WINTER BIVOUACS IN EAST TENNESSEE
Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty
welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good
quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of
clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country
mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A
Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment
at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a
knoll-A night scene-Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy
Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the
troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather.
The Twenty-third Corps was encamped at Blain's Cross-roads,
seventeen miles northeast of Knoxville, on the road to Rutledge,
where Longstreet was supposed to be. The Fourth Corps, under General
Granger, and the Ninth, under General Parke, were in the same
neighborhood. The cavalry corps covered the front and flanks on both
sides of Holston River. A concentration of the Army of the Ohio and
its reinforcements had been made there to meet a rumored return of
the Confederates toward Knoxville after an affair at Rutledge in
which Longstreet had captured a wagon-train loaded with supplies for
us. I left Knoxville on the morning of the 21st of December,
accompanied by my staff officers, and rode to Blain's Cross-roads. I
found the corps under temporary command of Brigadier-General Mahlon
D. Manson, of Indiana, who had commanded one of the divisions in the
preceding campaign. Manson occupied an old log house too small for
himself and staff. There was but one bed in it, and at night the
general occupied this, whilst his staff slept in their blankets on
the floor. We had travelled leisurely, as I wished to study the
country between Knoxville and the camp, and we reached the corps too
late to make any arrangement for the night, and had to cast
ourselves on our comrades' hospitality. I was most heartily welcomed
by General Manson, who did the best he could for me by offering me
the half of his own bed, whilst the staff took similar lodgings with
his officers in a shed veranda at the back of the house lying snugly
together, wrapped in their blankets. Manson was a burly,
whole-souled man, brave and loyally unselfish, and turned over the
command to me with a sincerity of subordination which won my
confidence at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii.
pp. 462, 463.] It was not a comfortable night in the overcrowded log
house for either hosts or guests, but it was made cheery by the
hearty soldiers' welcome we received, and we sat late around the
crackling fire in the stone chimney after we had eaten with a
relish, known only in camp, the best supper which the meagre rations
of the army could furnish.
Our first occupation next day was to establish my own headquarters,
for a military man does not feel at home until his little camp is
set in some decent nook with the regularity and order which shows
good system, and with the sentinel pacing before the entrance. I
have always found it most comfortable and most healthful to live
under canvas, even in winter, in the sparsely settled parts of the
country. It might be different in Europe or in the more densely
peopled States at the East, but in the West and South a house cannot
always be found in proper proximity to the line, and changing from
house to tent and back again is much more dangerous to health than
adherence to what seems the more exposed kind of life. There is also
a question of discipline and _morale_ involved, and the effect of
example at headquarters is felt through the whole command. With no
little difficulty we found four old tents without flies, but these
were carefully pitched in a clean place accessible to all parts of
the corps, and when we were installed in them we had a real
satisfaction in being at home and ready for business. Our difficulty
in procuring four poor tents was simply an index of the scarcity of
all supplies and equipments. The depots at Cincinnati and Nashville
were packed with everything we wanted, but there had been no time to
get them forward when the siege began, and now the impassable
mountain roads cut us off as completely as a circle of hostile
camps. We especially felt the lack of the flies for the tents in
roughing it. This extra roof makes as great a difference in keeping
a tent habitable in wet weather, as an extra cape or a poncho does
in keeping the rain off one's person, or in civil life the
omnipresent umbrella. Our overcoats and ponchos kept out the wet in
the longest march, but without a fly the tent roof and walls would
drip with moisture. In Captain Day, however, I had a quartermaster
whose indomitable energy would not be long baffled, and in his
journeys to and fro in charge of the supply trains of the corps he
kept a sharp eye out for whatever would make our headquarters outfit
more efficient. The warehouses at Knoxville were searched, and a
better tent found in one place and a fly in another gradually
brought our little camp into what soldiers regard as a home-like
condition. The clerical work and the official correspondence of the
command could then go on; for the headquarters of an army corps in
the field is as busy a place as a bank or counting-house in a city.
It is the business centre for a military population of 12,000 or
15,000 men, where local government is carried on, and where their
feeding, clothing, arming, and equipping are organized and directed,
to say nothing of the military conduct in regard to the enemy, or of
the administration of affairs relating to the neighboring
inhabitants.
The troops were in bivouac, generally in the woods about us, where
shelter could be made in ways well known to lumbermen and hunters.
