CAVALRY SERVICE.
New Field of Action. -- Promotion. -- Guerrilla Warfare. --
Characteristics. -- Tendencies. -- Captain J.H. Morgan. --
Character. -- Personal Appearance. -- Anecdotes. -- Success.
-- Southern Cavalry superior to Northern. -- Advantages. --
Riding Courier. -- General Johnson evacuates Bowling Green.
-- Excitement in Nashville. -- Preparations for Defence. --
Commissary Stores. -- Vandalism. -- Rear Guard. -- Line of
Retreat. -- Dreadful Hardships. -- Losses. -- Forced March.
-- Desolation. -- Cause of Retreat. -- Other Counsel. --
Accident. -- No Union Feeling evident. -- Intolerant yet
Sincere.
While at Nashville, recovering from the typhoid pneumonia, I
resolved to seek a transfer to the cavalry service, as affording me
a new field of observation, and perhaps a more stirring and exciting
life. As Captain F----s was recruiting a company in and around
Nashville, I rode with him from day to day over the country, and
thus secured his advocacy of my wishes. On the 4th of February,
1862, I was transferred to his company, and entered it as orderly
sergeant, and a vacancy soon occurring, I was promoted to a
lieutenancy, Our company was to have been attached to a battalion
commanded by Major Howard of Maryland, formerly of the United States
army, and as my captain was in service on General Hardee's staff, I
acted as captain during the whole of my term in this branch of the
service. Shortly after, my company was attached to the command of
that celebrated guerrilla leader, Captain J.H. Morgan, at that time,
however, acting under the rules of regular warfare, and not, as now,
in the capacity of a highway robber.
The system of guerrilla warfare has been indorsed by an act of the
Confederate Congress, and is fully inaugurated over a large part of
the South. As there practiced now, it is distinguished from regular
warfare by two things: First, the troops are not under any brigade
commander, but operate in small bands, much at their pleasure, with
a general responsibility to the major-general commanding in their
department.
One result of this feature of the system is to develop a large
amount of talent in the ranks, as every man has an individual
responsibility, and constant opportunities to test his shrewdness
and daring. It also gives a perfect knowledge of all roads and
localities to the whole force in a given section, as some one or
more soldiers will be found in each gang, who, in their frequent
maraudings, have traversed every by-path and marked every important
point.
The second prominent characteristic of guerrilla warfare, is the
license it gives to take by force from supposed enemies or neutrals,
horses, cash, munitions of war, and, in short, any thing which can
aid the party for which he fights; _with the promise of full pay for
whatever he brings off to his head-quarters_. This is the essential
principle of the system, giving it its power and destructiveness. As
it displaces patriotism from the breast of the fighter, and
substitutes in its room the desire for plunder, the men thus engaged
become highway robbers in organized and authorized bands. Nor do
guerrilla bands long confine their depredations to known enemies.
Wherever a good horse can be found, wherever silver plate is
supposed to be secreted, wherever money might be expected, there
they concentrate and rob without inquiry as to the character of the
owner. Hence the system is destructive to all confidence, and to the
safety of even innocent and defenseless females.
It requires no prophet's ken to foresee that the Confederate
authorities have commenced a system which will utterly demoralize
all engaged in it; destroy the peace, and endanger the safety of
non-combatants, and eventually reduce to ruin and anarchy the whole
community over which these bands of robbers have their range.
This process has already commenced, and if the loyal troops were
withdrawn to-day from all Secessia, and the South allowed its
independence, the people would find themselves in the hands of
bandits to harass and plunder for months to come, and would have
long scores of wrongs to right, which have been inflicted upon
neutrals and friends of the Rebellion by its professed soldiers.
Should the contest continue for two or three years longer, the South
bids fair to lapse into the semi-barbarism of Mexico, or the
robber-ruled anarchy of Spain after the Peninsular war. The
legitimate tendency of the system is understood by the Southern
generals, and some of them resisted its introduction; but the
desperation of the whole Southern mind swept away opposition, and
they are now embarked on a stormy sea, which will assuredly wreck
the craft, if it be not sooner sunk by loyal broadsides.
How the government should treat these free-booters when captured, as
some of them have been, is plain, if the usual laws of war are to be
followed; they are to be punished as outlaws, and hung or shot. But,
in this case, can it be done safely? There were, when I left
Secessia, not less than 10,000 men organized as guerrillas. There
may be far more at this writing. Is it possible to treat such a
number as banditti, without inaugurating a more bloody retaliation
and massacre than the world has ever seen? I only raise the
question.
