# The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz/Volume Three/02 Chattanooga

A background document: Court of Inquiry on Maj.-Genl. Hooker's report of the night engagement of Wauhatchie: Argument of Maj.-Gen. Carl Schurz (February 12, 1864).
CHAPTER II
AT last, on the 25th day of September, 1863, the Eleventh Corps was cut loose from the Army of the Potomac and dispatched, together with the Twelfth, both under the command of General Hooker, to the western field of operations. General Rosecrans had maneuvered the rebel general, Bragg, out of Chattanooga, but suffered a grievous defeat on September 19th and 20th at Chickamauga, where the Army of the Cumberland was saved from total destruction only by the heroic firmness of General Thomas. It may be remarked here, by the way, that the rout of our right wing in that battle was far more disastrous and discreditable than the defeat of the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville had been, but that nobody ever thought of branding that part of the Army of the Cumberland with cowardice on that account. Our defeated hosts found refuge in Chattanooga, where they entrenched themselves. The Confederate General Bragg did not feel himself strong enough to carry their works by assault, but he besieged them closely enough to threaten their lines of communication with the Union forces in the West, as well as their bases of supplies. In fact, the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga was reduced to very short rations, and there was such a scarcity of forage that there were not nearly sound horses enough to equip the artillery. Under these circumstances the Eleventh and the Twelfth Corps were detached from the Army of the Potomac and hurried westward to succor the Army of the Cumberland in its precarious situation, and in the first place
to open the “cracker-line,” as the soldiers humorously called the line of supplies.
On the 1st and 2nd of October, my command arrived at Bridgeport, Alabama, on the Tennessee River. One of my first duties was to acquaint myself with the country in my front and on my flanks. Many of the scouting parties I led myself, and it was on these occasions that I came first into personal contact with the population of that hill-region of Northern Alabama, Northern Georgia, and Southwestern Tennessee. I had met Southern country people in Virginia and Maryland, and had been astonished at the ignorance of many of them as to what, among the rural population of the North, were matters of common knowledge. But my experiences in my present surroundings were far more astonishing still. Not far from my encampment I struck a farmhouse inhabited by an elderly man, his wife, and a flock of children. He was by no means a poor man, for, as he told me, he owned several hundred acres of land. But he lived in a log-house, the central part of which was open at the front with one enclosed room on the right and one on the left, with mud chimneys, the chinks between the logs being so imperfectly filled that the wind would pass through freely. There was hardly anything inside worthy of the name of furniture. The art of reading and writing was unknown in the family, except, perhaps, from hearsay. The children were dirty, ragged, and, of course, barefooted, sharing the freedom of the house with dogs and other domestic animals.
The farmer seemed to be a good-natured person, but my conversations with him disclosed an almost incredible depth of ignorance. Of the country in which he lived he had only a vague and nebulous conception. He asked me where all these people, meaning the soldiers, came from. When I told him they came from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and
Wisconsin, he was very much puzzled. Of New York he had heard as “a monstrous big town,” so far away that it would take several weeks' travel to get there. He asked me how many people might live there, but when I answered about seven hundred thousand, he understood me to say seven thousand. He threw up his hands in amazement, and exclaimed: “Lord, seven thousand people living in one place! That place must be bigger than Chattanooga!” He had heard somebody say that the earth was traveling around the sun; but he could not believe it. Did he not see the sun rising every morning on one side of him and travel to the other side, where it set in the evening. He cherished some religious notions centering in a somewhat indefinite imagining of heaven and hell and salvation, which he had received from his parents and from itinerant exhorters. He had also heard something about the Atlantic Ocean, beyond which there were large countries with lots of strange people in them, and he was struck dumb with wonder and amazement, looking me over with a sort of puzzled curiosity, when I told him that I and many of the soldiers were born in one of those countries on the other side of the great water.
But I had another experience if possible still more astonishing. On one of my rides I struck a lonely log-cabin, in the door of which I saw a woman, surrounded by a lively flock of flaxen-haired children, some six or seven of them, of various ages. Being thirsty, I rode up to her to ask her for a drink of water, which she brought to me in a gourd from the well-bucket, presenting it with a kindly smile and a few words in the local dialect, which I did not understand. Although poorly clad and barefooted, she looked rather clean and neat; and so did the children, who had evidently been washed that day. She appeared to be about thirty-five years old, and the expression of her face was pleasant, frank, and modest. I asked her
whether these were her children. She answered, “Yes,” looking around at them with an expression of obvious pride and pleasure. How many children had she? “Thirteen. Some were in the field, the older ones.” Where was her husband? In the army? “Husband?” She had no husband. Was he dead, leaving her alone with so many children? Without the slightest embarrassment she answered that she never had had any husband; and in response to my further question whether she really had never been married, she simply shook her head with an expression, not of vexation, but rather of surprise, as if she did not quite understand what I might mean. I left her, greatly puzzled. When I met my friend, the old farmer, again, I asked him about her; he replied that she was a very decent and industrious woman, who took good care of her children, and that there were several such cases around there.
I do not mean to say that those cases portrayed the general state of civilization in a large tract of country. In some of the valleys, or “coves,” I found people, indeed, quite illiterate, but intellectually far more advanced and more conversant with the moralities of civilized society. But even among them, instances such as I have described appeared sporadically, while in some more secluded districts they represented the rule. What surprised me most was that such people were mostly of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, here and there interspersed with Scotch-Irish, very clearly demonstrating that the element of race is by no means the only one determining the progressive capacities or tendencies of a population, but that even the most vigorous races may succumb in their development to the disfavor of surrounding circumstances. These people, in their seclusion, were simply left behind by the progressive movements going on at a distance.
About the 20th of October we learned, first by rumor, and
then by official announcement, that General Grant had taken command of the “Military Division of the Mississippi,” including the field of operations of the Army of the Cumberland; that General Rosecrans had been removed from the command of that army, to be superseded by General Thomas; and that General Sherman was hurrying on from the West with large reinforcements. On the 27th we broke camp and started on our march from Bridgeport to Chattanooga. The road was in a dreadful condition. There were so many carcasses of mules and horses lying on and alongside of it, that I thought if they were laid lengthwise they would easily cover the whole distance. In the afternoon of the 28th we arrived in Lookout Valley, near Brown's Ferry, about three miles from Chattanooga. The commanding form of Lookout Mountain frowned down upon us, with a rebel battery on top. We presumed that there must be a rebel force at its foot, but it was hidden from us by dense woods. There were with us two divisions of the Eleventh Corps, General Steinwehr's and mine, except some detachments, and part of General Geary's division of the Twelfth Corps, which, however, was left behind with a wagon train at a small hamlet called Wauhatchie, about three miles distant. The road from Wauhatchie to Brown's Ferry was bordered on the enemy's eastern side by steep ridges, intersected by gaps and ravines, through one of which ran a country road leading to Kelly's Ferry, and through another the track of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. On the western side of the Wauhatchie road there was a valley about one-half mile wide, covered partly with cornfields, partly with timber and underbrush, and bordered by the Raccoon Mountains. On our march we saw nothing of the enemy except little squads of cavalry, who vanished at our approach, and a small infantry force in the woods near Wauhatchie, which disappeared after
having fired a few shots, when it saw some of our regiments deploy for attack. Besides, the rebel battery posted on the top of Lookout Mountain pitched some shells at us, without effect. But from the same height the enemy could easily observe every one of our movements, and it occurred to some of us that the separation by nearly three miles of bad road of Geary's small force from ours was really an invitation to an attack under circumstances very favorable to the enemy. However, such was the disposition made by General Hooker, and all we could do was to surround ourselves by strong picket lines, well thrown out, to guard against a surprise. So we went into bivouac.
