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V. I

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ABEAHAM LINCOLN

FKESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD.'

ABRA

ABRAHAM LINCOLN A HISTORY

BY JOHN G. NICOLAY AND JOHN HAY

VOLUME EIGHT

^?^#**»^

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1890

Copyright, 1886 and 1890,

by John G. Nicolay

and John Hay.

ILLUSTRATIONS Vol. YIII

President Lincoln and His Son " Tad " Frontispiece

From a photograph by Brady.

PAGE

JuDAH P. Benjamin 16

From a photograph lent by James Blair. George Bancroft 32

From a drawing by J. W. Alexander. General Gordon Granger 48

From a photograph by Brady. General D. H. Hill 64

From a photograph by Cook. General Bushrod R. Johnson 80

From a photograph by Anderson-Cook. General James A. Garfield 96

From an autotype by Edward Bierstadt. General Alexander McD. McCook 112

From a photograph by Brady. General "Willia^i F. Smith 128

From a photograph. General Braxton Bragg 144

From a photograph by Anderson-Cook. General Simon B. Buckner 160

From a photograph by Anthony. General James Longstreet 192

From a photograph. Facsimile of Mr. Lincoln's Autographic Copy of His

Gettysburg Address 200

VIU ILLUSTRATIONS

Edward Everett 208

From a photograph by Brady. Lincoln's Executive Office and Cabinet-Room in the

White House 224

From a drawing by Delaneey Gill. General Alexander S. Webb 240

From a photograph by Brady. Captain James D. Bulloch 272

From a photograph by Kurtz.

General A. J. Smith 288

From a photograph by Brady.

Benjamin Wade 304

From a daguerreotype. General Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana 336

From a photograph by Morse. General J. E. B. Stuart 352

From a photograph by Anderson-Cook. General James S. Wadsworth 368

From a photograph by Brady. General John Sedgwick 384

From a photograph by Brady. General Richard H. Anderson 400

From a photograph. General Frederick Steele 416

From a photograph lent by Colonel Thomas L. Snead. Andrew Johnson 448

From a photograph by Brady. General Lew Wallace 464

From a photograph by Brady. General Axfred Pleasonton 480

From a photograph by Gardner.

MAPS Vol. VIII

PAGE

The Titllahoma Campaign 68

The Vicinity of Chattanooga 69

Battle of Chickamauga 86

Battle of Chattanooga 136

ILLUSTEATIONS IX

The Knoxtille Campaign 168

Battle of Knoxville 176

The Vicinity of Fort Sanders, Knoxville 180

Northern Virginia 232

Positions op Opposing Forces at Mine Run, November,

1863 244

The Red River, Arkansas, and Missouri Campaigns of

1864 302

The Wilderness, May 4, 1864 356

The Wilderness, May 5, ,, 359

The Wilderness, May 6, „ 365

Spotsylvania, May 8-21, ,, 373

North Anna 388

Drewry's Bluff, Bermuda Hundred, and Deep Bottom . . 394

Cold Harbor 402

I

TABLE OF CONTENTS Vol. VIII

ChAPTEE I. CONSPIKACIES IN THE NORTH

Secret Societies. Their Various Names. Their Niun- bers. Their Constitutions and Declarations of Prin- ciples. Their Methods of Operation. Communication with the Rebels. The Indiana Trials. Evidence of Participants. The Indiana Legislature and Governor Morton. Rosecrans's Discovery. Action of the Presi- dent. The Case of the Chesapeake. Thompson's Mission in Canada. Trial and Execution of J. Y. Beall. The Camp Douglas Plot. Thompson's Incendiary- Scheme. The St. Albans' Raid. Action of the Cana- dian Government

Chapter II. Habeas Corpus

Opinion of Attorney- General Bates. The Question Discussed. Opinion of Horace Binney. Action of the Senate. Orders of the President. Congress Passes an Act of Indemnity. Letter from George Bancroft. Habeas Coi*pus Suspended daring the Draft. Case of George W. Jones. Sparing Use of the Power of Sus- pension. Arbitrary Action of the Confederate Au- thorities 28

Chapter III. The March to Chattanooga

Rosecrans's Long Delay at Murfreesboro'. His Reasons for it. His Complaints of a Lack of Cavah'y. His Controversies with the Government. Occupation dur-

Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS

ing the Winter and Spring. Streight's Cavalry Expedi- tion. Its Failm-e. Morgan's Raid in Indiana and Ohio. Thieving. Capture of Morgan and his Command. His Subsequent Career and Death. Rosecrans Proposes to March Southward. Discussion of Plans. The March to TuUahoma. Correspondence with the President. The March to Chattanooga. Its Difficulties. BrUUant Strategy of Rosecrans. Bragg Evacuates, Rosecrans Occupies Chattanooga 43

Chapter IY. Chickamauga

Rosecrans thinks Bragg is Retreating. Endeavors to Intercept him. Bragg Concentrates upon the Union Center in McLemore's Cove. His Plans Miscarry. Rosecrans Brings his Army Together. Bragg's Plan of Attack. The Battle of Chickamauga, September 19. The Attack on the Union Left Repulsed. The Battle of the 20th. Delays in Bragg's Movement. Thomas again Repulses the Confederates. The Union Right Wing Broken. Rout of MeCook's Corps. Rose- crans Retreats to Chattanooga. Heroism of Wood and Brannan. Thomas Remains on the Field. AiTival of Garfield. Granger's Reenforcement. Thomas Retires by Night to Chattanooga. Comparative Losses. Re- ception of the News at Washington. Reenforcements Sent to Rosecrans. He is Besieged in Chattanooga. Reports of Charles A. Dana. Rosecrans Relieved; Thomas Appointed to Command the Army of the Cum- berland 75

Chapter V. Chattanooga

Grant's Arrival at Chattanooga. The Plan for ReHef. Carried out by W. F. Smith. Seizm-e of Brown's Ferry and Lookout VaUey. Bragg's Attempt to Recover the Ground. The Affair of Wauhatchie. Jefferson Davis's Visit to Bragg. Longstreet's Detachment. Grant's Orders to Thomas. Sherman's March from Vicksburg. Arrival at Chattanooga. Grant's Plan of Attack. November 24th. The Charge on the Rifle-pits. Sher- man Crosses the River. Hooker on Lookout Mountain. The Battle Above the Clouds. November 25th. Sher-

TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

man Attacks Again. The Assault of Missionary Ridge. Thomas Breaks Bragg's Center. Rout of the Confed- erates. Pursuit by Sheridan and by Hooker. Com- parative Losses. Bragg's Report. The Spirit of the Union Ai'my 121

Chapter VI. Buenside in Tennessee

Impoi-tanee of East Tennessee ; PoHtical and Mihtary. Sufferings of the Loyahsts. The President's SjTnpathy. His Efforts to Reheve Them. Bumside's March to Tennessee. His Arrival at Knoxville. His Delay to Join Roseerans. The President's Orders. Bumside's Desultory Activity. Longstreet's Detachment. Rose- erans Falls Back to Knoxville Before Him. Knoxville Partially Invested. Bumside " Not Dead Yet " ! Long- street Assaults, and is Repulsed. Sherman Raises the Siege. His Arrival at Knoxville. He Returns to Chattanooga. Longstreet Winters in Tennessee. The President's Letters to Tennessee. His Proclamation of Thanksgiving 158

Chapter VII. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

The Dead and Wounded at Gettysburg. Plan for a National Cemeteiy. Governor Curtin Appoints David Wills Special Agent. Dedication Ceremonies, November 19, 1863. Edward Everett Chosen Orator. President Lmcoln Invited. The Arrival at Gettysburg. Address by Mr. Seward. Procession to the Battlefield. Edward Everett's Oration. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Everett's Letter to Lincoln. Lincoln's Reply 189

Chapter VIII. Missouri Radicals and Con- servatives

Party Names in Missouri. Schofield Supersedes Curtis. Lincobi's Instructions to Schofield. The Missouri Con- vention Called Together. Schofield's Inquiry of Lin- coln. Lincoln's Letter About Missouri Emancipation. The Convention Ordinance of Emancipation. Move- ment of Radical Emancipationists at St. Louis. Radical Emancipation Convention at Jefferson City. Quan-

XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS

trell's Lawrence Massacre. Scliofield's Action. Radical Resolutions. Committee of Missouri Radicals Visits Washington. Interview with Lincoln. The Com- mittee's Written Addresses. Lincoln's Reply. Lincoln Declines to Remove Schofield. His Instructions to Schofield. Governor Gamble Demands Protection. Lincoln's Letter to Gamble 204

Chapter IX. The Line of the Rapidan

Meade's Failure to Intercept Lee at Front Royal. Lin- coln's Letters to Meade. Two Corps Under Hooker Sent to Rosecrans. Lee moves Northward. His Plan. Meade Discovers it. A Race for Position. The Battle of Bristoe Station. Hill Defeated by WaiTen. Lee Retires to the Rappahannock. Meade's Advance. The Affair at Rappahannock Station. Russell's Victory. Lee Retires to the Rapidan. Meade's Advance on Mine Run. Lee's Measures of Defense. Warren and Meade Decline to Attack his Works. The Campaign Given up. Kilpa trick's Raid. Lost Opportunities .... 231

Chapter X. Foreign Relations in 1863

Correspondence Between the British and American Governments. Case of the Alexandra. The Iron-clad Rams. " This is War ! " Purchase of the Rams by the British Government. English Disbelief in the Success of the Union. Anger of Jefferson Davis Against Eng- land. Withdraws his Commissioner from London. Mr. Mason Visits London. His Interview with Lord Palmerston. Relations with France. The Emperor's Public and Private Professions Contrasted. His Con- versations with Mr. Shdell. Authorizes the Building of Confederate Ships. The Lindsay and Roebuck Interview at Fontainebleau. The Emperor's Contradic- tion. His Promises to Shdell Repudiated. The Ships Sold to Third Parties 254

Chapter XI. Olustee and the Red River

Gillmore's Expedition to Florida. His Plans and Pur- poses. The President's Share in Them. Major Hay Sent to Florida. Capture of Baldwin. General Sey-

TABLE OF CONTENTS XV

mouY Advances to Olustee. His Forces Defeated. He Retires to Jacksonville. The President Directs a Move- ment on Texas. Failure of the Expedition to Sabine Pass. Success of the Movement on Brownsville and Matagorda Bay. A Movement up the Red River De- termined Upon. Unfavorable Conditions. Careless Order of March. Banks Defeated at Sabine Cross Roads. Checks the Confederates at Pleasant Hill. The Army Retires to Alexandria. Critical Condition of the Fleet. Bailey's Dam. The Fleet Saved. Subsequent Controversies. The Cotton Question. Lincoln's Deal- ing With It 281

Chapter XII. The Pomeroy Circular

Opposition to Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Chase the Rallying Point. His Letters Criticizing his Colleagues. His Candidacy for the Presidency. Mr. Lincoln's Tolera- tion. Pomeroy and Lane. The Pomeroy Circular. CoiTespondence of Lincoln and Chase in Regard to it. Ohio Declares for Lincoln. Mr. Chase Relinquishes his Candidacy 309

Chapter XIII. Grant General-in-Chief

The Winter of 1863-&4. Johnston Supersedes Bragg. Corresi>ondence of Johnston vsdth Richmond. Mr. Davis Urges an Advance. Grant's Plans. Sherman's March to Meridian. Thomas's March to Dalton and Return. The Bill to Revive the Grade of Lieutenant- General. Action of the Administration. Grant Nomi- nated for the Place. His Correspondence with Sher- man. His Arrival in Washington. Meeting with the President. Presentation of his Commission. He Visits the Army of the Potomac. Meade's Magnanimity. Grant Returns to the West for a Brief Visit .... 326

Chapter XIV. The Wilderness

Change of Commands. Grant's Headquarters at Cul- peper. His Visits to Washington. His Plan for Con- certed Movement. The Route to Richmond. Lee's Army the Objective. The Position and Strength of the Two Armies. Letter of Lincoln to Grant. Grant's Re-

XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS

ply. The March Begun. Lee's Ai-my Meets Grant's in the Wilderness. The Nature of the Country. The Battle of the Wilderness. Grant's Movement by the Left Flank. Lee's March to Spotsylvania. Sheridan's Raid. Defeat and Death of J. E. B. Stuart . . . .346

Chaptek XV. Spotsylvania and Cold Harboe

Lee and Grant Both Disappointed at Spotsylvania. Grant Determines to Attack Lee in Position. A Week of Battles. Death of Sedgwick. Battle of May 10, Upton's Assault. Grant's Dispatch of the 11th of May. '' I Propose to Fight it Out on this Line if it Takes All Summer." Hancock's Assault of the McCool Salient. His Success. The Battle of the Bloody Angle. Other Events of the 12th. Grant Again Moves to the Left. Reenforcements. Bad News on the 18th. Lee's Stategy. The Meeting of the Armies at the North Anna. Graat Checkmated. His March by the Left to the Totopotomoy. Butler's Advance on Richmond. Battle of Drewry's Bluff. The Battle of Cold Harbor. Heavy Union Loss. Grant's Opinion of the Battle. His Change of Plan 372

Chapter XVI. Arkansas Free

Movement of Loyalty and Emancipation. Reluctance of Arkansas to Secede. Cui'tis's Movement to Helena. Gantt Abandons Secession. Lincoln's Letter About Sebastian. Steele Marches to Little Rock. Lincoln's Letters to Steele About Arkansas Reconstruction. Arkansas State Convention. Address to Arkansas Voters. The Constitution of Arkansas Amended. Slavery Abolished Immediately and Unconditionally. Registration of Voters. Lincoln's Directions to Steele. Steele Orders an Election. The Vote for the Constitu- tion. The Vote for Governor. A Legislature Elected and Organized. Members of Congress Elected. Lin- coln's Letter 408

Chapter XVII. Louisiana Free

The Free-State General Committee. Registration of Voters Begun. Lincoln's Reply to the Conservatives.

TABLE OF CONTEXTS XVll

Lincoln's Letter to Banks about Louisiana Reconstruc- tion. Cessation of Registration. Lincoln Urges a Resumption of Reconstruction. Conservative Move- ment Under the Old Constitution. Denounced by the Free-State Committee. Lincoln's Letter to Cottman Urging Reconstruction. Lincoln's Letter Making General Banks "Master" in Louisiana Re- construction. Banks's Plan of Reconstruction. Lin- coln Approves It. Banks Orders an Election for State Officers. Election and Inauguration of Governor Hahn. Lincoln Invests Hahn with Powers of Military Governor. Opposition of the Free-State Committee. A Convention Elected and Organized. A Constitution Adopted, Abohshing Slavery. A Popular Vote for the Constitution. Louisiana Legislatui-e 419

Chaptek XVIII. Tennessee Fkee

Union Manifestations in Tennessee. Lincoln "'s Letters to Governor Johnson and General Grant. Govenior Johnson Orders an Election. A Union Convention at Nashville. Hui'lbufs Letter About Tennessee. Union Successes at KnoxviUe and Chattanooga. Lincoln's Letter to Governor Johnson, Urging Reconstruction. Governor Johnson's Speech. He Orders an Election for County Officers. His Plan. Lincoln's Letter to East. The Election of March 5, 1864. Pohtical Movements in East Tennessee. Governor Johnson's Proclamation for Holding the Presidential Election. A Constitutional Convention Assembled. Slavery Abolished in Tennessee. Popular Vote on the Amended Constitution. Governor Johnson Proclaims the Amendments to the Constitution Adopted. The New State Government. The Thirteenth Amendment Ratified 438

Chapter XIX. Maryland Free

The Question of Emancipation in Maryland. Lincoln and the Maiyland Representatives. Compensated Abolishment in the District of Columbia. Legislative and Popular Resolutions on Emancipation. Action of Congress on Marjdand Emancipation. The Union

XVUl TABLE OF CONTEXTS

League Convention. The State Central Committee Convention. The Rival Conventions Refuse to Co- operate. Lincoki's Order for EnUsting Negro Soldiers. General Schenck's Election Order. The Order Modi- fied by Lincohi. Controversy Between Governor Bradford and General Schenek. Emancipation Vic- tory at the Election. Lincoln's Letter Favoring Emancipation in Maryland. The Constitutional Con- vention. The Convention Abolishes Slavery. Lincoln's Letter in Favor of the Amended Constitution. Popular Vote. Governor Bradford Proclaims the New Con- stitution Adopted 450

Chapter XX. Missouei Free

Meeting of the Legislature. Contest for Senator. Convention or no Convention. Schofield, Washbm-ne, and Gratz Brown. Lincoln's Letter to Stanton. Scho- field Nominated for Major-General. Rosecrans Super- sedes Schofield in Missouri. Lincoln's Letter to Rosecrans. Missouri Military Affairs. Missouri Movements in Politics. Drake's Letter to Lincoln. Missouri Factions in the Presidential Election. Price's Annual Invasion. Election Order Issued by Rose- crans. Rival Nominees for Congressman. The Presi- dential Vote. The Constitutional Convention. Slavery Abohshed in Missouri. Neighborhood Feuds. Lin- coln's Letter to Governor Fletcher 469

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAPTER I

CONSPIRACIES IN THE NORTH

OPPOSITION to the G-overnment by constitu- chap.i. tional means was not enough to gratify the vehement and resentful feelings of those Demo- crats in the North whose zeal for slavery seemed completely to have destroyed in their hearts every impulse of patriotism. They were ready to do the work of the Southern Confederacy in the North, and were alone prevented by their fear of the law. To evade the restraints of justice and the sharp measures of the military administration, they formed throughout the country secret associations for the purpose of resisting the laws, of embarrass- ing in every way the action of the Government., of communicating information to the rebels in arms, and in many cases of inflicting serious dam- age on the lives and property of the Unionists. They adopted various names in different parts of the country, but the designation chosen by the society having the largest number of lodges in the several States was the "Knights of the Golden Vol. VIII.— 1

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Circle." As fast as one name was discovered and published it was cast aside and another adopted, and the same organization with the same mem- bership appeared successively under the name we have mentioned and those of " The Order of American Knights," " The Order of the Star," and the " Sons of Liberty." These secret organizations possessed a singular charm to uneducated men, independent of their political sympathies; and this attraction, combined with the fact that they could not in plain daylight inflict any injury upon the Government, drove many thousands of the lower class of Democrats into these furtive lodges. It is impossible to ascertain, with any degree of exactness, the numbers of those who became afl&l- iated with the orders. The numbers claimed by the adepts vary widely. A million was not infre- quently the membership of which they boasted. Mr. Vallandigham asserted, in a public speech, that the organized body numbered half a million. Judge Holt, in his official report, accepted this ag- gregate as being something near the truth. The heaviest force was in Illinois and in Indiana; in Ohio they were also very numerous, and in the border States of Kentucky and Missouri. Then- organization was entirely military; the State lodges were commanded by major-generals, the Congressional districts by brigadiers, the counties by colonels, and the townships by captains. They drilled as much as was possible under the limita- tions of secrecy; they made large purchases of arms. General H. B. Carrington estimated that thirty thousand guns and revolvers were brought into Indiana alone, and the adherents of the order

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NOETH

Chap. I.

Report of the Judge Advocate General.

in the State of Illinois were also fully armed. In the month of March, 1864, it was estimated that the entire aiTned force of the order, capable of being mobilized for active service, was 340,000 men. It is altogether probable that this estimate was greatly exaggerated; and even if so large a number had been initiated into the order, their lack of driU, discipline, and moral character rendered them in- capable at any time of acting as an army.

The order was large enough at least to offer the fullest hospitality to detectives and to Union men who volunteered to join with the purpose of report- ing what they could to the authorities ; so that the Government was speedily put in possession of the entii'e scheme of organization, with the names of the prominent officers of the order and written copies of their constitutions, oaths, and books of ritual. The constitutions of secret societies are generally valuable only as illustrations of human stupidity, and these were no exception to the rule. Their declaration of principles begins with this lucid proposition : "All men are endowed by the Creator with certain rights ; equal as far as there is equality in the capacity for the appreciation, enjojTiient, and exercise of those rights." The oct!°87i8k institution of slavery receives the approval of this band of midnight traitors in the following muddled and brutal sentences : " In the divine economy no individual of the human race must be permitted to encumber the earth, to mar its aspects of transcen- dent beauty, nor to impede the progi'ess of the phy- sical or intellectual man, neither in himself nor in the race to which he belongs. Hence a people . . . whom neither the divinity within them nor

Report of tbe Judge Advocate

ABKAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. I. the inspirations of divine and beautiful nature

around them can impel to virtuous action and

progi-ess on^Yard and upward, should be subjected

?f tte to a just and humane servitude and tutelage to the

Advofate supcrior race until they shall be able to appreciate

Oct! i'^isk. the benefits and advantages of civilization."

