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MY DAYS AND NIGHTS
ON THE
BATTLE-FIELD.
BY
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN,
AUTHOR OF "STORY OF LIBERTY," "BOYS OF '76," "OUR NEW WAY
ROUND THE WORLD," "FOLLOWING THE FLAG,"
"WINNING HIS WAY," ETC.
BOSTON
DANA ESTES AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright_, 1887,
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT
[Illustration: "The brigade goes down the road upon the run."]
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY. PAGE
TO THE YOUTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 1
Chap. I. HOW THE REBELLION CAME ABOUT 3
II. THE GATHERING OF A GREAT ARMY 22
III. THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN 37
IV. THE CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY 65
V. THE CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON 89
Thursday 98
Friday 104
Saturday 111
VI. THE SURRENDER 132
VII. THE ARMY AT PITTSBURG LANDING 153
VIII. THE BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING
From Daybreak till Ten o'clock 171
From Ten o'clock till Four 197
Sunday Evening 205
Monday 210
IX. EVACUATION OF COLUMBUS 229
X. OPERATIONS AT NEW MADRID 237
XI. OPERATIONS AT ISLAND NUMBER TEN 247
XII. FROM FORT PILLOW TO MEMPHIS 281
XIII. THE NAVAL FIGHT AT MEMPHIS 291
LIST OF DIAGRAMS.
PAGE
Bull Run Battle-Ground 60
The Fight at Blackburn's Ford 62
The Country around Fort Henry and Fort Donelson 69
Fort Henry 81
Fort Donelson 95
The Attack on McClernand 114
The Second Engagement 123
The Charge of Lauman's Brigade 128
Pittsburg Landing and Vicinity 155
Disposition of Troops at the Beginning of the Battle 173
The Fight at the Ravine 208
A Rebel Torpedo 230
Island No. 10 239
A Mortar 248
The Naval Fight at Memphis 295
MILITARY TERMS.
_Abatis._--Trees cut down, their branches made sharp, and used to block
a road, or placed in front of fortifications.
_Advance._--Any portion of an army which is in front of the rest.
_Aides-de-camp._--Officers selected by general officers to assist them
in their military duties.
_Ambulances._--Carriages for the sick and wounded.
_Battery._--A battery consists of one or more pieces of artillery. A
full battery of field artillery consists of six cannon.
_Battalion._--A battalion consists of two or more companies, but less
than a regiment.
_Bombardment._--Throwing shot or shells into a fort or earthwork.
_Canister._--A tin cylinder filled with cast-iron shot. When the gun is
fired, the cylinder bursts and scatters the shot over a wide surface of
ground.
_Caisson._--An artillery carriage, containing ammunition for immediate
use.
_Casemate._--A covered chamber in fortifications, protected by earth
from shot and shells.
_Columbiad._--A cannon, invented by Colonel Bomford, of very large
calibre, used for throwing shot or shells. A ten-inch columbiad weighs
15,400 pounds, and is ten and a half feet long.
_Column._--A position in which troops may be placed. A column en route
is the order in which they march from one part of the country to
another. A column of attack is the order in which they go into battle.
_Countersign._--A particular word given out by the highest officer in
command, intrusted to guards, pickets, and sentinels, and to those who
may have occasion to pass them.
_Embrasure._--An opening cut in embankments for the muzzles of the
cannon.
_Enfilade._--To sweep the whole length of the inside of a fortification
or a line of troops.
_Field-Works._--An embankment of earth excavated from a ditch
surrounding a town or a fort.
_Flank._--The right or left side of a body of men, or place. When it is
said that the enemy by a flank march outflanked our right wing, it is
understood that he put himself on our right hand. When two armies stand
face to face the right flank of one is opposite the left flank of the
other.
_File._--Two soldiers,--a front rank and a rear rank man.
_Fuse._--A slow-burning composition in shells, set on fire by the flash
of the cannon. The length of the fuse is proportioned to the intended
range of the shells.
_Grape._--A large number of small balls tied up in a bag.
_Howitzer._--A cannon of large calibre and short range, commonly used
for throwing shells, grape, and canister.