All remained quiet until about midnight, when we were disturbed by a few shots fired on our picket line. Then profound stillness again, which, however, lasted only about half an hour. Then very lively firing was heard in the direction of Wauhatchie. This evidently meant something more serious. We could not doubt that the enemy was attacking Geary in order to overwhelm him, and thus to break the line of communication we had established. Prompt action was necessary. The troops abruptly waked from their first and best sleep, tumbled out of their blankets with alacrity, and were under arms in a few minutes, ready to march. Night combats are apt to be somewhat uncomfortable affairs under any circumstances. Napoleon is quoted to have said that “the two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage” is the true test of the soldier's quality. To be called upon to fight when, as he feels, he ought to be permitted to sleep, and to fight, too, with a sensation of peculiar emptiness in his stomach, of dullness in his head, and of shiver in his back and limbs, and with a darkness surrounding him which prevents him from seeing the things he ought to see, and sometimes makes him see things which do not exist, is apt to
make him surly, to confuse him, and to weaken his confidence in himself. However, our men were, on this occasion, in good spirits, indulging themselves in more or less jocose curses on the enemy who had disturbed them. Soon General Hooker rode up—as it seemed to me in a somewhat excited state of mind—and ordered me to hurry my division to the relief of Geary. This was the order I had expected. Instantly I put myself at the head of Tyndale's brigade, which was the nearest at hand, and marched off on the road to Wauhatchie, sending my chief-of-staff to my other two brigades, with the order to follow me. The moon shone brightly, only now and then obscured by passing clouds. We could see ahead on the open ground tolerably well. But the shadows of the dense woods we entered were all the darker. Having thrown out a skirmish line to the front, and flanking parties toward the hills, we pressed on with the utmost possible expedition on the road, which was very bad. The musketry fire ahead of us at Wauhatchie grew more lively and was punctuated with occasional discharges of artillery which, to judge from the sound, came from Geary's battery. Evidently, Geary was hard pressed, and we accelerated our speed. We had advanced only a few hundred yards when we received a heavy volley of musketry from one of the darkly wooded hills on our left. One of my aides, riding by my side, was wounded and had to be carried to the rear. Several men in the marching column were also hit. Without orders some scattering shots were fired in reply from our side, which were promptly stopped, and we pushed on without delay, anxious as I was to reach Geary, and confident that our forces behind would at once take care of the enemy on my left and rear who had tried to molest us. This, indeed, was done by a brigade of the second division which in splendid style stormed and cleared the hill from which the
volley had come. But it seemed probable that the whole row of hills along which the road to Wauhatchie ran, was occupied by rebel troops to guard the flank and rear of those who attacked Geary, and I reinforced my flanking parties. We soon struck a slight turn toward the hills in the road where it was especially muddy and difficult. I directed the column to march straight ahead through what appeared to me an open field, expecting to reach Geary more quickly. But my advance skirmishers soon ran into a miry bog covered with low brush, which appeared to be impassable, and we were obliged to regain the road by a movement to the left. This was done without any loss of time. Until then General Howard had been with me off and on during the march. Now, accompanied by an aide, he rode on to Geary to tell him that help was near.
Then one of those confusing disarrangements occurred which occasionally will happen in campaigns or battles, and which sometimes produce much mischief and cause excited controversies among the interested parties. I had hardly reached the road again, when through staff officers sent after me, I received the information that my second and my third brigades which, according to my orders, were to follow Tyndale's, and which, therefore, I firmly expected to be at my heels, were not following me at all, but were kept back—one by General Hooker's personal direction, and the other by an order delivered by one of General Hooker's staff officers that it should accompany a lot of prisoners to Chattanooga. I was much surprised, but would have hurried on to Geary with Tyndale's brigade alone, had not at that moment one of General Hooker's aides-de-camp, Lieutenant Oliver, come with an order from General Hooker that I should take and occupy with one brigade the hill on my left next to the railroad gap. I replied to Lieutenant Oliver that I was ordered by General
Hooker personally to push through to Geary, that I had just been informed of my other two brigades having been stopped by General Hooker's direction, and that if I occupied the hill on my left with the only brigade I had on hand, I would have no troops at all to push on to Geary. Lieutenant Oliver answered that General Hooker wanted the hill on my left taken, and he repeated the order. This was puzzling. However, it naturally occurred to me that circumstances might have changed. The firing at Wauhatchie had for a while slackened and then died out altogether. It was evident that Geary, after a fierce fight, had succeeded in repulsing the rebel attack. But there was still more firing going on in my rear near the hill from which the volley had been thrown upon us. The enemy might perhaps have made a new movement, making it most important that the gaps in the row of hills be in our possession. Finally, although General Hooker had personally ordered me to push through to Geary, his last order, brought by his aide-de-camp, was that I should take and occupy with one brigade the hill immediately on my left, and according to all military rules, it was the last order that counted. I asked, therefore, General Tyndale to arrest the march to Geary, and to take and occupy the hill with his brigade.
This was done. Our skirmishers ascended the dark woods, silently. There was a moment of remarkable stillness. Then we heard about half way up a ringing voice calling out: “What regiment do you belong to?” Another voice, a little further away, responded, naming a Georgia regiment. Thereupon promptly followed a shot and then a rattle of musketry. Then three of our regiments rushed up after our skirmishers, the firing became more lively, and soon our men were on the crest and descended the opposite slope, the enemy yielding as our men steadily advanced. The affair occupied not much
more than a quarter of an hour, but it cost us two killed, one of them a captain, and ten wounded. The importance of our occupation of the hill consisted in its commanding one of the passes through that chain of ridges. Our troops had, therefore, to be put in proper position to sustain an attack, the immediate vicinity to be explored by scouts, pickets to be well thrown out on front and flanks, and a reserve to be properly placed—arrangements which require some time, especially in the dark and on densely wooded and uneven ground, not permitting anything to be discerned with certainty, even at a very short distance. While these things were being done, Lieutenant Oliver, who had left me soon after the fight, had ample time to report to his chief all that had happened, and General Hooker had ample time to send me further instructions if my doings were in any respect not in accordance with his wishes, or if he desired me to do anything beyond. But as I received no word from him I naturally believed that I had acted to General Hooker's entire satisfaction; and as the firing had ceased along the whole line, and everything seemed to be in the best of order, I hastened to report to General Hooker myself, and to look after my other two brigades held back by him.
I found General Hooker in the midst of my brigades, which stood there with grounded arms. Expecting a word of commendation in response to my salute, I was beyond measure astonished when in a harsh voice and in that excited manner which I had observed in him an hour or two before, he asked me why I had not carried out his order to march my division to the relief of Geary. Mastering my feelings, I quietly replied that I had tried to do so; that I had marched off at the head of my advance brigade; that I then had received his positive order while en route to take and occupy a certain hill with one brigade; that I had ordered my other two brigades to
follow me, but that they had been held back by superior orders; that therefore I had no troops to take to Geary. There was a moment's silence. He broke it by repeating that he had given me the order to march to Geary two hours before, and that I should do it now. I asked him whether my two brigades held back by his superior orders were now at my disposal again. He answered that they were, and rode away. I doubted, and my officers, too, doubted, whether he was in his senses.