They also declare in favor of something they imagine to be the theory of State rights, and also the duty of the people to expel their rulers from the Government by force of arms when they see good reason. " This is not revolution," they say, Ibid. "but solely the assertion of right." Had they been content to meet in their lodges at stated times, and bewilder themselves by such rhetoric as this, there would have been no harm done; but there is plenty of evidence that the measures they adopted to bring what they called their principles into action were of positive injuiy to the national welfare. One of their chief objects was the excit- ing of discontent in the anny and the encoui*agiug of desertion; members of the order enlisted with the express purpose of inciting soldiers to desert with them ; money and citizens' clothing were fur- nished them for this purpose ; lawyers were hired to advise soldiers on leave not to go back, and to promise them the requisite defense in the courts if they got into trouble by desertion. The adjutant- general of Indiana, in his report for 1863, says that the number of deserters and absentees returned to the army through the post of Indianapolis alone, during the last month of 1862, was about 2600. The squads of soldiers sent to aiTest deserters were frequently attacked in rural districts by these organized bodies ; the most ^dolent resistance was

CONSPIRACIES IN THE NOETH 5

made to the enrollment and the draft. Several chap.i. enrolling officers were shot in Indiana and in Illinois; about sixty persons were tried and convicted in thTjKe Indiana for conspiracy to resist the draft. oeneraL

A constant system of communication with the rebels in arms was kept up across the border ; arms, ammunition, and, in some instances, recruits, were sent to aid the Confederates ; secret murders and assassinations were not unknown; the plan of establishing a Northwestern Confederacy, in hos- tility to the East and in alliance with the Southern Confederacy, was the favorite dream of the malig- nant and narrow minds controlling the order. The Government wisely took little notice of the pro- ceedings of these organizations. It was constantly informed of their general plans and purposes ; the Grand Secretary of the order in Missouri made a full confession of his connection with it. In August a large number of copies of the ritual of the Order of American Knights was seized in an office which had been occupied by a prominent Democratic thTjudse

,.., _-^_.'^ . . -,. . ,^ Advocate

politician at Terre Haute. A private soldier m the General. Union army, named Stidger, had himself initiated into the order, and with infinite skill and success rose to a high position in it, becoming Grand Secretary for the State of Kentucky. Thus thor- oughly informed of the composition and purposes of the society, the Government was constantly able to guard against any serious disturbances of the public peace ; and whenever the arrest of any of the ringleaders was determined upon, the evidence for their conviction was always overwhelming.

The fullest light was thrown upon the organiza- tion and plans of these treasonable orders by the

ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Pitman, " Treason Trials at Indianap- olis," p. 39.

trials of certain conspirators in Indiana in the autumn of 1864. We will make no reference to tlie testimony of Grovernment detectives who joined the conspiracy with the purpose of revealing its secrets. It is sufficient to quote the unwilling and unquestionably truthful statements of members of the order, brought into court by subpoena. Wil- liam Clayton, a farmer of Warren County, Illinois, testified that he was initiated a member of the Order of American Knights " at a congregation formed in the timber " ; he took a long and bom- bastic oath, the only significant part of which was the pledge to take up arms, if required, in the cause of the oppressed against usurpers waging war against a people endeavoring to establish a Ibid., p. 49. government for themselves in accordance with the eternal principles of truth ; this, he testified, bound him to assist the South in its struggle for inde- pendence. He said he understood the purpose of the order was primarily to beat the Republicans at the polls, and that force of arms was to be resorted to in case of necessity ; that they contemplated a rebel invasion in support of these objects ; that the understanding was that in case the rebels came into Illinois, they and the brethren of this organ- ization were to shake hands and be friends ; that they were to give aid and assistance to the in- vaders ; that death was the penalty for divulging the secrets of the order. Other members testified that they took an oath providing that in case of treachery they were to be drawn and quartered, their mangled remains to be cast out at the four gates. When these dwellers in prairie villages were asked what they meant by " the four gates,"

CONSPIRACIES IN THE NORTH 7

they said they did not know. Clayton further said chap. i. their obiects were "to resist the conscription, or Benn

'' nil IT Pitiuan,

anything else that pushed them too hard." An- ^^fj^i^^"^ other farmer said he joined " because he had been ^°^fg"»^ a Democrat all his life " ; another, that he " went ^" ^^' in out of curiosity" — and this was doubtless a motive with many. In communities where there is little to interest an idle mind these secret mum- meries possess a singular attraction. The grips, the passwords, the emblems, formed a great part of whatever temptation the order offered to the rural conspirators. Their favorite cognizance was the oak; not on account of any civic association, but because the word was formed of the initials of the name " Order of American Knights." Their grand hailing cry of distress was "Oak-houn," the last syllable taken from the name of the South Caro- lina statesman whose principles they imagined they were putting in operation.

By far the most important witness for the Grov- ernment was Horace Heffren, a lawyer of Salem, Indiana, a man high in the councils of the order. He was indicted for treasonable practices, and con- cluded to make a clean breast of it. He gave an pp. i25,"i27. apparently truthful account : detailed the scheme for forming a Northwestern Confederacy, or, if that failed, for joining the Southern army; the State government of Indiana was to be seized; Governor Morton was to be held for a hostage or killed. He confirmed the story of the general up- rising which was to have taken place on the 16th of August in conjunction with a rebel raid from ise*. Cumberland Grap, the great feature of which was the liberation of the Confederate prisoners in Illi-

ABKAHAM LINCOLN

oils," p. 174.

Chap. I. nois, Ohio, and Indiana. But when the time came the rebels did not, and the conspirators lacked heart for the fight. Vallandigham, the supreme head of the order, was too far away for intelligent and efficient direction. The whole conspiracy was shabby and puerile, although it included many editors and politicians of local standing. They were not all cravens; some of them stood up Benn stoutly beforc the Military Commission and de-

"^T^Sn fended the cause of the South. " I assert," said

toSinap- one, "that the South has been fighting for their rights as defined in the Dred Scott decision." But there was very little display of heroism when the time of trial arrived. There was much that was ignoble and sordid: a scramble for the salaried places ; a rush to handle the money provided for arms ; one man intriguing for a place on the staff "because he had a sore leg"; a cloud of small politicians, who hardly knew whether they were members or not ; " they had heard a ritual read, but paid little attention to it " ; they were anxious to be members if the scheme succeeded, and to avoid the law if it failed.

The President's attitude in regard to this or- ganization was one of good-humored contempt rather than anything else. Most of the officers commanding departments, however, regarded the machinations of these dark-lantern knights as a matter of the deepest import. Governor Morton was greatly disquieted by their work in his State, Morton and sent a telegi'am to the President in January,

jan/s^Ases! 1863, expressing his fear that the Legislature, when it met, would pass a joint resolution to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy, and urge the Northwest

CONSPIKACIES IN THE NORTH

to dissolve all constitutional relation with the New England States. But when the Legislature came together, although it evinced a hearty good-will in giving the Governor all the worry and annoyance possible, it took no such overt step of treason as he feared.

Their action was, indeed, sufficiently violent and contumacious. The House of Eepresentatives in- solently returned his message to him, and passed a resolution accepting in its stead that of the Demo- cratic Governor of New York. Measures were introduced to take the military power of the State away from the Governor and to confer it upon the Democratic State officers. To defeat these uncon- stitutional proceedings the Republicans adopted the equally irregular course of abandoning the Legis- lature and leaving it without a quorum; in conse- quence of which no appropriation bills were passed, and the Governor had to appeal to the people of the State for the means to carry on the govern- ment. These were furnished in part by the volun- tary offerings of banks, private corporations, and individuals; but, needing a quarter of a million dollars for an emergency, he came to Washington, and obtained it from the General Government, by virtue of a statute of July 31, 1861, which set aside two millions for the purchase of munitions of war to be used in States in rebellion or "in which rebellion is or may be threatened." In view of the revolutionary attitude of the Legislature, and the known treasonable organization and purposes of the Sons of Liberty, the Secretary of War decided that Indiana was so " threatened," and made Gov- ernor Morton a disbursing officer to the amount of

10

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Henry Wilson, in "Atlantic Monthly," Feb., 1870,

p. 242.

250,000 dollars. It is related that Morton remarked, as he took the warrant, if the cause failed, they would be called heavily to account for this; to which Stanton replied, " If the cause fails, I do not wish to live."

In the summer of 1864 General Rosecrans made a full discovery of the purposes and organization of these conspirators, and communicated it to Grov- ernor Yates of Illinois, who fully shared his solici- tude. They joined in an earnest demand that the President should order Colonel J. P. Sanderson, of Eosecrans's staff, to Washington for a personal inter- view upon matters of overwhelming importance. Stanton objected to this, and the President was un- willing that either Rosecrans or his subordinate should come to Washington upon such an errand, under the temptation to magnify his office by alarm- ing reports. He therefore concluded to send one of his own private secretaries to St. Louis to see pre- cisely what were the facts which had thrown the general commanding into such a state of concern. Rosecrans then repeated the entii^e story of the or- ganization of the Order of American Knights and the Golden Circle, facts which were already well known to the President and the Secretary of War ; but the immediate cause of his excitement was the expected retmm of Vallandigham, which, he said, was in accordance with the resolution adopted by the order at the convocation held in Windsor, Canada. General Rosecrans thought that his return would be the signal for the rising of the Knights through- out the Northwest, and for serious public disorders.

The President, on receiving his secretary's report, declined to order Sanderson to Washington ; and in

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NOKTH 11

reference to Rosecrans's strict injunctions of secrecy, chap. i. he said that a secret confided on the one side to half a million Democrats, and on the other to five Gov- ernors and their staffs, was hardly worth keeping. He said the Northern section of the conspiracy merited no special attention, being about an equal mixture of puerility and malice.

General Rosecrans, after he was convinced that the President would not overrule the Secretary of War by ordering Colonel Sanderson to Washington, concluded at last to send his voluminous report in i864. manuscript, accompanying it with the following letter, which we copy as giving in few words the results of his researches:

" Since Major Hay's departure, bearing my letter about the secret conspiracy we have been tracing out, we have added much information of its South- ern connexions, operations, uses, and intentions.

" We have also found a new element in its work- ings under the name of McClellan minute men.

" The evident extent and anti-national purposes of this great conspiracy compel me to urge the con- sideration of what ought to be done to anticipate its workings and prevent the mischief it is capable of producing again upon your attention.

"Therefore, I have sent the report of Colonel Sanderson with the details of evidence, covering a thousand pages of foolscap, by himself, to be car- ried or forwarded to you by safe hands.

" That report and its accompanying papers show,

" 1. That there exists an oath-bound secret society, under various names, but forming one brotherhood both in the rebel and loyal States, the objects of

12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. I. wliich are the overthrow of the existing national Grovernment and the dismemberment of this nation.

" 2. That the secret oaths bind these conspirators to revolution and all its consequences of murder, arson, pillage, and an untold train of crimes, in- cluding assassination and perjury, under the penalty of death to the disobedient or recusant.

" 3. That they intend to operate in conjunction with rebel movements this summer to revolutionize the loyal States, if they can.

"4. That Vallandigham is the Supreme Com- mander of the Northern wing of this society, and Greneral Price, of the rebel army, the Supreme Commander of the Southern wing of the organiza- tion. And that Vallandigham's return was a part of the progi-amme well understood both North and South, by which the revolution they propose was to be inaugurated.

" 5. That this association is now, and has been, the principal agency by which spying and supplying rebels with means of war are carried on between the loyal and rebel States, and that even some of our officers are engaged in it.

" 6. That they claim to have 25,000 members in Missouri, 140,000 in Illinois, 100,000 in Indiana, 80,000 in Ohio, 70,000 in Kentucky ; and that they are extending through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

" Besides which prominent and general facts, the names of members, mode of operating, and other details appear fully, showing what a formidable power and what agencies for mischief we have to deal with.

CONSPIKACIES IN THE NORTH 13

" With this synopsis of the report it is respectfully chap. i. submitted with the single remark — that whatever orders you may deem best to give, it must be ob- vious to your Excellency that leading conspirators like Chas. L. Hunt and Dr. Shore of St. Louis, arrested for being implicated in the association, cannot be released without serious hazard to the to^unco?^, public welfare and safety." ise*. ms.

From first to last these organizations were singularly lacking in energy and initiative. The only substantial harm they did was in encouraging desertions and embarrassing and resisting the officers concerned in the enrollment and the draft. The toleration with which the President regarded them, and the immunity which he allowed them in their passive treason, arose from the fact that he never could be made to believe that there was as much crime as folly in their acts and purposes. Senator McDonald reports that the President once said to him, when he was asking the pardon of some of these conspirators condemned by military commission, "Nothing can make me believe that one hundred thousand Indiana Democrats are dis- loyal." They were sufficiently disloyal to take all manner of oaths against the Government; to declare in their secret councils they were ready to shed the last drop of their blood to abolish it; to express their ardent sympathy with its enemies, and their detestation of its officers and supporters. But this was the limit of their criminal courage. Shedding the last drop of one's blood is a comparatively easy sacrifice — it is shedding the first drop that costs ; and these rm-al Catilines were

14

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

never quite ready to risk their skins for their so- called principles. Most of the attempts against the public peace in the free States and on the Northern border proceeded not from the resident conspira- tors, but from desperate Southern emissaries and their aiders and abettors in the British provinces ; and even these rarely rose above the level of ordi- nary arson and highway robbery.

The case of the CJiesapeake was one of the most noteworthy of these incidents. Two Canadians named J. C. Braine and H. A. Parr resolved, in the latter part of 1863, to start on a privateering enter- prise on their own account. Parr, though born in Canada, had lived for several years in Tennessee ; and Braine, who had been arrested and confined in Fort Warren, had been released from that prison on his claim, presented by the British Minister, that he was a British subject. Their sole preten- sion to Confederate nationality was the possession of commissions in the Confederate navy prepared ad hoc. They enlisted a dozen men, all British subjects, purchased in New York the arms and equipment they required for their enterprise, and took passage on board the United States merchant steamer CJiesapeake, which left New York on the 5th of December, bound for Portland, Maine. BeBjamin On the mornlug of the 8th, they assaulted the officers and crew of the Chesapeake, capturing her after a struggle of only a few minutes' duration, killing one and wounding two of her officers. They took the Chesapeake into the Bay of Fundy, and there delivered her into the hands of a man calling himself Captain Parker of the Confederate navy, who afterwards turned out to be an Englishman

to

Hoi combe, Feb. 15,

1864. MS.

Con- federate

ArcMves.

CONSPIRACIES IN THE NORTH 15

whose name was Yernon Locke, and who had come chap.i. out in a pilot-boat to meet her. Feeling now secure in the possession of her new nationality, she went to Sambro Harbor, Nova Scotia, to receive the fuel and supplies necessary to enable her to prosecute her voyage to the Confederate States. While she lay there, the United States gunboat Ella and Annie entered the harbor ; and, says Mr. Benjamin, whose righteous indignation was evidently aroused by the proceedings, " with that habitual contempt of the territorial sovereignty of G-reat Britain and of her neutral rights which characterizes our en- emies," recaptured the prize, and left the British port with the purpose of taking the Chesapealie to the United States ; but meeting on the way a supe- rior officer of the United States navy, the captain of the Ella and Annie was ordered by him to return to Halifax to restore the Chesapeake to the juris- diction of Great Britain. This was done, and the few pirates who had been captured in the Chesa- peake were delivered up.

The case was taken at once into the courts, and was promptly and properly decided, so far as the vessel was concerned, by her dehvery to her right- ful owners ; but before this decision was made known at Richmond, the Confederate Government, seeing in the case a possibility of profit to then- cause, dispatched to Halifax Professor J. P. Hol- combe, said to be the most accomplished inter- national lawyer in the Confederacy, to take charge of the case. During the professor's transit, how- ever, by way of Wilmington and Bermuda, the case had come to its natural close, and on arriving at Halifax he found his occupation gone. He was

16

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. I.

Holcombe

to Benjamin, April 1,1864. MS. Con- federate Archives.

Memoirs.' Vol. I., p. 462.

compelled to report to the department that every man concerned in the capture of the Chesapeake, with the single exception of the Canadian-Tennes- seean just mentioned, was a British subject. He also found that the captors had been guilty of stealing and peddling the cargo and pocketing the proceeds, and that the antecedents of the so-called Confederate officers involved were most disrepu- table. He seemed greatly disappointed to find that this gang of murderers and thieves were not high-minded and honorable gentlemen, and there- fore concluded to make no demand upon the British authorities for the restitution of the stolen ship. He remained for some time in Halifax, enjoying the hospitality of the colonial sympa- thizers with the South, and then proceeded to join the other secession emissaries in Canada who were engaged in equally congenial enterprises.

The principal agent of the Confederates in Can- ada was Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the In- terior in the late Administration of Buchanan, whose treasonable conduct of that important office has already been mentioned. He had sunk into appropriate insignificance, even among his own associates, after the war began ; had been captured by General Grant on the Mississippi River in a ridiculous attempt at playing the spy under a fiag of truce ; and, after being released with contemptuous forbearance, had gone to Can- ada, under instructions from the rebel Government to do what damage he could in connection with the refugees and escaped prisoners who fringed the Northern frontier during the last two years of the war. He immediately placed himself in com-

JUDAH P. BENJAMIX.

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NORTH 17

munication with the disloyal Democrats of the chap.i. Northern States, and through them and a band of refugees who at once gathered about him in Can- ada for employment, began a series of operations which, for their folly no less than their malignity, would be incredible if they were not recorded in the report which Thompson himself, with amazing moral obtuseness, wrote of his mission on the 3d of December, 1864.

He states that immediately on his arrival in Canada he put himself in communication with the leading spirits of the Sons of Liberty. He was received among them with cordiality, and the greatest confidence was extended to him. They became convinced, during the summer of 1864, that their efforts to defeat the election of Mr. Lincoln were hopeless. " Lincoln had the power," he said, " and would certainly reelect himself, and there was no hope but in force. The belief was entertained and freely expressed, that by a bold, vigorous, and concerted movement, the three great Northwestern States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio could be seized and held. This being done, the States of Kentucky and Missouri could ^jjoj^pg^j, easily be lifted from their prostrate condition and Benjainm. placed on their feet, and this, in sixty days, ^is.^'coT' would end the war." It was resolved to hold a AreMves. series of peace meetings in Illinois for the purpose of preparing the public mind for such a revolt. The first of these meetings was to be held at Peoria, and "to make it a success," says Thompson, "I agreed that so much money as was necessary would be furnished by me." It was held, and was decidedly successful. But he pretends that the

Vol. VIII.— 2

18 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. I. Niagara Falls conference and Lincoln's letter, " To whom it may concern," shocked the country to such an extent that the leading politicians con- ceived the idea that Lincoln might be beaten at the ballot-box on such an issue. " The nerves of the leaders," he says, " thereupon began to relax." The seizure of arms at Indianapolis, the arrest of leading supporters at Louisville, the unsympa- thetic attitude of Mr. McDonald, the Democratic candidate for governor of Indiana, all tended to discourage the ringleaders ; and the day fixed for the revolt, which was to have been the 16th of Au- Tho^^pson g^gt^ passed by with no demonstration. " The ne- De^c'^K?! cessity of pandering to the military feeling, which confed- resulted in the nomination of McClellan, totally de- ArXves. moralizcd," says Thompson, " the Sons of Liberty." Convinced that there was nothing to be expected from the cooperation of Northern Democrats, ThomjDson fell back once more upon his gang of escaped prisoners and other loose fish in Canada. The next scheme adopted by him was ingenious and audacious, and not without possibilities of suc- cess. He determined to captm^e the war steamer Michigan, plying on Lake Erie, and with her to liberate the rebel prisoners on Johnson's Island, in Sandusky Bay; the prisoners were then to march upon Cleveland, attacking that town by land and by water, and thence march through Ohio to gain Virginia. A man named Charles H. Cole, formerly one of Forrest's troopers, was sent round the lakes as a deck passenger to in- form himself thoroughly of the approaches to the harbors, the depositories of coal, the stations and habits of the Michigan. He performed his task

CONSPIKACIES IN THE NOETH 19

with energy and efficiency and with great satisfac- chap.i. tion and amusement to himself. He invented an oil corporation of which he was president and board of directors, opened an office in Buffalo, and used a good deal of Thompson's money in making the acquaintance of the officers of the 3Iichigan.

The 19 th of September was the day fixed for the i864. attempt upon the Michigan, Cole having contrived to have himself invited to dine with the officers of the vessel on that day. A Virginian named John Yates Beall was assigned the more difficult and dangerous part of the enterprise. He, with twenty- five Confederates, took passage from Sandwich, in Canada, on board the Philo Parsons, an unarmed merchant vessel plying between Detroit and San- dusky ; they were all armed with revolvers, and had no trouble in taking possession of the steamer and robbing the clerk of what money he had. They soon afterwards fell in with another unarmed steamer, the Island Queen, scuttled her, and then steered for Sandusky Bay to join Cole and the boats he had prepared in an attack upon the Michigan. But the plan miscarried. The military, aware of Cole's intentions, had captured him ; and Beall, missing the signals which had been agreed upon, did not dare to proceed in the enterprise alone. He therefore returned to Sandwich, and his crew scattered through Canada.

Beall was not content with the failure of this en- terprise, and later in the season, in the middle of December, he was caught in the State of New York General near the Suspension Bridge in an attempt to throw Sa n! a passenger train from the West off the railroad track iscs'^' for the purpose of robbing the express company, j. Y^Vaii.

20 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. I. This was the third attempt which he had made to accompHsh this purpose. He was in citizen's dress, engaged in an act of simple murder and robbery, yet he imagined that the fact that he had a Con- federate commission in his pocket would secure him against punishment in case of capture. He was tried by court martial and sentenced to death. Jefferson Davis took the same ^dew of the tal- ismanic character of the Confederate commission upon which Beall had relied, and issued a mani- festo, assuming the responsibility of the act, and declaring that it was done by his authority. There was gi*eat clamor in regard to the case, and many people of all parties pleaded with Mr. Lin- coln to commute the sentence of Beall. A petition in this sense was signed by most of the Demo- cratic members of the House of Representatives and by many Eepublicans. But the Judge Advo- cate General reported that " Beall, convicted upon indubitable proof as a spy, guerrillero, outlaw, and would-be murderer of hundi-eds of innocent persons traveling in supposed security upon one of our great thoroughfares, fully deserved to die a felon's death, and the summary enforcement of that penalty was a duty which Government owed to society."

