THE CAMPAIGN IN TENNESSEE
We crossed the Cumberland Range. The patient mule. Seeing a railroad
engine with a train of cars make a dive. The siege of Knoxville. "Will you
lend me my Nigger, Colonel?" Re-enlistment. Recrossed the Mountains,
returning to Kentucky on the way home, on our re-enlistment furlough.
We remained in camp near the Lexington cemetery at Lexington, just one
month, until August 12, 1863, when we made our first start for Tennessee.
We took train for Nicholasville, then marched to Camp Nelson, where we
went into camp, and stayed another month having a delightful time in that
most healthy and beautiful place.
September 12. We started in good earnest on our march over the mountains
but went only as far as Camp Dick Robinson. As we went into camp we were
drenched by a fearful thunder storm, hailstones falling the size of
marbles. The next day we made a good day's march passing through the town
of Lancaster. The 14th we passed through the village of Crab Orchard,
camping for the night a little way beyond the town.
The 15th we remained in camp, but the 16th we moved on a good distance in
spite of the dreadful roads, along the sides of which lay numerous wrecks
of army wagons, dead mules, etc. We were then getting into the foothills
of the Cumberland range, and also into the abode of the rattlesnake, a
number having been seen the last day or two. Colonel Hawks made an
interesting discovery as he started to retire last night. He found a
rattlesnake about two feet and a half long comfortably coiled up in his
blankets, that was not the kind of bedfellow the colonel was looking for,
and he was despatched at short notice. The 17th we met a lot of
Confederate prisoners being taken to the rear. They had been captured at
Cumberland Gap. They were about the dirtiest and most repulsive looking
lot of men I have ever seen. We climbed Wildcat Mountain, a hill so steep
it did not seem as if the trains could ever get up it; but by going slow
and with a good deal of pushing and pulling by the boys they did succeed
in reaching the top without accident. We passed through the town of Loudon
and Barboursville, and September 21st crossed the Cumberland River at
Cumberland Ford.
September 22. We passed through Cumberland Gap. Two days' march brought us
to the Clinch River, which we forded. Fording rivers and some of them
pretty deep ones, was a new experience for us, but before we left East
Tennessee we had learned that lesson,--if experience will teach a
lesson,--pretty thoroughly.
September 25. We crossed the Clinch range, the descent from which on the
south side was dreadfully steep. Ropes were tied to the wagons and they
were held back by the boys and prevented from tipping over. Thus they were
eased down and reached the foot of the hill safely. Along the foot of the
hill lay wagons and dead mules by the dozen, a whole line of them
extending all along around the foot of the hill.
September 26. Lunched at the famous and glorious Panther Spring. What a
spring! The water is as clear as crystal and enough of it to make a river
ten feet wide and three feet deep. We continued our march through
Newmarket and Strawberry Plains, reaching the immediate vicinity of
Knoxville the 28th.
A word must be said right here about the unpretending, never-flinching
army mule. I do not believe we shall ever know how much we owe to that
toughest and most patient creature. We had seen the mule at his ordinary
army work in Virginia, which was well nigh play compared with the work he
was called upon to do, the hardships he was obliged to endure and the
sacrifices he was forced to make in that advance over the mountains into
Tennessee.
His rations were always short, his load a heavy one, and he was asked to
haul it over roads, the wretchedness of which can not be described nor
can it be imagined by any one who has not been in a similar place. It is
almost literally true that the whole line of march from Camp Nelson to
Knoxville was strewn with his dead comrades; what one of the boys said in
that connection as we reached Knoxville was not wide of the mark, namely,
that he could in the darkest night smell out his way back to Camp Nelson
by the odor of the dead mules lying along the way. Granted he had his
peculiarities, so had Caesar his. His voice was peculiar, he was very
handy with his heels, but he could make a supper out of a rail fence, a
breakfast out of a pair of cowhide boots, and pull his load along through
the day without a murmur. To me he was as near being the martyr of the
Tennessee campaign as the men who fought the battles.
We had been at Knoxville but a few days when news came in that the Rebels
were advancing from the northeast from the vicinity of Lynchburg down the
valley, thus threatening our communications in the vicinity of Morristown,
and Cumberland Gap. On the 4th of October we took the train for
Morristown. From there we marched to Blue Springs, where we had a little
brush with the Johnnies October 10th. They were soon put to rout and we
started back to Knoxville. We were sixty miles from Morristown, but in
three days we were back there again and took train to Knoxville, where we
arrived the 15th. In this campaign we saw plenty of marching but no real
fighting, and got well soaked two different times. We remained quietly in
camp at Knoxville until October 22nd. Then, however, prospects suddenly
became good for an active campaign. Longstreet, with an army of 20,000
men, one of the fine army corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, was
approaching Knoxville from Chattanooga and in the evening we took train
and went down the valley as far as Loudon to meet him and dispute his
advance. We reached Loudon about midnight and bivouacked in a large meadow
on the south side of the Holston River. Before morning a cold rain-storm
came on, making life for a couple of days about as miserable as it could
well be. Our tents arrived the 24th, when we crossed to the north side of
the river and went into camp.