COLONEL FRIEDRICH HECKER
At once we were in motion, Colonel Hecker's brigade leading. On the road Colonel Hecker told me what had happened. He had promptly obeyed the instruction brought to him by my chief-of-staff, to follow my second brigade, Colonel Krzyzanowski's, in marching to Wauhatchie. A little while after the head of our column had been fired upon from the hill on our left, he observed that Krzyzanowski's brigade halted, presumably by order. But he, Colonel Hecker, having received no such order, continued his march, passing by Krzyzanowski's brigade through an open field. He had hardly done so when Major Howard, of General Hooker's staff, brought him, too, a positive order to halt at the cross-roads, one branch of which led to Chattanooga, and to form his brigade front towards the hills. He had not time to do so when General Hooker himself appeared, and Major Howard said: “Here is General Hooker himself.” General Hooker asked: “What troops are these?” Hecker answered: “Third Brigade, Third Division, Eleventh Corps.” General Hooker asked further: “Where is General Schurz?” Hecker replied: “In the front; one of his aides has just been carried by here wounded.” General Hooker then instructed Hecker so to form his brigade that it could easily change front towards the right—the valley—if necessary. He thereupon inquired about the troops standing nearest to Hecker, and was informed that it was the
Second Brigade, Colonel Krzyzanowski's, of my division, and saying to Colonel Hecker: “You stay here!” he rode over to Krzyzanowski's brigade and remained with it a considerable time. Indeed, it was between it and Hecker's brigade, within speaking distance of both, where I found him when I returned from Tyndale's position. This was the report Hecker gave me. It was subsequently proved to be absolutely correct in every detail. It made the words addressed by General Hooker to me more and more inexplicable. I could understand how the sudden appearance of the enemy on the range of hills between us and Chattanooga should have produced upon his mind the impression that the main action that night would have to be fought not at Wauhatchie, but in the immediate vicinity of our camp, and how that impression should have led him to throw into the hills or to keep in his own hand the troops he had ordered to the relief of Geary. But that he should not have appreciated what he had done in changing his dispositions, even after he had been informed of it, and that he should have blamed anybody for the confusion but himself, was not so easy to explain, except upon the supposition that he wanted a scapegoat for the mistake he had made in leaving Geary in so recklessly exposed a situation, which might have resulted in a very serious disaster, had the rebels attacked with a larger force. However, I consoled myself with the hope that when after a good sound sleep he reviewed the events of the night quite soberly, General Hooker would find it to be the best policy to recognize the truth and tell it.
As soon as I had free disposition of my two brigades again, both Hecker and Krzyzanowski were promptly dispatched to Geary, and the gap between him and Tyndale was properly filled. I bivouacked in the woods near Tyndale's position, and before lying down to take a short sleep, I still had
occasion to witness a weird scene characteristic of the time and place. Some of my staff officers had built a little fire under a rock, to take the shiver out of their limbs. One of them reported to me that two women had come and squatted near that fire, and that nobody could understand what they said. Would I not come and examine them myself? There I met a curious spectacle—the two women sitting on their heels like Indians, looking in the flickering light of the camp-fire almost like two bundles of rags; the one old, sharp-featured, and wrinkled, strands of gray hair falling over her face, her mouth holding a corn-cob pipe with a very short stem, the eyes dark, with reddish, apparently inflamed, eyelids. Her shoulders were covered with something like a dirty gray woolen shawl; her dress somewhat dingy and tattered, undefinable as to stuff and color. So one of Macbeth's witches might have looked. I asked her what she wanted. She looked up to me with a meaningless eye, and muttered something which I was unable to understand. Then her gaze dropped to the fire again, and she continued to smoke her short corn-cob pipe, which she seemed much to relish. I thought it best to try my fortune with the other woman by putting my question to her. Her attire was very much like that of her companion, but when she lifted her head, I was surprised to look into a young face which might have been called decidedly handsome, if not beautiful, had it been washed—large lustrous dark eyes shaded by long lashes, fine features of classic cut, a noble chin under exquisitely curved lips. But these lips bore a brownish line, which was soon explained. She also uttered some—to me, at least—entirely unintelligible words in response to my question, whereupon she quietly dropped her eyes to the fire, as if she had said all that she could say. Then she thrust one of her hands deep into her bosom and brought forth a huge roll of tobacco, bit off
with evidently sharp teeth a good mouth-filling plug which she began composedly to chew, while she restored the roll to its biding place. Then both sat perfectly silent again, stolidly smoking and chewing, until I repeated my question what they wanted, with increased urgency. In what the old woman—probably the mother—mumbled in reply, we detected something resembling the word “cow,” and then, using this discovery as a clue, we finally succeeded by many artifices of interrogation in the way of word-and-sign-language in eliciting the fact that their cow had been stampeded by our fight, and probably had got across Lookout Creek, the opposite bank of which was held by the rebels, and they wanted us to get their cow back for them. With much difficulty and persistent effort we made them understand that if the cow had crossed the creek, it must be given up for lost; but if it was found within our lines, there might be a chance—although a very uncertain one—of their getting it back. Then, without looking at anybody, they gave a grunt, rose up, and, smoking and chewing, vanished in the darkness. Poor creatures! The loss of their cow, no doubt, meant much to them—perhaps the loss of the only comfort of their lives.
GENERAL U. S. GRANT
In the course of the next morning I saw General Grant for the first time. Unexpectedly he had come over with General Thomas to inspect our lines. As his coming had not been announced, his appearance among us was a surprise, and there was no demonstration, no cheering, among the soldiers, because they did not know that this modest-looking gentleman was the victorious hero of many battles. There was absolutely nothing of the fuss-and-feathers style, nothing of the stage or picture general about him. His head was covered with the regulation black felt hat. He wore a major-general's coat, but it was unbuttoned and unbelted. He carried no sword. On his
hands he had a pair of shining white cotton gloves, and on his feet low shoes which permitted a pair of white socks to be seen, all the more as his trousers had perceptibly slipped up. He smoked a large black cigar with great energy, and looked about him in a business-like way with an impassable face. I had no opportunity for coming into personal contact with him at that time, as the cavalcade passed by at a brisk gait.
While General Grant pushed on his preparations for the discomfiture of Bragg's army, which occupied very strong positions on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, the Eleventh Corps remained encamped until November 22nd in Lookout Valley, extending and strengthening its entrenchments. We were within range of the rebel battery on Lookout Mountain, which every day dropped a number of shells into our camps, without doing any damage. The noise made by the shells in coming and in exploding at first caused a little nervousness among some of the men, which, however, soon disappeared. Indeed, a shell falling into my mess tent while I was sitting at dinner with the officers of my staff, caused a momentary sensation and a rapid scattering of the diners. But as the shell did not explode, confidence was soon restored. It gradually became a favorite amusement of the troops to watch the puffs of smoke ejected by the rebel guns on Lookout Mountain, to listen to the whirring noise made by the coming missiles, and to make bets as to where they would strike the ground.
Another amusement consisted in the talks with deserters from the rebel army, who came over to us in great numbers. They were mostly from some Alabama regiments which were camped opposite to us on the other side of Lookout Creek. They would during the night crawl over a big tree which had fallen across the creek, and then surrender to our pickets.
There were so many of them that I sometimes, when I rose in the early morning, found the space between my headquarter tents filled with a dense crowd. They were a sorry lot; ragged, dirty, and emaciated. The first thing a great many of them asked for as soon as they had surrendered themselves, was the “oath.” They insisted upon “taking the oath” without delay. There had, no doubt, been much current talk about their having to “take the oath of allegiance” if they surrendered. But many of them seemed to think that “taking the oath” meant getting something to eat—so eager were they in their demand for it, and apparently as disappointed when they were only asked to bold up their hands and swear. That disappointment was relieved by the subsequent distribution of rations among them, and the avidity and relish with which those rations were devoured, spoke volumes of the lean days when they had had nothing to live upon but roasted ears of corn. Among those with whom I talked I found some who were not without a certain kind of rustic mother-wit. But the ignorance of most of them was beyond belief. There we saw the “Southern, poor white” in his typical complexion. His knowledge of the world had originally been confined to the interior and the immediate surroundings of his wretched log-cabin. With those whom we met as deserters, the horizon had been widened somewhat by their experience of campaign life, but not very much. They had but a very dim conception, if any conception at all, of what all this fighting and bloodshed was about. They had been induced, or had been forced, to join the army by those whom they had been accustomed to look upon as their superiors. They had only an indistinct feeling that on the part of the South the war had not been undertaken and was not carried on for their benefit. There was a “winged word” current among the poor people of the South, which strikingly portrayed the situation,
as they conceived it to be, in a single sentence: “It is the rich man's war and the poor man's fight.” This was so true that the poor whites of the South could hardly be expected to be sentimentally loyal to the “Southern cause.” Many of them saw, therefore, nothing dishonorable or criminal in desertion or voluntary surrender, and resorted to it without any qualm of conscience when they got tired of sacrificing themselves for the benefit of interests which they did not understand. But while they did move in the ranks, they proved in many respects excellent soldiers. They suffered hunger and all sorts of privations with heroic endurance. They executed marches of almost incredible length and difficulty, and bore all kinds of fatigue without much complaint. And they were good, steady fighters, too, and many of them good marksmen, having been “handy” with the rifle or shotgun from their childhood up. Those who had surrendered to us and “took the oath” we put to work in improving the roads and similar tasks and found them to be, if not very good, at least tolerably useful laborers.