Morgan, as a citizen in times of peace, maintained the reputation of
a generous, genial, jolly, horse-loving, and horse-racing
Kentuckian. He went into the Rebellion _con amore_, and pursues it
with high enjoyment. He is about thirty-five years of age, six feet
in hight, well made for strength and agility, and is perfectly
master of himself; has a light complexion, sandy hair, and generally
wears a mustache, and a little beard on his chin. His eyes are keen,
bluish gray in color, and when at rest, have a sleepy look, but he
sees every one and every thing around him, although apparently
unobservant. He is an admirable horseman, and a good shot. As a
leader of a battalion of cavalry, he has no superior in the Rebel
ranks. His command of his men is supreme. While they admire his
generosity and manliness, sharing with them all the hardships of the
field, they fear his more than Napoleonic severity for any departure
from enjoined duty. His men narrate of him this--that upon one
occasion, when engaging in a battle, he directed one of his troopers
to perform a hazardous mission in the face of the enemy. The man did
not move. Morgan asked, in short quick words,
"Do you understand my orders?"
"Yes, captain, but I can not obey."
"Then, good-by," said Morgan, and in a moment the cavalryman fell
dead from his saddle. Turning to his men, he added, "Such be the
fate of every man disobeying orders in the face of an enemy."
No man ever hesitated after that to obey any command.
But Morgan is not without generosity to a foe. A Federal cavalryman
related to me, since my escape, an unusual act for an enemy. Losing
the command of his wounded horse, which goaded by pain plunged
wildly on, he was borne into the midst of Morgan's force. "Don't
shoot him!" cried Morgan to a dozen of his men who raised their
pistols. "Give him a chance for his life." The pistols were lowered
and the man sent back to his own lines unharmed. Few men have
appeared on either side in this contest who combine dash and
caution, intrepidity and calmness, boldness of plan with
self-possession in execution, as does Morgan. The feat reported of
him in Nashville, shortly after the Rebel army retreated through
it, illustrates this. Coming into the city full of Federal soldiers
in the garb of a farmer with a load of meal, he generously gives it
to the commissary department, saying, in an undertone, that there
are some Union men out where he lives, but they have to be careful
to dodge the Rebel cavalry, and he wishes to show his love for the
cause by this little donation. Going to the St. Cloud to dine, he
sits at the same table with General McCook, since cruelly murdered,
and is pointed out to the Federal officer as the Union man who had
made the generous gift. He is persuaded to take the value of it in
gold, and then, in a private interview, tells the Federal officer
that a band of Morgan's cavalry is camping near him, and if one or
two hundred cavalry will come down there to-morrow he will show them
how to take Morgan. The cavalry go, and _are taken_ by Morgan. So
the story goes. An equally successful feat it was, to step into the
telegraph office in Gallatin, Tennessee, at a later date, as he did,
dressed as a Federal officer, and there learn from the operator the
time when the down-train would be in, and arrest it, securing many
thousands of dollars without loss of men or time. Another anecdote
of his cool daring and recklessness is this. Riding up to a picket
post near Nashville, dressed in full Federal uniform, he sharply
reproved the sentinel on duty for not calling out the guard to
salute the officer of the day, as he announced himself to be. The
sentinel stammered out, as an excuse, that he did not know him to be
the officer of the day. Morgan ordered him to give up his arms,
because of this breach of duty, and the man obeyed. He then called
out the remaining six men of the guard, including the lieutenant who
was in charge, and put them under arrest, ordering them to pile
their arms, which they did. He then marched them down the road a
short distance where his own men were concealed, and secured all of
them, and their arms and horses, without resistance.
In an engagement Morgan is perfectly cool, and yet his face and
action are as if surcharged with electricity. He has the quickness
of a tiger, and the strength of two ordinary men. One cause of his
success is found in the character of his chargers. He has only the
fleetest and most enduring horses; and when one fails he soon finds
another by hook or by crook. His business in his recent raid into
Kentucky (July 28th), seemed to have been mainly to gather up the
best blooded horses, in which that State abounds.
Unless in some fortunate hour for the loyal cause he should fall
into the hands of the Federal forces, Colonel John H. Morgan will
become one of the most potent and dangerous men in the Rebel
service.
