Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field Part 16

All the ordinary edibles of civilized life were brought forward in abundance. Had our men fought at all, they would have fought on full stomachs.

The arrival of General Buell's army at Louisville rendered it impossible for Bragg to take that city. The defenders of Cincinnati were re-enforced by a division from General Grant's army, which was then in West Tennessee. This arrival was followed by that of other trained regiments and brigades from various localities, so that we began to contemplate taking the offensive. The Rebels disappeared from our front, and a reconnoissance showed that they were falling back toward Lexington. They burned the turnpike and railway bridges as they retreated, showing conclusively that they had abandoned the siege.

As soon as the retirement of the Rebels was positively ascertained, a portion of our forces was ordered from Cincinnati to Louisville.

General Buell's army took the offensive, and pursued Bragg as he retreated toward the Tennessee River. General Wallace was relieved, and his command transferred to General Wright.

A change in the whole military situation soon transpired. From holding the defensive, our armies became the pursuers of the Rebels, the latter showing little inclination to risk an encounter. The battle of Perryville was the great battle of this Kentucky campaign. Its result gave neither army much opportunity for exultation.

In their retreat through Kentucky and Tennessee, the Rebels gathered all the supplies they could find, and carried them to their commissary depot at Knoxville. It was said that their trains included more than thirty thousand wagons, all of them heavily laden. Large droves of cattle and horses became the property of the Confederacy.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE BATTLE OF CORINTH.

New Plans of the Rebels.--Their Design to Capture Corinth,--Advancing to the Attack.--Strong Defenses.--A Magnificent Charge.--Valor _vs._ Breast-Works.--The Repulse.--Retreat and Pursuit.--The National Arms Triumphant.

The Bragg campaign into Kentucky being barren of important results, the Rebel authorities ordered that an attempt should be made to drive us from West Tennessee. The Rebel army in Northern Mississippi commenced the aggressive late in September, while the retreat of Bragg was still in progress. The battle of Iuka resulted favorably to the Rebels, giving them possession of that point, and allowing a large quant.i.ty of supplies to fall into their hands. On the 4th of October was the famous battle of Corinth, the Rebels under General Van Dorn attacking General Rosecrans, who was commanding at Corinth.

The Rebels advanced from Holly Springs, striking Corinth on the western side of our lines. The movement was well executed, and challenged our admiration for its audacity and the valor the Rebel soldiery displayed. It was highly important for the success of the Rebel plans in the Southwest that we should be expelled from Corinth.

Accordingly, they made a most determined effort, but met a signal defeat.

Some of the best fighting of the war occurred at this battle of Corinth. The Rebel line of battle was on the western and northern side of the town, cutting off our communications with General Grant at Jackson. The Rebels penetrated our line, and actually obtained possession of a portion of Corinth, but were driven out by hard, earnest work. It was a struggle for a great prize, in which neither party was inclined to yield as long as it had any strength remaining to strike a blow.

The key to our position was on the western side, where two earth-works had been thrown up to command the approaches in that direction. These works were known as "Battery Williams" and "Battery Robbinette," so named in honor of the officers who superintended their erection and commanded their garrisons at the time of the a.s.sault. These works were on the summits of two small hills, where the ascent from the main road that skirted their base was very gentle. The timber on these slopes had been cut away to afford full sweep to our guns. An advancing force would be completely under our fire during the whole time of its ascent. Whether succeeding or failing, it must lose heavily.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REBEL CHARGE AT CORINTH.]

General Van Dorn gave Price's Division the honor of a.s.saulting these works. The division was composed of Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas regiments, and estimated at eight thousand strong. Price directed the movement in person, and briefly told his men that the position must be taken at all hazards. The line was formed on the wooded ground at the base of the hills on which our batteries stood. The advance was commenced simultaneously along the line.

As the Rebels emerged from the forest, our guns were opened. Officers who were in Battery Williams at the time of the a.s.sault, say the Rebels moved in splendid order. Grape and sh.e.l.l made frequent and wide gaps through their ranks, but the line did not break nor waver. The men moved directly forward, over the fallen timber that covered the ground, and at length came within range of our infantry, which had been placed in the forts to support the gunners. Our artillery had made fearful havoc among the Rebels from the moment they left the protection of the forest. Our infantry was waiting with impatience to play its part.

When the Rebels were fairly within range of our small-arms, the order was given for a simultaneous volley along our whole line. As the shower of bullets struck the Rebel front, hundreds of men went down.