At last General Grant was ready to strike. Bragg had foolishly detached Longstreet's corps to overwhelm Burnside at Knoxville, and thus had dangerously weakened himself. Sherman had arrived with several divisions of his army, and on November 22nd the Eleventh Corps received orders to leave Lookout Valley and to march to Chattanooga, where we joined the Army of the Cumberland. I shall not attempt a description of the battle of Missionary Ridge, with all its dramatic and picturesque incidents, but confine myself to my own personal experiences, one of which is of some psychological interest. When after a quiet sleep I woke up about daybreak on November 23rd, my first thought was that on that day I would be killed. It was as if a voice within me told
me so with solemn distinctness. I tried to shake off the impression and to laugh at my weakness in listening to that voice a single moment. But while I met my companions and went about the performance of my duties in the accustomed way, the voice would always come back: “This day I shall be killed.” Once I actually came very near sitting down to write a “last letter” to my wife and children, but a feeling of shame at my superstitious emotion came over me, and I desisted. Still the voice would not be silent. I busied myself with walking about among my troops to see that they were in proper fighting trim for the battle which we expected to open at any moment, but the voice followed me without cessation. I made a strong effort to appear as cheerful as usual, so that my officers should not notice the state of my mind, and I think I succeeded. But what I could not conceal was a restless impatience that the impending action should begin. Still the whole forenoon passed without any serious engagement—only a cannon shot now and then, and here and there a little crackle of picket firing. The breastworks and batteries of the enemy on the steep crest of Missionary Ridge on our left and opposite our center, and on Lookout Mountain on our right, frowned down upon us, apparently impregnable and we stood inactive, looking at them.
At last, about noon, two divisions of the Army of the Cumberland in our left center were ordered to advance, and in a short space of time they took the first line of the enemy's rifle pits at the foot of the mountains. Although the voice within still spoke, I felt a little relief when I heard the real thunder of battle immediately in front. But my command stood there two hours more with grounded arms waiting for orders. At last at two o'clock a staff officer galloped up with the instruction that I should take position in the woods on the left of
those divisions, between Orchard Knob and the Tennessee River, connecting on my right with General Wood, and on my left with the second division of our Corps. “Now is the time,” said the voice within. In deploying my command and making the prescribed connection I had no difficulty—only a slight skirmish fire, the enemy readily yielding when I pushed my skirmishers as far ahead as Citico Creek. But there was a rebel battery of artillery placed on the slope of Missionary Ridge opposite Orchard Knob, invisible to us on account of the woods, which threw shells at us, and apparently had a correct range. Shells would come over to us from it in slow order, probably about two a minute. A practiced ear could gauge their course in coming rather accurately by their whirring noise. Having made my alignment with the neighboring divisions on the right and left, I was halting on horseback with my staff, between my skirmishers and my line of battle, in momentary expectation of further orders, when I heard a shell, as I judged, coming straight towards me. “This is the one,” I said to myself. The few moments I heard it come seemed very long. It did strike the ground under my horse, causing the animal to give a jump, broke the forelegs of the horse of one of my orderlies immediately behind me, and then struck an embankment about twenty yards in rear of me, and exploded, without hurting anyone. The effect was electric. The voice within me said: “This was the one, but it did not kill me after all.” Instantly the premonition of death vanished, and my usual spirits returned. I never had such an experience again; but I have in vain tried to find an explanation for the one I have had.
The share of my division in the actual fighting in the battle of Missionary Ridge was rather slight. It would have been our fortune to take part in the conquest of Lookout
Mountain, the so-called “battle above the clouds”—had not an unexpected mixing of General Hooker's troops with other commands transferred us from Lookout Mountain to Chattanooga. But as it was, we could only watch it from afar as during the afternoon the little puffs of smoke enlivened the brush on the rugged mountain slope, and after dark the musketry flickered through it like swarms of fireflies. The steady advance of our fire-line in this spectacular fashion greatly cheered the whole army. Late the same afternoon I received an order from General Grant to support the forces on my right and left in case of an attack, but, unless myself attacked, to do nothing that might bring on a general engagement. As there was nothing but slight skirmishing in my front and that of my neighbors, this order was easily executed. The night passed quietly. At sunrise the next day, the 25th of November, I was ordered to drive the enemy out of his rifle pits in my front, which was done with ease.
But it was by no means intended that our corps should remain without serious work in the battle. On the contrary, an important part had been assigned to us in what was to be the decisive movement. But again accident doomed us to comparative inactivity.
It was General Grant's plan that Sherman should assault the extreme right of Bragg's army placed on the northern end of Missionary Ridge at Tunnel Hill, and then drive the enemy from the flank out of his position on the crest. Sherman did succeed in crossing the Tennessee River at the appointed place on the right of the enemy, and in dislodging the rebel forces from the heights immediately before him; but advancing, he discovered to his chagrin that the heights he had carried were separated from the enemy's strong position on Tunnel Hill by a deep and precipitous ravine which was a very serious
obstacle to his progress. In the course of the morning I received orders to join General Sherman, the second division of our Corps having preceded me. About 2 p.m. I took position on Sherman's left. I then met the General personally for the first time. I found him sitting on a stone fence overlooking the great ravine separating him from the enemy's fortifications on Tunnel Hill, which bristled with cannon and bayonets.
General Sherman was anxiously watching the progress of Ewing's division of the Fifteenth Corps, reinforced by two or three regiments of Buschbeck's brigade of the Eleventh, as it struggled up the slope toward the rebel entrenchments above, under very heavy fire of the enemy. They were evidently laboring hard. General Sherman received me very cordially and asked me to sit by him. At once we were engaged in lively conversation as if we had been old acquaintances. The General was in an unhappy frame of mind, his hope of promptly overwhelming the enemy's right flank and thus striking the decisive blow of the battle having been dashed by the discovery of the big ravine in his way. It was a stinging disappointment. He gave vent to his feelings in language of astonishing vivacity,—at least, it astonished me, as I had never seen or heard him before. I expected every moment that he would order me to “go in” with my whole division in support of Ewing's charge. But he preferred that my command should remain in reserve on his left to provide for the emergency of a rebel attack from that quarter. The result as to my command was that it stood there inactive, only now and then attracting a shell from the rebel position across the ravine, as my troops showed themselves. So the afternoon wore on. After a short stay on the stone fence Sherman restlessly walked away, and I did not see him again that day. Ewing's attack advanced more and more slowly, but came near reaching
the rebel entrenchments on the crest, when toward dusk it seemed to be arrested by the increasing intensity of the rebel fire, and dropped back down the hill. From the direction of Chattanooga, the center of the position of our army, we heard a tremendous roar, and saw thick clouds of white smoke rising into the air, but we did not know what it signified. It might have meant an unsuccessful attack on Missionary Ridge, like Ewing's, but on a grander scale and perhaps with more disastrous results. Thus we on the extreme left, were rather in a depressed state of mind when the shadows of evening fell and the battlefield grew more and more silent.