So far as my observation extended, the Southern cavalry are superior
to the loyal, for the kind of service expected of them. They are not
relied upon for heavy charges against large bodies of infantry
closely massed, as in some of the wars of the Old World during the
close of the last century and the first part of this; but for
scouting, foraging, and sudden dashes against outposts and unguarded
companies of their enemies. In this service, fleetness, perfect
docility, and endurance for a few hours or a day, are requisite in
the make-up of the horses used. And in these traits Morgan's blooded
horses are admirable. And then, with the exception of some of the
Western troopers, the Southerners are more perfect horsemen than our
loyal cavalry. They have been on horseback, many of them, from
youth, and are trained to the perfect control of themselves and
their steeds in difficult circumstances. In addition to these causes
of superiority, they have a vast advantage over the Federal troops
in the present contest from two causes: It is hard to overestimate
the advantage they find in a knowledge of the ground, the roads, the
ravines, the hiding-places, the marshes, the fords, the forests, &c.
But even more important than this is the sympathy they have from the
inhabitants, almost universally, who give them information by every
method, of the approach, strength, and plans of their enemies. Even
the negroes will be found often, either from fear or other motives,
to give all the information they can obtain to the Southerners. And
the Southerners know far better than we do how to obtain, and sift,
and estimate, the value of what the slaves tell them.
From these causes, we should look for and expect no little trouble
from the mounted men, who will continue to constitute a pretty large
element in the Rebel forces.
After commencing my service in the cavalry, we spent some three
weeks in scouting and foraging, having Nashville for our center.
During this time I rode as courier several times, on one occasion
riding sixty miles, from Nashville to Shelbyville, in seven hours.
Upon another occasion, my blooded horse made fourteen miles in a
little less than fifty minutes; but this was harder service than we
generally exacted from our horses. Upon reporting myself to General
Breckenridge, for whom this arduous service had been performed, he
merely said "_Très bien_"--from which I saw that he expected prompt
work from those who served him.
On Saturday the 15th of February, the report came that General
Johnson would evacuate Bowling Green, and Sunday morning we learned,
to the amazement of citizens and soldiers, that Fort Donelson was
taken. Never was there greater commotion than Nashville exhibited
that Sabbath morning. Churches were closed, Sabbath schools failed
to assemble, citizens gathered in groups, consulted hastily, and
then rushed to their homes to carry out their plans. Bank directors
were speedily in council, and Confederate officials were everywhere
engrossed in the plan of evacuation. A general stampede commenced.
Specie was sent off to Columbia and Chattanooga, plate was removed,
and valuables huddled promiscuously into all kinds of vehicles.
Hack-hire rose to twenty-five dollars an hour, and personal service
to fabulous prices. Government property was removed as fast as
transportation could be furnished. Vast amounts of provisions and
ammunition had been accumulated at Nashville, for the armies at
Donelson and Bowling Green; and so confident were they of holding
those points, that no provision had been made for retreat.
On Sunday the advance of the Bowling Green army began to come in,
and those who escaped from Donelson on Tuesday. The appearance of
these retreating forces increased the panic among the people, and as
the troops came in the non-combatants went out. By the 20th, all who
could get away were gone, and none but the military were prominent
in the streets, and the sick and wounded were sent southward. The
main body of the army camped on the Nashville side of the river.
Work was suspended on two fine gunboats in process of construction,
and orders given to be ready for their destruction at a moment's
notice. The railroad bridge was also prepared for the same fate.
In the mean time the citizens, believing that General Johnson would
make a stand, commenced a fortification, four miles from the city,
on the south side of the Cumberland, for the purpose of resisting
the advance of the gunboats. When it was announced that no defence
would be made, the people were highly indignant, because the
suddenness of this decision left the citizens no time for the
removal of their remaining goods. As the Confederate authorities
could not remove all their commissary stores, the warehouses were
thrown open, and the poor came and carried off thousands of dollars'
worth. Some of these people subsequently set up boarding-houses and
fed Union soldiers from the provisions thus obtained.
At length the railroad bridge and the gunboats were burned, and the
suspension bridge cut down. An act of pure vandalism was this last,
as it neither aided the Rebel retreat nor delayed the Federal
advance. Curses against General Floyd and Governor Harris were loud
and deep for this act, and General A.S. Johnson never recovered the
reputation lost during this retreat.