_Limber._--The fore part of a field gun-carriage, to which the horses
are attached. It has two wheels, and carries ammunition the same as the
caisson.
_Pontoon._--A bridge of boats for crossing streams, which may be carried
in wagons.
_Parabola._--The curve described by a shell in the air.
_Range._--The distance to which shot, shells, or bullets may be fired.
_Reveille._--The first drum-beat in the morning.
_Rifle-Pits._--Excavations in the earth or other shelter for riflemen.
_Spherical Case._--A thin shell of cast-iron filled with bullets, with a
fuse, and a charge of powder sufficient to burst it. It contains about
ninety bullets.
_Wings._--The right and left divisions of a body of troops,
distinguished from the centre.
MY DAYS AND NIGHTS
ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.
INTRODUCTORY.
TO THE YOUTH OF THE UNITED STATES.
In my boyhood, my young friends, I loved to sit beside my grandfather
and listen to his stories of Bunker Hill and Saratoga,--how he and his
comrades stood upon those fields and fought for their country. I could
almost see the fight and hear the cannon's roar, the rattle of the
musketry, and the shouts of victory. They won their independence, and
established the best government the world ever saw. But there are men in
this country who hate that government, who have plotted against it, and
who have brought about the present Great Rebellion to destroy it. I have
witnessed some of the battles which have been fought during this war,
although I have not been a soldier, as my grandfather was, and I shall
try, in this volume, to picture those scenes, and give correct
descriptions of the ground, the marching of the troops, the positions
they occupied, and other things, that you may understand how your
father, or your brothers, or your friends, fought for the dear old flag.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE REBELLION CAME ABOUT.
Many of you, my young readers, have seen the springs which form the
trickling rivulets upon the hillsides. How small they are. You can
almost drink them dry. But in the valley the silver threads become a
brook, which widens to a river rolling to the far-off ocean. So is it
with the ever-flowing stream of time. The things which were of small
account a hundred years ago are powerful forces to-day. Great events do
not usually result from one cause, but from many causes. To ascertain
how the rebellion came about, let us read history.
Nearly three hundred years ago, when Elizabeth was Queen of England, Sir
Walter Raleigh sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to explore the newly
discovered Continent of America. Sir Walter was a sailor, a soldier, and
one of the gentleman attendants of the Queen. He was so courteous and
gallant that he once threw his gold-laced scarlet cloak upon the ground
for a mat, that the Queen might not step her royal foot in the mud. At
that time America was an unexplored wilderness. The old navigators had
sailed along the coasts, but the smooth waters of the great lakes and
rivers had never been ruffled by the oars of European boatmen.
Sir Walter found a beautiful land, shaded by grand old forests; also
fertile fields, waving with corn and a broad-leaved plant with purple
flowers, which the Indians smoked in pipes of flint and vermilion stone
brought from the cliffs of the great Missouri River.
The sailors learned to smoke, and when Sir Walter returned to England
they puffed their pipes in the streets. The people were amazed, and
wondered if the sailors were on fire. So tobacco began to be used in
England. That was in 1584. We shall see that a little tobacco-smoke
whiffed nearly three hundred years ago has had an influence in bringing
about the rebellion.
Twenty years rolled by. London merchants dreamed of wealth in store for
them in Virginia. A company was formed to colonize the country. Many of
the merchants had spendthrift sons, who were also idle and given to bad
habits. These young fellows thought it degrading to work. In those
Western woods across the ocean, along the great rivers and upon the blue
mountains, they saw in imagination a wild, roving, reckless life. They
could hunt the wild beasts. They could live without the restraints of
society. They had heard wonderful stories of exhaustless mines of gold
and silver. There they could get rich, and that was the land for them.
A vessel with five hundred colonists was fitted out. There were only
sixteen men of the five hundred accustomed to work; the others called
themselves gentlemen and cavaliers. They settled at Jamestown. They
found no rich gold-mines, and wealth was not to be had on the fertile
plains without labor. Not knowing how to cultivate the soil, and hating
work, they had a hard time. They suffered for want of food. Many died
from starvation. Yet more of the same indolent class joined the
colony,--young men who had had rows with tutors at school, and who
had broken the heads of London watchmen in their midnight revels. A
historian of those times says that "they were fitter to breed a riot
than found a colony."