The great victory of Missionary Ridge was announced to us in an almost casual way. There was immediately behind my line of battle a little dilapidated negro cabin, in which our headquarter orderlies had constructed, out of planks found lying around, something like a table, with a bench on each side. There I sat down with my staff officers to “supper”—coffee, hard-tack, and, perhaps, a slice of bacon. We had hardly begun our repast when my division-surgeon dismounted outside, came in and joined the revelers. He was a somewhat monosyllabic gentleman, and gave us only a “good evening.” After a while I asked him: “Where do you come from, doctor?”
“Just from Chattanooga, sir.”
“Looked for medical stores, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There was a tremendous noise around there. What was it?”
“Fighting, sir.”
“Fighting—where?”
“On the hillside, sir. Boys went up nicely.”
“What hillside?”
“They call it Missionary Ridge, I believe, sir.”
“What? Our boys went up Missionary Ridge? Did they get to the top? Now be a little more lively, doctor!”
“Yes, sir, we could see them climb up there, and there was much waving of hats and cheering.”
“What? Got to the top? And the rebels ran away?”
“I heard some officers say so at headquarters.”
“By Jove, then we have won the battle!”
“I guess so, sir!” said the doctor quietly.
The rest of us jumped up without finishing our supper and hurriedly ran out for more news. Then we heard from afar a swelling wave of cheers rolling along our lines toward us, and in a few minutes we had the whole glorious story. It was an amazing tale. Sherman's attack on the enemy's right having come to a standstill, several divisions of the Army of the Cumberland in our center were ordered to advance. It was at first not intended to attempt the actual storming of Missionary Ridge—a fortified position which seemed well-nigh impregnable by a front attack—but rather to make a threatening demonstration calculated to induce Bragg to withdraw forces from his right to his center, and thus to facilitate Sherman's task. But the brave men of our Army of the Cumberland, once launched, could not be held back. With irresistible impetuosity, without orders,—it may almost be said against orders,—they rushed forward, hurled the enemy's advanced lines out of their defenses on the slope, scaled the steep acclivity like wild-cats, suddenly appeared on the crest of the ridge, where the rebel host, amazed at this wholly unlooked-for audacity, fled in wild confusion, leaving their entrenched artillery and thousands of prisoners behind them. It was a soldier's triumph, one of the most brilliant in history.
GENERAL GRANT AT MISSIONARY RIDGE Grant is in the lower left corner of the photograph.
The next two days we took part in the pursuit of the
discomfited enemy, which resulted in the capture of more guns—bringing up the total to 42 pieces—of more prisoners, amounting to 6000 in all, and of large numbers of vehicles and stores, and in vast destruction of property. And then we set out under General Sherman's command on an expedition to Knoxville, East Tennessee, for the relief of General Burnside, who was hard pressed by General Longstreet's corps.
According to alarming reports, Burnside was in sore need of speedy help. It seemed to be a matter of days how long he would be able to hold out. The distance to be covered in a hurry was 120 miles. We marched in the lightest kind of order—no tents, no wagon trains, the men carrying only their blankets and knapsacks, if they had any, with something to eat in their haversacks, and plenty of ammunition in their cartridge boxes. But they were in fine spirits after the great victory, and bore the fatigue of the forced march with excellent cheer. We usually started about daybreak and went into camp about dark, having in the meantime crossed rivers and creeks with or without bridges, and mountain passes, sometimes over roads hardly worthy of the name. We saw no enemy in our front except some cavalry detachments sent out not to fight, but to observe. Whenever they came within range, a shell or two from our guns made them scamper off.
On this march I witnessed a little scene which was characteristic of the “fun” which we higher officers occasionally indulged in. One frosty morning I noticed a rather decent-looking house by the roadside, from the chimney of which a blue cloud of smoke curled up. In the front yard two orderlies were holding saddled horses. I concluded that there must be general officers inside, and, possibly, something to eat. Seduced by this thought, I dismounted, and found within, toasting their feet by a crackling wood fire, General Sherman
and General Jefferson C. Davis, who commanded a division in the Fourteenth Corps attached to Sherman's command,—the same General Jeff. C. Davis, who, at the beginning of the war, had attracted much attention by the killing of General Nelson in the Galt House at Louisville. General Sherman kindly invited me to sit with them, and I did so. A few minutes later General Howard entered. I have already mentioned that General Howard enjoyed the reputation of great piety, and went by the name of “the Christian soldier.” General Sherman greeted him in his brusque way, exclaiming: “Glad to see you, Howard! Sit down by the fire! Damned cold this morning!” Howard, who especially abhorred the use of “swear words,” answered demurely: “Yes, General, it is quite cold this morning.” Sherman may have noticed a slight touch of reproof in this answer. At any rate, I observed a wink he gave General Davis with his left eye, while a sarcastic smile flitted across his features. It became at once clear what it meant, for Davis instantly, while talking about some indifferent subject, began to intersperse his speech with such a profusion of “damns” and the like, when there was not the slightest occasion for it, that one might have supposed him to be laboring under the intensest excitement, while really he was in perfectly cold blood. In fact, as I afterward learned, General Davis was noted for having mastered the vocabulary of the “Army in Flanders” more completely than any other man of his rank. Howard made several feeble attempts to give a different turn to the conversation, but in vain. Encouraged by repeated winks and also a few sympathetic remarks from Sherman, Davis inexorably continued the lurid flow of his infernalisms, until finally, Howard, with distress painted all over his face, got up and left; whereupon Sherman and Davis broke out in a peal of laughter. And when I ventured upon a remark about Howard's
sufferings, Sherman said: “Well, that Christian soldier business is all right in its place. But he needn't put on airs when we are among ourselves.”
A few weeks later, when the Knoxville campaign was over, Sherman addressed a letter to Howard thanking him, most deservedly, for the excellent services rendered by him on that expedition, and praising him as “one who mingled so gracefully and perfectly the polished Christian gentleman and the prompt, zealous, and gallant soldier.” When I read this, I remembered the scene I have just described, and imagined I saw a little twinkle in Sherman's eye.
On December 5th, not many miles from Knoxville, we were informed that Longstreet had not waited for the arrival of our forces of relief, but effected his retreat toward Virginia. Thus our expedition had accomplished its purpose. It was a victory achieved by the soldiers' legs. We were allowed a day's rest, and then started on our way back, the same 120 miles and a little more, to our old camp in Lookout Valley. We could march more leisurely, but the return seemed harder than the advance had been. There was not the same spirit in it. Our regular food supplies were entirely exhausted. We had “to live upon the country.” We impressed what live stock we could, which was by no means always sufficient. The surrounding population, Union people, were friendly, but poor. Roasted wheat and corn had to serve for coffee, molasses found on the farms, for sugar. But far worse than this, the clothing of the men was in tatters, the shoes worn and full of holes. Perhaps one-fourth of the men had none at all. They protected their feet by winding rags around them. Their miseries were increased by occurrences like this: One day our march was unusually difficult. We passed through a hilly country. The roads were in many places like dry, washed-out beds of
mountain torrents, full of boulders, large and small. The artillery horses could not possibly pull their pieces and caissons over these obstacles. They had to be unhitched, and infantry detachments were called upon to help the artillerymen lift their guns and appurtenances over the rocks. This operation had to be repeated several times during the day. Thus the marching column was stopped time and again without affording the soldiers any real rest. On the contrary, such irregular stoppages for an uncertain length of time are apt to annoy and fatigue the marching men all the more. At last, toward dusk of the evening, I struck on our route a large meadow-ground through which a clear stream of water flowed. There was plenty of wood for fires near by. The spot seemed to be made for camping. My orders as to how far I was to march, were not quite definite. I was to receive further instructions on the way. My troops having been on their feet from early morning and having marched under the difficulties described, were tired beyond measure. They just dragged themselves painfully along. I resolved to rest them on this favored spot if permitted, and dispatched a staff officer to corps-headquarters, two or three miles ahead, to obtain that permission. Meanwhile, waiting for an answer which I did not doubt would be favorable, camping places were assigned to the different brigades.