My company was constantly on scout duty, guarding the roads on the
north side of the river, protecting the rear of the retreating
hosts, and watching for the coming of Buell's advance. This whole
retreat, from Bowling Green to Corinth, a distance of nearly three
hundred miles as traveled by the army, and occupying six weeks, was
one of the most trying that an army was ever called upon to perform
in its own country and among friends. The army was not far from
60,000 strong, after General George B. Crittenden's forces were
added to it at Murfreesboro. The season of the year was the worst
possible in that latitude. Rain fell, sometimes sleet, four days out
of seven. The roads were bad enough at best, but under such
a tramping of horses and cutting of wheels as the march
produced, soon became horrible. About a hundred regiments were
numbered in the army. The full complement of wagons to each
regiment--twenty-four--would give above two thousand wagons. Imagine
such a train of heavily loaded wagons, passing along a single mud
road, accompanied by 55,000 infantry and 5000 horsemen, in the midst
of rain and sleet, day after day, camping at night in wet fields or
dripping woods, without sufficient food adapted to their wants, and
often without any tents, the men lying down in their wet clothes,
and rising chilled through and through; and let this continue for
six weeks of incessant retreat, and you get a feeble glimpse of what
we endured. The army suffered great loss from sickness and some from
desertion; some regiments leaving Bowling Green with six or seven
hundred men, and reaching Corinth with but half of this number. The
towns through which we passed were left full of sick men, and many
were sent off to hospitals at some distance from our route.
One of the most desperate marches men were ever called to encounter,
was performed by General Breckenridge's division between
Fayetteville and Huntsville. They moved at ten A.M., and marched
till one o'clock next morning, making thirty miles over a terrible
road, amid driving rain and sleet during the whole time. The reason
for this desperate work was, that a day's march lay between the
rear-guard and the main body of General Johnson's army, and there
was danger that it would be cut off. It cost the general hundreds of
men. One-fourth of the division dropped out of the ranks unable to
proceed, and were taken up by the guard, until every wagon and
ambulance was loaded, and then scores were deserted on the road, who
straggled in on following days, or made their way back to their
homes in Tennessee or Kentucky.
This retreat left a good deal of desolation in its track; for
although the officers endeavored to restrain their men, yet they
must have wood; and where the forest was sometimes a mile from the
camping ground, and fences were near, the fences suffered; and where
sheep and hogs abounded when we came, bones and bristles were more
abundant after we left. Horses were needed in the army; and after it
left, none were seen on the farms. And then the impressed soldiers,
judging from my own feelings, were not over-scrupulous in guarding
the property of Rebels. The proud old planters, who had aided in
bringing on the rebellion, were unwillingly compelled to bear part
of its burdens.
This long and disastrous retreat was rendered a necessity as soon as
Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, was taken by the Federal forces,
as this river was opened, and they could throw an army in the rear
of the Confederates as far south as Florence, in Alabama, within a
few days. Indeed the Confederate officers expected this, and
wondered that the Federals failed to do it immediately, as this
movement would have cut off Johnson's retreat, and have forced him
to surrender, fight, or escape eastward through Knoxville, giving up
the whole West to the loyal forces. The delay of the United States
forces to take Fort Donelson allowed General A. Sidney Johnson to
reach Corinth by March. Here General Beauregard, in command of the
army of the Mississippi valley, and already there in person,
determined to make a stand.
Great difference of opinion existed among Southern officers as to
the expediency of this retreat. Many, among whom were Generals
Breckenridge, Hindman, and Bowen, counseled to assume the offensive,
and make a bold dash upon Louisville, Ky. This became the general
opinion subsequently; and had it been adopted as the policy in the
beginning, would have given a different phase to the war in the
West, at least for a time.
A ludicrous scene occurred at this time, illustrating the liability
to panic to which even brave men are sometimes subject. While
resting at Murfreesboro, of course we were liable to be overtaken by
Buell's cavalry, and as Colonel Morgan was not a man to be caught
asleep, he kept scouting parties ever on the alert, scouring the
country on different roads for miles in the direction of the Federal
army. I was in command of a squad of eight men, with whom I made a
long and rapid march in the direction of Lebanon, and when returning
by a different route, night overtook us some fifteen miles from
camp. After getting supper at a farm-house, we were again in the
saddle at ten o'clock of a calm, quiet evening, with a dim moon to
light us back to camp. We jogged on unsuspicious of danger, as we
were now on the return from the direction of the Federal cavalry.