The merchants, finding that a different class of men was needed to save
the colony from ruin, sent over poor laboring men, who were apprenticed
to their sons. Thus the idle cavaliers were kept from starvation.
Instead of working themselves, they directed the poor, hard-working men,
and pocketed the profits.
Smoking began to be fashionable in England. Lawyers in big wigs,
ministers in black gowns, merchants seated in their counting-houses,
ladies in silks and satins, all took to this habit of the North American
Indians. Tobacco was in demand. Every ship from America was freighted
with it. The purple-flowered plant grew luxuriantly in the fields
of Virginia, and so through the labor of the poor men the indolent
cavaliers became rich.
As there were no women in the colony, some of the cavaliers sent over to
England and bought themselves wives, paying a hundred pounds of tobacco
for a wife. Others married Indian wives.
The jails of London were crowded with thieves and vagabonds. They
had committed crime and lost their freedom. To get rid of them, the
magistrates sent several ship-loads to Virginia, where they were sold to
the planters as servants and laborers. Thus it came to pass that there
were distinct classes in the colony,--men having rights and men without
rights,--men owning labor and men owing labor,--men with power and men
without power,--all of which had something to do in bringing about the
rebellion.
In August, 1620, a Dutch captain sailed up James River with twenty
negroes on board his ship, which he had stolen from Africa. The planters
purchased them, not as apprentices, but as slaves. The captain, having
made a profitable voyage, sailed for Africa to steal more. Thus
the African slave-trade in America began, which became the main
fountain-head and grand cause of the rebellion.
The Virginia planters wanted large plantations. Some of them had
influence with King James, and obtained grants of immense estates,
containing thousands of acres. All the while the common people of
England were learning to smoke, snuff, and chew tobacco, and across the
English Channel the Dutch burghers, housewives, and farmers were
learning to puff their pipes. A pound of tobacco was worth three
shillings. The planters grew richer, purchased more land and more
slaves, while the apprenticed men, who had no money and no means of
obtaining any, of course could not become land-owners. Thus the three
classes of men--planters, poor white men, and slaves--became perpetually
distinct.
By the charter which the company of London merchants had received from
the King, owners of land only were allowed to have a voice in the
management of public affairs. They only could hold office. A poor man
could not have anything to do with enacting or administering the laws.
In 1705, a historian, then writing, says:--
"There are men with great estates, who take care to supply
the poor with goods, and who are sure to keep them always in
debt, and consequently dependent. Out of this number are
chosen the Council, Assembly, Justices of the Peace, and
other officers, who conspire together to wield power."[1]
[Footnote 1: Quarry.]
Thus a few rich men managed all the affairs of the colony. They were
able to perpetuate their power, to hand these privileges to their sons,
through successive generations.
At the present time there are many men and women in Virginia who
consider themselves as belonging to the first families, because they are
descendants of those who settled the country. The great estates have
passed from the family name,--squandered by the dissolute and indolent
sons. They are poor, but very proud, and call themselves noble-born.
They look with contempt upon a man who works for a living. I saw a great
estate, which was once owned by one of these proud families, near the
Antietam battle-field, but spendthrift sons have squandered it, and
there is but little left. The land is worn out, but the owner of the
remaining acres,--poor, but priding himself upon his high birth, looking
with haughty contempt upon men who work,--in the summer of 1860, day
after day, was seen sitting upon his horse, with an umbrella over his
head to keep off the sun, _overseeing his two negro women, who were
hoeing corn_!
All of these springs which started in Virginia tinged, entered into, and
gave color to society throughout the South. There were great estates,
privileged classes, a few rich and many poor men. There were planters,
poor white men, and slaves.
In those old times pirates sailed the seas, plundering and destroying
ships. They swarmed around the West India Islands, and sold their spoils
to the people of Charleston, South Carolina. There, for several years,
the freebooters refitted their ships, and had a hearty welcome. But the
King's ships of war broke up the business, and commerce again had
peaceful possession of the ocean.
