MEMOIRS OF HENRY VILLARD
BOOK SEVEN
IN CIVIL-WAR TIME: CHATTANOOGA
CHAPTER XXXI
Federal Concentration and Reorganization.—1863
WHEN the Government at Washington became
convinced that part of Lee's army had been detached
to reinforce Bragg, the General-in-chief, Halleck, ordered
General Grant, on September 15, four days before the
battle of Chickamauga, to send all the troops he could spare,
with all possible promptness, to the assistance of General
Rosecrans. The order reached Grant at Vicksburg only on
the 22d, but he at once complied with it, and soon
fleets of steamboats were carrying tens of thousands of
men up the Mississippi, bound for Memphis, whence they
were to move by land. The deep effect of the news of the
reverse at Chickamauga upon the Government is shown by
the fact that, for the first time since the outbreak of the
Rebellion, it was led to subordinate the theretofore always
predominant considerations for the safety of the national
capital to the requirements of a crisis elsewhere upon the
theatre of war, and to overcome its reluctance to weaken
the Army of the Potomac by reinforcing other armies from
it. The decision was reached to send the 11th and 12th
Army Corps, under Generals Howard and Slocum, as
quickly as possible, by rail, to the Tennessee, under the
command of General Hooker. The transfer of the nearly
20,000 men of the two corps, of guns, horses and teams and
their belongings, was effected in a week — a very creditable
achievement for those days. It took place as secretly as
possible, and, in response to an appeal from the War
Department to the Northern press, not a single reference was
made to it in the newspapers.
I was just getting ready to start from Cincinnati for Chattanooga when I was surprised on September 29 by the sudden arrival of General Hooker, accompanied by General Butterfield, whom he had appointed his chief of staff, at the Burnet House, where I was stopping. They welcomed me very heartily, and invited me to accompany them on their way to Chattanooga. As they travelled by special trains, their offer was eagerly accepted, and I set out with them in the course of the same day for Louisville, where we stopped half a day, and then continued our journey to Nashville and Bridgeport. Railroad travel at that time was, compared with its present perfection, of a primitive character. Sleeping or parlor cars were not yet known; hence long day and night journeys were very fatiguing. Although we had the right of way, we were delayed at every point by the crowding of the lines with trains carrying troops and supplies. It took us nearly two days and a half to reach Bridgeport on October 2, the regular running time being only fourteen hours. Directly in the wake of us, a dozen or more trains landed the two divisions of the 11th Corps under Generals Carl Schurz and Steinwehr on the banks of the Tennessee.
General Hooker's elation at being restored to active service was very great. Since I had last seen him, at Fredericksburg, he had passed through the ordeal of the battle of Chancellorsville, and had considered himself definitively shelved in consequence of his great failure there. He was in the highest spirits, and full of confident expectation of new distinction in the field. He talked in a lively and gay manner on the way, but was very indiscreet in discussing his past disappointments. He had hoped to have an immediate chance to do some fighting, and was very much taken aback when he received orders to remain himself at Bridgeport, and to employ his two corps in guarding the lines of communication between Nashville and Chattanooga. This meant scattering his troops in small bodies over about 200 miles of distance and did not suit him at all. But this duty was only temporary, and he was kept busy enough while it lasted by rebel raids upon our communications, of which I shall speak hereafter.