Loath as Mr. Lincoln was at all times to approve a capital sentence, he felt that in this case he could not permit himself to yield to the promptings of his kindly heart. He sent a private message to General Dix, saying he would be glad if he would allow Beall a respite of a few days to prepare him- self for death, but positively declined to interfere with the sentence, and Beall was hung in the latter

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NOETH 21

part of February. The Virginia Senate made his chap.i. cause their own, and recommended, by resolutions of the 3d of March, the adoption of such steps as im. might be necessary in retaliation for the offense committed by the authorities of the United States. Under Thompson's orders the large prison camps in the North had been thoroughly examined, with a view of effecting the release of the Confederate prisoners confined in them. But the attempts at different places were given up for one reason or another, and it was resolved to concentrate all the efforts of the conspii*ators upon Camp Douglas at Chicago. A large number of rebels and their sym- pathizers were gathered together in that city, and the plan for taking the prison camp with its ten thousand Confederate prisoners was matured, and was to have been put into execution on the night of election day, taking advantage of the excitement and the crowds of people in the streets to surprise the camp, release and arm the prisoners of war, cut the telegi'aph wires, bm'n the railway stations, and seize the banks and stores containing arms and ammunition. It was hoped that this would excite a simultaneous rising of the Sons of Liberty through- out the State, and result in the release of the Con- federate prisoners in other camps. But the plot, as usual, was betrayed by repentant rebels who were in the most secret councils of the conspira- tors. Shortly after midnight on the 7th of Novem- i864. ber, Colonel Benjamin J. Sweet, commanding Camp Douglas, trapped in their various hiding- places and took prisoners all the leaders of the contemplated attack, among them John H. Mor- gan's adjutant-general, St. Leger G-renfell, Colonel

22

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Colonel

Sweet's

report to

General

Cook,

Nov. 7, 1864.

Tliompson

to Benjamin, Dec. 3, 1864. M8. Con- federate Archives.

Marmaduke, a brother of the rebel general, the commanding officer of the Sons of Liberty in the State, and several other officers of the rebel army who were escaped prisoners. In one house they found two cartloads of revolvers, loaded and capped, two hundi*ed stands of muskets, loaded, and a large amount of ammunition.

Mr. Thompson hesitated at nothing which he thought might injure the people of the United States. Any villain who approached him with a project of murder and arson was sure of a kindly reception. " Soon after I reached Canada," he says, "a Mr. Minor Major visited me and represented himself as an accredited agent from the Confederate States to destroy steamboats on the Mississippi River, and that his operations were suspended for want of means. I advanced to him $2000 in Federal currency, and soon afterwards several boats were burned at St. Louis, involving an immense loss of property to the enemy. . . Money has been ad- vanced to Mr. Churchill of Cincinnati to organize a corps for the purpose of incendiarism in that city. I consider him a true man ; and although as yet he has effected but little, I am in constant expectation of hearing of effective work in that quarter." Another miscreant of the same type, named Colonel Martin, who brought an unsigned letter from Jef- ferson Davis to Thompson, expressed a wish to organize a corps to burn New York City. " He was allowed to do so," says Mr. Thompson ; " and a most daring attempt has been made to fire that city, but their reliance on the Greek fire has proved a mis- fortune. It cannot be depended on as an agent in such work. I have no faith whatever in it, and no

CONSPIEACIES m THE NORTH 23

attempt shall hereafter be made under my gen- chap.i. eral directions with any such materials."

A party of eight persons, mostly escaped prison- ers, were sent to New York to destroy that city by fire. One of them, named Kennedy, was captured, tried, and hung. Before his execution he confessed that he had set fire to four places : Barnum's Mu- seum, Love joy's Hotel, Tammany Hotel, and the New England House ; " the others," he said, with a certain sense of wrong, " only started fires where each was lodging, and then ran off. Had they all done as I did, we would have had thirty-two fires and played a huge joke on the fire department." This stupid tool of baser men escaped to Canada ; but relying, as Beall did, on his commission as a captain in the Confederate army, he started once more for the Confederacy by way of Detroit, and was arrested by detectives in the railway station. He had taken on a new name and a new character ; and in his trial, among the evidence he brought forward which he thought would insure his immunity, was a pledge given to the transportation agent in Canada to return with all due diligence to the Confederacy. Even after his sentence he had no realization of the crime he had committed. He wrote to the Presi- dent, arguing, as a matter of law, that death was too severe a penalty for arson, and suggesting that there was no need of punishing him as an example, since the execution of Beall had already served that purpose.

K Mr. Thompson is to be believed, it would appear that his adherents in Canada were not altogether under discipline, and that they some- times took the opportunity to indulge in casual

24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. I. bui'glaries and murders on their own account. He said in his official report that he knew nothing of the St. Albans affair until after it was over. This was a crime of unusual atrocity, and bade fair, for the moment, to involve the most serious consequences. A party of Confederate thieves, some twenty or thirty strong, came over the border from Canada 1864. on the 19th of October, and entering the village of St. Albans in Vermont, they robbed the banks of some two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ac- companying this crime with entirely uncalled-for cruelty, firing upon the unarmed citizens, killing one man and wounding another; they also at- tempted to burn several houses. The raid was over in less than an hour, and the band, who had stolen horses enough in the \icinity to mount them all, immediately retui'ned to Canada.

It seemed at first as if the Canadian authorities intended to arrest the criminals and hold them for punishment, and Mr. Seward, two days afterwards, expressed his gratification to the British Legation at Washington for this prompt and apparently satis- factory proceeding. As it turned out, however, he spoke too quickly, for Judge Coursol discharged the criminals from custody and restored to them the money they had stolen. As soon as this intel- ligence reached New York, General Dix, outraged beyond endui'ance by the iniquity of the act, with- out consultation with the Government issued an order, directing all military commanders on the frontier, in case of further acts of depredation and murder, to shoot down the murderers, or the per- sons acting under commissions from the rebel authorities at Eichmond; and further instructing

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NOETH 25

them that if it should be necessary, with a view to chap.i. their capture, to cross the border between the United States and Canada, to pui'sue them wher- ever they might take refuge, and on no account to surrender them to the local authorities, but to send them to the headquarters of the Department of the East for trial and punishment by martial law.

The President, who felt no less keenly than Gen- eral Dix the wrong and outrage committed by these rebel murderers and the Canadian authorities who seemed to be protecting them, nevertheless declined to allow any subordinate to embroil the country with a foreign nation in this way ; ^ and in spite of General Dix's vehement defense of what he called " the light of hot pursuit," the President required him to revoke the instructions quoted. The British Government directed Lord Monck, the Governor- General of Canada, to be guided by the decision of the proper legal authorities in the provinces, whether persons in custody ought or ought not to be deliv- ered up under the treaty of extradition, saying that in case the decision were that they ought to be delivered, the Government would approve Lord Monck's acting on this decision; and in case of the contrary decision, the Government suggested that they should be put upon trial on the charge of misprision and violation of the royal preroga- tive by levying war from her Majesty's dominions against a friendly power. The criminals whom

IThis order of General Dix ordinates to pursue any rebel

gave great satisfaction at Rich- raiders, even into Canada and «A°Rebel

mond. An official of the Con- bring them over. So light may War Clerk's

federate War Department entered come from that quarter. A war v*']^li"

in his diary December 19 :" Gen- with England would be our p. 359."

eral Dix orders his military sub- peace."

26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. I. Judge Coursol had released were again captured; the Canadian Parliament reproved the action of Coursol and suspended him from office. The pris- oners having been once more arrested, the matter was heard before Mr. Justice Smith of Montreal, who again discharged them, on the ground that Young, the ringleader of the party, bore a commission in the Confederate army ; ^ that Mr. Clement C. Clay, an associate of Thompson's as Confederate commis- sioner, was aware of Young's purpose and gave him a check for four hundred dollars for his expenses. "The attack on St. Albans," he said, "must therefore be regarded as a hostile expedition, undertaken and carried out under the authority of the so-called Con- federate States by one of the officers of their army." He held that the prisoners had not acquired any domicile in Canada, nor lost their national character by their residence there. The Government of Can- ada was not satisfied with this pettifogging plea, and arrested the prisoners anew; but the war having now come to an end, the case was languidly prose- cuted, and the criminals received no punishment. The Canadian authorities, however, desiring to maintain amicable relations with the United States and to do substantial justice in the case in spite of the courts, refunded fifty-eight thousand dollars of the money stolen by the raiders, being the gold value of some eighty-seven thousand which was in

1 There is au entry in " A Eebel fied by Secretary of War, corn- War Clerk's Diary," December manding the raid into Vermont, 15, which would indicate that the burning, pillaging, etc., to sore Young's commission was spurious Lieutenant Young^s life. I doubt or prepared after the fact: "A if such written orders are in ex- letter from G. N. Sanders . . . istence — but no matter." — Vol. asks copies of orders, to be certi- II., p. 355.

CONSPIEACIES IN THE NORTH 27

their possession when they came into the custody of chap. i. the Canadian courts, and an attempt was made in the provincial legislature to pass a law which should prevent the setting on foot of such unlawful expedi- tions from Canadian soil in the future.

CHAPTEE II

HABEAS CORPUS

Chap. II. fT^HE decision of Chief-Justice Taney iu the I MeiTjTnan case led to a wide discussion of the 1861. constitutional principles involved in the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus. Attorney-Gen- eral Bates, the principal law officer of the Govern- ment, in an elaborate re^^ew of the matter, gave as his opinion that '' in a time like the present, when the very existence of the nation is assailed by a great and dangerous insurrection, the President has the lawful and discretionary power to arrest and hold in custody persons known to have crim- inal intercourse with the insurgents, or persons against whom there is probable cause for suspicion of such criminal complicity"; and in summing up the case he said, " to my mind it is not very im- portant whether we call a particular power exer- cised by the President a peace power or a war power, for undoubtedly he is armed with both. He is the chief civil magistrate of the nation, and being such, and because he is such, he is the Con- stitutional commander-in-chief of the army and navy ; and thus, within the limits of the Constitu- tion, he rules in peace and commands in war, and at this moment he is in the full exercise of all the July 5, 1861. functions belonging to both these characters."

HABEAS COEPUS 29

In the general discussion which this question chap.ii. excited, a strict party line divided the advocates of the Union and the publicists who adhered to the Democratic party. Theophilus Parsons lent the great weight of his name and learning to the side of the Executive ; Joel Parker wi'ote an ela- borate treatise on the same side ; and the venerable Horace Binney, in an exhaustive pamphlet, sustained to the fullest extent this power which the President had considered it his duty under the Constitution to exercise. In language whose simple vigor re- calls the style of Mr. Lincoln himself, Mr. Binney said : " It is not a season for the judicial trial of aU persons who are implicated in the Rebellion. It cannot be while the Rebellion lasts. To arrest and try even those who are openly guilty, and are taken with the red hand, would in many places be fruitless, and only aggravate the evil. The meth- ods and devices of rebellion are infinite. They are open or covert, according to necessity or advantage. In arms, or as spies, emissaries, correspondents, commissaries, proveditors of secret supplies and aids, their name is sometimes legion ; all treason- able, and many of them disguised or lying hid. A part of this disguise may sometimes be detected, and not often the whole. An intercepted letter, an overheard conversation, a known proclivity, an unusual activity in unusual transactions, in muni- tions or provisions or clothing — a suspicious fragment, and no more, without the present clue to detection may appear — not enough for the scales of justice, but abundantly sufficient for the pre- cautions of the guardian upon his watch. Such are the uniA^ersal accompaniments of rebellion, and

30

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Binney's Pamphlet, " Writ of Habeas Corpus," p. 47.

constitute a danger frequently worse than open arms. To confront it at once, in the ordinary course of justice, is to insure its escape, and to add to the danger. Yet the traitor in disguise may achieve his work of treason if he be permitted to go on, and if he is just passing from treason in purpose to treason in act, his arrest and imprison- ment for a season may save both him and the country."

We will add also the words in which Mr. Bin- ney closes his admirable treatise, as probably nothing can be found which was wi'itten upon the subject sounder in law or clearer in expression: " The conclusion of the whole matter is this, that the Constitution itself is the law of the privilege, and of the exception to it; that the exception is expressed in the Constitution, and that the Consti- tution gives effect to the act of suspension when the conditions occur; that the conditions consist of two matters of fact, one a naked matter of fact, and the other a matter-of-fact conclusion from facts, that is to say, rebellion and the public danger, or the requirement of public safety. Whichever power of the constituted government can most properly decide these facts is master of the exception and competent to apply it. Whether it be Congress or the President, the power can only be derived by implication, as there is no express delegation of the power in the Con- stitution ; and it must be derived to that Depart- ment whose functions are the most appropriate to it. Congress cannot executively suspend. All that a legislative body can do is to authorize sus- pension, by giving that effect to an Executive act ;

HABEAS COEPUS 31

and the Constitution having authorized that, there chap.ii. is no room for the exercise of legislative power. The Constitution intended that for the defense of the nation against rebellion and invasion the power should always be kept open in either of these events, to be used by that department which is the most competent in the same events to say what the public safety requires in this behalf. The President being the properest and the safest depositary of the power, and being the only power which, can exercise it under real and effective re- sponsibilities to the people, it is both constitutional and safe to argue that the Constitution has placed it with him."

Constant and elaborate efforts were made in Con- gress to define the limits of the Executive preroga- tive in this direction, and they were not entirely confined to the Democratic party; even so stanch a Republican as Lyman Trumbull offered a resolution on the 12th of December, 1861, instructing the Secre- tary of State to inform the Senate whether any persons had been arrested and imprisoned in the loyal States of the Union, and if so, under what law such action had been taken. This resolution was on the 16th referred to the Judiciary Com- mittee, a proceeding equivalent to its rejection, by a vote of twenty-five to seventeen, six Repub- lican Senators voting with the Democrats in the Dec. 1°, and minority. But it was, of course, from the other pp- 67, 98. side of the House that the most frequent and most vehement attacks upon this exercise of Ex- ecutive power were directed. James A. Bayard, James A. McDougaU, and others, seized every opportunity of bringing the question forward, with

32

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. II. tliG uuif orm result of seeing their resolutions bur- ied by a reference to the Committee of the Judi-

Feb. 14. ciary. Early in the year 1862, however, the President issued an order through the War Depart- ment, referring to the critical circumstances of the country through the past year, which, in his opin- ion, had justified the resort to extraordinary mea- sui'es of repression ; and then went on to say that a favorable change of public opinion had occurred; that the line between loyalty and disloyalty was now plainly defined ; that apprehensions of public danger and facilities for treasonable practices had diminished with the passions which prompted heed- less persons to adopt them ; that the insurrection was believed to have culminated and to be declin- ing. In view of these facts, and anxious to favor a return to the normal course of administration, so far as regard for the public welfare would allow, the President directed that all political prisoners or state prisoners then held in military custody be released on their subscribing to a parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to the armies in hostility to the United States, The Secretary of War was authorized to except from the effect of this order any persons detained as spies in the service of the insurgents, or others whose release involved any danger to the public safety.

As the principal criticisms of Congress had been directed against the action of the Secretary of State, in making arbitrary arrests, the President, in this general order, announced that extraordinary arrests would hereafter be made under the direc- tion of the military authorities alone ; and on the 27th of February the President issued a further

Raymond, " Life of

Abraham Lincoln,"

pp. 379-381.

/

v:^-T -^

?^s

^-^

^^c ■%

GEORGE BANCROFT.

HABEAS CORPUS 33

order appointing Major-General Dix and the chap.ii. Hon. Edwards Pierrepont of New York to ex- Feu. 27,1863. amine the cases of state prisoners remaining in the military custody of the United States, and to de- termine whether, in view of the public safety and Morgan the existing rebellion, they should be discharged, or "Memoirs remain in military custody, or be remitted to the °*i)ix/'^" civil tribunals for trial. The tendency of all civil p/43.' wars is to accumulate arbitrary power in the hands of the Government ; the temptation to abuse of power • is generally too great to be resisted by those who wield control of the constabulary and the army in times of civil tumult. We believe there is no in- stance in history, with the exception of the one we are now considering, where the Government, sus- tained by a large majority of the citizens, its phy- sical force supplied by a devoted army, and its hands upheld by the enormous moral support of a loyal judiciary, has voluntarily relinquished the gi'eat powers freely confided to it, and has, from the beginning to the end of a great war, continually restricted the application of its powers, and dimin- ished, instead of increasing, the frequency of its resort to arbitrary measures.

Once again in the autumn of 1862, on account of the necessity of enforcing the draft which had then been ordered in several States, and re- straining the action of disloyal persons tending to hinder this measure, the President ordered that during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discour- aging volunteer enlistments, resisting military

Vol. VIIL— 3

34 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. II. drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice afford- ing aid and comfort to the rebels against the au- thority of the United States, should be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by court martials or military commission; and that the wiit of habeas corpus was suspended in respect to all persons arrested or imprisoned by the mili- tary or by the sentence of court martials. On the 22d of November, 1862, an order from the War . Department directed that all persons then in mili- tary custody who had been arrested for discoui-ag- ing volunteer enlistments, opposing the draft, or for otherwise giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in States where the draft had been made, or the

War De- C[uota of voluutccrs and militia had been furnished, should be discharged from further military re-

partmeut, " General Orders," . . ,

No. 193. stramt

When Congi-ess came together in December of the same year, there was a disposition among the Eepublican majority to put an end to the discus- sion of the question as to whether the President was authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by expressly granting him such au- thority. On the 8th of December, Thaddeus Stevens introduced a bill to indemnify the President, and other persons, for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and acts done in pursuance thereof; and after its second reading moved that its consideration be made the special order for the next Thursday ensuing. This motion was objected to, upon which, in his energetic, not to say arbi- trary, manner, he instantly moved the previous question, and this being sustained, the bill was read the third time and passed. It was a bill of great

HABEAS COKPUS 35

and far-reaching importance. It not only provided chap. ii. for full indemnity for all arrests and imprisonments made under authority of the President, but it also provided that the President, during the existence of the Rebellion, might suspend at discretion the privilege of the wi'it. It passed the House by "oiobe," a vote of 90 to 45, exactly two to one, upon which pp- 20-22. ' 36 of the minority made a vehement and passion- ate protest, which, however, was not permitted to be entered upon the journal of the House.

The bill went to the Senate, and there, after some inconsiderable amendments, it passed that njjd., body, by a vote of 33 to 7, on the 27th of January, "^^p.'ssl'''' and the House having refused to concur in the amendments, the Committee of Conference agi'eed upon a report which was accepted in both cham- bers — in the House by a majority of 99 to 45, and in the Senate without a record of yeas or nays. By this bill, which was signed in the closing hours of the session, on the 3d of March, 1863, it was provided that dm-ing the Rebellion the President of the United States, whenever, in his judgment, the public safety might require it, was authoiized to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States, or any part thereof. Whenever the privilege should be suspended no military or other officer should be compelled, in answer to any writ of habeas corpus, to return the body of any one detained by him by authority of the President ; upon such officer certifying, under oath, that the prisoner was detained by him under authority of the President, further proceedings under the writ should be suspended by the court which had issued it so long as the suspension by

36

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. II. the President should remain in force and the Rebel- lion continue. The second section provided for the furnishing to the courts of a list of all political prisoners, and the proceedings to be taken for their discharge. Another section provided that the order of the President should be a defense in all proceedings in prosecution of acts contained under this law, and also that such suits begun in State courts might be transferred to United States courts.^

1 While this matter was under discussion in Congress the Presi- dent received the following inter- esting letter from the illustrious George Bancroft :

"New York, February, 1863. "My Dear Mr. President: The case of the Earl of Chatham, of which you bade me send you a memorandum, happened in 1766. In the recess of Parliament his ministry laid an embargo. When Parliament met Lord Northing- ton, the old Lord Chancellor, de- clared the embargo legal ; so did Lord Camden, who was at the time the Lord Chancellor. After much debate, Chatham desired that an act of indemnity might be passed, and in terms as strong as possible. I find no full ac- count of the discussion in any one place. I inclose a copy of Lord Camden's remarks, of which he spoiled the effect by the last line.

" For a tolerable account of the matter, see Adolphus, 'History of England,' edition of 1840, i., 286-291; and a letter from Henry Flood to Lord Charlemont in 'Oi'iginal Letters, Principally from Charlemont, &c., to the Right Hon. Henry Flood.'

" The case differs from the pres- ent one ; for we have a civil war. It might be said that Parliament is omnipotent, and may do what a government of limited powers cannot ; but the power in question is one of those which are granted.

"Lord Chatham is good author- ity for consenting to accept a bill of indemnity; and I think it im- portant, if possible, to obtain the deliberate judgment of Congress.

" If it be not out of place, I will venture one suggestion. Those who have discussed the subject have, I think, done wrong in stat- ing the question too nan-owly as of the power of the President. The public is sensitive as to all questions of power — the real primary question is of the duties of the President, and when the subject is taken up from this point of view, the President ap- pears as the trustee of the people, with no power but to enable him to fulfill his duty, and as the faith- ful servant of us all, and with ample powders for that end.