Many flags fell as the color-bearers were killed, but they were instantly seized and defiantly waved. With a wild cheer the Rebels dashed forward up to the very front of the forts, receiving without recoil a most deadly fire. They leaped the ditch and gained the parapet. They entered a bastion of Battery Williams, and for a minute held possession of one of our guns.

Of the dozen or more that gained the interior of the bastion, very few escaped. Nearly all were shot down while fighting for possession of the gun, or surrendered when the parapet was cleared of those ascending it. The retreat of the Rebels was hasty, but it was orderly.

Even in a repulse their coolness did not forsake them. They left their dead scattered thickly in our front. In one group of seventeen, they lay so closely together that their bodies touched each other. An officer told me he could have walked along the entire front of Battery Williams, touching a dead or wounded Rebel at nearly every step. Two Rebel colonels were killed side by side, one of them falling with his hand over the edge of the ditch. They were buried where they died.

In the attack in which the Rebels entered the edge of the town, the struggle was nearly as great. It required desperate fighting for them to gain possession of the spot, and equally desperate fighting on our part to retake it. All our officers who partic.i.p.ated in this battle spoke in admiration of the courage displayed by the Rebels. Praise from an enemy is the greatest praise. The Rebels were not defeated on account of any lack of bravery or of recklessness. They were fully justified in retreating after the efforts they made. Our army was just as determined to hold Corinth as the Rebels were to capture it.

Advantages of position turned the scale in our favor, and enabled us to repulse a force superior to our own.

Just before the battle, General Grant sent a division under General McPherson to re-enforce Corinth. The Rebels had cut the railway between the two points, so that the re-enforcement did not reach Corinth until the battle was over.

On the morning following the battle, our forces moved out in pursuit of the retreating Rebels. At the same time a column marched from Bolivar, so as to fall in their front. The Rebels were taken between the two columns, and brought to an engagement with each of them; but, by finding roads to the south, managed to escape without disorganization. Our forces returned to Corinth and Bolivar, thinking it useless to make further pursuit.

Thus terminated the campaign of the enemy against Corinth. There was no expectation that the Rebels would trouble us any more in that quarter for the present, unless we sought them out. Their defeat was sufficiently serious to compel them to relinquish all hope of expelling us from Corinth.

During the time of his occupation of West Tennessee, General Grant was much annoyed by the wandering sons of Israel, who thronged his lines in great numbers. They were engaged in all kinds of speculation in which money could be made. Many of them pa.s.sed the lines into the enemy's country, and purchased cotton, which they managed to bring to Memphis and other points on the river. Many were engaged in smuggling supplies to the Rebel armies, and several were caught while acting as spies.

On our side of the lines the Jews were Union men, and generally announced their desire for a prompt suppression of the Rebellion.

When under the folds of the Rebel flag they were the most ardent Secessionists, and breathed undying hostility to the Yankees. Very few of them had any real sympathy with either side, and were ready, like Mr. Pickwick, to shout with the largest mob on all occasions, provided there was money to be made by the operation. Their number was very great. In the latter half of '62, a traveler would have thought the lost tribes of Israel were holding a reunion at Memphis.

General Grant became indignant, and issued an order banis.h.i.+ng the Jews from his lines. The order created much excitement among the Americans of Hebraic descent. The matter was placed before the President, and the obnoxious restriction promptly revoked. During the time it was in force a large number of the proscribed individuals were obliged to go North.

Sometimes the Rebels did not treat the Jews with the utmost courtesy.

On one occasion a scouting party captured two Jews who were buying cotton. The Israelites were robbed of ten thousand dollars in gold and United States currency, and then forced to enter the ranks of the Rebel army. They did not escape until six months later.

In Chicago, in the first year of the war, a company of Jews was armed and equipped at the expense of their wealthier brethren. The men composing the company served their full time, and were highly praised for their gallantry.

The above case deserves mention, as it is an exception to the general conduct of the Jews.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE CAMPAIGN FROM CORINTH.

Changes of Commanders.--Preparations for the Aggressive.--Marching from Corinth.--Talking with the People.--"You-uns and We-uns."--Conservatism of a "Regular."--Loyalty and Disloyalty.--Condition of the Rebel Army.--Foraging.--German Theology for American Soldiers.--A Modest Landlord.--A Boy without a Name.--The Freedmen's Bureau.--Employing Negroes.--Holly Springs and its People.--An Argument for Secession.