The most common form was a lean-to, made by setting a couple of
crotched posts in the ground with a long pole for a ridge. Against
this were laid other poles and branches of trees sloping to the
ground on the windward side. The roof was roughly thatched with
evergreen branches laid so that rain would be shed outward. A bed of
small evergreen twigs within made a comfortable couch, and unlimited
firewood from the forest made a camp fire in front that kept
everybody toasting warm in ordinary weather. The regimental and
company officers had similar quarters, improved sometimes by a roof
of canvas or tarpaulin beneath the evergreen thatch. There were but
few days in the East Tennessee winters when such shelter was not a
sufficient protection for men young and accustomed to hardship. It
was in fact more comfortable than life in tents at division and
corps headquarters, but with us tents were a necessity on account of
the clerical business which I have mentioned.
The want most felt was that of clothing and shoes. The supply of
these had run very low by the time Burnside had marched through
Kentucky and Tennessee to Knoxville, and almost none had been
received since. Many of the soldiers were literally in rags, and
none were prepared for winter when Longstreet interrupted all
communication with the base of supplies. Their shoes were worn out,
and this, even more than their raggedness, made winter marching out
of the question. The barefooted men had to be left behind, and of
those who started the more poorly shod would straggle, no matter how
good their own will was or how carefully the officers tried to
enforce discipline and keep their men together.
The food question was in a very unsatisfactory way, but had improved
a good deal after the siege of Knoxville was raised. Some herds had
been brought part of the way, and had been kept together, so that
they were driven in as soon as the road was open. Some were captured
and some were lost, but enough arrived so that the meat ration was
pretty regularly issued in full weight. A large amount of pork had
been salted and packed at Knoxville, and was issued as an occasional
change from the ordinary ration of fresh beef. The "small rations"
of coffee, sugar, salt, etc., were almost wholly wanting, and our
soldiers had been so accustomed to a regular issue of these that the
deprivation was a very serious matter. As to breadstuffs, none could
be got from our depots and we were wholly dependent upon the
country. We put all the mills within our lines under military
supervision, and systematized the grinding so that the supply of
meal and flour should be equitably distributed to the army and to
the inhabitants. As the people were loyal, there was no wish on the
part of the military authorities to take corn or other grain without
payment, and the people brought in freely or sold to us on their
farms all that they could spare. Still the supply was short, and was
soon exhausted in the vicinity of the army, so that we had to send
forage trains to great distances and with very unsatisfactory
results. During the whole winter we rarely succeeded in obtaining
half rations of bread, and oftentimes the fraction was so small as
to be hardly worth estimating. In such a situation corn could not be
taken for horse-feed, and as the long forage in our vicinity was
exhausted, the animals were in pitiful condition. In many instances
artillery horses dropped dead of starvation at the picket rope.
The Fourth Corps was no better off than ourselves. Granger had left
the Army of the Cumberland immediately after the battle of
Missionary Ridge, and although the situation at Chattanooga had been
a good deal mitigated, no considerable supplies of clothing had then
arrived. The distress was therefore universal in our East Tennessee
army. Learning that Sheridan's division was encamped not far from us
at Blain's Cross-roads, I rode over to find Colonel Emerson Opdycke
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Ohio, who was in that division.
He was a townsman of mine, and our families were intimate, and other
neighbors and friends were with him. I could give them later news
from home than any of them had, for until the end of the year the
newspapers I brought from Cincinnati were the latest in camp. I
found Opdycke's camp like our own. He was in the woods, under a
lean-to shelter such as I have described, with a camp-fire of great
logs in front of it. He was just opening the first letters he had
got from home since the battle of Chickamauga in September, and
these had been a long time on the way, for they had gone to
Chattanooga and had come by casual conveyance from there. His
statements fully agreed with the reports I had got from the
Twenty-third Corps officers in regard to the condition of the
troops. It was the same with all. They would not suffer greatly if
they could remain in the forest encampments till shoes and clothing
could come to us, but any active campaigning must produce
intolerable suffering.
Our mess wished to celebrate Christmas by a dinner at which a few of
our comrades might share the luxury of some canned vegetables and
other stores we had brought from Ohio, and we sent a man with a
foraging party that was going twenty miles away for hay and corn.
After a diligent search he succeeded in getting a turkey and a pair
of fowls, and we kept the festival in what seemed luxurious style to
our friends who had been through the campaign. The spirit of
officers and men was all that could be wished, for they thoroughly
understood the causes of their privation, and knew that it was
unavoidable. Their patriotism and their moral tone were
magnificently shown in the re-enlistments which were at this time
going on. The troops of the original enlistment of 1861 were now
near the end of their term of three years, and it was the wise
policy of the government to let the question of a new term be
settled now while the winter was interrupting active operations.