"For one, though I think your position perfectly safe without it, I hope Congress will pass some bill, alike for your protection in the present case and for our secur- ity, should the nation ever suffer

HABEAS CORPUS

37

During the summer following the passage of the chap, ii statute authorizing the suspension of the privilege of the writ, the enrollment and draft of the national forces was going on. The work of the officers charged with this duty was greatly impeded by the constant resort to legal expedients by drafted men and their friends, and by those politicians who wished to embaiTass the Government by making an issue of opposition upon every Executive act. General Fry says, " The action of the civil courts in the foregoing particulars threatened for a time, in several districts, to defeat, or at least to sus- pend, the business of raising troops and of arrest- ing deserters, and either to throw the officers of this bureau into custody, or keep them so con- stantly before the courts as to prevent theu' attendance upon the duties for which they were appointed, and thus to defeat the raising of an army according to the law."

In this state of things, the President saw no coui'se open to him except to avail himself of the powers conferred by the statute. He therefore, on the 15th of September, issued a general proclama- tion, reciting the provision of the Constitution that " the pri^^lege of the wiit of habeas corpus shall not

Report of Provost Marshal General, 1865-66, Part III., p. 34.

itself to elect a ticket like that of Breckinridge and Lane. "I remain, dear Mr. President, " Very truly yours, "(Signed) George Baxcroft."

" The necessity of a measure renders it not only excusable but legal, and consequently, a judge, when the necessity is proved, may, without hesitation, declare that act legal which would be

clearly illegal where such neces- sity did not exist. The Crown is the sole Executive power, and is therefore intrusted by the Con- stitution to take upon itself what- ever the safety of the state may require, during the recess of Parliament, which is, at most, but a forty days' tyranny." — Lord Camden's remarks. Adol- phus, "History of England." Vol. L, p. 287.

38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. II. be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or in- vasion the public safety shall require it," and the fact that a rebellion was existing on the 3d of March, 1863, and that it still existed; reciting also the fact that, by the statute we have referred to, during the present insurrection, the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ; and that in the judgment of the President the public safety then required that the privilege of the writ should be suspended through- out the United States in cases where persons are held under the command of the Government as pris- oners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy, or as soldiers or deserters, or for offenses against the military service ; and after this preamble, which proclaimed and made known to all whom it might concern, that the privilege of the writ of habeas cor- pus was suspended throughout the United States in the several cases before mentioned, and that this suspension would continue throughout the duration of the Rebellion or until that proclamation should be revoked, he formally called on all civil and mili- tary officers of the United States to take distinct notice of this suspension and to give full effect to it, and on all citizens of the United States to con- duct and govern themselves accordingly.

The controversy as to whether Congress or the President was the authority in whose discretion lay the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was thus finally set at rest by the concur- rent act of both. The President's authority was never after this seriously questioned, and it was used with such moderation and reserve that few

HABEAS CORPUS 39

just occasions for complaint arose under the law. chap.ii. Military governors appointed by the President were invested with like authority. The letter of appointment gave them authority to exercise and perform within the limits of their State all the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor, including the power to establish all necessary offices and tribunals, and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the pleasure of the President, or until the loyal in- habitants of the State should organize a ci\il gov- ernment in conformity with the Constitution of the United States.

The action of Congress and the President in this regard was justified by the civil courts. Per- haps the most important case under the act was that of Greorge W. Jones, who had formerly been a United States Senator and Minister to Bogota. He had been arrested by the order of the Secretary of State and imprisoned at Fort Lafayette. After being released, he brought a suit for false imprisonment, claiming large damages. Under the pro\asions of the Act of March 3, Mr, im. Seward moved by his counsel to transfer the case to the United States Circuit Court. This motion was denied by the court of first instance, but a majority of the Supreme Court of New York af- firmed the constitutionality of the act and dismissed the case.

The greatest care was taken by the President to restrain the officers acting under his author- ity from any abuse of this tremendous power. He watched over this with increasing vigilance as the war went on. The Senate having, on motion

40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. II. of Mr. Powell, adopted resolutions directing the Secretary of War to inform the Senate whether he had complied with the injunction of the act to lay- lists of persons imprisoned under Executive author- ity before the United States courts, the Secretary promptly replied, transmitting the report of the Judge Advocate General, showing that all possible vigilance had been used in complying with the terms of the law. The rolls were necessarily in- complete ; the offenses with which the prisoners were charged were frequently indefinitely stated ; and instead of specifying the particular officers by whom arrests were made the President and Secre- tary of War assumed the responsibility in all cases, although the arrests were generally made by mili- tary commanders and provost-marshals without any intervention on the part of the President or Secretary. Those arrested for military offenses were tried with the greatest possible expedition, and generally with a strict regard to equity and law. Several commissions were actively engaged in in- vestigatiDg the cases of prisoners, and releasing them whenever it could be done without prejudice to the public safety. Frequent inspections of mili- tary prisons were made, and not only the errors incident to the use of such enormous authority in times of civil war were corrected as soon as dis- covered, but in hundreds of instances men guilty of positive offenses, who manifested some sense of awakened conscience, were dismissed without punishment. On the 20th of June, 1864, General C. C. Augur, commanding the Department of Washington, issued stringent orders against any arrests in that department, except in extreme cases

HABEAS COKPUS 41

where there was no doubt of guilt, and notifying chap.ii. all his subordinates that they would be held re- sponsible for any abuse of authority on the part of their employees.

These acts were the subject of the most energetic denunciation on the part of the Confederate lead- ers and their sympathizers all over the world, yet the most arbitrary acts of the Federal Government bore no comparison to those which marked the daily administration of affairs in the South. On the 1st of March, 1862, Jefferson Davis, by virtue of the power invested in him by law to declare the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in States thi'eatened with invasion, proclaimed martial law over Eichmoud and for ten miles around, following it with numerous arrests and imprisonments. On the 8th of April following he issued a proclamation 1862. extending martial law over East Tennessee and suspending all civil jurisdiction and the writ of habeas corpus. The next month he issued a like proclamation, extending it over six counties in Virginia. The year before this he had issued a general proclamation of banishment against all the adherents of the Union in the South, warning them to depart from the Confederate States within forty days of the date of that proclamation, under penalty of being treated as alien enemies if they should remain. Severe cruelties were practiced upon the loyal population of East Tennessee from the outbreak of the Rebellion until the last year of the war, and were stimulated by the orders of J. P. pp. l^-^8,

Vol. V. of

Benjamin, while he was acting as Secretary of "War tMsVorb. in the autumn of 1861.

The Confederate Congress followed the example

42 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. II. of the Coiigress of the United States in passing a bill for the general suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. In February, 1864, at the request of Jef- ferson Davis, the privilege of the writ was formally suspended, "during the present invasion of the Con- federate States," by both Houses of the Eichmond Congress; but to guard against any abuse of the power thus given to Mr. Davis, a series of cases authorizing the suspension of the wi'it was enumer- ated in the act, of such variety and scope that any caprice or suspicion of power might easily be grat- ified under it.

CHAPTER III

THE 3IARCH TO CHATTANOOGA

THE Army of the Cumberland remained for six chap. hi. months on the field they had so gallantly defended at Murfreesboro. General Eosecrans and his friends have for twenty years vehemently de- fended this long inacti^dty, and General Thomas in Ms report to Congi-ess gave the gi-eat authority of his name to the statement that the apparent lethargy of the Army of the Cumberland during its stay at Murfreesboro was due really to the severity of the winter, which rendered it almost impossible to move large bodies of men on the ordinary roads of the country, and to the difficulty of procuring animals to refit the transportation and equip the cavalry and artillery. But the winter was nearly half gone when the battle of Murfreesboro was fought, and this excuse does not explain the waste of several months of fine spring weather.

The Government expected great results from Eosecrans and his victorious army as soon as the weather became favorable and the roads fairly settled. No pains were spared in gi^^ng him every possible support in supplies and reenforcements. Early in February a fine additional force was sent

44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. III. him, comprising the Army of Kentucky under Major-General Gordon Glranger and Brigadier-Gen- erals Charles C. Gilbert, Absalom Baird, and George Crook. These forces, swelled by two regiments of infantry and four of cavalry, which joined them at Nashville, made a valuable reenforcement of some fourteen thousand men. The President and General-in-Chief with friendly urgency suggested an early movement, as required not only for the redemption of Tennessee from the control of an enemy which was cruelly persecuting and harassing the Union men of that State, but also to assist the campaigns of Grant at Vicksburg and of Hooker in Virginia, by withdrawing troops from their fronts, or, at least, by preventing re- enforcements against them. But General Rose- crans did nothing from New Year's Day to 1863. midsummer except to build around Murfreesboro an enormous series of fortifications, to exercise and drill his troops, to project and carry out an extensive system of reconnaissances which led to nothing, and to write a large number of spirited letters to the authorities at Washington protesting against every order given him and deprecating every suggestion made to him.

In his evidence before the Committee on the Con- duct of the War, he made this explanation of his action : " When spring arrived, and the roads had become settled, a movement which the country expected, and which would have given the officers and men of om' command, including myself, plea- sure and promised renown, was proposed. I felt it my duty to sacrifice all personal gratification and even to fall in the estimation, temporarily, of the

THE MAKCH TO CHATTANOOGA 45

country and friends who had high hopes and chap. hi. expectations of the Army of the Cumberland, to secure General Grant in his operations before Vicks- burg from the consequences of compelling Bragg to retire, when it would not be possible for us so Rosecrans, to pursue as to prevent him from reenforcing John- ^ Re^n ^' ston, whose relative numbers to our troops under Sfconduc't General Grant was deemed more formidable than I isetes.^'^'

Part HI.,

subsequently learned it to have been." ^ p- 27.

It is hard to say whether this strange fancy that he could best support the campaign of Grant by doing nothing, and that by attacking Bragg he would drive him to reenforce Johnston, was really the cause of Rosecrans's long idleness at Murfreesboro, or was an afterthought to explain a delay otherwise inexplicable. A better explanation may probably be found in the idiosyncrasies of Rosecrans. He was, like McClellan, always de- manding impossibihties from the Government in the way of troops and supplies; but the great difference between them was, that, while in Mc- Clellan's case delay was an instinct, in the case of Rosecrans delay seemed to spring from a certain controversial insubordination which api^eared to render prompt obedience to the wishes of the Gov- ernment impossible with him, unless every demand

1 General Grant did not share behind Vicksburg, he had lu-ged this view of Rosecrans. When he that Rosecrans should be directed started on his famous march in to make some movement in his rear of Vicksburg, he suggested favor, to distract the enemy, and that Rosecrans should make a at least prevent the troops of demonstration against Bragg to Bragg, who was in front of Rose- prevent reenforcements from crans, from being sent to reen- eoming from Bragg to Johnston, force Johnston. But although he Badeau, in his " Military History was greatly superior to Bragg in of U. S. Grant," says. Vol. I., p. numbers Rosecrans refused to 431: " While Grant was operating budge."

46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. of his own had been previously complied with. Whenever Rosecrans had a disagreement with his superiors, it became a fixed idea in his mind. His grievance assumed proportions that were almost ludicrous, and his statements became recklessly inaccurate. This was the case in regard to his constant clamor for cavalry during the year 1863. He represented himself as destitute of horses when, as Halleck says, his stables were over- i2portfer crowded with animals and the horses of his Vol." XXX.; cavalry, artillery, and trains were dying in large p- 37." numbers for want of forage. " Let it be clearly 1863. ^ understood," said Rosecrans on the 20th of March, Campaign, "that the cucmy have five to our one and can, Scondurt therefore, command the resources of the coun- ^^ ^ises^*^^' try and the services of the inhabitants." In ^p.' 3"" answer to a letter from the quartermaster-general correcting his absurd understatement of the num- ber of horses that had been sent him, he admits that he has on hand 8000 cavalry and mounted ^nSf infantry, of which he claims that he is not able to isS.^VI'r. turn out more than 5000 for actual duty ; and that xxiiL, there were 3000 more in use as escorts and order-

Part II.

p. 321."' lies, and unserviceable in Nashville. According,

therefore, to his own computation he had 11,000

mounted men, and the enemy 55,000, a number far

exceeding the force of Bragg's entire army. He

sent G-eneral L. H. Rousseau to Washington with a

request that he be allowed to recruit a cavalry force

Rosecrans ^^<^i^g the Eastcm troops recently discharged from

^Kepo?r'' service, a request which it was not possible to

Scon'S comply with on account of the exigencies of re-

""^ ^ii65^'^''' cruitment in the several States, but the fact that

p.' 28. " this authorization was not given him became in

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA 47

his mind a new grievance and a new proof of the chap. hi. hostility of the Government towards him.

During his six months at Murf reesboro, he assailed the Government daily by mail and telegraph with clamorous demands for supplies in horses, men, munitions, and details of officers which it was not practicable to grant ; and he hardly ever received an order or a suggestion from the General-in-Chief to which he did not reply by an argument against its execution. It is altogether probable that if he had received no orders from Halleck he would have moved far earlier than he did. While he remained under the immediate command of Grant he was in constant controversy with him and on teiTQs of the friendliest correspondence with Halleck; but the moment he became independent of Grant and sub- ject to the orders of Halleck as general-in-chief, he transferred his animosity to the latter and sustained towards him an attitude of consistent hostility to the end of the war.

When he received his promotion to the grade of major-general he protested vehemently against the date of it, which was the 16th of September, 1862, and although this date was afterwards, at his im- portunity, changed to the 2d of March, 1862, he still regarded himself as deeply injured because even this earlier date left him junior to Grant. The President, writing to him on the 17th of March, im. said : " As to your request that your commission should date from December, 1861, of course you expected to gain something by this, but you should remember that precisely so much as you should gain by it others would lose by it. If the thing you sought had been exclusively ours, we would have

48

ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Lincoln to Rosecrans, March 17, 1863. MS.

March 1,

1863.

W. R. Vol.

XXIIL,

Part II.,

p. 95.

given it cheerfully ; but, being the right of other men, we having a merely arbitrary power over it, the taking it from them and giving it to you be- came a more delicate matter, and more deserving of consideration. Truth to speak, I do not appre- ciate this matter of rank on paper as you officers do. The world will not forget that you fought the battle of Stone River, and it will never care a fig whether you rank General Grant on paper or he so ranks you. . . And now be assured," he concludes, " you wrong both yourself and us when you even suspect there is not the best disposition on the part of us all here to oblige you."

There was at this time a vacancy in the rank of major-general in the regular army, and the friends of General Rosecrans, together with those of other meritorious officers, besieged the Government with the claims of their respective favorites. In this con- juncture General Halleck, it is not known whether by suggestion of the President or of the Secretary of War, wrote a letter to the different aspirants, saying in substance that this vacancy would be given to the general in the field who should first win an important and decisive victory. As a matter either of taste or of policy the propriety of such a suggestion to generals in the field may well be questioned, but no one except Rosecrans thought fit to make it a subject of controversy. He, however, with his unfailing pugnacity rose to the challenge and sent an angry and insulting reply to Halleck, saying, " As an officer and a citizen I feel degraded to see such auctioneering of honor. Have we a general who would fight for his own personal benefit, when he would not for honor and the country? He would

GENERAL GORDON GRANGER.

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA

49

come by his commission basely in that case, and deserve to be despised by men of honor." It was in this tone that most of his correspondence with Washington continued. Upon General Halleck in- timating to him, in a not unfriendly manner, on the 20th of April, 1863, that he was using the telegraph rather too freely in reports of insignificant occur- rences, he answered that he regarded this as "a profound, gi*ievous, cruel, and ungenerous official and personal wrong. If there is any one thing I de- spise and scorn," he says, " it is an officer's blowing his own trumpet or getting others to do it for him. I had flattered myself that no general officer in the service had a cleaner record on this point than I have. I shall here drop the subject, leaving to time and Providence the vindication of my conduct, and expect justice, kindness, and consideration only from those who are willing to accord them." It is needless to add that he did not drop the sub- ject, and that his faith in time and Providence never prevented him from attending promptly to the vindication of his conduct, at all times and seasons.

Of course it is not to be imagined that the army of Rosecrans on the north of Duck River, or the army of Bragg on the south, were entirely idle during this long interval. The late winter and spring were occupied not only by works of fortifi- cation and intrenchment, of disciphne, and of sup- ply, but also by a series of raids, more or less expensive and destructive on both sides, but lead- ing in no case to any adequate result. The respon- sibility of these movements does not rest exclusively upon the generals in the field. They were suggested Vol. VIII.— 4

Chap. m.

March 6,

1863. W.R.

Vol.

XXIII.,

Part II.,

p. 111.

Ibid.,

March 20,

1863, p. 256.

Ihid.,

April 26,

1863, p. 279.

50 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. in default of more important movements by the governments on both sides of the line. Mr. Lin- coln himself wrote to Rosecrans on the 17th of February, referring to the trouble and injury in- flicted upon us by the raids of rapidly moving small bodies of the enemy, harassing and discour- aging the loyal residents, supplying themselves with provisions, clothing, and horses, and breaking our communications. He said : " Can these raids be successfully met by even larger forces of our own of the same kind acting merely on the defen- sive ? I think," he continued, " we should or- ganize proper forces and make counter-raids. We should not capture so much of supplies from them as they have done from us, but it would trouble them more to repair railroads and bridges than it Eo^ecmns, ^oes US. What think you of trying to get up such 1863?' MS. a corps in your army?" Bragg certainly made great use of his cavalry, but it is not at all clear that it was remunerative. Wheeler attacked Fort Donelson on the 3d of February, and was repulsed with heavy loss, though he succeeded in escaping with most of his command. Morgan was defeated by an inferior force under Colonel A. S. Hall on the 20th of March, near Milton, and was driven from his stronghold at Snow Hill by General Stanley on the 1st of April. On the other hand. Colonel John Coburn, commanding a general reconnaissance set on foot on the 4th of March, was surrounded by the force of Van Dorn and Wheeler and lost four regi- ments, and Forrest's cavalry captured some four hundred men at Brentwood on the 25th of March.

The most important of the cavalry movements set on foot by either army during the season came

THE M-^ECH TO CHATTAXOOGA 51

to equally disastrous failure. General Rosecrans chap. hi. in the month of April organised a provisional bri- isea. gade of 1700 men, under command of Colonel A. D. Streight, for an expedition into the States of Georgia and Alabama, to destroy property and in- terrupt the communications of the enemy as much as possible. He was ordered to move from Nash- ville to the Tennessee River ; there to embark his command and proceed up the sti-eam to form a junction with the force under General Dodge; then to menace Tuscumbia, and after having gone far enough with Dodge to create the impression that the two forces formed but one exjDcdition, he was to push southward towards Western Georgia and to cut the railroads supplying the rebel army by way of Chattanooga. He was warned that this was the chief object of his expedition, and that he must not allow any collateral or incidental scheme to delay him so as to endanger his return. He was particularly requii'ed to restrain his command from pillaging and marauding ; to destroy all manufac- tories of arms and depots of supplies of the rebel army, and to enlist all able-bodied men who desired to join the army of the Union.

These orders were, in the beginning, promptly and successfully earned out. A junction was formed with Dodge, and the National troops marched on Tuscumbia, defeating the Confeder- ates there. Dodge turned southward, making a rapid raid thi'ough Northern Alabama, and return- ing to his headquarters at Corinth. Streight moved towards Northern Georgia, but was soon attacked in the rear by Forrest's cavalry. He turned and fought Forrest repeatedly, with energy and success, but,

52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. of coursG, lost at evGiy stage of his march by fa- tigue and the casualties of battle. His ammunition was injured in fording a stream. He pushed on- ward, however, in hope of destroying at least the bridge at Rome, but was unable to accomplish even that much of his instructions, and surrendered the remainder of his command to Forrest on the 3d 1863. of May. They were taken to Richmond ; his men were soon sent through the lines and exchanged, but he, and his officers, were retained and impris- oned on the ground that they had incurred the penalty fixed by the statutes of the State of G-eorgia for inciting slaves to rebellion. This caused a long controversy between the respective commissions of exchange, and led later to the imprisonment of General John H. Morgan and his officers in the Ohio penitentiary. By a singular coincidence both gen- erals made their escape from prison and returned within their own lines.

Two months later the cavalry of General Bragg attempted a similar movement upon the Northern States with precisely the same calamitous result. It was part of a movement of a much wider scope, and was expected to yield far more important results to the Confederate army than any Rosecrans promised himself from the expedition of Streight. The force assigned to it was about double that of the Union raiders, consisting of three thousand of the best Confederate cavalry, which was ex- pected to dash through the States of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and, supported by a strong infantry force, under General Buckner, to capture Louisville and perhaps Cincinnati. The Confed- erate Government, in spite of their disappointment

THE MAKCH TO CHATTANOOGA 53

over the failure of Kirby Smith's expedition to chap, iil establish a rebel State administration in Kentucky, still had a lingering hope that Kentucky at heart was attached to the South ; and the demonstration of the Peace Democrats dm-ing the early summer of 1863, and the agitation apparent at the time of the arrest of Vallandigham, had convinced the author- ities at Richmond that a large body of Northern Democrats were prepared to rise in insurrection against the Administration of Lincoln as soon as a Confederate force should appear on their soil to support such an enterprise.