Within ten miles of camp, near midnight, we passed through a lane
and were just entering a forest, when we became aware that a cavalry
force was approaching on the same road; but who they were, or how
many, we had no idea. We were not expecting another party of our men
in this direction, and yet they could hardly be Federals, or we
would have heard of them, as we had been near their lines, and among
the friends of the Southern cause.
Acting on the principle that it is safer to ask than to answer
questions in such circumstances, I instantly ordered them to "Halt,"
and asked, "Who comes there?" Their commander was equally
non-committal, and demanded, "Who comes there?"
"If you are friends, advance and give the countersign," said I; but
scarcely was the word uttered when the buckshot from the shot-guns
of the head of the column came whistling past us in dangerous but
not fatal proximity. Thus challenged, I instantly ordered, "Draw
saber--Charge!" and with a wild yell we dashed at them, determined
to keep our course toward our camp, whoever they might be. To our
surprise, they broke and ran in disorder, and we after them, yelling
with all the voice we could command. I soon saw, from their mode of
riding and glimpses of their dress, that they were Confederates; but
as we had routed them, though seven times our number,--there were
sixty-five of them,--we determined to give them a race. Keeping my
men together, yelling in unison, and firing in the air occasionally,
we pressed them closely six or seven miles. When within three miles
of camp, I drew my men up and told them we must get in by another
route, and, if possible, as soon as they. A rapid ride by a longer
road brought us to the lines in a few minutes, and we found the
whole force of over a thousand cavalrymen mounting to repel an
attack from a formidable force of Federal cavalry, which had driven
in the scouting party of sixty-five men, after a desperate
encounter. I immediately reported the whole affair to Morgan, when,
with a spice of humor which never forsakes him, he told me to keep
quiet; and, calling up the lieutenant who was in charge of the
scouting party, ordered him to narrate the whole affair. The
lieutenant could not say how many Federal cavalry there were, but
there must have been from three to five hundred, from the rattling
of sabers and the volume of sound embodied in their unearthly yells.
At all events, their charge was terrific, and his wonder was that
any of his men escaped. How many of the Federals had fallen it was
impossible to estimate, but some were seen to fall, &c.
When Morgan had learned the whole story, with the embellishments,
he dismissed the lieutenant. But the story was too good to keep, and
by morning the scare and its cause were fully ventilated, greatly to
the chagrin of Major Bennett's battalion, to which the routed men
belonged. They were questioned daily about "those three hundred
Yankees who made that terrific charge;" and whenever a loud noise of
any kind was made, even by a mule, it was asked, with a serious
face, if that was equal to "the unearthly yells of the Yankees."
Indeed, for weeks, "the three hundred Yankees" was a by-word of
ridicule, in reply to any boast from one of Bennett's men.
Before we reached Shelbyville I met with my first wound,--though not
from the guns of the Federals. I had chosen a vicious but
noble-looking stallion for my Bucephalus, and in Rareyfying him into
submission to Rebel rule, he got the better of me, so far as to land
me about a rod over his head, and taking advantage of my being for
the moment _hors du combat_, ran over me, struck me with one of his
hind feet, and broke my kneepan. But so excited was I with the
contest, and smarting under my defeat, that unconscious of the
seriousness of my wound, I remounted, and rode four miles to camp at
a speed which cooled his ire and taught him some manners. He ever
behaved respectably after that, though I always doubted whether he
was at heart a true and willing fighter in the Secession ranks, any
more than his master. At the end of this race my knee had swollen to
twice its usual size, and was exceedingly painful. With difficulty I
dismounted, and for days was an invalid, for months lame, and even
now at times suffer from the old contusion. Like many another
disaster, this proved at length a blessing, as will yet be seen.
The state of society in Tennessee and Alabama, observed on our
retreat, calls for no special remarks, except as to its loyalty to
the Confederate usurpation. I am often asked respecting the Union
feeling in the seceded States, and can only answer, that while I was
there I did not see any. My position as an officer was not the most
favorable for finding it if it had existed, still I would have seen
the smallest evidences had they anywhere cropped out around me, as I
was on the lookout for this; and then my last months in the South
were spent among the citizens, where I must have seen any Union
sentiment if it showed itself at all. The truth is, and it should be
stated frankly: the whole people, men, women, and children, were a
unit, cemented together under a high heat in opposition to "the
invaders."