The 28th, the Johnnies made a spirited attack on our boys, driving in the
pickets. We took up the pontoon bridge and fell back to Lenoir. What a job
we had carrying those great heavy boats to the railroad station a good
fourth of a mile. Government mule-teams were there by the dozen, still we
were called upon to lug those boats such a distance. While we were moving
the pontoon boats, an interesting thing occurred. A railroad train that
had been captured was run off a wrecked railroad bridge into the Holston
River. The bridge was a high one, thirty or forty feet, and it was an
interesting sight to see the train make the plunge and disappear entirely
from view in the river.
November 10. I commenced building winter quarters. A number of the boys
had begun to cut logs for the same purpose, as it was thought we might
stay at Lenoir through the winter. The 11th we marched back to Loudon and
covered the laying of the pontoon bridge, returning to Lenoir in the
evening. At daybreak, the morning of the 14th, we were routed out, struck
tents and formed line in the quickest possible time. Our outposts were
being driven in and we could hear the crack of the rifles and see the
smoke from them out on the meadow as we moved out of camp. The Johnnies'
line of battle came into view directly and we realized we were in for some
fighting at short notice; we had not been badly surprised, but dangerously
near it.
At this time the climax was reached in an experience we had with a recruit
that came to us during the Maryland campaign about the time of the Battle
of South Mountain, I think. He was a deacon in the Baptist church. Two or
three times during the campaign, when we were in camp, the evening being
quiet and favorable, our newcomer would kneel down in his tent and make a
prayer. He would pray for the nation, for the cause for which we were
fighting, for the President and for all the boys. At such times the boys
would keep very quiet and be very respectful. Everything went along all
right until the Battle of Fredericksburg, when we did picket duty among
our dead the second day after the battle. It was discovered that our
friend, the deacon, came off the field that night with his pockets full of
watches he had taken from our dead comrades. Now there was an unwritten
law in the army that no man should rifle the pockets of our own dead; he
might take all he could get from the enemy's dead, but our own dead were
sacred, and inviolate, and any man found breaking that law was despised.
The deacon, however, felt himself pretty independent. He was well-to-do;
he always had money and received many useful things from home--like
gloves, socks, fine high boots, and he had a set of false teeth set in a
gold plate. He did not make any prayers for the public benefit for quite a
while after the Fredericksburg affair, but when he did make one, the
company street for a minute or two was as quiet as death; then all at
once the old truck began to arrive on the deacon's tent. Empty tin cans,
tin cups, empty whiskey bottles, old shoes, anything in the way of rubbish
that could be found, suddenly found its way to the deacon's tent. Well,
that prayer was brought to a very sudden close and it was never repeated.
As we moved out at daybreak, the morning of November 14th, things looked
about as dark as most of us cared to have them. But some of those boys
were never disturbed at anything, and remembering the deacon one of them
piped up, "I say, Billy, if old blank should get hit now, what should you
go for?" "I should go for his teeth," said Billy. "What should you go for,
Tom?" "I should go for his boots." "What should you go for, Gus?" "I
should go for his gloves?"--this at a time when most of the boys felt
funny if they ever did, the deacon right among the very fellows who were
ready to pick his bones. We succeeded in stopping the Johnnies. Indeed,
that attack proved to be only a feint and during the day our trains and
artillery started towards Knoxville. Not until the evening of the 15th did
we start back, then during one of the darkest nights and over one of the
muddiest roads imaginable, we floundered along, reaching Campbells Station
a little before morning. At dawn we were thrown out on to the Kingston
road. We were there none too soon. Within a half hour after we were in
position, Longstreet's advance came in sight. Longstreet's feint at Lenoir
was evidently made in the hope of holding us there until he could reach
Campbell's Station, thus placing himself between Burnside and Knoxville.
We changed position twice during the day, but did little fighting in
either. The fighting was done in the beginning by the cavalry and later by
the artillery, we falling back from ridge to ridge and keeping pretty well
out of it. That night was cold and rainy and as dark as a pocket, and it
was a difficult matter to make a thirteen-mile march. However, we reached
Knoxville in the early morning of the 17th, and immediately set to work
throwing up fortifications.