On account of the movement by General Rose- crans, to be narrated hereafter, General Buckner was unable to perform his part of the programme resolved upon, and the advance of Morgan was, therefore, a mere cavalry raid, more important, however, in regard to its numbers and its pur- pose than any which had hitherto been set on foot by either army. Morgan crossed the Cum- berland River at Burkesville on the 2d of July, isea. and moved on to Columbia, skirmishing all the way with inferior detachments of Union troops, who retired as he approached. He had a sharp skir- mish on the 4th of July with Colonel O. H. Moore, who commanded a few hundred men at Green River Bridge, and, in honor of the day, handsomely repulsed the enemy. On the 5th Morgan captured the Twentieth Kentucky at Lebanon, after a fight of several hours, burning the greater part of the town. He rode rapidly through Springfield and Bardstownto Brandenburg, where he captured two small boats on the 9th of July, and crossed his force to the Indiana shore. General Basil Duke,

54 AERAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. the intimate friend and most trusted subordinate B^sn w. of Morgan, says that the crossing of the Ohio River "Mifgli'f ^^^ ^^ direct disobedience of Bragg's orders ; that ^ pT «Y' Morgan told him Bragg had ordered him to operate in Kentucky; but that he had no intention, from the beginning, to obey his orders. He expected that success would condone his offense; that he could carry the war gloriously into the Northern States, keep a large force from reenforcing Rose- crans, sweep through Indiana and Ohio, recross the river at the upper fords, which he had examined for that purpose, or join General Lee in his antici- pated career of conquest in Pennsylvania. Such 1863. dreams were common in that eventful summer, and even the utter failure of his campaign does not prevent General Morgan's biographer from claim- ing that the enterprise stamped him as a military genius of the first order.

The presence of so formidable a host upon the soil of a Northern State naturally produced great excitement. The people of Indiana and Ohio, who had hitherto known nothing of the war, except what they gained from their morning papers, were at this time to have their first and only practical experience of the presence of a hostile army before their eyes ; and even now there was little actual fighting connected with the progress of Morgan and his rough riders through these States. It is no discredit to Morgan to say that the expedition was merely one of thieving and arson on a grand scale, for he would have been ready enough to fight, had there been any fighting to do. There was no organized force to meet him, and the troops which were hurrying after him in hot pursuit all

I

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA 55

the way were for a long time unable to reach him, chap. hi. as he swept the country of fresh horses wherever he went, leaving his broken-down nags to be gathered up by his pursuers. He rode through Corydon ; through Salem, where he found several hundred home guards, who made no resistance worth mentioning, and were taken and paroled. He burned here a railway station and ransomed the mills and factories of the place at a thousand dollars apiece. The Confederate historian here mentions the surprise with which Morgan's men, "just from thinned-out Dixie," observed the signs of thiift and plenty in the land of their enemies, especially " the dense population apparently un- touched by the demands of the war." The sight of all this evident wealth excited among them a curious outbreak of cupidity, seemingly unreg- ulated by any civilized perception of use or value. General Basil W. Duke gives this singular account of the plundering done by his own soldiers, which would be scarcely credible if it were from an un- friendly hand : " The disposition for wholesale plunder exceeded anything that any of us had ever seen before. . . Calico was the staple article of ap- propriation — each man who could get one tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason — it seemed to be a mania, senseless and purpose- less. One man carried a bu'd-cage with three canaries in it for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small metallic coffin, on the pommel of his saddle, until an officer forced him to throw it away. Although the

56 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. weather was intensely warm, another still slung seven pairs of skates around his neck and chuckled over his acquisition. I saw very few articles of real value taken — they pillaged like boys robbing an orchard. I would not have beheved that such a passion could have been developed so ludicrously among any body of civihzed men. At Piketon, Ohio, one man broke through the guard Duke, posted at a store, rushed in, trembling with excite-

ofMorSs ment and avaidce, and filled his pockets with horn

Cavalry," ,

p. 437. buttons."

Wherever Morgan went he burned bridges and public works, scouring the country for miles on either hand, for horses and supplies. A show of re-

1863. sistance was made at Vernon on the 11th of July, and Morgan, therefore, passed on without attacking that place. Moving eastward, tearing up railroad tracks, cutting telegraph wires, and destroying bridges, he passed out of Indiana into Ohio. On the 13th, he came near capturing a large number of Gov- ernment horses and mules at Camp Monroe, not far from Cincinnati, but they had been removed to a place of safety a few hours before his arrival. His dangerous approach produced a great commotion in the city of Cincinnati; but not feeling strong enough to take the place he passed to the north, threw a train off the track, capturing a number of recruits and robbing the mails, and resumed his ride eastward. By this time it was clear that the Confederates were to get no benefit from this raid, except the fun to be derived from it. Morgan had heard of the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg and of the fall of Vicks- burg ; the militia of the State of Ohio had been called out by Governor Tod, and though not espe-

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA 57

cially efficient as against veteran troops, they were cuap. hi. already gathering in such numbers about him as to delay and annoy his progress. The Confederates had now only one purpose, to strike the upper fords of the Ohio and effect their escape into the hill country of West Virginia. Thus far he had not been especially incommoded by the pursuit of the Union forces. The Indiana home guards had escorted him, at a respectful distance, to their State line, and then returned to their homes. Morgan regarded them with the same indifference with which a railway train views the pursuit of a rural dog, which barks at its passage until the limit of his farm is reached. Greneral E. H. Hobson, who was in charge of the troops who had crossed the river from Kentucky in pursuit of Morgan, was never able to reach him, on account of the Confederate superiority in horses; but as Morgan approached the river the hunt became much more active and concentrated, and the waters of the Ohio being by this time thoroughly patrolled by improvised gun- boats, the matter of crossing became every hour more difficult.

Morgan's troopers were beginning to show signs of great exhaustion, and they were continually straggling and being captured by the pursuit. The rear-guard was constantly skirmishing, and, as the advance reached Buffington Island, near Pomeroy, where they hoped to cross the river, it was driven back by gunboats. The principal force of the raiders was captured on the 20th at this July, isea. point. Morgan, with some five hundred of his com- mand, escaped, and it was only after five days of wandering, of baffled attempts to cross the river

58

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

July 26,

Dufee, " History of Morgan's Cavalry,"

p. 528.

at different points, and a desperate ride to the northward in search of some avenue of escape, that he was taken by General Shackleford near Wells- ville. Just one month had elapsed since he left Sparta, in Tennessee, with two brigades of the finest cavalry ever organized by the Confederate army in the West. In this ride of thirty days he had de- stroyed his whole detachment, had not interrupted for an hour the movements of the gi^eat armies of the Union, had done no damage that could not be repaired in a few days, had deprived General Bragg of his services at a time when he was in deadly need of them ; and yet, so illogical is the popular sentiment where military fame is concerned, he made himself, by this boyish and fruitless exploit, by the mere fact of wasting his command on Northern soil, the most popular cavalry hero of the war on the Southern side. Being imprisoned at Columbus, he made his escape in the following November, and was received with great enthusiasm in the Con- federacy. But the day of his brilliant activity was over ; the criticisms of his fellow-officers clouded his peace of mind ; he came to be ill-regarded at Eich- mond. He led one more important and well- equipped raid into Kentucky in June of the next year, but met with a decisive defeat at the hands of General S. G. Burbridge, and was driven back into Virginia, his command revenging itself, as General Duke says, by "great and inexcusable excesses." On the 4th of September, 1864, at the outset of another raid, he was surprised at the village of Greenville, Tennessee, and killed as he was trying to escape through a kitchen-garden.

While Morgan's expedition was preparing, Gen-

THE MAKCH TO CHATTANOOGA 59

eral Rosecrans had at last resolved upon a forward chap. in. movement, and was making it ready with that skill isea. and judgment which never failed him in grand strategic operations, whenever he could be brought to obey the orders of the Grovernment. It had been weary work to get him started. Before the middle of May it had become evident that his ostensible purpose, to hold Bragg's force away from Johnston, had failed. Reenforcements had been sent to Mis- sissippi, though not in time or in sufficient force to check the victorious march of Grant across that State. The Government renewed its orders and its appeals to Rosecrans for a forward movement, now that Bragg was thus weakened, and it would seem as if nothing but Rosecrans's obstinacy pre- vented his taking advantage of the great oppor- tunity thus afforded him. He made no secret of his views, and it was no less his singularly attrac- tive personal influence than the weight of his au- thority as commander that brought all his generals to his own way of thinking. Annoyed by the Rosecrans orders of the Government to begin an aggressive ^''jSfin';''' campaign, he called together a council of war in w. r^^^Voi. the first week of June, and obtained from seventeen pai-t l,' generals an opinion adverse to an advance.

General Garfield, his chief -of-staff, alone dissented from this otherwise unanimous opinion, and on the 12th of June drew up a careful review of the opinions of the generals, showing that Rosecrans could throw 65,137 bayonets and sabers against Bragg's 41,680, allowing the most liberal estimate of ibid., his force ; and it is not one of the least remarkable pp. 422, 423. traits of the character of Rosecrans that, after furi- ously opposing the views of the Government and ex-

60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. toi'ting from all his generals an opinion in harmony with his own, he suddenly adopted the plan of G-arfield, and set about executing it with extraor- dinary ability and celerity. On the 11th of June he had telegraphed to Halleck the decision of his council of war, and added: "Not one thinks an advance advisable until Vicksburg's fate is deter- mined. Admitting these officers to have a rea- sonable share of military sagacity, courage, and patriotism, you perceive that there are graver and stronger reasons than probably appear at Washing- ton for the attitude of this army. I therefore counsel cantion and patience at headquarters. Better wait a little to get all we can ready to in- sure the best results, if by so doing we, per force of Providence, observe a great military maxim, not to risk two great and decisive battles at the same time. We might have cause to be thankful tJ^Haueck, for it J at aU events you see that to expect success ^'1863"' I must have such thorough grounds that when I xxiii.r ■ say ' forward ' my word will inspire conviction and p- 8- " confidence where both are now wanting."

Halleck answered that the maxim quoted applied " to a single army, but not to two armies acting in- dependently of each other. Johnston and Bragg are acting on interior lines between you and Grant, and it is for their interest, not ours, that they should fight at different times, so as to use the same force against both of you. It is for our in- terest to fight them, if possible, while divided. If you are not strong enough to fight Bragg with a part of his troops absent, you will not be able to fight him after the affair at Vicksburg is over, and his troops return to your front." He then

THE MAUCH TO CHATTANOOGA 61

recalls to Rosecrans another military maxim that chap. hi. " councils of war never fight." He tells him the authorities will not make him fight against his will, but that " after five or six months of inactivity, with your force all the time diminishing, and no hope of any immediate increase, you must not be surprised that their patience is i)retty well ^xxiil?^" exhausted." When this letter reached him he p^8.' answered on the 21st of June in the same sj^irit of controversy, with, however, a singular shifting of his ground. Apparently abandoning his idea that his duty was to keep Bragg away from Johnston, he now says that " for Bragg to materially aid John- ston he must abandon our front substantially, and then we can move to our ultimate work with more rapidity and less waste of material on natural obstacles. If Grant is defeated both forces will come here, and then we ought to be near our base." n.id.,p. 9. He deprecates the nation using all its force in the great West at the same time, so as to leave it with- out a single reserve to stem the current of possible disaster.

Having thus satisfied his controversial instinct by protesting against the plan of an advance, he began immediately to put it in action. He started on the 24th of June, ten days before the surrender of Vicksburg, at the very moment when, according to his own theory, he was bound by a policy of inaction to keep Bragg in his place in Tennessee; and he had no sooner started than the fine weather, which for several weeks had been tempting him to move, broke up in a series of the most tremendous storms which had ever been seen in Tennessee ; but in spite of all these obstacles his march was pushed

62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. foi'ward wlth extraordinary energy and success. The main force of the Confederates occupied a strong position north of Duck River, their front extending along a series of fortified camps from Shelbyville to Wartrace, their cavalry front out as far as McMinnville, on the right, and Spring Hill and Columbia, on the left. By a skillful and im- posing feint upon Bragg's left wing, Rosecrans created the impression that his attack would be made on that side, and then moved the bulk of his force upon the Confederate right by way of Fairfield and Manchester, thus turning the right of Bragg's line on Duck River and compelling him to fall back to Tullahoma ; while Rosecrans's right, under Granger, drove the rear-guard out of Shelbyville and gave to the Union force the whole of Bragg's first line. Without resting an instant, Rosecrans sent a cavalry force around Bragg's right and rear to interrupt his communications with the Tennes- see, and to force a battle upon terms highly advan- tageous to the Union army; but Bragg, seeing that the campaign was lost, gave up his whole line, abandoned Tullahoma, and retreated rapidly through Winchester, across the Cumberland Moun- tains and the Tennessee River, to Chattanooga. 1863. " The work of expelling Bragg from Middle Ten-

nessee," says General Garfield, " occupied nine days, and ended July 3, leaving his troops in a most disheartened and demoralized condition, while our army, with a loss of less than one thousand

Garfield to men, was, in a few days, fuller of potential fight

Juiy27,i863. than ever before." Had it not been for the storms,

which delayed him thirty-six hours at Hoover's

Gap and sixty hours at Winchester, Rosecrans says

Report Committee on Couduct of the War,

THE MARCH TO CHATTANOOGA 63

he would have got possession of the enemy's com- chap. m. munications and forced him to very disastrous battle ; and this delay on account of the weather Rosecrans, would have been avoided by an earlier movement, '^ Re^rt^ which was perfectly practicable, and which Rose- crans might have made at the time that he was arguing with Halleck against it. His loss was only p" 28. 560 men killed, wounded, and missing ; Bragg lost besides his killed and wounded, which have not been reported, some 1500 prisoners and a consider- able number of guns, and material abandoned in his hasty retreat. But, beyond all this, he lost prestige which he never regained. The farmers of Ten- nessee and Kentucky, who had been inclined to favor the Confederate cause, and who had been repeatedly assured, by him, by Buckner, and by Kirby Smith, that the Yankees should not be suf- fered again to overrun their soil, turned towards the national side, when the national authority was once more established over them, with a feeling in which there was as much of resentment against the Confederates as of loyalty to the Union.

This brilliant success, which was an absolute ises. negation of the theory upon which he had based his controversies with the Government for six months, did not encourage Greneral Rosecrans to push forward in the way which was naturally indi- cated. He remained six weeks at Tullahoma, allow- ing Bragg to tighten his hold upon Chattanooga and to gather in reenforcements from all troops anywhere available throughout the Confederacy. Grarfield, writing to the Secretary of the Treasury on the 27th of July, said that on the 18th the bridges were rebuilt, and the cars were in full com-

64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. munication from the Cumberland to the Tennessee. " I have, since then, urged, with all the earnestness I possess, a rapid advance while Bragg's army was shattered and under cover, and before Johnston and he can effect a junction. Thus far," he continued, "the general has been singularly disinclined to grasp the situation with a strong hand and make the advantage his own."

Rosecrans was not unaware of the President's solicitude and dissatisfaction at this resumption of the inactive attitude of the early part of the year. 1863. He wrote to Mr. Lincoln, on the 1st of August, a long letter, giving as his reasons for his previous delay, the difficulty of obtaining supplies ; his weak- ness in cavalry ; going over once again the long con- troversy with Halleck, insisting once more on the inexpediency of the movement against Bragg which would have caused him to reenf orce Johnston, a plea which the events of the summer had completely con- futed. He dwelt on the bad weather and the condi- tion of the roads, insisting upon it that the roads in his department were worse than anywhere else in the world, and the difficulty of supply greater. He then enumerated the disadvantages of the campaign be- fore him : sixty miles of barren mountain traversed by a few poor roads ; bridge material brought from a great distance; wide, unfordable rivers for a length of five hundred miles ; and the difficulty of securing a crossing in the face of a strong oppo- sition force on the other side; and added to the to Lfncofn, immense difficulty of taking a position in Tennes- Aug^^i863. ggg^ ^^^ g^.j^ greater difficulty of holding it.

The President answered this letter as soon as it was received in his usual tone of kindness and can-

GENERAL D. H. HILL.

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA 65

dor. " I think," he said, " you must have inferred chap. hi. more than General Halleck has intended, as to any dissatisfaction of mine with you. I am sure you, as a reasonable man, would not have been wounded could you have heard all my words and seen all my thoughts in regard to you. . . After Grant invested Vicksburg I was very anxious lest John- ston should overwhelm him from the outside, and when it appeared certain that part of Bragg's force had gone and was going to Johnston, it did seem to me it was the exactly proper time for you to attack Bragg with what force he had left. In all kindness let me say it so seems to me yet. Find- ing from your dispatches to General Halleck that youi' judgment was different, and being very anx- ious for Grant, I, on one occasion, told General Halleck I thought he should direct you to decide at once to immediately attack Bragg or to stand on the defensive and send part of your force to Grant. He replied he had already so directed in substance. Soon after, dispatches from Grant abated my anxiety for him, and in proportion abated my anxiety about any movement of yours. When after- wards, however, I saw a dispatch of yours arguing " that the right time for you to attack Bragg was not before, but would be after, the fall of Vicks- burg, it impressed me very strangely, and I think I so stated to the Secretary of War and General Halleck. It seemed no other than the proposition that you could better fight Bragg when Johnston should be at liberty to retm-n and assist him than you could before he could so return to his assistance. Since Grant has been entirely relieved by the fall of Vicksburg, by which Johnston is also relieved, Vol. VIIL— 5

66

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Lincoln to

Rosecrans,

Aug. 10,

1863. MS.

it has seemed to me that your chance for a stroke has been considerably diminished, and I have not been pressing you directly or indirectly. True, I am very anxious for East Tennessee to be occu- pied by us ; but I see and appreciate the difficul- ties you mention. The question occurs, Can the thing be done at all ? Does preparation advance at all ? Do you not consume supplies as fast as you get them forward ! Have you more animals to-day than you had at the battle of Stone's Eiver ! And yet have not more been furnished you since then than your entire present stock ? I ask the same questions as to your mounted force. Do not mis- understand : I am not casting blame upon you ; I rather think by great exertion you can get to East Tennessee, but a very important question is, ' Can you stay there ? ' I make no order in the case — that I leave to General Halleck and yourself. And now be assured once more that I think of you in all kindness and confidence, and that I am not watching you with an evil eye."

When this letter was received Rosecrans was al- ready in motion, yet he could not let it pass with- out controversy. He wrote, defending his action, in the line of argument already familiar, contrast- ing the work required of him, and the resources he had to accomplish it, with that required of Grant and his resources, enlarging upon the difficulties of his position, and saying that few armies have been called upon to attempt a more arduous campaign. The President said in reply that it was not his in- tention to engage in an argument on military ques- tions. " You had informed me," he said, " you were impressed through General Halleck that I

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA 67

was dissatisfied with you; and I could not bluntly chap. hi. deny that I was, without unjustly implicating him. I therefore concluded to tell you the plain truth, being satisfied the matter would thus appear much smaller than it would if seen by mere glimpses. I repeat that my appreciation of you has not abated. I can never forget whilst I remember any- thing that about the end of last year and beginning of this, you gave us a hard-earned victory, which, Keci^D^, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could is^f'uk scarcely have lived over."

Political as well as strategic considerations of the most imperative character demanded that the Union armies should advance upon East Tennessee, and the President, therefore, exhibited some im- patience at Rosecrans's delay after his advance at Tullahoma. Orders more and more pressing were given him to advance. On the 4th of August he isea. asked in his usual querulous tone, "As I have been determined to cross the river as soon as prac- ticable, and have been making all preparations and getting such information as may enable me to do so without being driven back like Hooker, I wish to know if your order is intended to take away my discretion as to the time and manner of moving mj^ ^xxiil?^" troops ? " To which the Greneral-in-Chief replied p. 592." on the next day, " The orders for the advance of your army and that its movements be reported daily are peremptory." To save his own self-respect rad. and assert his independence, Rosecrans waited ten days longer, and then started. To cover and pro- tect his left flank in this movement, and to rescue the loyal inhabitants of East Tennessee from the tyranny under which they had been suffering for

68

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

1

THE MAKCH TO CHATTANOOGA

69

70 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. two years, Burnside was at the same time ordered to move upon Knoxville. The Government had equal difficulty in overcoming his inertia. Hal- 1863. leek telegraphed to Rosecrans on the 14th of July, " Burnside has been frequently urged to move for- ward and cover your left by entering East Tennes- see." He adds in a tone which has more of pathos

XXIII.?' than dignity in it, "I do not know what he is p. 531." doing. He seems tied fast to Cincinnati." Burn- side moved forward, however, at length ; and by slow marches, which were almost unopposed, his ad- vance entered Knoxville the first of September.

Rosecrans had now before him the most difficult and important operation of his entire military career. Between him and the army of Bragg at Chattanooga there lay on his left flank the Cumber- land Mountains, and beyond them the rugged chain of Walden's Ridge, which, half way from Bridge- port to Chattanooga, abuts upon the Tennessee River, closing access to the rocky fastness of the Confederates by an almost impassable barrier. If he chose to advance upon the right and strike his enemy's communications with the South he must first pass the Cumberland Mountains, then the Tennessee River, and after the passage of this wide and unf ordable stream had been accomplished, there still lay before him the wide plateau of Sand Mountain and the formidable heights of the Look- out range. Rosecrans chose to grapple with the almost insuperable difficulties of the latter route ; but he resolved to conceal his purpose from the enemy and to create the impression on the mind of Bragg that the assault on Chattanooga was to be made from the north of the river ; and he can-ied

THE MAECH TO CHATTANOOGA

71

out this plan with a skill and success which en- chap. m. titles this campaign to the foremost place among the great strategic movements of the war.