Two weeks after the battle of Corinth, General Rosecrans was summoned to the Army of the c.u.mberland, to a.s.sume command in place of General Buell. General Grant was placed at the head of the Thirteenth Army Corps, including all the forces in West Tennessee. Preparations for an aggressive movement into the enemy's country had been in progress for some time. Corinth, Bolivar, and Jackson were strongly fortified, so that a small force could defend them. The base of supply was at Columbus, Kentucky, eighty-five miles due north of Jackson, thus giving us a long line of railway to protect.

On the first of November the movement began, by the advance of a column from Corinth and another from Bolivar. These columns met at Grand Junction, twenty-five miles north of Holly Springs, and, after lying there for two weeks, advanced to the occupation of the latter point. The Rebels evacuated the place on our approach, and after a day or two at Holly Springs we went forward toward the south. Abbeville and Oxford were taken, and the Rebels established themselves at Grenada, a hundred miles south of Memphis.

From Corinth I accompanied the division commanded by General Stanley.

I had known this officer in Missouri, in the first year of the war, when he claimed to be very "conservative" in his views. During the campaign with General Lyon he expressed himself opposed to a warfare that should produce a change in the social status at the South. When I met him at Corinth he was very "radical" in sentiment, and in favor of a thorough destruction of the "peculiar inst.i.tution." He declared that he had liberated his own slaves, and was determined to set free all the slaves of any other person that might come in his way. He rejoiced that the war had not ended during the six months following the fall of Fort Sumter, as we should then have allowed slavery to exist, which would have rendered us liable to another rebellion whenever the Southern leaders chose to make it. We could only be taught by the logic of events, and it would take two or three years of war to educate the country to a proper understanding of our position.

It required a war of greater magnitude than was generally expected at the outset. In 1861 there were few people who would have consented to interfere with "slavery in the States." The number of these persons was greater in 1862, but it was not until 1864 that the anti-slavery sentiment took firm hold of the public mind. In 1861 the voice of Missouri would have favored the retention of the old system. In 1864 that State became almost as radical as Ma.s.sachusetts. The change in public sentiment elsewhere was nearly as great.

During the march from Corinth to Grand Junction, I had frequent opportunity for conversing with the people along the route. There were few able-bodied men at home. It was the invariable answer, when we asked the whereabouts of any citizen, "He's away." Inquiry would bring a reluctant confession that he had gone to the Rebel army.

Occasionally a woman would boast that she had sent her husband to fight for his rights and the rights of his State. The violation of State rights and the infringement upon personal prerogative were charged upon the National Government as the causes of the war. Some of the women displayed considerable skill in arguing the question of secession, but their arguments were generally mingled with invective.

The majority were unable to make any discussion whatever.

"What's you-uns come down here to fight we-uns for?" said one of the women whose husband was in the Rebel army. "We-uns never did you-uns no hurt." (This addition of a syllable to the personal p.r.o.nouns of the second and third persons is common in some parts of the South, while in others it will not be heard.)

"Well," said General Stanley, "we came down here because we were obliged to come. Your people commenced a war, and we are trying to help you end it."

"We-uns didn't want to fight, no-how. You-uns went and made the war so as to steal our n.i.g.g.e.rs."

The woman acknowledged that neither her husband nor herself ever owned negroes, or ever expected to do so. She knew nothing about Fort Sumter, and only knew that the North elected one President and the South another, on the same occasion. The South only wanted its president to rule its own region, but the North wanted to extend its control over the whole country, so as to steal the negroes. Hence arose the war.

Some of the poorer whites manifested a loyal feeling, which sprang from a belief that the establishment of the Confederacy would not better their condition. This number was not large, but it has doubtless increased with the termination of the war. The wealthier portion of the people were invariably in sympathy with the Rebel cause.

After we reached Grand Junction, and made our camp a short distance south of that point, we were joined by the column from Bolivar. In the two columns General Grant had more than forty thousand men, exclusive of a force under General Sherman, about to move from Memphis. The Rebel army was at Holly Springs and Abbeville, and was estimated at fifty thousand strong. Every day found a few deserters coming in from the Rebels, but their number was not large. The few that came represented their army to be well supplied with shoes, clothing, and ammunition, and also well fed. They were nearly recovered from the effects of their repulse at Corinth, a month before.

Our soldiers foraged at will on the plantations near our camp. The quant.i.ties of supplies that were brought in did not argue that the country had been previously visited by an army. Mules, horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, and other things used by an army, were found in abundance.