Knoxville is located on the north bank of the Holston River, on high
ground elevated about one hundred feet above the general level of the
valley. It was thus easily defended with a small force and our water
supply was secure. The location of the 21st during the siege was on the
north side of the city. We were a little short of rations; indeed, we were
on half rations the whole time. However, I was a very good forager and
managed to have enough to eat most of the time. One time I succeeded in
picking up a pair of geese out in the country. At another time I got a
tub of lard and a fine smoked ham. On another raid I got a barrel of
flour. To cook the flour I was obliged to pay $2.00 for a package of
baking powder worth ordinarily fifteen or twenty cents. The following
story was brought over from the 51st New York one day during the siege.
The regimental teams had been out foraging two or three days before. Some
negroes belonging to Miss Palmer had deserted their mistress and followed
the teams back to camp. A few days later Miss Palmer rode into camp and
inquired for the colonel. The colonel appeared, tipped his hat politely
and placed himself at her service. "Colonel," said she, "your men have
been over to our town and stole all my niggers and I have just ridden over
to camp to see if you will be kind enough to lend me my blacksmith to shoe
this horse." The colonel assisted her in alighting, had her boy hunted up,
and set him to work shoeing her horse.
While in a store a day or two ago, buying a pair of gloves, the cry of
fire was heard outside on the street, and going to the door there could be
seen smoke issuing from the windows on the opposite side of the street and
soon the flames burst forth. The fire spread to other buildings and it
looked for a short time as if nothing could save the city. A New York
regiment chanced to be near by and went to the assistance of the fire
department. That regiment contained a large number of firemen from New
York City. They knew how to fight a city fire and in a very short time the
fire was under control. In the afternoon as our relief picket, to which I
belonged, was on the way to its post, we passed through the town, I saw
one of our boys who was enjoying General Pope's General Order No. 10 to
the full. He was floating along down the street still able to keep his
feet, but not his balance. He had on a white masonic apron and a bright
red scarf under his belt. As we passed him he halted, faced to the front
and presented arms with so much swiftness he lost his balance and went
sprawling out on the sidewalk. Poor fellow, he meant all right; he wanted
to be very respectful and very military, but was a little too top-heavy to
carry the thing out well. He had, I expect, been to the fire. When out
foraging on the south side of the river one time, I came across in one of
the huts of the negro quarters, quite a handsome young mulatto woman with
her children. They were all quite well dressed. The children, however,
were noticeably lighter in color than their mother. She was evidently the
favorite domestic of the house and was as bitter a Yankee hater as any of
the white women. She declared the colored people did not want to be
niggers for the Yankees. I wondered if I could not understand why she was
content with her life there.
There was picket firing most of the time and two hot engagements during
the eighteen days of the siege. On November 17th, General Sanders was
heavily engaged on the extreme left over next to the river. November 29th,
Longstreet attacked Fort Sanders furiously. That fort was only a little
way round to our left but we were not engaged. The Johnnies got something
of a surprise in that attack. When the siege begun it was all wood in
front of the fort; but by the time of the attack the trees had all been
cut down, leaving the stumps three to four feet high, then telegraph wire
was strung from stump to stump all along the front. When the Johnnies
reached that part of the field they were very badly broken up and lost
much of their force. That was the first place where telegraph wire was
used as an obstruction to an advancing column, so far as I know. Eight or
ten months later at Petersburg barbed wire was used extensively, and in
the present war in Europe we hear a great deal about its being used.
The night of the 23d, our boys were driven from their rifle pits down in
front of the main line of fortifications. The next night about three
o'clock we were routed out and went down to the left of the rifle pits,
and at daylight made a charge and took them back again. There was another
regiment went with us on that charge. The rifle pits had been taken
possession of by a regiment of South Carolina sharpshooters, and if they
had been able to hold them they could have raked the edge of the city and
two or three streets.
December 3. The scouts brought in word that Longstreet had given up the
siege and was preparing to withdraw from our front; and the next day it
was reported that the Johnnies were really moving off to the right up the
valley. On the 5th, a party of us boys went over and took a look at the
Johnnies' camp and works. There was a good deal of camp refuse lying
around. The weather was getting very cold.
The 7th. We started after Longstreet, going toward Morristown. We marched
up to the vicinity of Blaine's cross-roads and stayed there until we
re-enlisted. It was a cold, hard time we had those days. My feet were cold
all the time. I was not comfortably warm for a number of days, and rations
were dreadfully short. Some of the time we had nothing to eat but corn on
the cob. We roasted that and eat it and it kept us from starvation. The
9th, I helped to catch a pig, but it was very small. There was not much
meat on it.