He sent two divisions of Crittenden's coi'ps, under John M. Palmer and Thomas J. Wood, by parallel roads over the mountains into the Se- quatchie Valley, pushing John T. Wilder's brigade of Joseph J. Eeynolds's division as far east as Pike Valley, and R. H. Q. Minty's cavalry to the northeast as far as Sparta. Every pass of the mountains to the north of Chattanooga was pervaded by this cloud of blue uniforms, until Bragg was convinced that an attack was to come from that side, and was only in doubt whether Buckner at Knoxville, or himself at Chattanooga, was the immediate object of assault. Four brigades, under command of General W. B. Hazen, took position from Williams Island to Kingston along the north shore of the Tennessee, massing their heaviest force across the river from Chattanooga and the mouth of Chicka- mauga Creek. This powerful feint, biilliantly planned and admirably conducted, completely de- luded the Confederate general and caused him to neglect Rosecrans's principal movement lower down the river. Under cover of this demonstration, the army moved across the mountains and began their passage of the river on the 29th of August, cross- ing at Bridgeport, Caperton Ferry, Shell Mound, and the mouth of Battle Creek, with such expedition and good fortune that by the 4th of September all were over, except Hazen's troops, who were observ- ing Chattanooga, and a few brigades in the rear. The next obstacle was Sand Mountain, which was speedily crossed, the cavalry scoui'ing the passes in

Van Horn, "Army of the Cum- berland." Vol. I., p. 314.

72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. III. advance of the troops, who hurriedly prepared practicable roads for the artillery. So steep was the ascent in many places that the trains had to be doubled; the soldiers assisted by hauling the 1863. guns by hand. But by the 6th of September the army lay stretched along the western slope of Lookout Mountain from Valley Head, a point some forty miles from Chattanooga, to Wauhatchie, only six miles away.

Rosecrans had now to choose between two movements — either to cross the point of Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, or to move over the range farther south and threaten the enemy's line of communications. He decided upon the latter course, and issued orders to his troops to cross Lookout Range by various passes, the center start- ing from Trenton and the right from Valley Head, while the left continued to threaten Chattanooga. Directly on the east of Lookout Mountain there lies a wide, open valley called McLemore's Cove, shut in upon the east by Pigeon Mountain, watered by a small stream called Chickamauga Creek. Into this peaceful valley, destined to be the scene of one of the most sanguinary contests of modern times. General J. S. Negley, the advance of Thomas's corps, marched his division, after cross- 1863. ing Lookout Mountain on the 7th of September, through Cooper's and Stevens's Gaps. The day after crossing, news had come to General Rose- crans that Burnside was in Knoxville ; that Buck- ner, evacuating that place, had retreated to Loudon; and that large reenforcements were coming from Mississippi to join General Bragg ; and while the army lay at the foot of Lookout Mountain, indica-

THE MAKCH TO CHATTANOOGA 73

tions came from various soui'ces that Bragg was in chap. hi. reti'eat.

A bold reconnaissance was made on the 7th, sept.,i863. across the front of Lookout Mountain, which found the enemy in force. This, however, did not disprove the fact of Bragg's retrograde movement, as a force would naturally be left in that position to cover the retreat. Rosecrans's sanguine temper always led him to believe that the enemy would act in accordance with his own plan ; and now, be- lieving that Bragg was retreating, he pushed his army in every direction upon his communications. He ordered McCook to cross the mountain from Valley Head into the Broomtown Valley, starting the cavalry, who were sent forward to scoui' the country, towards Lafayette and Rome. On the 9th, the rumors continually thickening that Bragg was in flight, Rosecrans sent a reconnaissance to Summertown, on Lookout Mountain, overlooking Chattanooga, and ordered forward his cavalry on the right, to strike the railroad between Dalton and the Resaca Bridge. But the troops on the north of the river had already discovered that their enemy had disappeared, and on the morn- ing of the 9th of September, 1863, the extreme left of the Army of the Cumberland marched, without firing a shot, drums beating and colors flying, into the mountain fastness of Chattanooga, the most important strategic point in the Southern Confederacy. In spite of any inferences that may be drawn from General Rosecrans's career after this day, it must be said in his favor that this bloodless victory was second in importance to few military achievements during the war. The popular mind

74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. III. sets highest value upon laurels colored by blood and by fire, but nevertheless every careful student of military history must agree that there were few days of carnage in the history of this long war so valuable and so important as this apparently holi- day march of the armies of the Union from Mur- 1863. freesboro to the rear of Chattanooga.

CHAPTER IV

CHICKAMAUGA

GREAT as was General Rosecrans's success in chap.iv. the strategic march that brought him to the western base of Lookout Mountain, in his natural elation he regarded it as greater still. He appa- rently thought he had nothing more to do than move upon the flying enemy and destroy him by a flank attack, or, at worst, if Bragg had really escaped, to harass the rear of his retreating army. Sending a brigade to occupy the deserted fastness of Chattanooga, he called over all the troops from the north bank of the river, put Crittenden's corps isea. in motion towards Ringgold, ordered Thomas over the gaps of Lookout upon Lafayette, and directed McCook to advance rapidly upon Alpine to harass the enemy's supposed flight to Rome. He tele- graphed to Halleckin his exultation : "Chattanooga is ours without a struggle, and East Tennessee is free. Our move on the enemy's flank and rear progresses, while the tail of his retreating column will not escape unmolested. Our troops from this Eosecrans side entered Chattanooga about noon; those north °sept.9^ ' of the river are crossing. Messengers go to Burn- ^^i.^xxx., side to-night urging him to push his cavalry down." p- *t9. ' It took but one day's marching to disconcert these

76 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. Confident expectations. Crittenden's force made but a short marcli; their front being greatly an- noyed by the enemy's cavahy, which showed no disposition to escape unmolested. McCook, on reaching Alpine, saw no signs of the disorderly retreat he had been led to expect, but, on the con- trary, found himself entirely isolated from the rest of the army, and prudently disobeying his orders to advance to Summerville sent back couriers for further instructions. Negley, who led the advance of Thomas's corps in the center, pushed through the passes into McLemore's Cove, and found himself not only warmly welcomed in front but perceived unmistakable signs of trouble on both his flanks.

The danger was even more serious than it ap- peared. Bragg had been taken somewhat by sur- prise by the passage of the Tennessee so far below him,^ and, fastened, as his mind had been upon the threatened demonstration from the north, it was, at first, hard for him to believe that his enemy had executed this difficult and brilliant feat on his left and rear. But when he became aware of the state of things, he acted with gi-eat promptness and energy. He did not suffer himself, as Pembertonhad done, to be shut up in his fortress at Chattanooga. He called Buckuer down from the Hiawassee, and with the reenforcements of two divisions sent by Johnston from Mississippi, which, he says, gave him altogether an army of over 35,000, exclusive of

iln the "Life of Leonidas quarters as "incredible," and

Polk," by his son, the author was only believed after it was

speaks of " the surprise of Chat- confirmed by reports of the occu-

tanooga," and says that the story pation of Trenton by the enemy's

of Roseerans's passage of the cavalry. — "Southern Historical

river was regarded at army head- Society Papers. ' Vol. X., p. 3.

CHICKAMAUGA 77

cavalry, he gathered himself compactly together, chap.iv. ready to strike a blow at his enemy at the first op- portunity. Nothing was further from his mind than the purpose of flight with which Rosecrans credited him from the 7th to the 10th of September. i863.

His vigilant cavalry soon reported to him the general movement of Eosecrans towards his left and rear in the direction of Dalton and Rome. He concluded that a movement upon Rosecrans's rear Eepoft. with his own inferior force — as he considered it — voi^xxx., would be extremely hazardous. He therefore de- pf*27."' termined to meet him in front whenever he should emerge from the mountain gorges. He could not do this and hold Chattanooga at the same time. He therefore drew in his troops on the 7th and 8th of September, on a line running from Lee and Gordon's Mill to Lafayette, fronting the east slope of Lookout Mountain. The first point at which the Federal troops presented themselves for attack was when Negley, supported by Baird, came out into McLemore's Cove. Bragg had a perfect com- prehension of the situation. He says in his report : "Thrown off his guard by our rapid movement, apparently in retreat, when in reality we had con- centrated opposite his center, and deceived by the information from deserters and others sent into his lines, the enemy pressed on his columns to inter- cept us, and thus exposed himself in detail." ibid.

The three corps of Rosecrans's army were at this time separated by intei-vals of a hard day's march, and were each more accessible to Bragg's comiDact forces than they were to each other. The Confederate general had an opportunity, rarely afforded in war, of taking his enemy in his fault and destroying his

78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. three corps one at a time. His wisest course would perhaps have been to strike first Crittenden's corps, which was absolutely in the air on his right, and then, retui^ning to McLemore's Cove, to try- conclusions with Thomas ; but he naturally enough concluded that Thomas's advance was the nearer and surer prey, and might be destroyed with the least expense, leaving Crittenden and McCook, on either flank, to be dealt with later. He gave orders

Sept., 1863. to T. C. Hindman on the night of the 9th to move his division fonvard to Davis's cross-roads, and from that point to attack the enemy near Stevens's Gap; and he directed General D. H. Hill to send or take P. R. Cleburne's division to unite with Hindman in this attack. Hill replied during the night that the movement required of him was impracticable, as Cleburne was sick and the gaps through Pigeon Mountain were so obstructed by fallen timbers as to be, for the moment, impassable.^ Bragg, there- fore, ordered Buckner to move with two divisions and execute the orders issued to Hill.

But the plan encountered inexplicable delays. Hindman consumed invaluable time by argu- ments in favor of a change of plan, which Bragg refused to entertain. Cleburne, who, in the pros- pect of a fight, had recovered his health, re- moved the obstructions from Dug Gap, and was

1 General Bragg, in a letter reported him sick. He gives the written to Major E. T. Sykes, following as the forces he had Feb. 8, 1873, now in possession ready to throw upon Negley and of the Southern Historical So- Baird, which, by Hill's fault, was ciety at Richmond, severely not done : Hindman's and Buck- blames the " querulous and insub- ner's divisions, 10,922 men, and ordinate spirit " shownby General 500 cavalry, under William T. Hill on this occasion, distinctly Martin, with a cooperating force stating that Cleburne was sur- of at least 8000 under Cleburne prised that Hill should have and W. H. T. Walker.

Sept. 10,

CHIOKAMAUGA 79

ready at daylight for the march. Bragg joined chap.iv. him at his camp, and they waited in intense anxiety for the opening of Hindman's guns to move on the enemy's flank and rear. They waited most of the day, dispatching couriers and staff officers one after the other with vehement appeals for Hindman to begin. It was the middle of the afternoon before the first gun was heard; and the advance of Cle- burne's division then discovered that the Union troops had become aware of their danger, and had retreated to the mountain passes. Baird had reached Negley early in the morning and formed in position on his left, but every moment showed them signs of an overwhelming force on all sides, and they therefore sent theii' trains back to the mountains, Negley following for their protection, leaving Baird to hold the enemy in check. When Negley had placed himself in an advantageous position near the pass, Baird also gradually with- drew, skirmishing heavily, and finally formed a new line behind Negley, protected by the artillery. Rosecrans did not at first appreciate the merit of this movement. He censured Thomas on the 10th for not having moved farther in the direction of Lafayette ; and on the 12th, at noon, he wrote him, that, after maturely weighing the matter, he thought Negley withdrew more through prudence than compulsion.

Bragg, seeing this great opportunity lost, still hoped for compensation in the destruction of Crit- tenden's column. He moved Polk and W. H. T. Walker's corps in the direction of Lee and Gor- don's Mill, and on the afternoon of the 12th he ordered Lieutenant-Greneral Polk to attack Crit-

80 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. tenden's corps, wMch John Pegram's cavalry had reported as on the road from Lafayette to Grays- ville, and near Pea Vine Church. Late at night he received, to his great vexation, a dispatch from Polk stating he had taken a strong position for defense, and requesting reenforcements. He assured him in retui^n that he had a heavy su- periority of force, and still urged him to attack at daybreak. He hurried to the front to join

Sept., 1863. Polk on the morning of the 13th, but found no enemy before him. He afterwards severely blamed Greneral Polk for this miscarriage of his plan — unjustly, for Crittenden, becoming aware of the isolation of his force, had withdrawn from his advanced position the day before, and on the night of the 12th was encamped at Grordon's Mill, having passed during the afternoon the right flank of Bragg's army in close proximity, each being un- conscious of the presence of the other.

While the left and center had thus, as much by good fortune as by good management, escaped a grave danger, McCook was still far to the right, en- tirely out of position. He scoured the country in his front with his cavalry, and finding that cooperation with Thomas from the Broomtown Valley was out of his power, he retii^ed his trains to the summit of the mountain behind him, and waited with natural anxiety for his orders. It was midnight of the 12th before McCook received directions to join General Thomas. The fact of Bragg's concentra- tion of his army in the neighborhood of Lee and Gordon's Mill had now become apparent to Gen- eral Rosecrans, and the matter of McCook's return to the main body was one of vital importance. Con-

GENERAL BUSHKOD K. JOHNSON.

CHICKA^IAUGA 81

eluding that it was impracticable to move along chap. iv. the eastern base of Lookout, and having no trust- worthy guides to direct him by any shorter route, McCook determined to go the roundabout way by Valley Head. He ascended the mountain on the night of the 13th, moving by way of Henderson's Sept., im. Gap, and it cost four days of laborious and devious marching before he was able to effect his junction with General Thomas by Winston's Gap, which he claims Thomas advised him was the only practi- cable road. His advance went into camp on the 17th of September at Pond Spring, seven miles from the slope of Missionary Ridge, where Rosecrans had his headquarters, and fifteen miles from Chattanooga.

Hardly had Rosecrans announced the retreat of Bragg when he received a dispatch from Halleck, voi. xxx.. dated the 6th, urging the importance of an imme- p- 38i. " diate junction between him and Bui'nside, so that Bragg and Buckner, if they did unite, could not attack them separatelj^ This message had the usual effect of Halleck's dispatches upon Rosecrans, and he answered with his habitual contumacious petulance : " Your apprehensions are just, and the legitimate consequence of your orders. The best that can now be done is for Burnside to close his cavalry down on our left, supporting it with his in- fantry, and refusing his left, threaten the enemy without getting into his grasp, while we get him in our grip and strangle him or perish in the ibid., p. 407. attempt."

The mistake of General Rosecrans in scattering his army to harass the imaginary retreat of the enemy had thus been compensated by Bragg's delay or inability to take advantage of the flagrant

Vol. VHI.— 6

82

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Halleck's

Report for

1863.

W. R.

Vol. XXX.,

Part I.,

p. 34.

CHAP. IV. error of his opponent ; and to Eosecrans's intense relief his army found itself virtually concentrated

Sept., 1863. on the night of the 17th. It was ten days since he had sent his exulting announcement of the enemy's flight. He had since recovered from the delusion, but the authorities at Washington were still labor- ing under the misapprehension^ into which his confident announcement had led them, and he now received General Halleck's dispatches with an ex- asperation which all men feel at having others accept their mistakes and act upon them. While he was straining every nerve to pull his troops together on the Lafayette and Chattanooga road, he received a dispatch from Halleck, dated the 11th of September, warning him not to go farther than Dalton, and repeating the rumor that a part of Bragg's army was reenforcing Lee. The false reports of deserters, sent for that purpose within the Union lines in Virginia, together with the slight resistance made by the enemy in East Tennessee, and the news of the evacuation of Chattanooga, had, for the moment, entirely misled General Halleck. It was not until the 14th that General Meade telegraphed him his judgment that Longstreet had left Lee's army, and even then he did not feel sure of his destination. But before this Eosecrans's dispatches had lost their sanguine tinge, and although he said he was sufficiently strong for the enemy in his front, there

w. R.

Vol. XXX.,

Part I., pp.

1 Charles A. Dana telegraphed from before Stevens's Gap on the 14th of Septenaber: "This army has now gained a position from which it can effectually ad- vance upon Kome and Atlanta^ and deliver there the finishing blow of the war " ; and on the 1 6th

he telegraphed from Crawfish Springs that Eosecrans's inten- tion was to hold the gaps of Look- out Mountain in his rear, and inarching by night around the northern extremity of Pigeon Mountain, "to surprise the enemy at Lafayette."

CHICKAMAUGA »d

were indications that they intended to turn his chap.iv. flanks and cut his communications. Halleck then bestiiTcd himself with the utmost energy to do everything possible for the reenforcement of Rose- crans. He ordered Bui-nside to move his infantry as rapidly as possible towards Chattanooga. He informed Rosecrans of these orders, and told him in case the enemy attempted to turn his right flank to give up Chattanooga to Burnside and move his army to prevent Bragg from reentering Middle Tennessee. Hurlbut was ordered to send ti'oops to Rosecrans's right with all possible dispatch. Grant and Sherman were both informed of the situation, and directed to send their available forces to Memphis, and thence to Corinth and Tus- cumbia, and Burnside was directed to reenforce Rosecrans with all possible dispatch, "It is be- lieved," Halleck says, "that the enemy will con- centrate to give him battle, and you must be there voi. xxx. to help him"; but still, with a lingering doubt as to p- se." Longstreet's destination, he warned Foster at Fort Monroe to look out for him at Norfolk and North Carolina.

All these measures, judicious as they were, were too late to accomplish anything for the matter in hand. The two great armies were massed in face of each other along Chickamauga Creek, and nothing which could be done in Washington or Richmond could now materially alter the condi- tions of the terrible fight that was impending. Bragg's plan of attack was the Murfreesboro scheme reversed. He determined to move this time by the right flank instead of the left, to take position on the road from Lafayette to Chatta-

84

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. nooga, attacking the Union left, driving it down against the eastern slope of Lookout Mountain, and destroying it. It is altogether probable that the destruction of Eosecrans's army would have been complete if the left wing could have been totally destroyed. By Bragg's original orders, B. R.Johnson was to cross the Chickamauga at Eeed's Bridge, then turning to the left, sweep up the stream to- wards Lee and Grordon's Mill, Walker crossing at Alexander's Bridge to unite in the movement; Buckner at Thetford's Ford to join in pressing the enemy up the creek in front of Polk ; Polk attack- ing at Lee and Grordon's Mill, while Hill was to cover the Confederate left flank from an advance of the Union troops from McLemore's Cove, and in case of a movement on their part to the left to attack in flank.

This movement, which was to have taken place

Sept., 1863. at daybreak of the 18th, was delayed all that day by the resistance of the Union cavalry and difficulties arising from the bad and narrow country roads. The extreme Confederate right did not cross the stream until late in the after- noon. By this time General Hood of Longstreet's corps had arrived, and assumed command in place of Johnson. Through this delay the pur- pose of Bragg became evident to Rosecrans. He improved every moment of the time by shifting the position of his army to the left. This was a critical and delicate movement, especially danger- ous to Crittenden's corps, which was in the imme- diate presence of the enemy. It was therefore resolved to move Thomas's corps with the greatest caution and silence in rear of Crittenden's, and to

I

CHICKAMAUGA 85

place him in position on the extreme left to guard chap. iv. the Lafayette road, McCook being brought up at the same time from the right to take the place of Thomas on Crittenden's right. These movements were accomplished successfully by hard and skillful marching, although the battle had begun and was raging on the left, before McCook was fairly in line on the right.

On the morning of the 19th Bragg prepared to Sept., im. carry into execution his orders of the day before ; but not being aware of the extension of the Union lines to the left, he immediately met with unex- pected difficulties in the execution of his plan. In fact, he was not permitted to begin the battle in his own way. General Thomas had been informed early in the morning by Colonel Daniel McCook that an isolated brigade of the enemy had crossed the Chickamauga at Reed's Bridge the day before, and he believed it could be cut off. Thomas imme- diately ordered General J. M. Brannan to take out two brigades and, if possible, capture this wandering- brigade of Confederates. This force soon became engaged, but the resistance it met with showed that it was not a brigade, but a formidable force which had crossed the Chickamauga. Brannan reporting this, Baird's division was sent to his as- sistance, and the two drove the enemy for some distance, taking a good many prisoners, from whom it was learned that a heavy force of Con- federates lay in front and to the right. Baird halted, and before the hasty preparations which he made for an attack upon his right were completed the onset came, and the battle of Chickamauga began.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHICKAMAUGA

87

BATTLE-FIELD OF CHICKAMAUGA.

Union. Confederate. Positions, Evening of Sept. 1 8th, 1863. ^^ a^a

Direction of lines of battle, Sept 19th. — 0 — — ♦ —

First lines of battle, Sept 20th. — O — — • —

Last lines of battle. Sept 20thv — D— — ■ —

Cavalry.

