifications of the gap on the
north side. General Shackelford was sent with his cavalry from
Knoxville, but when Burnside learned that DeCourcey and he were not
strong enough to take the place, he left Knoxville in person with
Colonel Samuel Gilbert's brigade of infantry and made the sixty-mile
march in fifty-two hours. Frazer had refused to surrender on the
summons of the subordinates; but when Burnside arrived and made the
demand in person, he despaired of holding out and on the 9th of
September surrendered the garrison. A considerable number got away
by scattering after the flag was hauled down, but 2,205 men laid
down their arms, and twelve pieces of cannon were also among the
spoils. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 548, 599, 604, 611.]
DeCourcey's troops were left to garrison the fortifications, and the
rest were sent to occupy the upper valley of the Holston toward the
Virginia line.
On the 10th, and while still at Cumberland Gap, Burnside received a
dispatch from General Crittenden with the news that he was in
possession of Chattanooga, that Bragg had retreated toward Rome,
Ga., and that Rosecrans hoped with his centre and right to intercept
the enemy at Rome, which was sixty miles south of Chattanooga.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] Everything
was therefore most promising on the south, and Burnside had only to
provide for driving back the Confederates under Jones, at the
Virginia line, a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Knoxville. It
becomes important here to estimate these distances rightly.
Knoxville is a hundred and eleven miles distant from Chattanooga by
the railroad, and more by the country roads. From Bristol on the
northeast to Chattanooga on the southwest is two hundred and
forty-two miles, which measures the length of that part of the
Holston and Tennessee valley known as East Tennessee. If Rosecrans
were at Rome, as General Crittenden's dispatch indicated, he was
more than a hundred and seventy miles distant from Knoxville, and
nearly three hundred miles from the region about Greeneville and the
Watauga River, whose crossing would be the natural frontier of the
upper valley, if Burnside should not be able to extend his
occupation quite to the Virginia line. It will be seen therefore
that the progress of the campaign had necessarily made Rosecrans's
and Burnside's lines of operation widely divergent, and they were
far beyond supporting distance of each other, since there was no
railway communication between them, and could not be for a long
time. Burnside captured some locomotives and cars at Knoxville; but
bridges had been destroyed to such an extent that these were of
little use to him, for the road could be operated but a short
distance in either direction and the amount of rolling stock was, at
most, very little. Complete success for Rosecrans, with the
reopening and repair of the whole line from Nashville through
Chattanooga, including the rebuilding of the great bridge at London,
were the essential conditions of further co-operation between the
two armies, and of the permanent existence of Burnside's in East
Tennessee.
Efforts had been made to extend the lines of telegraph as Burnside
advanced, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. ii. p. 574; pt.
iii. p. 717.] but it took some time to do this, and even when the
wires were up there occurred a difficulty in making the electric
circuit, so that through all the critical part of the Chickamauga
campaign, Burnside had to communicate by means of so long a line of
couriers that three days was the actual time of transmittal of
dispatches between himself and Washington. [Footnote: _Id_., pt.
iii. p. 718.] The news from Rosecrans on the 10th was so reassuring
that Burnside's plain duty was to apply himself to clearing the
upper valley of the enemy, and then to further the great object of
his expedition by giving the loyal inhabitants the means of
self-government, and encouraging them to organize and arm themselves
with the weapons which his wagon trains were already bringing from
Kentucky. He had also to provide for his supplies, and must use the
good weather of the early autumn to the utmost, for the long roads
over the mountains would be practically impassable in winter. The
route from Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap was the shortest, and,
on the whole, the easiest, and a great system of transportation by
trains under escort was put in operation. The camp at Cumberland Gap
could give this protection through the mountain district, and made a
convenient stopping-place in the weary way when teams broke down or
had to be replaced. Other roads were also used whilst they seemed to
be safe, and the energies and resources of the quartermaster's
department were strained to the utmost to bring forward arms,
ammunition for cannon and muskets, food and medical supplies, and
all the munitions of war. The roads were covered with herds of
beeves and swine, and feeding stations for these were established
and the forage had to be drawn to them, for nothing could be got,
along the greater part of the route. Burnside hoped that the railway
by Chattanooga would be put in repair and be open before winter
should shut in, but he very prudently acted on the principle of
making the most of his present means. It was well he did so, for
otherwise his little army would have been starved before the winter
was half over.
From Cumberland Gap the courier line was sixty miles shorter than
from Knoxville, and the first dispatches of Burnside announcing his
capture of Frazer's troops reached Washington more quickly than
later ones. At noon of the 11th Mr. Lincoln answered it with hearty
congratulations and thanks. This was quickly followed by a
congratulatory message from Halleck accompanied by formal orders.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 555.] These last
only recapitulated the points in Burnside's further operations and
administration which were the simplest deductions from the
situation. Burnside was to hold the country eastward to the gaps of
the North Carolina mountains (the Great Smokies) and the valley of
the Holston up to the Virginia line. Halleck used the phrase "the
line of the Holston," which would be absurd, and was probably only a
slip of the pen. The exact strength of General Jones, the
Confederate commander in southwestern Virginia, was not known, but,
to preserve his preponderance, Burnside could not prudently send
less than a division of infantry and a couple of brigades of cavalry
to the vicinity of Rogersville or Greeneville and the railroad
crossing of the Watauga. This would be just about half his available
force. The other division was at first divided, one of the two
brigades being centrally placed at Knoxville, and the other at
Sevierville, thirty miles up the French Broad River, where it
covered the principal pass over the Smokies to Asheville, N. C. The
rest of his cavalry was at London and Kingston, where it covered the
north side of the Tennessee River and communicated with Rosecrans's
outposts above Chattanooga.