I lost no time in pushing on from Bridgeport to Chattanooga, which I found to be an arduous undertaking of much hardship. The falling back of our army had been unfortunately accompanied by the abandonment of Lookout Mountain and Lookout Valley to the enemy. The Mountain rises, within a little over a mile from and to the west of the town limits, sheer up from the south bank of the Tennessee to the height of 2500 feet. Around its base ran the roads which formed the only direct western approaches from the Tennessee to Chattanooga, one down Lookout Valley, and the other over Raccoon Mountain. The occupation of Lookout by the rebels cut us completely off from the use of these roads, and limited us to the one longer and very difficult line of supply from Stevenson and Bridgeport up the Sequatchie Valley to Jasper, and thence over Walden's Ridge to the north bank of the Tennessee River opposite Chattanooga, a distance of forty-eight miles. I had no choice but to take this. I left Bridgeport on the afternoon of October 3, in an ambulance with three officers, and our horses gave out when we reached Jasper, ten miles distant, after dark. Starting again at daylight, the roads proved so execrable that we decided to continue on foot, and had the hardest struggle in ascending and descending in the darkness. It took until after midnight to make the eight miles to the river. I bivouacked the rest of the night with some teamsters around a camp fire, and crossed over to the town on one of the two bridges at daybreak on the 5th. I went directly to the general headquarters, where I was very well received by Generals Rosecrans and Garfield. The chief of staff provided me with quarters in a small brick house of which some of the staff had taken possession. Having been obliged to leave my hand valise and roll of wraps behind in the ambulance, my whole equipment consisted of what I carried on my body. I continued in this uncomfortable predicament for nearly three days, when, to my great relief, I recovered my retarded belongings, and could discharge my duties in an easier state of mind.
Feeling very tired from my rough night's experience, I lay down for a good sleep at about 9 A.M., but was roused, after resting hardly an hour, by the sound of heavy guns. It was the beginning of the long bombardment of Chattanooga from the rebel positions on Lookout Mountain and the heights to the south of the town. The enemy had tried some desultory firing upon us on previous days, apparently in order to get the proper range, but on this, the 5th day of October, 1863, our troops had their first experience of continuous discharges. As the sounds did not cease, I got up and set out to learn what the firing meant. I spent the rest of the day in working my way on foot along our lines and becoming acquainted with the situation.
Chattanooga occupies one of the peninsulas formed by the crooked course of the Tennessee in that mountainous region. The town had, before the Northern invasion, a population of about 10,000, and, as the junction of important railroads from all points of the compass, was a flourishing commercial and industrial centre. It extended from the left bank of the river southwardly for about a mile, with an average width of half that distance. The ground rose gradually, the lower part near the river forming the business, and the upper the residence, portion. Most of the buildings were of red brick, giving the place a solid and well-to-do appearance. There were some flour- and saw-mills, a foundry, rolling-mill, and other industries. The common station of the railroads was at the southern end. Of the population only a few hundred were left, white and black. General Rosecrans was anxious to get rid of the rest of the whites by sending them into the rebel lines. Business was completely at a standstill. The contents of the stores had been removed. Many of the buildings were being used for military purposes, and a number of private houses as headquarters; but the bulk of the troops camped under tents in the outskirts.
Our lines extended across the widest part of the peninsula. Our right, to the west of the town, under General Alexander McD. McCook, first rested near the mouth of Chattanooga Creek, but was subsequently drawn in further. Next came the centre, under Thomas, and the left, under Crittenden, thus repeating the formation that had been followed through the campaign. On reaching the assigned positions, our troops were at once put to work digging rifle-pits for immediate protection. Then day and night were employed in the construction of breastworks of solid earth in the rear of the pits. They arose like magic. The rebels had erected several forts within the town limits, which were put to use. The chief engineer, General Morton, had designed an interior chain of redoubts connected by breastworks, which were rapidly approaching completion. On Cameron Hill, an abrupt elevation on the west side of the peninsula, a regular casemated citadel was being constructed. Altogether the army could be said to be well sheltered within a strongly entrenched camp. Three days after the battle, Rosecrans reported to the War Department that he had 30,000 effectives left. This number had been increased in the meantime by returned stragglers and furloughed officers and men, and by various bodies on detached service, to about 35,000 — an ample number to hold the place behind the entrenchments against any attack by the rebel army. Our security was, nevertheless, by no means absolutely assured; we were, on the contrary, exposed to the double danger of being either bombarded or starved out of the place.