		SCALE
			woo
	;i		2 /yiLEi

88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. Walker commanded on the extreme Confederate right, Hood held the center, and Buckner com- manded the left, his flank resting on the Chicka- mauga about a mile below Lee and Grordon's Mill. Cheatham's division was held in reserve. The battle raged furiously for several hours against the Union left ; so hotly was it contested that the generals on both sides constantly reported an overwhelming force of the enemy opposed to them. Cheatham's division was ordered to the support of Walker, but before it could reach him, says G-eneral Bragg, "he Report, had been pressed back to his first position by the

Vol. xxx., extended lines of the enemy assailing him on both p- 32. ' flanks." R.W. Johnson's division of McCook's corps had by this time arrived to the support of Brannan and Baird, and Reynolds's division had also been placed in position by Thomas. The enemy, taken in front and flank, was driven in great confusion for a mile and a half. Greneral Thomas was, how- ever, too intelligent a soldier to imagine his success was decisive. He ordered Brannan and Baird to reorganize their troops and take position on com- manding ground on the road to Reed's Bridge, and to hold it to the last extremity, as he felt sure that the next effort of the enemy would be made on his left flank and rear. After a respite of an hour another furious attack was made on the right of Reynolds. Thomas sent Brannan to his support, J. T. Croxton's brigade reaching Reynolds just in time to defeat an energetic Confederate assault at that place.

At this point Greneral W. B. Hazen greatly dis- tinguished himself. When H. P. Van Cleve had been forced across the road, and the enemy was spring-

CHICKAMAUGA 89

ing forward to take possession of it, General Hazen chap. iv. gathered together foui' field batteries, and, by an enfilading fire, broke the line of the advancing Con- federates and saved the road. Towards five o'clock ^ ma!^' Thomas, finding his line somewhat disordered by the ardor with which his troops had been pushing the enemy, determined to concentrate them on better ground, feeling sure that the battle would be renewed with greater fury in the morning. The hostile forces were so near together that the move- ment was observed by the enemy, and the retiring troops of Johnson and Baird were forced to turn and repulse the Confederates before taking up the positions assigned them ; and after midnight Thomas, ha^dng been informed by Greneral Baird that his line did not extend far enough to the left, asked that Negley's division be sent to him to take position on Baird's left and rear. This was prom- ised him ; but Negley was not able, in consequence of a dense fog — he reports — to take the place assigned him during the night ; and in the morning, while withdrawing his division, he says he was ordered by General Rosecrans to hold his position, and only one brigade obeyed the former order.

As the attack from Bragg's left wing was made contingent upon the advance of his right, and as the right was not able to make any serious im- pression upon Thomas's line until late in the even- ing, the greater part of the day passed by in compara- tive quiet on Rosecrans's right. Jeff. C. Davis, of McCook's corps, made an advance to feel the enemy's left flank, and a smart contest ensued there in the afternoon, known as the battle of Vineyard's Farm. It involved, before it ended, considerable forces

90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. drawn in successively from each side ; but though both sides met with severe loss, no decided conse- quences resulted to the general field. Sept., 1863. The battle of the 19th, though terribly destruc- tive to both sides, left each army in high hopes and spirits. The fact that Thomas retired in the even- ing to better his position inspii-ed the Confederates with the idea that they had won a decided victory. Bragg, in his report, says of the final attack of Cle- burne on the right : " This veteran command, under its gallant chief, moved to its work after sunset, voi^xxx., taking the enemy completely by surprise, driving ^p^^S" him in great disorder for nearly a mile." Thomas, on the contrary, describes this movement as an orderly change of position in obedience to his own iDid., command, executed handsomely, and repulsing the p^. 250." enemy. Rosecrans telegraphed at eight o'clock: " We have just concluded a terrific day's fighting, and have another in prospect for to-morrow. The enemy attempted to turn our left, but his design was anticipated, and a sufficient force placed there to render his attempt abortive." He says, precisely as Bragg says, " The enemy was greatly our supe- rior in numbers." " The army is in excellent condi- tion and spirits, and by the blessing of Providence ^m. the defeat of the enemy will be total to-morrow." The battle of the 20th did not begin at daybreak as Bragg had intended and ordered. He had divided his entire army into two commands, as- signing to the right wing Lieutenant-G-eneral Polk, and to the left Lieutenant-General Longstreet, who had arrived in the night from Virginia, and whose presence alone was to any army a valuable reenforce- ment. Polk was to assault at the earliest dawn of

CHICKAMAUGA 91

day, and the attack was to be taken up in rapid sue- chap. iv. cession to the left of the Confederate line. Before the first light appeared in the East, Bragg was in the saddle waiting for the opening guns of Polk.^ Dawn came, and the day broadened over hill and valley, and still the only sign that came to the ears of the impatient Confederate general was that of the axes, and of the falling trees, which showed that Thomas was preparing to repeat the inhos- pitable welcome of the day before. In accordance with Bragg's verbal directions to him Polk had issued his orders to Hill, Cheatham, and Walker immediately after the midnight council, directing Hill to attack at daylight and Cheatham to make a simultaneous attack on Hill's left. Walker's corps being held in reserve. But Hill's orders did not reach him until sunrise. The thickly-wooded country cut up by innumerable roads, the moving trains of fifty thousand men, and the darkness and fog are the reasons assigned by Greneral Polk for this failure in promptness.^ It was half-past nine before Hill reported his corps ready, and after the order to advance was given, further delay ensued from the fact that Longstreet had, during the night, pushed A. P. Stewart's division in front of Cheat-

1 Bragg spoke in after years of General Polk." Captain Polk

with great acrimony of Polk's also mentions as an illustra-

delay to attack. "It was nine tion of the loose manner in which

o'clock," he said, "before the at- Bragg's preparations were made

tack was made," which had been that Polk's orders were verbal,

ordered at the earliest dawn, while Lieutenant-General Hill,

"Five hours, in which our inde- commanding an army corps, and

pendenee might have been won." with headquarters quite near

Letter of Bragg to Sykes, Mis»/)ra. those of Bragg, never received a

He loads Breckinridge, Cheat- word or a line from him to indi-

ham, and Longstreet with equally eate that he was to report to Polk

bitter reproaches. for orders. — "Southern Historical

2 Captain W. M. Polk's "Life Society Papers." Vol. X., p. 19.

Sept. 20,

92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP.rv. ham, making it impossible for the latter to move forward.

These errors were at last repaired, and Breck- inridge's division, which was nearly fresh, was thrown with gi'eat impetuosity against the extreme Union left. The reenforcements of which Thomas had foreseen the necessity, and which had been promised him, had not arrived. Only one small bri- gade, under John Beatty, was there to receive this furious onslaught ; it gave way, and Breckinridge poured in upon Bau'd's crumbling flank and, for a moment, gained his rear; but his progress was promptly cheeked by the reserve from Palmer's division, and with the assistance of the other re- serves from Brannan and Xegley he was driven, in turn, with great slaughter, and the left flank was again firmly established. In this fight the Confed- erate general B. H. Helm, a brother-in-law of Mi's. Lincoln, was killed. A part of Cleburne's division at the same time struck the front of the Union po- sition, and was repulsed. All the morning a san- guinary contest raged in front of Thomas, which he sustained with his magnificent coolness and im- perturbable presence of mind, using every man under his command with infallible judgment and skill. His lines were fm-iously assaulted at every point in turn : Baird, Johnson, Palmer, and Rey- nolds met in succession the impetuous onslaught of Breckinridge, Cleburne, and Cheatham, and al- though their lines were fearfully shaken they were never once broken, and, as Thomas says, "The enemy having exhausted his utmost energies to

voi^xxx., dislodge us, apparently fell back entirely from our p^ 252." front." Bragg says in his report that his troops

p-

Sept. 20,

CHICKAilAUGA 93

"were moved to the assault in detail and by de- chap.iv. tachments, unsupported, until nearly all parts of w. r. the right wing were, in turn, repulsed with heavy Partji.,'' loss."

Longstreet, meanwhile, on the Confederate left, appeared at first to have an easier task before him. He had waited since early morning for orders to advance, and finally convinced by the roar of battle on his right that no special advan- tage was being gained by Polk, he sent for permis- sion to advance his own forces; but, before his messenger returned, he found his own division commanders moving forward under dkect orders from Bragg, which had not been communicated to him. He at once swung his left wing, under Hind- man, \dgorously forward; Stewart, who com- manded on his right, being kept at fii'st stationary by the ill success of the right wing, and Hood in the center driving forward with his usual impet- uosity and with more than his usual success. It had not been Longstreet's fortune, hitherto, to ^in easy victories, but on this occasion, for once in his life, he had only to enter an open door.

All the day before, and thus far on the 20th, sept.ises. Rosecrans had done little but move reenforcements from his right wing to the left, where Thomas was sustaining the Confederate onslaught ; but he had unfortunately delayed the promised movement of Negley's division to the left of Baird, and his at- tempts at concentration after the battle had act- ually begun were now even too anxious and hurried. He became convinced early in the morning that the 6:35 a^ m. enemy was mo\dng in force upon his left, and a '^^'^rt ^^^ little after ten o'clock he sent an order to McCook,

p. 70.

Sept. 20,

94 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. Commanding him to make immediate dispositions to withdraw the right so as to spare as much force as possible to reenforce Thomas. " The left," he

Vol. XXX., said, " must be held at all hazards, even if the right

Part I. 7 o

p- ^0- ' is drawn wholly back to the present left," and a few minutes later he wrote to him again to send two brigades of Sheridan's division to Thomas with all possible dispatch, and the third brigade as soon as the lines could be sufficiently drawn up ; to march them as rapidly as possible without exhausting the men. A little before eleven o'clock he received by an aide-de-camp a message from Thomas that he was heavily pressed, and the messenger added on his own responsibility the information that Brannan was not in line with Reynolds, and that Reynolds's right flank was in danger.

This information was incorrect; Brannan was in his proper position, his division having been echeloned a little in rear of Reynolds's line on account of an advantage of topography. But Rosecrans had another reason for believing that there was a gap in the line between Reynolds and Wood. He had ordered Brannan's division to reenforce Baird, and Ferdinand Van Derveer's brigade had been sent to the left in partial com- pliance with the order. Brannan had exercised his discretion in retaining two brigades in the line where he saw their presence was essential, and had sent to inform Rosecrans of his action ; but Rose- crans, not knowing this, dispatched a peremptory order to General Wood, who commanded the di- vision next on Brannan's right, to " close up on vol'xxx., Reynolds as fast as possible and support him." A courier was dispatched with the message and

Part P-

CHICKAMAUGA 95

bidden to carry it to Wood, at the utmost speed of chap. iv. his horse.

General Thomas J. Wood, a veteran of the regular sept.20, army, received this order with gi'eat concern. He ha.m. had been holding his line with vigilance all the morning, momentarily expecting an attack in his front. He did not think the order judicious ; he thought Brannan was in position ; it did not ap- pear to him that Reynolds was hard pressed, but with instinctive subordination, feeling that the Greneral-in-Chief must know more of the field than he did, he turned to General McCook, who happened to be standing beside him, saying he would at once obey it, and suggested that Mc- Cook should close up rapidly and prevent a gap in the line. General Davis was ordered to do this, but he had only one brigade to fill up the wide in- terval left by the withdrawal of Wood's division, and it was at this fatal moment, when Sheridan, Davis, and Wood were all out of position and marching by the left flank, that Longstreet hurled his heavy battalions against the moving mass of the National right wing. Hood's quadruple forma- tion poured into the gap, pushing away Davis's thin line like a cobweb, driving Wood's rear some distance in confusion, taking Brannan in flank and crumbling up two brigades of Van Cleve in the wildest confusion. Hindman at the same time struck Sheridan who, left absolutely unprotected on either flank — after a gallant defense which cost the life of General W. H. Lytle, an agreeable poet, a brave soldier, and an estimable citizen — gave way in some disorder.

General Rosecrans was standing at this moment

96 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Sept. 20,

in the rear of Davis's right, waiting to see Mc- Cook's corps close to the left. He went quickly to the extreme right to bring Sheridan forward, but it was too late ; the beaten troops rolled back upon him and overwhelmed him. He rode rapidly down the Dry Valley road, accompanied by a part of his staff and a small escort. In the midst of the confusion, which increased every instant, the sud- denness of the catastrophe for the moment quite appalled him ; his spirit, usually so indomitable in battle, under the stress of the week's enormous labor and anxiety, his physical fatigue, his lack of sleep, and the tremendous impression of a terrible calamity suddenly occurring under his eyes, with- out an instant's warning, for the moment gave way, and amid the horrible wreck and confusion of his beaten army, in the tumult and disorder, and entanglement of trains of artillery, of mingled foot and of cavahy, he lost heart and hope. McCook had been swept away ; Crittenden, unable to check the retreat, had followed it ; Negley, who had been put in charge of a gi^eat quantity of artillery, had started for Eossville, taking his guns with him; even Sheridan, the very genius of fighting, unable to hold his division together, was mo\dng to the rear. It was impossible for Rosecrans to imagine that the rest of the army could hold firm in such disaster. He rode back to Eossville, and not being able to persuade himself that even there the rout could be stayed he pushed on to Chattanooga, as he says, "to give orders for the security of the pontoon bridges at Battle Creek and Bridgeport, voi^xxx., and to make preliminary dispositions either to for- p.^60.' ward ammunition and supplies, should we hold

GENERAL JAUES A. GARFIELD.

CHICKAMAUGA 97

our ground, or to withdraw the troops into good chap.iv. position."

One of those crises had now arrived, rare in the history of any country, where the personal char- acter and power of an individual become of in- calculable value to the general welfare. Only the highest quahties in the second in command, thus in- stantly left in charge of the abandoned field, saved the Army of the Cumberland from irremediable ruin. General Thomas having about noon beaten the enemy in his front into silence and inaction, yet expectant of further attack, became anxious as to the arrival of Sheridan's division which, he had been informed, was on the way to him. While waiting for its arrival, about two o'clock, hearing heavy firing on his right and rear through the thickly wooded hills, he rode in the direction of the noise, and soon met the aide-de-camp whom he had dispatched in quest of Sheridan, who informed him that a large force of the enemy was stealthily advancing in the rear of Reynolds's position. This astounding news seemed at fii"st incredible to Thomas ; to find on the road where he confidently expected a heavy reenforcement a hostile force in rear of the Union center would have piaralyzed the faculties of most generals; but stupefying as the situation was, Thomas instantly set about to make the best of it, and by one of the fortunate accidents of this extraordinary battle the means were ready to his hand.

Two generals, following their own soldierly instincts, had without orders held together some fragments of their commands and placed them al- ready in eligible positions. When Hood made his Vol. VIII.— 7

W. R

Vol. XXX

Part I.,

p. 402.

98 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. wild rush through the gap in the center, Brannan's Braiman, divisiou, struck in flank and rear, had been driven

Report. ' '

back on the right, but with wonderful steadiness, under the circumstances, had virtually retained its formation. Brannan held his command firmly to- gether, and bringing to it stragglers from other shat- tered organizations, he swung back his right flank and, mo\dng about half a mile to the rear, took up a good position on a commanding point of Mission- ary Ridge, where, for a while, unsupported on either flank, he held the enemy in check. Greneral Wood, whose withdrawal from the line had caused the break, had reported with one brigade to Thomas, and on being informed by him that Reynolds did not need support, sent it under orders to G-eneral Baird. Riding back for his other two brigades, in- ^%3^' tending to take them also to the left, he found the south end of the valley suddenly alive with rebel troops, and one of his brigades, in part, and both his batteries swept from the field. With his re- maining brigade under Charles Gr. Harker, and part of George P. Buell's, he immediately formed a line across the valley, facing southward, and without any help of artillery, with the musket alone, used sparingly, for the ammunition was already running low, he, also unsupported on either flank, was doing his best to hold the field when Thomas appeared. Under the latter's orders. Wood's right was brought into communication with the left of Brannan ; Brannan's right occupy- ing a commanding ridge, and Barker's brigade ex- tending to the left, along a spur which jutted out through the valley almost perpendicular to the general direction of the range; the Union lines

Sept. 20,

CHICKAMAUGA 99

thus facing the euemy in the shape of an irregular chap. iv. crescent. There was still a gap between Reynolds and Wood, which later in the day caused Thomas great anxiety for fear the enemy should discover it and rush through. He filled it as soon as possible with Hazen's brigade which, fortunately, by the prov- ident care of this intelligent and cool-headed com- mander, was better supplied with ammunition than the rest of the field.

All the afternoon, upon this line, the battle raged with unceasing fury and terrific slaughter. The right wing had disappeared, the center had been for a moment shattered and crumbled, the left had fought a desperate and sanguinary battle all day. But such was the indomitable spirit which the presence of Thomas infused among those who were left, that the slender line we have described resisted through the long autum- nal afternoon the most desperate and repeated assaults of an overwhelming force of veteran Confederate infantry, and were at the same time rained upon by formidable batteries, to which, except for a few guns of Brannan, they could only reply with their muskets. The supply of ammuni- tion meanwhile ran so low that several assaults were met and repulsed with cold steel. This fact is not derived from any boasting reports of Federal soldiers. General Hindman himself says, " Our troops attacked again and again, with a courage worthy of their past achievements ; the enemy fought with determined obstinacy and repeatedly repulsed us, but only to be again assailed. As showing the fierceness of the fight, the fact is men- tioned that on our extreme left the bayonet was

100 ABRA.HAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. used, and men also killed and wounded with w. R. clubbed muskets."

Vol. XXX.. ^ ^ , ,. . .

Partn.. If the scattered divisions streaming over the ridge and down the Dry Valley road to Eossville could have been brought to halt and return ; if General Rosecrans could have displayed in this emergency one tithe of the courage and the con- tagious fire that his presence inspired among the cedar brakes of Murfreesboro, the battle might still have been his; for Sheridan, one of the heroes of Stone's Eiver, was there and had already regained such control of his troops that he was able to march them in good order to Rossville, and out on the road again towards the battlefield, striving to gain the left instead of the right where his presence would have been decisive. Had Rosecrans been with him and turned him even at this late hour upon Longstreet's flank, the battle must certainly have had a different issue; for so late as three 1863. ' o'clock in the afternoon Longstreet, finding all his efforts unavailing against the stubborn resistance of Brannan and Wood, sent to Bragg for reenforce- ments from the right wing, but was informed by him that they had been beaten back so badly that they could be of no service to him. " I had but one division," he says, "that had not been engaged, ^^rIp^®®*' and hesitated to venture to put it in, as our distress voi^xxx., upon our right seemed to be almost as great as p^.%9. ' that of the enemy upon his right." Hindman was continually appealing to Longstreet for reenforce- ments and desperately apprehensive of an attack on his left and rear ; but it was late in the after- noon before Longstreet dared to risk his last re- serve, Preston's division. Hindman says : " I have

CHICKAilAUGA 101

never known Federal troops to fight so well. It is chap. iv. just to sav, also, that I never saw Confederate sol- Longstreet,

,. ^ , , Report.

diers fight better." voi\xx

Brannan's position, though strong and admu'ably ^p.^^g^" chosen and defended, could yet be easily turned ; a practicable valley lay on his right flank through which access was easy to his rear, and Hindman with his superior force was able to send a strong detachment by this route, which about four o'clock seriously menaced the integrity of the Union line. It was the critical instant of the day. Thomas's whole force had been engaged for hours, and he had no reserves. But assistance came at the moment when it was most needed. Gordon Granger, commanding the reserve corps, had heard during the morning far to the left the roar of battle, and without other orders than the prompt- ings of his own heart, had marched with J. B. Steedman's division to the music of that martial sound. His approach, earlier in the day, had captain seriously alarmed Polk for his right wing, and had ^' -^-/o^^- checked for a moment the movement of Cleburne "mstoS and Cheatham, but instead of attacking the Con- Papers'^" federate right, he had wisely moved to the west p'22." and down the rear of Thomas's line, to arrive at the point where his presence was most urgently re- quii-ed. As Hindman's advance planted its banners on Brannan's right, Thomas indicated to Steedman the work he was to do. " Steedman, moving his division into position," says Thomas, " with almost as much precision as if on drill, and fighting his way to the crest of the hill on Brannan's right, moved forward his artiUery and drove the enemy down the southern slope, inflicting on him a most

Sept. 20,

102 ABKAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. terrible loss in killed and wounded." Lougstreet oi^^' X hesitated no longer to throw in his last reserve. ^^^l^l' " He sent Preston with three fresh brigades to Hind- man, and even with this large reenforcement, Hind- man says, he " found the gain both slow and costly." Steedman reports three separate assaults, made with the greatest fury, and repulsed after heavy Ibid., p. 860. fighting, before nightfall.

It is one of the insoluble problems of the war whether Thomas might permanently have held his position which he so heroically defended on the hills of Chickamauga. But he was not left free to choose his course of action. About four o'clock General James A. Garfield, chief-of-staff, arrived on the field. He, with the rest of the staff, had accom- panied Eosecrans in the flood of ruin which swept the right wing from the field. Although they were at first overwhelmed by the news of the misfortune as they rode towards Rossville, the personal charac- teristics of the two men soon began to assert them- selves. As Eosecrans sunk every moment deeper in the forlorn con\dction that the army was utterly beaten, Garfield, on the contrary, took encourage- ment from every sound of battle that reached him from the east, and at last he stopped short and asked permission to report to Thomas on the field. This was at first refused, but on Garfield's impor- tunity was finally granted ; ^ Eosecrans, taking an

1 The writers had this statement it was on his own earnest rep- from General Garfield himself; resentation that he was sent — and Mr. Whitelaw Reid, who en- that, in fact, he rather procured joj'ed the intimate friendship of permission to go to Thomas, and both Garfield and Rosecrans, saj's, so back into the battle, than re- in "Ohio in the War," Vol. L, ceived orders to do so. He refused p. 757: "It should not be for- to believe that Thomas was routed gotten in Garfield's praise that or the battle lost," etc., etc.