These things gave direction to the stream, influencing the development
and growth of the colonies, which became States in the Union, and which
seceded in 1861.
* * * * *
While the Dutch captain was bargaining off his negroes to the planters
in 1620 at Jamestown, another vessel was sailing from Plymouth harbor,
in England, for a voyage across the Atlantic. Years before, in the
little town of Scrooby, a man with a long white beard, by the name of
Clifton, had preached what he called a pure religious doctrine. Those
who went to hear him, and who believed what he preached, soon came to be
called Puritans. Most of them were poor, hard-working English farmers
and villagers. There was much discussion, controversy, bigotry, and
bitterness in religion at that time, and these poor men were driven from
county to county, till finally they were obliged to flee to Holland to
escape persecution and save their lives. King James himself was one of
their most bitter persecutors. He declared that he would "harry every
one of them out of England." After remaining in Holland several years,
they obtained permission of the King to sail for North America.
On a December morning the vessel, after five months' tossing upon the
ocean, lay at anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod. Those on board had no
charter of government. They were not men who had had midnight revels in
London, but men who had prayers in their families night and morning, and
who met for religious worship on the Sabbath. They respected law, loved
order, and knew that it would be necessary to have a form of government
in the colony. They assembled in the cabin of the ship, and, after
prayer, signed their names to an agreement to obey all the rules,
regulations, and laws which might be enacted by the majority. Then they
elected a governor, each man having a voice in the election. It was what
might be called the first town-meeting in America. Thus democratic
liberty and Christian worship, independent of forms established by kings
and bishops, had a beginning in this country.
The climate was cold, the seasons short, the soil sterile, and so the
settlers of Cape Cod were obliged to work hard to obtain a living. In
consequence, they and their descendants became active, industrious, and
energetic. Thus they laid the foundations for thrift and enterprise.
They did not look upon labor as degrading, but as ennobling. They passed
laws, that men able to work should not be idle. They were not rich
enough to own great estates, but each man had his own little farm. There
was, therefore, no landed aristocracy, such as was growing into power in
Virginia. They were not able to own labor to any great extent. There
were a few apprenticed men, and some negro slaves, but the social and
political influences were all different from those in the Southern
colonies. The time came when apprenticed men were released from service,
and the slaves set free.
These hard-working men did not wish to have their children grow up
in ignorance. In order, therefore, that every child might become an
intelligent citizen and member of society, they established common
schools and founded colleges. In 1640, just twenty years after the
landing at Plymouth, they had a printing-press at Cambridge.
The cavaliers of Virginia, instead of establishing schools, sent their
sons to England to be educated, leaving the children of the poor men to
grow up in ignorance. They did not want them to obtain an education. In
1670, fifty years after the Dutch captain had bartered off his negroes
for tobacco,--fifty years from the election of the first governor by the
people in the cabin of the Mayflower,--the King appointed Commissioners
of Education, who addressed letters to the governors of the colonies
upon the subject. The Governor of Connecticut replied, that one fourth
of the entire income of the colony was laid out in maintaining public
schools. Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, who owned a great plantation
and many slaves, and who wanted to keep the government in the hands of
the few privileged families, answered,--
"I thank God there are no free schools nor printing in this
colony, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred
years."
All the Northern colonies established common schools, and liberally
supported them, that every child might obtain an education. The Southern
colonies, even when they became States, gave but little attention to
education, and consequently the children became more ignorant than their
fathers. Thus it has come to pass, that in the Northern States nearly
all can read and write, while in the Southern States there are hundreds
of thousands who do not know the alphabet.
In 1850 the State of Maine had 518,000 inhabitants; of these 2,134 could
not read nor write, while the State of North Carolina, with a white
population of 553,000, _had eighty thousand native whites, over twenty
years of age, who had never attended school_!