December 24. The order concerning re-enlistment was read to a part of the
regiment, the other part of the regiment was off on picket duty. When the
question of re-enlistment was put to the boys there was a good deal of
hesitation. A few only put up their hands. The idea of going home on a
furlough for thirty days was a strong inducement, but the conditions under
which we were living at the time were unfavorable. December 26. Our supply
train was captured out in the vicinity of the gap with all our hardtack,
sugar and coffee, etc. Re-enlistment was growing popular. I re-enlisted
to-day. The temperature hovered around the freezing point. One hour it
rained, another hour it snowed or the moisture fell in a sort of sleet. We
were camping in a little hollow in the wood sloping towards the south.
December 28. It was reported that two-thirds of the men of the regiment
had re-enlisted. That proportion was sufficient to enable the regiment to
go home, as a regiment, on veteran furlough. It was reported about camp
that the 21st was the first regiment in the 9th Army Corps to report thus
re-enlisted.
January 6, 1864. Orders came directing that we be in readiness to start
for Camp Nelson and the north at once, and in the afternoon of the 7th we
set out. About two hundred Confederate prisoners were to be taken along.
My shoes were in pretty good shape, but those of some of the boys were
very poor. The 8th we made an early start. The air was clear and cold and
we made a good day's march. The 10th, we reached Cumberland Gap--were
disappointed not to get any rations, but after passing the gap and
marching a few miles beyond, we came on to a supply train and drew two
full days' rations. What a treat to have a meal of good fresh hardtack and
a cup of good coffee again. The 11th, we did not get far, we were delayed
by the train. The roads in the mountains were something terrific. In many
places we were obliged to cut ruts in the ice for the wheels of the wagons
to go in. Forded the Cumberland River at Cumberland Ford. Pretty cold
business fording large rivers in midwinter with the temperature down to 15
degrees above zero.
January 12. Waited until noon for the train to come up. The train has
delayed us all along the way. The roads are so very bad. Came upon a
supply train and drew two days' rations.
We reached Loudon, Kentucky, January 14. Here, some of the boys were able
to get new shoes, to their great relief. It snowed all day the 15th and
at night we camped in deep snow. The next day the roads not having been
broken out, we lost our way and floundered around all the forenoon.
January 16. The home stretch. Made a long march of twenty-five or thirty
miles in the rain, reaching Camp Nelson just before dark. Found our old
Adjutant, Theron E. Hall, detailed there in command of the post. He put us
in a big empty storehouse where we had a fine night's sleep.
From the 17th of November to January 18th, a period of two months and one
day, was a period in which we suffered more from privation and exposure
than any other period of the same length during the war. During the siege
we were under fire and short of rations all the time. The next period up
in the vicinity of Morristown and Blaine cross-roads we were on duty
nearly all the time. It was very cold. We were very short of clothes and
had almost nothing to eat. Then the tramp over the Cumberland mountains
through the snow, with almost nothing to keep us warm for eleven days, was
something terrific. The fact that we were on our way home was the only
thing that buoyed us up during the last part of it. I am writing this at
seventy-four years of age, and as I go over that march through the snow,
fording great streams in midwinter on that trip across the mountains, I am
entirely unable to comprehend how we were able to endure it. We had a very
good opportunity to observe the Johnnies we were taking along at short
range, and to get their viewpoint of the war. They were from Longstreet's
command and while they had nothing but good to say of old Pete, Stonewall
Jackson was their idol. He had been killed at Chancellorsville only a
little while before and they felt his loss deeply. "Stonewall did a heap
of praying--he do 'specially just before a big battle," said one. Another
lean old fellow: "'Lowed Stonewall was a general, he war. If you-uns had a
general like him, ar reckon you-uns could lick we-uns." One of them
lamented that, "It was no use to fight, now old Stonewall war dead." One I
asked what he was fighting for. "'Cause I don't want to be licked. What
you-all come down here for--to invade our country and run away with our
niggers? You-uns must have a powerful spite against we-uns-all." In
stature they averaged much smaller than our men, and they were very
ignorant; I doubt if one out of ten of them could write his name.
January 19. We remained at Camp Nelson; drew clothing, ate hardtack and
drank coffee to our heart's content and were as happy a lot of mortals as
ever walked the earth. The next day we marched to Nicholasville and took a
train for Covington. There was a hole in one of my teeth that had added
measurably to my misery on the trip over the mountains. As we passed
through Nicholasville, I saw the sign of a dentist. I walked in and sat
down in the dentist's chair and told him I wished he would pull that
tooth. He pulled it without any ceremony. When he put the forceps on to
it, it rebelled fiercely, gave one final gasp and the maddening pain was
ended.
We were put into some very comfortable barracks at Covington and stayed
there until the 29th while the necessary re-enlistment papers were being
made out. I bought a very slick military jacket to wear home. We were paid
off, and so started for home with a pocket full of money.