Halleck further informed Burnside that the Secretary of War directed
him to raise all the volunteers he could in East Tennessee and to
select officers for them. If he had not already enough arms and
equipments he could order them by telegraph. As to Rosecrans, the
General-in-Chief stated that he would occupy Dalton or some other
point south of Chattanooga, closing the enemy's line from Atlanta,
and when this was done, the question would be settled whether the
whole would move eastward into Virginia or southward into Georgia
and Alabama. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
555.] Burnside's present work being thus cut out for him, he set
himself about it with the cordial earnestness which marked his
character. He had suggested the propriety of his retiring as soon as
the surrender of Frazer had made his occupation of East Tennessee an
assured success, but he had not formally asked to be relieved.
[Footnote: _Id_., p. 523.] His reasons for doing so dated back to
the Fredericksburg campaign, in part; for he had believed that his
alternative then presented to the government, that he should be
allowed to dismiss insubordinate generals or should himself resign,
ought to have been accepted. His case had some resemblance to Pope's
when the administration approved his conduct and his courage but
retired him and restored McClellan to command, in deference to the
supposed sentiment of the Army of the Potomac. Halleck's persistent
ignoring of the officially recorded causes of the delay in this
campaign, and his assumption that the Morgan raid was not an
incident of any importance in Burnside's responsibilities, had not
tended to diminish the latter's sense of discomfort in dealing with
army head-quarters. A debilitating illness gave some added force to
his other reasons, which, however, we who knew him well understood
to be the decisive ones with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxx. pt. iii. p. 523; vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 757.] Mr. Lincoln's
sincere friendship and confidence he never doubted, but his nature
could not fully appreciate the President's policy of bending to
existing circumstances when current opinion was contrary to his own,
so that he might save his strength for more critical action at
another time. Burnside had now the _éclat_ of success in a campaign
which was very near the heart of the President and full of interest
for the Northern people. This, he felt, was a time when he could
retire with honor. Mr. Lincoln postponed action in the kindest and
most complimentary words, [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxx. pt. iii. p.
554. "Yours received. A thousand thanks for the late successes you
have given us. We cannot allow you to resign until things shall be a
little more settled in East Tennessee. If then, purely on your own
account you wish to resign, we will not further refuse you."] and
when he finally assigned another to command the department, did not
allow Burnside to resign, but laid out other work for him where his
patriotism and his courage could be of use to the country.
The advent of the army into East Tennessee was, to its loyal people,
a resurrection from the grave. Their joy had an exultation which
seemed almost beyond the power of expression. Old men fell down
fainting and unconscious under the stress of their emotions as they
saw the flag at the head of the column and tried to cheer it! Women
wept with happiness as their husbands stepped out of the ranks of
the loyal Tennessee regiments when these came marching by the home.
[Footnote: Temple's East Tennessee and the Civil War, pp. 476, 478.
Humes's The Loyal Mountaineers, pp. 211, 218.] These men had
gathered in little recruiting camps on the mountain-sides and had
found their way to Kentucky, travelling by night and guided by the
pole-star, as the dark-skinned fugitives from bondage had used to
make their way to freedom. Their families had been marked as
traitors to the Confederacy, and had suffered sharpest privations
and cruel wrong on account of the absence of the husband and father,
the brother, or the son. Now it was all over, and a jubilee began in
those picturesque valleys in the mountains, which none can
understand who had not seen the former despair and the present
revulsion of happiness. The mountain coves and nooks far up toward
the Virginia line had been among the most intense in loyalty to the
nation. Andrew Johnson's home was at Greeneville, and he was now the
loyal provisional governor of Tennessee, soon to be nominated
Vice-President of the United States. General Carter, who had asked
to be transferred from the navy to organize the refugee loyalists
into regiments, was a native of the same region. It was at the
Watauga that the neighboring opponents of secession had given the
first example of daring self-sacrifice in burning the railway
bridge. For this they were hanged, and their memory was revered by
the loyal men about them, as was Nathan Hale's by our revolutionary
fathers. East Tennessee was full of such loyalty, but here were good
reasons why Burnside should push his advance at least to the
Watauga, and if possible to the Virginia line. His sympathies were
all alive for this people. The region, he telegraphed the President,
is as loyal as any State of the North. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 523.] It threw off all disguise, it blossomed
with National flags, it took no counsel of prudence, it refused to
think of a return of Confederate soldiers and Confederate rule as a
possibility. It exulted in every form of defiance to the Richmond
government and what had been called treason to the Confederate
States. The people had a religious faith that God would not abandon
them or suffer them to be again abandoned. If such an incredible
wrong were to happen, they must either leave their country in mass,
or they must be ready to die. They could see no other alternative.