The six New England States, with a population of 2,705,000, had in 1850
but eight thousand unable to read and write, while Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama--five States, with a
population of 2,670,000 whites--_had two hundred and sixty-two thousand,
over twenty years of age, unable to read a word_! In the Northern States
educational facilities are rapidly increasing, while in the South they
are fast diminishing. In 1857 there were 96,000 school-children in
Vermont, and all but six thousand attended school. South Carolina the
same year had 114,000 school-children; of these _ninety-five thousand_
had no school privileges. Virginia had 414,000 school-children; _three
hundred and seventy-two thousand_ of them had no means of learning the
alphabet!
In Missouri, in some of the counties, the school lands given by Congress
have been sold, and the money distributed among the people, instead
of being invested for the benefit of schools. With each generation
ignorance has increased in the Southern States. It has been the design
of the slaveholders to keep the poor white men in ignorance. There,
neighbors are miles apart. There are vast tracts of land where the
solitude is unbroken by the sounds of labor. Schools and newspapers
cannot flourish. Information is given by word of mouth. Men are
influenced to political action by the arguments and stories of
stump-speakers, and not by reading newspapers. They vote as they are
told, or as they are influenced by the stories they hear. So, when the
leading conspirators were ready to bring about the rebellion, being in
possession of the State governments, holding official positions, by
misrepresentation, cunning, and wickedness, they were able to delude the
ignorant poor men, and induce them to vote to secede from the Union.
Two thousand years ago the natives of India manufactured cloth from the
fibres of the cotton-plant, which grew wild in the woods. The old
historian, Herodotus, says that the trees bore fleeces as white as snow.
A planter of South Carolina obtained some of the seeds, and began to
cultivate the plant. In 1748 ten bags of cotton were shipped to
Liverpool, but cotton-spinning had not then begun in England. In 1784
the custom-house officers at Liverpool seized eight bags which a planter
had sent over, on the ground that it was not possible to raise so much
in America. The manufacture of cotton goods was just then commencing in
England, and cotton was in demand. The plant grew luxuriantly in the
sunny fields of the South, but it was a day's work for a negro to
separate the seed from a pound, and the planters despaired of making it
a profitable crop.
A few years before the Liverpool custom-house officers seized the eight
bags, a boy named Eli Whitney was attending school in Westboro',
Massachusetts, who was destined to help the planters out of the
difficulty. He made water-wheels, which plashed in the roadside brooks,
and windmills, which whirled upon his father's barn. He made violins,
which were the wonder and admiration of all musicians. He set up a shop,
and made nails by machinery, and thus earned money through the
Revolutionary War. When not more than twelve years old, he stayed at
home from meeting one Sunday alone, and took his father's watch to
pieces, and put it together again so nicely that it went as well as
ever. It was not the proper business for Sunday, however.
When a young man, he went South to teach school. He happened to hear
General Greene, the brave and noble man who had been a match for Lord
Cornwallis, wish that there was a machine for cleaning cotton. He
thought the matter over, went to work, and in a short time had a machine
which, with some improvements, now does the work of a thousand negroes.
He built it in secret, but the planters, getting wind of it, broke open
his room, stole his invention, built machines of their own, and cheated
him out of his property.
About this time there was a poor cotton-spinner in England who thought
he could invent a machine for spinning. He sat up late nights, and
thought how to have the wheels, cranks, and belts arranged. At times
he was almost discouraged, but his patient, cheerful, loving wife
encouraged him, and he succeeded at last in making a machine which would
do the work of a thousand spinners. He named it Jenny, for his wife, who
had been so patient and cheerful, though she and the children, some of
the time while he was studying upon the invention, had little to eat.
The gin and the jenny made cotton cloth much cheaper than it had been.
Many manufactories were built in England and in the New England States.
More acres of cotton were planted in the South, and more negroes stolen
from Africa. In the North, along the mill-streams, there was the click
and clatter of machinery. A great many ships were needed to transport
the cotton from the agricultural South to the manufactories of the
commercial, industrious, trading North. The cotton crop of the South in
1784 was worth only a few hundred dollars, but the crop of 1860 was
worth hundreds of millions, so great had been the increase.
This great demand for cotton affected trade and commerce the world over.