Regiments whose term of service would expire in the spring or summer
of 1864 were offered a month's furlough at home and the title of
"veterans" if they would re-enlist. The furlough was to be enjoyed
before the opening of the next campaign, and the regiments were to
be sent off as fast as circumstances would permit. We knew that the
home visit would be a strong inducement to many, but we were
astonished and awed at the noble unanimity of the popular spirit of
the men. Almost to a man they were determined to "see it out," as
they said. The re-enlistment was accepted by companies, but there
was great pride in preserving the regimental organization as well.
The closing week of the year was devoted to this business, other
duty being suspended as far as circumstances would permit. When a
company had "veteranized" by the re-enlistment of a majority, they
announced it by parading on the company street and giving three
rousing cheers. These cheers were the news of the day, and the
company letter and the number of the regiment passed eagerly from
mouth to mouth as the signal of a new veteran company was heard.
Some companies re-enlisted without an exception. In one regiment
there were only 15 men in the ten companies who did not sign the new
rolls. In fact only the physically disabled with here and there a
discontented man were omitted in the veteran enlistment. It was a
remarkable incident in the history of the war and a speaking one. It
illustrates better than anything, except the original outburst of
patriotism in 1861, the character of the men who formed our rank and
file. Could we only have had then an efficient system of filling up
these veteran regiments by new recruits, the whole would have made
an incomparable army; but, alas, we were to see them reduced to a
handful while new regiments were organized, only (as it looked to us
in the field) to give the "patronage" of the appointments to
politicians, or to reward successful recruiting instead of soldierly
ability tested in action.
Soon after General Foster was assigned to the department he reissued
an order which Burnside had made earlier but had revoked, by which
Brigadier-General Samuel D. Sturgis was appointed to the command of
the cavalry corps. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii,
p. 394.] Sturgis had commanded a division of the Ninth Corps in
Maryland and Virginia, and was one of those whose dismissal Burnside
had demanded for the insubordination which followed the battle of
Fredericksburg. Good policy would have dictated that he should be
sent to some other command; but he was ordered to report to
Burnside, and had no active employment until Foster arrived. The
cavalry corps had had several lively engagements with the
Confederate horse, and was now concentrated near Mossy Creek, where
it was supported by a brigade of infantry from the second division
of the Twenty-third Corps, in command of Colonel Mott of the One
Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 488, 489, 562.]
Our information showed that Longstreet's forces were now
concentrated about Morristown, and that nothing larger than scouting
parties came across to the west side of the Holston. It became
prudent, therefore, to transfer part of our forces from the Rutledge
road over to that which runs from Knoxville along the line of the
railroad to Morristown. Both the railroad and the wagon-road cross
the Holston at Strawberry Plains and go up the valley on the east
side of the river by way of New Market and Mossy Creek. On the 24th
and 25th I was directed to send two more brigades to Strawberry
Plains, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 490.]one of which was put over the
river to cover the reconstruction of the railway bridge which was
going on. This was the long trestle which had been burned by Sanders
in the preceding summer, and had since been repaired and destroyed
by the opposing armies alternately. On the 27th I was ordered to
move the other division of the corps to Strawberry Plains, thus
concentrating my command in that vicinity. Our distance from
Knoxville would be about the same as at Blain's Cross-roads, but the
divergence of the roads made our march some six or eight miles
across the country.
It was a great hardship to the men to abandon the huts they had made
with a good deal of labor, and which were the more necessary for
them by reason of the destitution which I have described. Nor was it
pleasant for us at headquarters, for we had got our own
establishment into a condition of tolerable comfort. Some brick had
been got from a ruined and abandoned house, and with them a chimney
with an open fireplace had been built at the back of one of our
tents, which thus made a cheerful sitting-room for our mess. It is a
soldier's proverb that comfortable quarters are sure to bring
marching orders, and we were only illustrating the rule. The march
was made in the afternoon through rain and mud, and we reached
Strawberry Plains just before nightfall in the short midwinter day.