CHICKAMAUGA 103

affectionate leave of his chief -of -staff, as of one chap. iv. whom he never expected to see again in life, con- tinued his melancholy ride to Chattanooga, and ^^^^3^' Garfield threaded the mountain bridle-paths in high hope and patriotic ardor, to give to Thomas the full information of which he was so greatly in need, and to share in the toil and success of the final struggle. It was by no means a promenade of pleasure ; the way was beset with danger, several of his escort were killed, but as Wood says in his report, his arrival on the field showed "that the road was open to all who might choose to follow it voi^xxx., to where duty called." He had commanded the very p. ess." brigade of Wood's division which was now holding its place on the right with such obstinate valor, and it was a pleasure which paid him tenfold for his hazardous journey to see how they acquitted themselves under his sympathetic eye.

It was a little after the arrival of Garfield that Thomas. orders came from Eosecrans to Thomas, directing ibidTp.^253. him to assume command of aU the forces — some- thing he had been doing unquestioned all the after- noon— and with Crittenden and McCook to take a strong position and assume a threatening attitude at Ross\ille, and to send the unorganized forces to Chattanooga for reorganization. Rosecrans added that he would examine the ground at Chattanooga and then join Thomas, and that he would send out rations and ammunition to meet him at Rossville. Knowing that retreat with the enemy pressing so close would entail enormous loss, Thomas resolved to hold his present lines, if possible, until his move- ment could receive the partial cover of darkness. He distributed the new supplies of ammunition

Sept. 20,

104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. which had arrived, and then sent orders to his division commanders to make ready to retire to Eossville as soon as night should close in. Reynolds being first ready to move, Thomas went to meet him and point out the position he intended him to take, when he met with another of the most singular incidents of this abnormal day.

Passing through an open bit of woods to reach Reynolds he came upon a body of rebel infantry, who had made their way, unperceived, around the extreme left and in rear of Baird. At this moment the head of Reynolds's column appeared, and Thomas threw J. B. Turchin's brigade upon the advancing Confederates, who were driven by a most spirited charge more than a mile over the way they had come, clear beyond Baird's left and out of sight, losing several hundred prison- ers. Turchin, M. S. Robinson, and August Willich were then posted so as to guard the roads by which the army was to withdraw, and orders were sent to the division commanders to bring off their troops. Late as the hour was, the en- emy was everywhere so near that the movement could not wholly escape observation, and Bailed, Johnson, and Palmer were successively attacked in yielding their lines, and though resisting ener- getically suffered some losses in prisoners. Baird, in his report, expresses his confidence that he could

voi^xxx., have continued to hold his position ; " to fall back ^p.'279.' was more difficult than to remain." Brannan, Wood, and Steedman left the scene of their heroic defense without trouble or molestation ; " the final victorious charge of the Confederate left wing," under Longstreet — which was, in fact, a cautious

Sept. 20,

CHICKAMAUGA 105

advance of his skirmish line over the deserted chap.iv. field — found nothing to oppose it. Early in the night Thomas was firmly established at Rossville, the braves who had come back with him finding at Rossville or on the road, coming to meet him, the reorganized divisions of Sheridan and Negley as good as ever.

The Confederates were not aware until the next day that Thomas had gone from their front. In the Confederate reports written several days or weeks after the fact, there are the usual conven- tional phrases describing their final victory on the evening of the 20th ; but, in truth, night came down on the stubborn fight leaving the issue by no means decided. The only proof of this that need be of- fered is Bragg's official dispatch to the Grovernment at Richmond : " After two days' hard fighting we have driven the enemy, after a desperate resistance, from several positions, and now hold the field ; but he still confronts us. The losses are heavy on both sides, especially so in our officers. We have taken over twenty pieces of artillery and some 2500 pris- vo^xxx., oners." He had done much better than that, but p!^ 23. ' this understatement of his success, by a man not accustomed to diminish his own glory, shows how terrible the conflict had been and how doubtful he still was of the final issue.

The assertions of the commanders on both sides, that they everywhere met superior forces of the enemy, prove only that there was but slight dis- parity of numbers; and that the fighting was at all points, except for the break on the Union right, unusually obstinate and determined. There are no authentic reports of the Confederate araiy

W. R.

106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. for the days of battle ; ^ but Major E. C. Dawes has made the following careful estimate :

" An examination of the original returns in the War Department, which I have personally made, ■ shows the following result: General Bragg's return, 31st of August, 1863, shows under the heading ' present for duty,' officers and men, 48,998. This return does not include the divisions of General Breckinridge or General Preston, the brigades of Generals Gregg and McNair, or the reenforcement brought by General Longstreet. The strength of each is accurately given in Confederate official returns. The total Confederate force available for battle at Chickamauga was as follows: General Bragg's army, 31st of August, 1863, for duty, 48,998; Longstreet's command (Hood's and McLaws's di- visions), by the return of the Army of Northern Virginia, 31st of August, 1863, for duty, 11,716; Breckinridge's division, by his official report in 'Confederate Reports of Battles,' for duty, 3769; Preston's division, by his official report in ' Confed- erate Reports of Battles,' for duty, 4509; Brigades "Battles of Grcgg and McNair, by General Bushrod John- LeadJrs." sou's official rcport ( " Southern Historical Society ^ple".'-' Papers," Vol. XIII.), for duty, 2559,— total, 71,551." Rosecrans's effective strength, partly taken from official reports and partly estimated, was: Four- teenth Army Corps (estimated), 20,000 ; Twentieth

1 General Lee wrote to Jeffer- last, 16,118 effective men. He

sonDavis(September 14, 1863), was to receive from General

" If the report sent to me by Johnston 9000 effective men.

General Cooper, since my return His total force will, therefore, be

from Richmond, is correct, Gen- 76,219, as large a number as, I

eral Bragg had, on the 20th Au- presume, he can operate with." —

gust last, 51,101 effective men; "Southern Historical Society

General Buckner, 20th August Papers." Vol. XH., p. 324.

CHICKAMAUGA 107

Ai-my Corps (estimated), 11,000 ; Twenty-first Army chap. iv. Corps (report), 12,052 ; Reserve Corps (report), 3913 ; " ^^a^^es Cavalry Corps (estimated), 10,000, — total, 56,965. ^^f^fi" And he had 208 guns ; showing that General Bragg p- "'3- ' had ready to bring into action a few thousand more troops than the total effectives of Rosecrans.

The divisions which Bragg did not employ on the Sept., im. 19th were those which, thrown fresh into the fight on the 20th, formed the most efficient part of his Xl^^rS"™,^' force. Thomas fought his final battle against berian™"- Bragg's whole army with not more than twenty p^sei'.' thousand men.

The losses on both sides were frightful. Bragg admits, in his official report, that he lost forty per cent, of his army, which would bring his killed and wounded to over twenty thousand. Longstreet says the strength of the left wing on going into action on the 20th was 22,872 ; of these he lost (not counting one brigade which had not reported to him its casualties), 7595 in killed and wounded alone. The loss on the Confederate right was, of course, far heavier than this in proportion. Several brigades were almost annihilated ; Helm's lost, Ije- sides their general, all but 432 out of 1763.^ The loss of the anny of Rosecrans was 1656 killed, 9749 wounded, 4774 captured or missing, — total, 16,179. The mortality among the Union troops was the less as they fought most of the time in position, and sheltered, when it was possible, by improvised works.

The first news which the Grovernment received in regard to the battle was conveyed in a disheartened, almost despairing, telegram which Rosecrans, at

iThe revised estimates of the Confederate loss give 2389 killed, 13,412 wounded, 2003 captured or missing,— total, 17,80-4.

108

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

to Halleck,

Sept. 20, 1863. W. R.

J. H., Diary.

Chattanooga, wrote at five o'clock : " We have met with a serious disaster ; extent not yet ascertained. Enemy overwhelmed us, drove our right, pierced our center, and scattered our troops there. Thomas, who had seven divisions, remained intact, at last news. Granger, with two brigades, had gone to support Thomas on the left. Every available reserve was used when the men stampeded. Burnside will be notified of the state of things at once, and you will be informed ; troops from Charleston, Florida, Virginia, and all along the sea-board are found among the prisoners. It seems that every avail- able man was thrown against us." Such was the discouraging news which reached the President on the morning of the 21st of September. His first exclamation to his secretary after reading the dis- patch was: "Rosecrans has been whipped, as I feared. I have feared it for several days. I believe I feel trouble in the air before it comes." " Burn- side," he continued, " instead of obeying the orders which were given him on the 14th, and going to Rosecrans, has gone on a foolish affair to Jones- boro to capture a party of guerrillas who were there." As the day wore on the news brightened ; the details of the magnificent defense of his posi- tion by Thomas became known, the orderly retreat to Rossville was reported, and on the next da\^ the safe establishment of the army around Chattanooga. It is the habit of most military writers, when they narrate a reverse to our arms, to describe the Ad- ministration at "Washington as thrown into conster- nation by it. Even General Grant, referring to this event, commits this error in speaking of a matter of which he could not possibly be informed. He

CHICKAMAUGA 109

says : " The Administration, as well as the G-eneral- chap. iv. in-Chief, was nearly frantic at the situation of Grant.

' . 1 1 T • "Personal

affairs." There was certainly deep disappointment Memoirs.- and concern at the untoward issue of Rosecrans's »• ^**- campaign, which had been so splendidly begun ; but to show how little of frenzy there was in the feeling and action of the President, we give this letter to General Halleck, written immediately after the receipt of Rosecrans's melancholy dispatch: " I think it very important for General Rosecrans to hold his position at or about Chattanooga, be- cause, if held, from that place to Cleveland, both inclusive, it keeps all Tennessee clear of the enemy, and also breaks one of his most important raih'oad lines. To prevent these consequences is so vital to his cause that he cannot give up the effort to dis- lodge us from the position, thus bringing him to us, and saving us the labor, expense, and hazard of going farther to find him, and also giving us the advantage of choosing our own ground, and pre- paring it to fight him upon. The details must, of course, be left to General Rosecrans, while we must furnish him the means to the utmost of our ability. If you concur, I think he would better be informed that we are not pushing him beyond this position ; and that, in fact, our judgment is rather against his going beyond it. If he can only maintain this to^nLffik, position, without more, this rebellion can only eke isfs!^ w.^'k. out a short and feeble existence, as an animal some- pai-t i., " times may with a thorn in its vitals." And after ajso ms. giving these directions, the wisest possible under the circumstances, as shown by subsequent history, he sent to General Rosecrans this comforting and encouraging dispatch : "Be of good cheer. We

110

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Lincoln to

Rosecrans,

Sept. 21,

1863.

Ibid., p. 146.

Lincoln to

Burnside,

Sept. 21,

1863.

W. R. Vol.

XXX.,

Part I.,

p. 149.

Rosecrans to Lincoln,

Sept. 21, 1863. Ibid.

Sept. 22. Ibid., p. 161.

have unabated confidence in you, and in your soldiers and officers. In the main you must be the judge as to what is to be done. If I were to suggest, I would say, save your army by taking strong posi- tions until Burnside joins you, when, I hope, you can turn the tide. I think you had better send a courier to Burnside to hurry him up. We cannot reach him by telegraph. We suppose some force is going to you from Corinth, but for want of com- munication we do not know how they are getting along. We shall do our utmost to assist you. Send us your present positions." At the same time he sent a peremptory dispatch to Burnside, in which there is a certain tone of reproof : " If you are to do any good to Rosecrans it will not do to waste time with Jonesboro. It is already too late to do the most good that might have been done, but I hope it will still do some good. Please do not lose a moment," and by another route he repeats this peremptory injunction in briefer words.

Even on the 21st Rosecrans had not altogether recovered the tone of his spirits. He telegraphed : "After two days of the severest fighting I ever witnessed, our right and center were beaten. The left held its position until sunset. Our loss is heavy and our troops worn down." After speaking of the overpowering force of the enemy, he con- tinues : " We have no certainty of holding our po- sition here. If Burnside could come immediately it would be well, otherwise he may not be able to join us unless he comes on west side of river."

This dispatch contained no news not already known; and the President again besought Rose-

CHICKA.MAUGA 111

crans to relieve his anxiety as to the position and chap. rv. condition of his army. Strangely enough the first encouraging word that the President received from the battlefield was contained in a Richmond paper, ^Tsea.^^' which published Bragg's official report already voi. kxx. quoted. He at once telegraphed it to Rosecrans p- '^ai- " to show him he was not so badly beaten as he thought, and on the same day Rosecrans, having got back his habitual composui-e by virtue of sleep and rest and immunity from attack, either at Ross- viUe or Chattanooga, reported from the latter place, " We hold this point, and I cannot be dis- lodged unless by very superior numbers and after vm^xxx., a great battle." He asked for large and prompt p^. les.' reenforcements, a demand which the Grovemment took into immediate consideration.

Stanton, upon whom the testy and petulant dis- patches of Rosecrans during the preceding year had had their natural eficect in alienating his good- will and impairing to some extent his confidence, had for some weeks made no secret of his waning trust in Rosecrans. Even while Rosecrans was crossing the river on the last day of August, Secre- im. tary Chase having represented to Mr. Stanton the great importance of prompt and vigorous military action, saying that the following day the amount of suspended requisitions, including pay of the army for July and August would approach thirty- five millions, to meet which there were only five mil- lions, and adding that, unless the war could be pushed more vigorously and with greater certainty of early and successful termination there was cause for serious apprehension of financial embarrassment, Stanton replied that the delay of Rosecrans was

112

ABEAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV.

Warden, " Life of Salmon P.

Chase," pp. 535, 536.

J. H., Diary.

Sept.

the principal cause of the difficulty ; that he com- manded fully one-third of the effective force of the country and did nothing, comparatively, with it. Therefore when the news of the disaster at Chicka- mauga arrived, Stanton, at least, had no hesita- tion in assigning the responsibility for it. Yet amid all this disapprobation of Rosecrans his demand for reenforcements received instant attention. Troops from Grant and Hm^lbut were already on the way, but these were not enough. Immediately on re- ceipt of Eosecrans's dispatch, Mr. Stanton sent one of the President's secretaries who was standing by to the Soldiers' Home, where the President was sleeping. A little startled by the unwonted sum- mons,— for this was "the first time" he said, " Stan- ton had ever sent for him," — the President mounted his horse and rode in through the moonlight to the War Department to preside over an improvised council to consider the subject of reenforcing Eosecrans.

There were present General Halleck, Stanton, Seward and Chase of the Cabinet; P. H. Watson and James A. Hardie of the War Department, and Gen- eral D. C. McCallum, superintendent of military transportation. After a brief debate, it was re- solved to detach the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps from the Army of the Potomac, General Hooker to be placed in command of both. The President's only fear was that so large a body of troops could not be transported such a distance without con- suming a great deal of time ; but to his pleasure and astonishment the two corps, numbering some twenty thousand men, were brought from the Eap- idan to Washington, there embarked, and carried

GKKEKAL ALEXANDEK M' D. 3IcCOOK

CHICKAMAUGA 113

by railway through Wheeling, Cincinnati, Louis- chap.iv. ville, and Nashville to the Tennessee, and there deposited, with their guns, their munitions of war, and all theu* impedimenta, ready for fighting, in the almost incredible time of eight days. The credit of this extraordinary feat belongs to Generals Meigs and McCallum and Prescott Smith of the Balti- more and Ohio Eailroad.

General Rosecrans in retiring to Chattanooga did not consider it practicable or expedient to retain control of the point of Lookout Mountain commanding the Tennessee Eiver below Chatta- nooga. This point was at once seized by Bragg, who extended his lines from Lookout Mountain to the Tennessee Eiver above the town, thus hold- ing the place in a sort of demi-blockade, depriving it of all communication south of the Tennessee Eiver and restricting it to a long and difficult line over the mountains, continually threatened by the enemy's cavalry, which, in the end, brought it almost to the point of starvation. General Bragg adopted this plan of reducing the post by siege against the opinion of Longstreet, who advised him on the morning of the 21st to Sept., ises. cross the river above Chattanooga, thinking he could force Eosecrans to evacuate that place by a demonstration upon his rear, and indeed could force him back upon Nashville; and in case the Confederate transportation was found inadequate for a continuance of that movement, to follow up the railroad to Knoxville, to destroy Burnside, and thence to threaten the rear of Nashville.

Longstreet intimates that this proposition was favorably received by Bragg; but that general in his Vol. VIII.— 8

114 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

CHAP. IV. report insists, with some indignation, that he never voi^xxx ^^^ ^^ instant entertained it, his lack of transporta- I'aryi-' ' tion rendering it utterly impossible. He stamps it as entirely lacking in military propriety; it would abandon to Rosecrans his entire line of communica- tion, and leave open to him the Confederate depots of supplies, placing Bragg, with a greatly inferior force, beyond a difficult and, at times, an impass- able river, in a country affording no subsistence to men or animals. As another reason for rejecting Longstreet's scheme, Bragg adds that it would have left open to the enemy, only ten miles away, the battlefield with the thousands of wounded and its valuable trophies.

For nearly a month the siege of Chattanooga con- tinued, Bragg sealing the front and both flanks of the place against any communication. The cavalry of both sides were busy, one in threatening and the other in defending the slender and inadequate means of communication left open to the rear. Rosecrans's dispatches to the Government, though copious and energetic, were never devoid of a cer- tain anxiety, and were continually full of requests for reenforcements and supplies. The President answered him with unfailing courtesy and encour- agement receiving kindly even his political sug- gestions. Rosecrans telegraphed on the 3d of Oc- tober: "If we can maintain this position in such strength that the enemy are obliged to abandon their position and the elections in the great States go favorably, would it not be well to offer a general amnesty to all officers and soldiers in the Rebellion ? toTincom, It would give us moral strength, and weaken them

Oct. 3, 1863. ■, „

MS. very much."

CHICKAMAUGA 115

Mr. Lincoln replied : " If we can hold Chatta- chap. iv. nooga and East Tennessee, I think the Rebellion oct. 4,1863. must dwindle and die. I think you and Burnside can do this, and hence doing so is your main ob- ject. Of course to greatly damage or destroy the enemy in your front would be a greater object, be- cause it would include the former and more, but it is not so certainly within your power. I under- stand the main body of the enemy is very near you, so near that you could 'board at home,' so to speak, and menace or attack him any day. Would not the doing of this be your best mode of counter- acting his raid on your communications ? But this is not an order. I intend doing something like what you suggest whenever the case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted in the true under- :^^ecran*^, standing rather than as a confession of weakness ^ m's. and fear."

The operations of the rebel cavalry, though they were carried on at great expense and loss to them, and were compensated by equally successful and energetic movements on the part of the Union cavaky, kept Rosecrans continually harassed and Rosecrans

to HaUeck

ill at ease. The failure of Burnside to connect upon October 4.' his right distressed him ; and although Hooker was on his left securing the most vital points of the rail- roads, the non-arrival of the troops from Vicksburg drove him to ask in his petulant style, " No news from Sherman. Are his or any other troops really coming to this army?" He telegraphed to Lincoln, October n. on the 12th, his fear of starvation, the " enemy's side of valley full of corn. Every exertion will be made to hold what we have and gain more. After which to°uncoin,

Oct. 12.

we must put our trust in God, who never fails those isea. ms,

116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Chap. IV. who truly tmst." The same day Lincoln tele- graphed him one of those singular dispatches which seem full of intuitive military knowledge, telling him that Bm-nside, being menaced from the east, could not go to him without surrendering East Tennessee. " I now think," Mr. Lincoln said, " the enemy will not attack Chattanooga, and I think 5'ou will have to look out for his making a concen- trated drive at Burnside. You and Burnside now have him by the throat, and he must break your hold or perish. . . Sherman is coming to you," he went on to say, " though gaps in the tele- graph prevent our knowing how far he is ad- vanced. He and Hooker will so support you on

Ro^ecraus, the wcst and northwest, as to enable you to look

Oct. 12, 1863. . 1 XI i„

MS. east and northeast."

But no encouragement was sufficient to give back to General Rosecrans his old buoyancy and hopefulness. His dispatches continued full of premonitions of trouble. Jefferson Davis had ap- peared in the other camp and made encouraging speeches. Rosecrans feared the rebel cavalry on his right; if his mounted force were not swelled the Confederate cavalry would paralyze his army and compel it to retire. Sherman was still too far off to be of any real help. The rebel cavalry would soon overpower and wear out his ; and finally a dispatch of the 16th of October is filled with apprehcDsion of an attempt to be made by the enemy to destroy the Army of the Cumberland by separating it from Burnside. "We cannot feed Hooker's troops on our left, nor can we spare them from our right depots and communications. . . Had we . . . the whole of Sherman's and Hooker's troops

CHICKAMAUGA 117

brought up, we should not probably outnumber the chap. iv. enemy. This army, with its back to barren moun- tains, roads narrow and difficult, while the enemy has Report,

• !• ' 1 IT Committee

the raih'oad and the corn m his rear, is at much cus- on conduct

' of the War.

advantage." "Our future is not bright." By this ^^p^^g"-' time theGrovernment had become convinced that the supreme charge of the armies in Tennessee could no longer be safely left in the hands of a general so querulous and so despondent as Eosecrans had become.

They did not gain this impression exclusively from his dispatches. Charles A. Dana, who ac- companied the army as the representative of the War Department, had for several weeks been giv ing the gloomiest views of Rosecrans's temper and ^igpSes,