After the lapse of about an hour, when a large part of my command had come in and were beginning to build fires and to prepare such food as they had, my officer returned from corps-headquarters with the positive order that I must, without loss of time, continue my march and proceed about three miles farther, where a camping place would be assigned to me. I thought there must be some mistake, as, according to reports, there was no enemy within many miles, and I dispatched a
second staff officer to represent to corps-headquarters that to start my men again would be downright cruelty to them, and I begged that they be allowed to stay for the night where they were, unless there were real necessity for their marching on. In due time the answer came that there was such necessity. Now nothing was to be done but to obey instantly. My division bugler sounded the signal. There arose something like a sullen groan from the bivouac, but the men emptied the water, which was just beginning to boil in their kettles, upon the ground, and promptly fell into line. We had hardly been on the way half an hour when a fearful thunderstorm broke upon us. The rain came down in sheets like a cloudburst, driving right into our faces. In a few minutes we were all drenched to the skin. I wore a stout cavalry overcoat with cape, well lined with flannel, over my uniform. In an incredibly short time I felt the cold water trickle down my body. My riding boots were soon full to overflowing. One may imagine the sorry plight of the poor fellows in rags. They had to suffer, too, not only from the water coming down from above, but also from water coming from below. We were again passing through a hilly district. The road ran along the bottom of a deep valley with high ridges on both sides. From these the rain-water rushed down in streams, transforming the road into a swelling torrent, the water reaching up to the knees of the men, and higher. Meanwhile the thunder was rolling, the lightning flashing, and the poor sufferers stumbling over unseen boulders under the water, and venting their choler in wild imprecations.
At last, after having struggled on in this way for about two hours, we emerged from the wooded hills into a more open country—at least I judged so, as the darkness seemed to be a little relieved. The storm had ceased. Riding at the head of my column, I ran against a horseman standing in
the middle of the road. “What troops are these?” he asked. “Third Division, Eleventh Corps.” He made himself known as an officer of the corps staff. My advance patrol had somehow missed him and gone astray. He brought me an order to put my command into camp “right here on both sides of the road.” I asked him what it was that made my march in this dreadful night necessary, but he did not know. It was so dark that I could not distinguish anything beyond half a dozen feet. I did discover, however, that on “both sides of the road” there were plowed fields. There was water from the rain standing in the furrows and the ridges were softened into a thick mire. And there my men were to camp. My staff officers scattered themselves to find a more convenient, or less dismal, location for the men, but they soon returned, having, in the gloom, run into camps occupied by other troops. Nothing remained but to stay where we were. The regiments were distributed as well as possible in the darkness. The men could not stretch themselves out on the ground because the ground was covered or soaked with water. They had to sit down on their knapsacks, if they had any, or on their heels, and try to catch some sleep in that position. About midnight the wind shifted suddenly and blew bitterly cold from the north, so bitterly, indeed, that after a while our outer garments began to freeze stiff on our bodies. I thought I could hear the men's teeth chatter. I am sure mine did. There we sat, now and then dropping into a troubled doze, waiting for day to dawn. As soon as the first gray of the morning streaked the horizon, there was a general stir. The men rose and tossed and swung their limbs to get their blood into circulation. The feet of not a few were frozen fast in the soil, and when they pulled them up, they left the soles of such shoes as they had, sticking in the hardened mud. The pools of water left by the rain were covered with solid
crusts of ice, and the cold north wind was still blowing. I started my command as soon as possible in order to get the men into motion, intending to have them prepare their breakfast further on in some more congenial spot. The ranks were considerably thinned, a large number of the men having strayed away from the column and trudged on in the darkness of the night. As we proceeded we saw them crawl out from houses or barns or sheds or heaps of cornstraw or whatever protection from the weather they had been able to find. The hard-frozen and stony road was marked with streaks of blood from the feet of the poor fellows who limped painfully along.
And finally it turned out that all this had been for nothing. Headquarters had been disturbed by a rumor that the enemy was attempting a cavalry raid in our direction, which might have made a drawing together of our forces necessary. But the rumor proved quite unfounded. I have told the story of that dismal night so elaborately to show my reader that even in an ordinary campaign, not to be compared with the retreat of Napoleon's army from the Russian snow-fields, soldiers are sometimes exposed to hardships not always necessary, which in their effects are now and then no less destructive than powder and lead.
But on the whole the expedition to Knoxville for the relief of Burnside had been a decided success. The forced marches were well planned, and executed with exemplary precision and spirit. Congratulatory orders and complimentary letters were flying about in great profusion. General Sherman wrote one to General Howard in which he, with justice, commended his conduct very highly, and charged him “to convey to General Schurz and Colonel Buschbeck and to all your officers the assurance of my official and personal respect.” General Howard, in his turn, was quite eloquent in praise of the
Eleventh Corps, and lauded its “division and brigade commanders for the energy and constancy they manifested during the campaign.” In the course of his report he spoke with especial commendation of Colonel Hecker, who commanded my Third Brigade, and who had performed the most arduous duties with his characteristic spirit and efficiency. On the 17th of December we re-occupied our old encampments in Lookout Valley and looked forward to a comparatively quiet and comfortable winter.
But my repose and that of many of the officers in my command was disturbed in an entirely unexpected and exasperating manner. On the 10th of January, 1864, I found in a New York paper a reprint of General Hooker's official report on the engagement of Wauhatchie, which I have so elaborately described above because a knowledge of the details of the occurrence is needed for a just appreciation of what followed. In that report General Hooker praised the conduct of the troops under his command in the Wauhatchie affair very highly, and then added:
“I regret that my duty constrains me to except any portion of my command in my commendation of their courage and valor. The brigade dispatched to the relief of Geary, by orders delivered in person to the division commander, never reached him until long after the fight had ended. It was alleged that it lost its way, when it had a terrific infantry fire to guide it all over the way; and that it became involved in a swamp, where there was no swamp or other obstacle between it and Geary to delay it a moment in marching to the relief of its imperiled companions.”
When I read this I was utterly amazed and indignant. I had often heard a murmur among the generals of the army that “Joe Hooker's character for truth and veracity was not
good.” But how he could have put into an official report statements so palpably false and so malicious was beyond my comprehension. It was cowardly at the same time, for if Hooker's allegations were true, or believed by him to be true, it was his obvious duty not only to call the division and the brigade commanders by name, but to cause them to be tried by court martial for undutiful conduct in the presence of the enemy. What brigade was meant in the report as guilty of such conduct? Was it Tyndale's, which really had run into a bog, but which was promptly extricated, and then by General Hooker's own order, acknowledged by him, took and occupied a gap in the hills? Or was it Hecker's brigade, which, on its way to Geary's position, was held back by General Hooker himself and was permitted to proceed only long after Geary's fight had ceased, and had never been stopped by any swamp? I had hardly finished reading the report when my brave friend Colonel Hecker, pale with anger, rushed into my tent, paper in hand, and with quivering lip swore that he would rather die than submit to so infamous an outrage as this imputation. I suggested to Hecker that he address to me a written protest against this untruthful report, in the calmest language he could command, and a short statement of the facts, together with a demand for a court of inquiry, and I sat down at once to write a letter to General Hooker containing an emphatic remonstrance against his report, in which I declared that, “believing that Colonel Hecker and his command did on that occasion all they were ordered to do, and did it with conscientiousness and alacrity, I begged leave to assume the responsibility for their conduct, if any mistakes or any violation of orders had been committed. If, indeed, anybody must be blamed, I would rather claim the blame entirely for myself, than permit it to fall, even by construction, upon my subordinate commanders and their men,
who bear no responsibility in this matter and have always executed orders with promptness and spirit.” I then asked, “respectfully and earnestly,” that General Hooker properly exonerate Colonel Hecker and his brigade from the accusation cast upon them, or that a court of inquiry be granted to probe the matter to the bottom. Thus I made the cause of my subordinates my own, fully resolved to expose the calumny and calumniator and not to spare him.