The planters had princely incomes from the labor of their slaves. Some
of them received $50,000 to $100,000 a year. They said that cotton was
king, and ruled the world. They thought that the whole human race was
dependent upon them, and that by withholding their cotton a single year
they could compel the whole world to acknowledge their power. They were
few in number,--about three hundred thousand in thirty millions of
people. They used every means possible to extend and perpetuate their
power. They saw that the Northern States were beehives of industry, and
that the boys swarming from the Northern school-houses were becoming
mechanics, farmers, teachers, engaging in all employments, and that
knowledge as a power was getting the better of wealth.
The men of the North were settling the new States of the West, and
political power in Congress was slipping from the hands of the South. To
retain that power they must bring additional Slave States into the
Union. They therefore demanded the right to take their slaves into new
Territories. The Northern school-boys who had grown to be men, who had
gone into the far West to build them homes, could not consent to see
their children deprived of that which had made them men. They saw that
if slavery came in, schools must go out. They saw that where slavery
existed there were three distinct classes in society,--the few rich,
unscrupulous, hard-hearted slaveholders, the many poor, ignorant,
debased white men, and the slaves. They saw that free labor and slave
labor could not exist together. They therefore rightfully resisted the
extension of slavery into the Territories. But the slaveholders carried
the day. The North was outvoted and obliged to yield.
The descendants of the first families of Virginia raised slaves for a
living. It was degrading to labor, but a very honorable way of getting a
living to raise pigs, mules, and negroes,--to sell them to the more
southern States,--to sell their own sons and daughters! Their fathers
purchased wives: why should they not sell their own children?
It was very profitable to raise negroes for the market, and the
ministers of the South, in their pulpits on the Sabbath, said it was a
Christian occupation. They expounded the Bible, and showed the
benevolent designs of God in establishing slavery. It was right. It had
the sanction of the Almighty. It was a Divine missionary institution.
Their political success, their great power, their wealth,--which they
received through the unpaid labor of their slaves, and from selling
their own sons and daughters,--developed their bad traits of character.
They became proud, insolent, domineering, and ambitious. They demanded
the right not only to extend slavery over all the Territories of the
United States, but also the right to take their slaves into the Free
States. They demanded that no one should speak or write against slavery.
They secured the passage of a law by Congress enabling them to catch
their runaway slaves. They demanded that the Constitution should be
changed to favor the growth and extension of slavery. For many years
they plotted against the government,--threatening to destroy it if they
could not have what they demanded. They looked with utter contempt upon
the hard-working men of the North. They determined to rule or ruin.
Every Northern man living at the South was looked upon with suspicion.
Some were tarred and feathered, others hung, and many were killed in
cold blood! No Northern man could open his lips on that subject in the
South. Men of the North could not travel there. The noble astronomer,
Mitchell, the brave general who has laid down his life for his country,
was surrounded by an ignorant, excited mob in Alabama, who were ready to
hang him because he told them he was in favor of the Union. But Southern
orators and political speakers were invited North, and listened to with
respect by the thinking, reasoning people,--the pupils of the common
schools.
Climate, trade, commerce, common schools, and industry have made the
North different from the South; but there was nothing in these to bring
on the war.
When the slaveholders saw that they had lost their power in Congress to
pass laws for the extension of slavery, they determined to secede from
the Union. When the North elected a President who declared himself
opposed to the extension of slavery, they began the war. They stole
forts, arsenals, money, steamboats,--everything they could lay their
hands on belonging to government and individuals,--seceded from the
Union, formed a confederacy, raised an army, and fired the first gun.
They planned a great empire, which should extend south to the Isthmus of
Darien and west to the Pacific Ocean, and made slavery its cornerstone.
They talked of conquering the North. They declared that the time would
come when they would muster their slaves on Bunker Hill, when the
laboring men of the North, "with hat in hand, should stand meekly before
them, their masters."[2]
[Footnote 2: Richmond Enquirer.]
They besieged Fort Sumter, fired upon the ships sent to its relief,
bombarded the fort and captured it. To save their country, their
government, all that was dear to them, to protect their insulted,
time-honored flag, the men of the North took up arms.