Missionary Ridge divides the valleys of the Chattanooga and Chickamauga. It rises abruptly, like a mighty rampart, to a height of 1600 feet above the Tennessee River, and at an average distance of about two miles from Chattanooga. From the nearest part of its summit every quarter of the town is commanded. The rebel lines stretched from near the abutment of the Ridge on the Chickamauga along its brow to and beyond Chattanooga Creek, up the slopes of Lookout Mountain facing the town. The enemy's camps were concealed by heavy timber, but their presence along this extended front had been well ascertained by reconnoissances, spies and deserters. The length of the line was nearly eight miles — too great — and became a source of weakness to which the final rebel defeat was due. The Confederate, like the Union army, retained its formation of Chickamauga during the first stages of the investment at Chattanooga — that is, the wing under Lieutenant-General Polk formed the right, and that under Lieutenant-General Longstreet the left. The strength of Bragg's forces was, according to the returns telegraphed to the Richmond War Office on October 7: Present for duty, infantry, 4664 officers, 46,447 enlisted men; artillery, 157 officers, 3480 enlisted men, making a total of 54,748 officers and men. The enemy's superiority in infantry and artillery thus appears to have been about thirty per cent. It was shown that the losses at Chickamauga had reduced Bragg's strength of 42,000, exclusive of cavalry, to about 24,000, so that 30,000 men must have been added to his command during the intervening two weeks and a half. These heavy reinforcements appear to have been made up of the two brigades of McLaws's division and two of Hood's divisions of Longstreet's corps, which joined the army just after the battle, a division from Mississippi under Major-General Stevenson, and many thousands of absentees on furlough and sick leave, whom the rebel authorities, by strenuous efforts, succeeded in gathering up and returning to the front.
The Confederate Commander-in-chief had made up his mind to confine his operations against Chattanooga to as close an investment as the local conditions allowed, and to compel the Unionists, both by interrupting their supplies and by shot and shell, either to surrender or retreat north of the Tennessee. This decision was contrary to the judgment of his leading generals, and, as will duly appear, led to what was nothing less than outright insubordination on their part. The interruption of our supplies had already been accomplished in a great measure by forcing us off the river route, through the occupancy of Lookout Mountain and by cavalry raids upon our lines of communication between the Tennessee and Nashville. Haste had also been made in bringing up heavy guns for the bombardment of the town. It was their début that roused me from my slumber.
I made my way to the summit of Cameron Hill, where I had a fine panoramic view of the town, Missionary Ridge, and Lookout Mountain. The firing was carried on by ten guns stationed singly at considerable intervals along the winding road up the Mountain, and from one heavy piece and several light rifled pieces on Missionary Ridge. The highest gun on Lookout seemed to fire from an elevation of from 1200 to 1500 feet above the river. The heavy guns fired from a distance, measured by the sound, of about three miles. The firing continued all day till sunset, but varied greatly. Sometimes there were lively outbursts so that I could not count the number of shots, and again the discharges were single and in slow succession, as if for purposes of range-finding. Hundreds of shells were thrown in the course of the day, ranging from missiles six inches in diameter to those of three-inch fieldpieces. But the enemy inflicted hardly any damage. So far as I could learn, only one private was wounded in our camps, although crowds of our men freely exposed themselves by watching the fire from our parapets. Even the children pursued their games in the streets without concern. From our side only one field battery tried a little rifle practice from one of the redoubts. A couple of thirty-pounder rifle Parrotts had arrived from Nashville, but were not yet in position.
Before my return to the army, the Northern papers had been full of all sorts of accounts of the course of the two days' battles, the causes of our defeat, and the behavior of Generals Rosecrans, McCook, Crittenden, Negley, Davis, Sheridan, Wood, and Van Cleve. Charges that the first three had sought safety in flight from the battle-field had been freely published all over the loyal States, and official investigations called for in the press, by various State authorities, and in Washington. There was so much contradiction and partisanship in the printed versions that I resolved to ascertain the truth on reaching Chattanooga and to write a review of the battle. I began at once to gather material for it. Generals Rosecrans and Garfield expressed their readiness to place at my disposal all the information they had, including the official reports of the corps, division, and brigade commanders, as fast as they came, together with the orders issued before, during, and after the conflict. Both were also not only willing but eager to give me the benefit of their opinions of men and matters without the least reserve. Indeed, they had a good deal on their minds, which they were very glad of an opportunity to relieve by speaking out unrestrainedly.