The court of inquiry was granted, but with ill grace. In the first place it was ordered to include in its investigation all the operations connected with the fight at Wauhatchie, which would have required the collection of great masses of testimony obscuring the real issue and consuming endless time. I remonstrated, and the order was satisfactorily changed. But in the second place the composition of the court might have been resented as an indignity to me. Among its members there was not a single officer of my rank, and all of them belonged to General Hooker's command. But this I permitted to pass without any protest, relying upon the justice of my cause. As I expected, the testimony of the many witnesses called demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil the absolute truthfulness of the story as I have told it above: That General Hooker had ordered me to march my command to the relief of Geary; that I started at the head of Tyndale's brigade to execute this order, having directed my other two brigades to follow me; that then, being attacked near his camp, General Hooker disposed by later orders of these two brigades for other purposes; that he ordered me to take and occupy a gap in the hills with the only brigade, Tyndale's, left me; that Colonel Hecker finally sent off to Geary, had acted strictly according to General Hooker's and my personal directions; that Hecker could not by any possibility have reached Geary before the end
of his fight, because he was not let go by General Hooker himself until hours after Geary's fight had ended, and so on; in other words, that General Hooker's report was nothing but a muddled jumble of untruths.
General Hooker, when examined as a witness, had substantially nothing to say except that he must stand by his report. But having the privilege of summing up the case in my own behalf, I availed myself of the opportunity to give General Hooker a piece of my mind. I did this to my heart's content in a written statement which I read to the court, and which went on record. I reviewed the testimony with great care, exposing every fact in the case with the utmost clearness, and then paid General Hooker my compliments—in this style:
“Before closing, I deem it my duty to call your attention to one feature of this business which has an important bearing, not only upon my interests but upon yours and upon those of every subordinate commander in the army. We are bound by the iron chains of military discipline. The superior has it in his power to do all manner of things which may work serious injury to the honor and reputation of the subordinate, which the latter is but seldom at liberty to disprove and almost never able to resent. The greater, in this respect, the power of the superior, the more is he in honor and conscience bound to use his power with the utmost carefulness and discrimination, for the honor and reputation of every subordinate officer is a sacred trust in the hands of the superior commander. The most formidable weapon in the hands of the latter is his official report of campaigns and actions. It is universally received as documentary history, as the purest fountain from which the future historian can take his most reliable information. Praise and censure conveyed in such a report is generally looked upon as based upon irrefutable evidence. And it ought
to be. Every conscientious commander will therefore consider it a sacred duty, before making an official statement affecting the honor and reputation of a subordinate, to scrutinize with scrupulous care the least incident connected with the case; and when at last, after weighing every circumstance, he has arrived at the conclusion that his duty commands him to pronounce a censure, he will again well weigh every word he says so as to be perfectly sure that he does not say too much. For it must be considered that public opinion is generally swayed by first impressions, and an injury once done can but rarely be repaired by a subsequent modification of language.
“And I now invite you to apply this criterion, which certainly is a just one, to the report of General Hooker. That it is severe in its reflections on a body of troops, nobody will deny. By solemnly excepting them in a general commendation of courage and valor, it stigmatizes them as destitute of the first qualities which a soldier is proud of. That the report is a just one, who will after this investigation assert it? I am far from saying that General Hooker knowingly and willfully reported what was false; his position ought to exempt him from the suspicion of such an act. I have not entertained that suspicion a moment, but what excuse is there for his error?
“There are two things which every conscientious man will be careful to guard against. The first is saying anything to the prejudice of another which he knows to be false, and the other is saying anything to the prejudice of another which he does not positively know to be true. And did General Hooker positively know his report to be true and just? He could not know to be just what is proved to be unjust. But would it have been impossible to ascertain the truth? I lived within five minutes' walk of his headquarters. My brigade commanders were all within call. I saw him almost every day, and a single question
would have elicited a satisfactory explanation. The question was not asked. Five minutes' conversation with his own aides, Lieutenant Oliver and Captain Hall, would have removed the error. Was the error so dear to him that he shielded it with silence against the truth? But to me it is a mystery how that error could stand against the force of his own recollections. Were they, too, shut out when that paragraph was penned? They would, indeed, have ill-comported with the sensational dash with which the verbiage of the censure is flavored.
“You will admit that this is not the way in which troops should be declared destitute of courage and valor; troops belonging to a division which on three battlefields lost far more killed and wounded than it counted men when I was put in command, and than it counts men to-day; and this is not the way to treat an officer, not one of whose subordinates will say that when he was in a place of danger his general was not with him. This is a levity which would not be admissible in the ordinary walks of life, much less in the military world, where every question of honor is weighed with scrupulous nicety. When looking at this most strange transaction, every impartial observer will ask himself, 'What can have been the motive of this?' If the battle had been lost, we might have found the motive in the desire of the commander to throw the responsibility upon some subordinate whom he might select as the unfortunate victim of his embarrassments. This, indeed, would not be noble nor even excusable; yet we can find the springs of such actions among the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. But we were victorious; the results of the action were uncommonly gratifying, and that General Hooker should then sit down and coolly endeavor to consign a fellow-soldier and part of his command to shame, and affectingly ornament the scene with the fanciful pyrotechnics of a terrific infantry fire
flaming around imperiled companions—for that I seek the motive in vain.” * * * *
“Everybody that knows me, will tell you that here, as elsewhere, I have been and am the most forbearing and inoffensive of men. And even in this case, I would have abstained from all sharpness of criticism had I not, by a series of occurrences, been tortured into the conviction that, at last, I owed it to myself and to my companions to array on one occasion the whole truth in its nakedness against official and private obloquy.” * * * *
The verdict of the court of inquiry appeared like an almost ludicrous effort to carry water on both shoulders. It is intelligible that the colonels composing that court should have hesitated to find their commander, General Hooker, guilty of a muddled head during the night of the Wauhatchie engagement in giving orders and then making the execution of those orders utterly impossible by subsequent orders, and of covering this fact by a palpable falsehood and a shameless slander of his subordinates in an official report. On the other hand, they were too honest to join General Hooker in his outrageous misrepresentation of facts and his calumnious assault. Thus they hit upon a finding according to which the facts were exactly as I had stated them; but General Hooker was right in wishing Geary speedily relieved, and in being displeased when this was not done as he had wished; and he held back my brigades, believing I had other troops to send to Geary. Tyndale was right in not marching to the relief of Geary, because he was ordered to occupy a certain hill. Hecker was right in doing what he did, because he was ordered to do so. And, finally, “General Schurz, as soon as he had received his orders from General Hooker, promptly set about carrying them into execution; the troops were quickly under arms; they turned out splendidly. The necessary orders answering the object and fitting the
circumstances were given. The column was put in motion, and General Schurz took his proper place at its head. He had reason to assume, and act upon the assumption, that his entire command was following him; if any of his brigades failed to do so, they acted in disregard of orders, or were stopped by orders which were regarded as superior to those of General Schurz. General Schurz had official information upon which in the opinion of the court, he was authorized to rely and act; that the Second and Third Brigades of his division had been detached from his command, and were under orders direct from General Hooker, which orders were in conflict with the orders issued by him. In the opinion of the court, General Schurz has fully explained his delay in going to the relief of Geary, and his apparent disobedience of orders in this regard, and fully justified his conduct in the premises, and consequently it follows that he has exonerated himself from the strictures contained in General Hooker's official report.” As to my vindication, the verdict could not have been more conclusive and emphatic.