The Plains were a nearly level space in a curve of the river, though
the village of the name was on some rough hills on the other bank at
the end of the long trestle bridge. The level lands had been for
some time occupied by the cavalry, and were so cut into mud-holes
and defiled in every way as to be unfit for an infantry camp. A
little on one side, however, was an isolated gently rounded hill
covered with a mixed forest of oak and pine. With a little crowding
this would make a clean and well-drained camp for the division I had
brought with me. The brigades were placed so that they encircled the
hill on the lower slopes with openings between leading to the top,
on which I placed my headquarters. The little quadrangle of tents on
the top, the forest-covered slopes, the busy soldiery below making
new camps for themselves, made a romantic picture despite the
discomforts. I cannot better show the impression made at the moment
than by quoting from a letter written home the next day: "When we
arrived, the rain was pouring in torrents, the dead leaves, wet and
deep, soaked our boots and made it slow work to kindle a fire, and
as we stood about in our overcoats heavy with water, we were not
especially impressed with the romance of the scene; but when we had
found a few old pine-knots to start the fire with, and the heavy
smoke of the damp leaves changed to a bright flame,--when the tents
were pitched, a cup of hot coffee made, and we sat about the fire
watching the flashing light on the deep green of the pines and the
beautiful russet of the oak leaves with the white of the tents
beneath, the few square yards about us were made as lovely as a
fairy scene shut in by the impenetrable gloom beyond. The old
witchery of camp life now came over us, we forgot rain and cold,
singing and chatting as merrily as if care were dead, till finally
rolling in our blankets under our tents, we went to sleep as sweetly
and soundly as children."
A day or two of bright mild weather followed, and the troops got
themselves fairly well sheltered again. The cutting of trees for
huts and for firewood thinned out the forest, and the elevation of
the camp above the surrounding country exposed us to the wind, as we
soon learned to our cost. Whilst the fair days lasted, we had a
favorable example of an East Tennessee winter, as is shown by the
further quotation from the home letter just cited. "I am sitting in
the open air," I said, "before the camp-fire of great logs, writing
upon my atlas on my knee, which is more comfortable than doing it in
the chilly shade of the tent. I wish you could have seen our camp
last night. We were grouped around the fire, some sitting and
lolling on the logs drawn up for fuel, some in camp chairs. The
smoke from the camps about us made the whole air hazy. Over the
tents through a vista of pine-trees the moon was rising red through
the thickened air, while overhead the stars were shining. The
wonderful perspective the firelight makes in the forest, here
brought out and deepened the mass of color of the evergreens, there
made the bare trunk and limbs of a leafless oak stand like a chalk
drawing against the black background, and again it gave rich velvety
warmth to the brown of the dead leaves which hung thick on some
trees, while the gloom beyond and the snug enclosure of our little
quadrangle of tents shut us in with a sense of shelter, and
completed a picture that would have made Rembrandt die of envy." We
were hardened by our continuous exposure so that we felt no
discomfort in sitting thus in the open air till late in the evening,
though we woke in the morning to find the dead leaves which made our
carpet stiff and crisp with the frost. Still, it was much milder
than the Christmas weather of northern Ohio, or we could not have
taken it so easily.
On the 29th the cavalry had a lively affair with the enemy at Mossy
Creek, some twenty miles above us. General Sturgis was making a
reconnoissance of the country between the French Broad and the
Holston rivers, sending the cavalry partly toward Dandridge on the
former stream, under command of Colonel Foster, and partly toward
Morristown, under Brigadier-General W. L. Elliott of the Cumberland
army. Elliott was supported by Mott's brigade of infantry, part of
which acted under his orders. Foster found no enemy, but Elliott had
advanced about three miles beyond Mossy Creek when he encountered
the cavalry corps of the Confederates, advancing, apparently, with a
purpose similar to ours. The infantry were posted by Sturgis upon a
ridge half a mile beyond the railway bridge at Mossy Creek, and the
cavalry with the artillery were ordered to retire slowly to the same
position. The enemy under Major-General William T. Martin consisted
of two divisions of horsemen and two batteries of artillery. They
closely followed our retiring troops, who made cool resistance and
drew back slowly and in order. When the position of the infantry was
reached, the whole force was halted to receive the Confederate
attack. Sturgis had two batteries of artillery with his corps, but
had sent a section of each with Colonel Foster, and Elliott now
placed the remaining sections on right and left of the road, each
supported by infantry. Martin boldly attacked till he found himself
confronted by Mott's infantry, which opened upon him with a
withering fire. The artillery also fired canister upon the advancing
enemy, and our horsemen, dismounting, extended the line and did good
execution with their carbines. The first assault being repulsed,
Martin was unwilling to give it up so, and bringing his artillery
into better position renewed the fight. A sharp skirmishing combat
was kept up for several hours, when the enemy retreated. Darkness
came on soon after, and the pursuit was not pushed far. Our losses
had been 17 killed and 87 wounded. That of the enemy was reported to
be much more severe. The result of the engagement was to repress the
enterprise of the Confederates, so that Mossy Creek remained for
some time our undisturbed outpost in the valley. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 625-641.]