General Rosecrans represented himself the victim of the Washington authorities generally, and of the General-in-chief and Secretary Stanton in particular. He was even more bitter and vehement than at Murfreesboro' in his denunciations of them for interfering with his plans and for not complying with his recommendations and requisitions. He announced his firm intention to “show up” these two principal offenders in his official report — a threat which he was, however, wise enough not to carry out. He affirmed emphatically that the direct and sole cause of the disaster on the second day was the want of judgment and discretion on the part of General Wood in executing the momentous order “to close up on Reynolds as fast as possible and support him,” and opening a gap in the line although aware that the enemy was about to attack that part of it. He applied the strongest language to that division commander, and even charged that he withdrew from the line, notwithstanding that Wood; in doubt as to the prudence of moving away, had sought advice of General Thomas, who told him to stay where he was. General Rosecrans was also unqualified in his censure of Generals McCook and Crittenden for coming to Chattanooga “without orders,” and at the same time thought it necessary to defend himself by a long argument on the duties and powers of a commander-in-chief for having preceded them. On my referring to the stories about Negley, he said promptly that this general had marched his troops away without orders, and ought to be tried by court-martial and dismissed from the service.
When I broached the subject of his own plans, he did not speak in as resolute a way about holding Chattanooga as I expected to hear. He was evidently in serious doubt whether sufficient supplies to maintain his men and animals could be secured. The destruction of several hundred wagons in the Sequatchie Valley by Wheeler's cavalry, to be followed probably by a new interruption of our only railroad connection with Nashville, made the outlook very grave. He confessed that there were rations for only a few days on hand, and so little forage that he was obliged to send away officers' and artillery horses. The lack of forage diminished greatly the quantities of supplies hauled by the wagon trains, since they had to carry food for their own animals for the round trip. The badness of the roads, destructive alike of wagons and of teams, so impeded their movements that it took them over a week to go and return. The reinforcements from the East, under Hooker, practically did Rosecrans no good, as they could not be brought up within supporting distance, owing to the difficulty of feeding them. He was clearly comforting himself in advance with excuses for a step which he did not like to take, but to which he feared he might be forced. Altogether, I found him very nervous, vindictive, irresolute, with little courage and self-reliance left, and showing generally the demoralizing effect of the lost battle.
General Garfield, knowing that he was safe with me, took me freely into his confidence. He told me how fully convinced he was that his chief was making a mortal mistake in going to Chattanooga, how he tried to dissuade him from it, and how relieved he himself was to be permitted to rejoin Thomas. He asserted that a very strong feeling prevailed in the army over the conduct of the Commanding General and the two corps commanders, and intimated that he considered their removal from command probable. He had grave doubts also as to the possibility of keeping possession of Chattanooga. Having been nominated for Congress in an Ohio district sure to give him a strong majority at the impending election, his days of active service were numbered anyway. While he did not say so directly, it could be inferred from his remarks that his faith in Rosecrans's military qualifications was shaken, if not lost, and that he was not sorry to part official company with him. His changed opinion naturally made his position very embarrassing to him. In corroboration of this, I will anticipate events by quoting from a despatch of Secretary Stanton to Assistant Secretary Watson, dated Louisville, October 21, as follows: “Generals Garfield and Steedman are here on their way home. Their representations of the incidents of the battle of Chickamauga more than confirm the worst that has reached us from other sources as to the conduct of the Commanding General and the great credit that is due to General Thomas.” (War Records, Series 1, Volume XXXI, Part I, page 684.)
I sought the headquarters of General McCook before dark on the day of my arrival and found General Crittenden with him. Both generals were in a state of great irritation and apprehension over the severe censures and demands for their removal and punishment with which the Northern papers were filled, and welcomed the chance of uttering their grievances to an old acquaintance through whom they hoped to get a hearing in the press for their side. The principal defence of both was that they had been virtually deprived of their commands by the successive orders of General Rosecrans to send one after another of their divisions to the support of General Thomas. In proof, they cited the original orders. McCook also showed me the order dated September 20, 10:30 A.M., requiring him, after sending Sheridan's division to General Thomas, “to report in person at these headquarters as soon as your orders are given in regard to Sheridan's movement.” He considered it a complete justification of his following the General Commanding to Chattanooga. But it may well be asked, Would he have been court-martialled if he had not obeyed the order, in view of the change in the situation? And would it not have been to his great credit, and would he not have kept his command, if he had stayed at the front? Crittenden claimed, that, having no longer any troops to command and being without orders, he was in duty bound to report to the head of the army, which could be done only by following him to the town.