"But were there not many who if they had opportunity would have
proclaimed themselves for the United States Government?" That
question is answered in part by the conduct of most of the
inhabitants in the Southern cities and neighborhoods already
occupied by the loyal troops. Up to this writing, the developments
have not been very encouraging. Yet I doubt not there are some, who
in the depth of their hearts believe Secession wrong, and as a
principle destructive to all government, and who long for the return
of the peaceful and beneficent authority of the Constitution and
laws of the Union; but they are too few and timid to exert the
smallest influence. Nor dare they attempt it. The tyranny of public
opinion is absolute. No young man able to bear arms _dares_ to
remain at home; even if the recruiting officers and the conscription
law both fail to reach him, he falls under the proscription of the
young ladies and _must volunteer_, as I did, though from not quite
the same kind of force. And then, no expression of Union feeling
would be tolerated for a moment. From their stand-point, why should
it? They feel themselves engaged in a death-struggle, to defend
their property, honor, and life. Any hint of Unionism among them is
treachery to all their interests, and, besides, a rebuke upon their
whole rebellion. When the North becomes as deeply and generally
enlisted in the war as the South, and feel it to be a struggle for
existence as keenly as they do, no man here will dare to express
sentiments favoring the people or institutions of Rebeldom.
"But how," I am asked, "how can good and sensible men, and
ministers, even, thus take ground against a beneficent government,
and justify themselves in attempting its destruction?" Among the
facts I have noted in my brief life, one is this: That the masses of
men do not _reason_, but _feel_. A few minds give the cue, and the
herd follow; and when passion takes possession of the heart, its
fumes obscure the brain, and they can not see the truth. A general
impression reiterated in a thousand forms, always affirmed and never
denied, fills the mind, and is believed to be the truth. And thus it
is with the people. "Are they sincere?" Yes, as sincere as ever were
martyrs in going to the stake. This is demonstrated by their whole
conduct; and conduct is the test of sincerity, while it proves but
little as to the righteousness of the cause.
In addition it should be said, the common feeling is, "We are in for
a fight, and must carry it through; there is no hope for us but in
fighting; if we give up now, our institutions are ruined, and we
forever the vassals of the domineering and meddling Yankees." This
the leaders and prominent men feel most acutely, and hence they
will fight to the last, and keep the people up to that point as long
as possible. How long that will be depends upon the will of the
North, as no sane man doubts they have the power, and no loyal man
questions the right. But the spirit, the enthusiasm, the enlistment
of all the people with all their power and resources, are, with the
South, as yet far beyond any thing I have seen North.
I may here state that the Confederate authorities have complete
control of the press, so that nothing is ever allowed to appear in
print which can give information to the North or dishearten their
own men. In this it appears to me that they have an unspeakable
advantage over the North, with its numberless papers and hundreds of
correspondents in the loyal armies. Under such a system it is an
absolute impossibility to conceal the movements of the army. With
what the correspondents tell and surmise, and what the Confederates
find out through spies and informers of various kinds, they are able
to see through many of the plans of the Union forces before they
are put into execution. No more common remark did I hear than this,
as officers were reading the Northern papers: "See what fools these
Yankees are. General A---- has left B---- for C----. We will cut him
off. Why the Northern generals or the Secretary of War tolerate this
freedom of news we can not imagine." Every daily paper I have read
since coming North has contained information, either by direct
statement or implication, which the enemy can profit by. If we meant
to play into the hands of the Rebels, we could hardly do it more
successfully than our papers are doing it daily; for it must be
remembered that they only need hints and scraps of information,
which, added to the antecedent probabilities that our army is about
to proceed to a certain point, will enable them to forecast with
almost absolute certainty the movements of their enemies. Sure am I,
that if a Southern paper would publish such information of their
movements, as do the Northern of theirs, the editor's neck would not
be safe an hour.
Does any reader aver, "But we see information often quoted from the
Southern papers of their movements." Never, until they are made. It
is safe to conclude, if you see in a Southern paper any statement
that the army is about to do a certain thing, that they will not do
any such thing, but something very different. No, the Southern
government is now a complete military despotism, and for a
successful carrying on of the war against them I think we must
adopt, to some extent, the same rigid policy. Freedom of opinion is
a precious right, and freedom of the press a valuable boon, but when
the publication of news and the utterance of personal opinions
endanger the lives of our soldiers, and even the success of our
armies, surely it is the duty of the government to restrain that
utterance.