On New Year's eve we had a change of weather which rudely broke in
upon our dream of a steady and mild winter. It had been raining
nearly all day, and we had just turned in about ten o'clock in the
evening when a sudden gale sprung up from the northward. The
water-soaked ground did not hold the tent pins very well, and the
rattling of canvas warned us to look after the fastenings. The staff
were all quickly at work, the servants being, as usual, slow in
answering a call in the night. The front of our mess tent blew in,
and the roof and sides were bellying out and flapping like a ship's
sail half clewed up. I caught the door-flaps and held them down to
the pole with all my strength, shouting to the black boys to turn
out before the whole should fly away. Then we had a lively time for
an hour, going from tent to tent to drive the pins tighter and make
things secure. We had just got them snug, as we thought, and began
to listen to the roaring of the wind with something like defiance,
when a "stick-and-clay" chimney, which Colonel Sterling and my
brother had at the back of their tent, took fire and was near
setting the whole encampment in a blaze. This made another shout and
rush, till the chimney was torn away from the canvas and the fire
extinguished. The gale was so fierce that the sparks from the
camp-fires rolled along the ground instead of rising, and we should
have burned up had not the rain kept the tents soaking wet. It grew
cold so fast that by the time we had made the encampment safe, the
wet canvas froze stiff. It must be confessed that we did not sleep
well that night, and we got up in the morning aching with cold. It
still blew a gale, though the sky was clear and the thermometer had
fallen to zero. It was a typical cyclone coming as a cold wave from
the North, and, as we afterward learned, was exceptional in its
suddenness and bitterness along the whole line from Minnesota to
northern Georgia.
The soldiers in the camps had slept but little, for they were
obliged to keep awake and near the fires to escape freezing. No one
who has not lived in tents or in bivouac in such a time can
understand what real suffering from cold is. Exposure by day is easy
to bear compared with the chill by night when camp-fires burn low
and men lie shivering, their teeth chattering, while extreme
drowsiness makes exertion painful and there is danger of going off
into the sleep that knows no waking. On New Year's day morning the
ground was frozen solid. All huddled about the fires, but the gale
was so fierce that on the windward side there seemed to be no
radiation of heat, so completely was the fire blown away from that
side of the logs. On the leeward side the smoke suffocated and the
sparks burned one, and men passed from one side to the other
doubting which was the more tolerable.
I spent a good part of the morning going through the regimental
camps and giving such encouragement and cheer as I could. The
patience and courage of the troops were marvellous, though many of
the men were in a pitiable condition as to clothing. They were
tatterdemalions in appearance, but heroes at heart. Some had nothing
but drawers upon their legs, their trousers being utterly worn to
rags. Some had no coats and drew their tattered blankets about them,
sitting upon their haunches, like Indians, about the camp-fires. I
do not recall a single querulous or ill-natured complaint. It was
heart-breaking work to see their misery, but they were so
intelligent that they knew as well as I did that it had grown out of
the inevitable fortunes of war, in spite of the utmost efforts of
their commanders to get supplies forward as soon as the siege of
Knoxville had been raised. I estimated that fully one-third of the
command had lost and worn out some material portion of their
clothing, so as to be suffering for lack of it. A little thing which
added greatly to the discomfort of the men was that in some whole
brigades they had been without soap for two months. This made
cleanliness impossible, and clustering about the fires as they were
forced to do, they became so begrimed that a liberal supply of soap
would have been necessary to restore their color and show to what
race they belonged. Yet, hungry, cold, ragged, and dirty, they
responded cheerily to my New-Year's greetings, and at this very time
the "veteranizing" was going on without a check until nearly every
one of the old regiments re-enlisted for another term.
At our headquarters on the hill-top we realized that our picturesque
situation had its disadvantages, for we were doubly exposed to the
force of the wind. We were on a high dome, as it were, with nothing
whatever to make a lee or break the power of the icy gale. In one or
two of the tents, furnaces or stoves of stone had been made, on the
pattern of those we had used in West Virginia in 1861. The trench in
the ground with flat stone covering level with the tent floor and
connected with an opening on the outside, proved the most successful
device. We collected in these, and used every manner of pastime to
kill the tedious hours till the subsidence of the wind made our
usual outdoor life and activity possible again. Our efforts at meals
were a woeful sort of failure. Cooking under such difficulties was
more a name than a fact, and we left the mess tent shivering and
hardly less hungry than we entered it. But all things have an end,
however tedious they seem in passing, and the 2d of January seemed
pleasant in the comparison, for the "blizzard" was over, and the
weather was calm though cold.