I spent the whole evening with the generals and McCook's staff, all of whose members were in a bitter and depressed frame of mind. The corps commanders had not indicated any fears of personal consequences, but the staff officers were all apprehensive. Not being fully convinced by their arguments, I should have been embarrassed but that, in their excitement and wrath, they did most of the talking. As to the charge made and reiterated by the whole press that they had gone to sleep after reaching Chattanooga, they explained it as I have already done. They emphasized the fact that the Commander-in-chief had found no fault with their conduct — an assertion which astonished me not a little, as I had heard him express himself anything but approvingly regarding it only two hours before.
The blow they anticipated had already fallen even while I was discussing the subject with them. Nashville papers three days old were received late that night, with the news that the War Department had issued an order, dated September 28, consolidating the 20th and 21st Army Corps into a new one numbered 4th, appointing Major-General Gordon Granger to the command of it, relieving Generals McCook and Crittenden from duty in the Army of the Cumberland, and ordering them to hold themselves ready to respond to a summons before a court of inquiry. I did not hear this until late the next morning, when I went at once to the general headquarters to ascertain whether the startling announcement was true. General Rosecrans admitted that he had received intimations from Washington that such orders would be issued, but he had not yet received them. Such was the fact, and the formal order was not promulgated by him until October 9. The intelligence created a great sensation throughout the camps, and consternation at the headquarters of the two affected corps. Generals McCook and Crittenden took it very hard, although they tried to seem indifferent. They felt that the indirect method of relieving them by the consolidation would deceive nobody, but would still leave upon them the stigma of punishment for their part in the battle by removal from command, and they made known their determination to demand courts of inquiry without delay. They manifested deep regret that ignominy should also be fastened upon their troops by the wiping out of the two corps organizations. I expected that the consolidation would not, on that account, be well received by their officers and men; but all, from commanders of division down, appeared to submit quietly to the change.
I tried to discover who was directly responsible for the act. Both Rosecrans and Garfield denied that they had recommended it or any other punitive measure at Washington, and subsequent developments confirmed this. Then I had a talk with Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, still at the army headquarters, but he was entirely non-committal. It is a matter of record, however — first through the publication of his reports to Secretary Stanton, and again lately through his own admission in the personal memoirs printed in McClure's Magazine — that his representations regarding the part played by the two generals at Chickamauga and its effect upon their subordinates had as much to do with the decision of the Washington authorities to remove them as any other influence. He is responsible for the assertion that Garfield, Wood, Palmer, Sheridan, Johnson, and Hazen demanded the removal. Justice calls for the statement that he was entirely wrong in some of his animadversions upon those corps commanders, and showed strong, bordering on malignant, bias against them. He received and conveyed impressions, like the professional journalist that he was, hastily, flippantly, and recklessly. He thus involved himself in glaring inconsistencies and contradictions and humiliating self-corrections. This criticism certainly holds good of his official correspondence relative to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns as reprinted in the War Records. It must be admitted, nevertheless, that his reports indicate great power of observation and expression, and that his characterizations of military leaders were sometimes very able and true. Nor can it be doubted that he was animated by sincere patriotic ardor, recognition of which led Secretary Stanton to overlook the shortcomings of the work of his special reporter. Wherever the latter was, his superior was kept better advised on all matters in that part of the theatre of war than from any other source. He was indefatigable, and shrank from no hardship and personal danger in discharging what he considered his duty. Yet his zeal often degenerated into officiousness, and he fell at times into the rôle of the informer, without perhaps being conscious of it. I saw a great deal of him during our joint stay — at least once and often several times a day — and never failed to find him very communicative. Being a man of great natural parts and wide and thorough acquirements, and affable withal, his society was a real boon.