I was told that General Hooker felt the substantial condemnation of his conduct very keenly, and spoke of it with intense bitterness. Although I remained under his command for several months longer, I never saw him again until about fifteen years later at a dinner at the White House. I was then Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes. General Hooker had been married in the meantime, and, visiting Washington with his wife, was invited to dine with the President. The President, knowing nothing of our past difficulties, invited me, too, thinking that it would be a pleasant meeting of old war comrades. I noticed, after dinner, that Hooker sought to have some private words with me, and I could not avoid him. “You know, General,” he said, “that trouble about
Wauhatchie between you and me was all owing to Howard's riding away from his command.” “General,” I answered—I fear somewhat coldly—“I do not see what Howard's riding away could have had to do with our quarrel.” Some other guest intervening, there our conversation stopped.
MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER Commander of the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville After inaugurating what promised to be a brilliant offensive campaign, he surrendered the initiative to Lee and during the remainder of the action showed a spirit of indecision that was quite out of keeping with his title of “Fighting Joe.”
General Hooker proved himself a brilliant corps commander on many a battlefield. His “battle above the clouds,” although by no means the hardest of his fights, has won a shining place in history. His competency as a commander of a large army was very seriously put in doubt by his amazing failure at Chancellorsville. It was in a large measure the infirmities of his character that stood in his way, impeding, if not altogether preventing, hearty co-operation between him and his comrades. He had, deservedly, the reputation of an envious critic and backbiter, running down other persons' merit to extol his own. He did not spare the best. In a curious letter of December, 1863, addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, in which he gave a somewhat sarcastic account of what he considered an insidious attempt by Grant to deprive him of his due part in the battle of Missionary Ridge, to the advantage of Sherman, he said of that general: “Sherman is an energetic and active officer, but in my judgment is as infirm as Burnside. He will never be successful. Please remember what I tell you.” The feeling called forth by such things among the high officers of the army can well be imagined. When in September, 1863, General Slocum, as commander of the Twelfth Corps, being put under the orders of General Hooker, protested against the arrangement on the ground that “he had no confidence in General Hooker as an officer, and no respect for him as a man,” he spoke the mind of many of his comrades. Subsequently, on Sherman's “march to the sea,” Hooker found himself compelled to ask to be relieved
from his position in that army, on the ground of the indignities he had to suffer in the distribution of commands among the various major generals; and thus he disappeared from the scene at a time when he might still have rendered much good service. But his character made his comrades decidedly disinclined to serve under, or even with him.
MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM
My encounter with General Hooker, although very satisfactory to me in some respects, and very much enjoyed by other officers, who keenly relished the moral drubbing Hooker had received, after all had serious consequences to me as to my position in the army. It was quite clear that thenceforth I could not again serve under the orders of General Hooker in any campaign, and that, on the other hand, he would not wish to have me among his subordinate commanders. I did not ask to be relieved or transferred at once, because that would have looked like a moral retreat. Besides, I had some hope that in the reorganization of the army preparatory to the Atlanta campaign, some way might be found to obviate the difficulty. I neglected, or, rather, I deemed it improper to urge or even express my personal wishes, and quietly went about the duties assigned to my command, which, during the winter and early spring, consisted in guarding and keeping in repair the so-called “cracker-line,” which supplied the army camped at Chattanooga and vicinity with its necessaries; an office which the very long, one-track railroad, exposed to guerrilla attacks and the like, did not always satisfactorily perform—for I remember weeks during which salt was lacking and we used gunpowder instead, and forage was so scarce that many horses, among them two of my own, died of actual want of food. At last I was advised that in the work of reorganization the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps had been consolidated under the name of the Twentieth Corps, that the Twentieth Corps was to be
commanded by General Hooker, and that I was assigned to the command of a so-called Corps of Instruction near Nashville, in which a number of newly levied regiments were to be made fit for active duty, and then, presumptively, to form part of the Army of the Cumberland, under General Thomas. Thus I was separated from General Hooker, but in a manner not at all according to my wishes and expectations. I had hoped to march with Sherman southward, but the position to which I was now assigned promised little active service, for nobody could then foresee the battle of Nashville. Still, I obeyed orders without protest or murmur. My camp was speedily established at Edgefield, on the northern side of the river, opposite Nashville, and several newly organized regiments from Western States, especially from Indiana, came in to fill it.
It was then that I made the acquaintance of Andrew Johnson, whom President Lincoln had made “Military Governor” of Tennessee. I called upon him at the State House in Nashville, and he received me not only with polite kindness, but with some evidence of a desire to cultivate intercourse with me. I was not quite clear in my own mind about the impression be made upon me. He had worked himself up from poverty and a low social position to political prominence by the energy of his character and a degree of ability which, if not brilliant, was at least higher than that of his political competitors in East Tennessee. By a bold and vigorous fight against all secession tendencies and against the arrogant pretensions of the slave-holding aristocracy, he became the most conspicuous representative and the leader of the loyal Union element of the South. His appearance was not prepossessing, at least not to me. His countenance was of a distinctly plebeian cast, somewhat like that of the late Senator Douglas, but it had nothing of Douglas' force and vivacity in it. There was no genial sunlight in it;
rather something sullen, something betokening a strong will inspired by bitter feelings. I could well imagine him leading with vindictive energy an uprising of a lower order of society against an aristocracy from whose lordly self-assertion he had suffered, and whose pride he was bent upon humiliating. Nor did he as a “child of the soil,” possess anything of that ingenuous, naïve, and lovable naturalness which never ceased to form one of the greatest charms of Lincoln's character. Johnson was by no means a man of culture. His education had been of the scantiest. Judging from his conversation, his mind moved in a narrow circle of ideas as well as of phrases. But his contact with the world had taught him certain things as to decent and correct appearance. As often as I saw him I found him clothed in the customary broadcloth of the higher politician in Washington, with immaculate linen; and I noticed also in his deportment, as far as I could observe it, an air, whether assumed or genuine, of quiet dignity. Yet I could not rid myself of the impression that beneath this staid and sober exterior there were still some wild fires burning which occasionally might burst to the surface. This impression was strengthened by a singular experience. It happened twice or three times that, when I called upon him, I was told by the attendant that the Governor was sick and could not see anybody; then, after the lapse of four or five days, he would send for me, and I would find him uncommonly natty in his attire, and generally “groomed” with especial care. He would also wave off any inquiry about his health. When I mentioned this circumstance to one of the most prominent Union men of Nashville, he smiled, and said that the Governor had “his infirmities,” but was “all right” on the whole.
My conversation with him always turned upon political subjects. He was a demonstratively fierce Union man—not
upon anti-slavery grounds, but from constitutional reasons and from hatred of the slave-holding aristocracy, the oppressors and misleaders of the common people, who had resolved to destroy the Republic if they were not permitted to rule it. The constant burden of his speech was that this rebellion against the government of the Union was treason, and that treason was a crime that must be made odious by visiting condign punishment upon the traitors. To hear him expatiate upon this, his favorite theme, one would have thought that if this man ever came into power, the face of the country would soon bristle with gibbets, and foreign lands swarm with fugitives from the avenging sword of the Republic. And such sentiments he uttered not in a tone betraying the slightest excitement, but with the calmness of long-standing and unquestionable conviction. When, in the course of our conversations, I suggested, as I sometimes did, that there were in the reconstruction of the Union other objects to be accomplished fully as important as the punishment of the traitors, he would treat such suggestions with polite indulgence, at the same time insisting with undisturbed sternness, that the Union could not endure unless by a severe punishment of the traitors, treason were forever branded as the unpardonable crime. Indeed, this seemed to constitute the principal part of his political program for the future. No doubt, there were gentler and more amiable currents of feeling in Mr. Johnson's composition, known to his family, friends, and neighbors; but in our political talks at that time they did not manifest themselves. When, a short time after my first meeting with Mr. Johnson, the Republican National Convention nominated him as its candidate for the vice-presidency, I was, I must confess, one of those who received the news with a certain uneasiness of feeling.