Generals McCook and Crittenden left for the North, accompanied by their entire staff, on October 10. It was a bitter trial for them to take final farewell of their companions in arms, whom they had led for two years and in five different campaigns — Shiloh and Corinth, Middle Tennessee, Perryville, Stone River, Tullahoma and Chickamauga. It must be said that they did not receive any too much sympathy from the officers and men of their commands. I felt sincerely for them, knowing them always to have tried to perform their duties to the best of their ability. I had been one of McCook's military family so often, and received so much kindness from all its members, that their departure moved me like a great personal loss. Their separation from the Army of the Cumberland was permanent, although they both underwent courts of inquiry into their conduct at Chickamauga, which found that General McCook committed a mistake in leaving the field to go to Chattanooga, but that this was only an error of judgment, and that in all respects his behavior was faultless, and which pronounced that “General Crittenden's conduct not only showed no cause for censure, but that it was most creditable, and that he was not even censurable for going to Chattanooga.” I did not see General McCook again before the close of the war, but I found General Crittenden once more in active service six months later, at the head of a division in the Army of the Potomac. Both issued pathetic farewell orders to their corps.
On the same day, the reorganization of the army, necessitated by the formation of a new corps out of the 20th and 21st, was formally promulgated by general order. The 4th Corps was to consist of three divisions commanded respectively by Generals Palmer, Sheridan, and Wood. Each division comprised three brigades, commanded in the first by Colonel Cruft, General Whitaker, and Colonel Grose; in the second by Generals Steedman and Wagner and Colonel Harker; and in the third by Generals Willich, Hazen, and Beatty. The divisions averaged be tween 6000 and 7000 men, and the total strength of the corps was nearly 20,000. The 14th Corps also constituted three divisions, instead of the former four, under Generals Rousseau (who resumed command on return from leave, relieving General Brannan), Baird, and Davis, and each division consisted of three brigades — in the first under Generals Carlin, King, and Starkweather; in the second under Colonel Morgan, General John Beatty, and Colonel Daniel McCook; and in the third under General Turchin, Colonel Van Derveer, and Colonel Croxton. Five division commanders and fourteen acting brigadiers were thereby rendered inactive. The changes in the sub-commands of the army were thus very sweeping.
General Negley was separately dealt with, and far more leniently than the two corps commanders. General Rosecrans, though considering him deserving of the severest punishment, allowed him to prepare a special defence against the statements severely reflecting upon his case in the reports of Generals Brannan and Wood. After receiving and examining the papers from him, the Commanding General came to the conclusion, as he wrote on October 14 to the War Department, that General Negley “acted according to his best judgment under the circumstances of the case.” He further gave him a leave of absence for thirty days, but advised him to ask for a court of inquiry. General Negley proceeded to Washington, and, on October 30, formally requested the Secretary of War by letter to order a court of inquiry in his case. The Secretary not acceding to this and advising him to return to the front, the General telegraphed to Chattanooga for orders, and received a reply directing him to return to the army on expiration of his leave. The case now took a very curious turn, worth relating in detail as it shows our military management in a peculiar light.
Having reached Nashville, he wired on November 10 to Chattanooga for orders. He was told, in answer, to remain in Nashville until further orders, and: “It is proper that you ask for a court of inquiry. It would not be proper to assign you to a command until an investigation has been had.” To this the General naturally replied that he had applied for a court, and renewed his request for one to the War Department, but heard nothing further from any quarter until he received an order, dated Chattanooga, December 22, as follows: “Major-General J. S. Negley having failed to demand a court of inquiry for the purpose of freeing himself from charges affecting his usefulness in this command, is hereby directed to proceed to Cincinnati or to any point outside this military division and report by letter to the Adjutant-General of the army for orders.” This he did promptly, only to be informed by the Adjutant-General that the General-in-chief had no orders for him, as he belonged to General Thomas's command. Finally, the President on June 9 ordered a court of inquiry for him (the same order directed courts for the corps commanders also). The court found not only that “General Negley exhibited throughout the second day of the battle and throughout the following night great activity and zeal in the discharge of his duties,” and that there was no evidence affording any ground for censure, but that General Brannan's allegations were not sustained, and that General Wood deserved stern condemnation for indulging in severe reflections upon General Negley, and applying coarse and offensive epithets to him, in the presence of the army commander and some of his staff, while failing to substantiate his charges on the witness stand. Thus ended this curious “much ado about nothing.”