Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field Part 20

The chambermaid of the steamboat displayed the greatest sympathy in my behalf. She declined to receive payment of a was.h.i.+ng-bill, and burst into tears when I a.s.sured her the money was of no use to me.

Her fears for my welfare were caused by a frightful story that had been told her by a cabin-boy. He maliciously represented that I was to be executed for attempting to purchase cotton from a Rebel quartermaster. The verdant woman believed the story for several days.

It may interest some readers to know that the proceedings of a court-martial are made in writing. The judge-advocate (who holds the same position as the prosecuting attorney in a civil case) writes his questions, and then reads them aloud. The answers, as they are given, are reduced to writing. The questions or objections of the prisoner's counsel must be made in writing and given to the judge-advocate, to be read to the court. In trials where a large number of witnesses must be examined, it is now the custom to make use of "short-hand" writers. In this way the length of a trial is greatly reduced.

The members of a court-martial sit in full uniform, including sash and sword, and preserve a most severe and becoming dignity. Whenever the court wishes to deliberate upon any point of law or evidence, the room is cleared, neither the prisoner nor his counsel being allowed to remain. It frequently occurs that the court is thus closed during the greater part of its sessions. With the necessity for recording all its proceedings, and frequent stoppages for deliberation, a trial by a military court is ordinarily very slow.

In obedience to the order of the court, I left the vicinity of the Army of the Tennessee, and proceeded North.

In departing from Young's Point, I could not obey a certain Scriptural injunction, as the mud of Louisiana adheres like glue, and defies all efforts to shake it off. Mr. Albert D. Richardson, of The Tribune, on behalf of many of my professional friends, called the attention of President Lincoln to the little affair between General Sherman and myself.

In his recently published book of experiences during the war, Mr.

Richardson has given a full and graphic account of his interview with the President. Mr. Lincoln unbent himself from his official cares, told two of his best stories, conversed for an hour or more upon the military situation, gave his reasons for the removal of General McClellan, and expressed his hope in our ultimate success. Declaring it his inflexible determination not to interfere with the conduct of any military department, he wrote the following doc.u.ment:--

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, _March_ 20, 1863.

WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Whereas it appears to my satisfaction that Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent of _The New York Herald_, has been, by the sentence of a court-martial, excluded from the Military Department under command of Major-General Grant, and also that General Thayer, president of the court-martial, which rendered the sentence, and Major-General McClernand, in command of a corps of that department, and many other respectable persons, are of opinion that Mr. Knox's offense was technical, rather than willfully wrong, and that the sentence should be revoked: Now, therefore, said sentence is hereby so far revoked as to allow Mr. Knox to return to General Grant's head-quarters, to remain if General Grant shall give his express a.s.sent; and to again leave the department, if General Grant shall refuse such a.s.sent.

A. LINCOLN

With this letter I returned to the army. General Grant referred the question to General Sherman. In consideration of our quarrel, and knowing the unamiable character of the latter officer, I should have been greatly surprised had he given any thing else than a refusal. I had fully expected to return immediately when I left St. Louis, but, like most persons in a controversy, wished to carry my point.

General Sherman long since retrieved his failure at Chickasaw Bayou.

Throughout the war he was honored with the confidence and friends.h.i.+p of General Grant. The career of these officers was not marked by the jealousies that are too frequent in military life. The hero of the campaign from Chattanooga to Raleigh is destined to be known in history. In those successful marches, and in the victories won by his tireless and never vanquished army, he has gained a reputation that may well be enduring.

Soon after my return from Young's Point, General Grant crossed the Mississippi at Grand Gulf, and made his daring and successful movement to attain the rear of Vicksburg. Starting with a force less than the one his opponent could bring against him, he cut loose from his communications and succeeded in severing the enemy's line of supplies.

From Grand Gulf to Jackson, and from Jackson to the rear of Vicksburg, was a series of brilliant marches and brilliant victories. Once seated where he had his antagonist's army inclosed, General Grant opened his lines to the Yazoo, supplied himself with every thing desired, and pressed the siege at his leisure. With the fall of Vicksburg, and the fall, a few days later, of Port Hudson, "the Father of Waters went unvexed to the Sea."

While the army was crossing the Mississippi at Grand Gulf, three well-known journalists, Albert D. Richardson and Junius H. Browne, of _The Tribune_, and Richard T. Colburn, of _The World_, attempted to run past the Rebel batteries at Vicksburg, on board a tug at midnight.

The tug was blown up and destroyed; the journalists were captured and taken to the Rebel prison at Vicksburg. Thence they were removed to Richmond, occupying, while _en route_, the prisons of a half-dozen Rebel cities. Mr. Colburn was soon released, but the companions of his adventure were destined to pa.s.s nearly two years in the prisons of the Confederacy. By a fortunate escape and a midwinter march of nearly four hundred miles, they reached our lines in safety. In books and in lecture-rooms, they have since told the story of their captivity and flight.

I have sometimes thought my little quarrel with General Sherman proved "a blessing in disguise," in saving me from a similar experience of twenty months in Rebel prisons.

CHAPTER XXVI.

KANSAS IN WAR-TIME.

A Visit to Kansas.--Recollections of Border Feuds.--Peculiarities of Kansas Soldiers.--Foraging as a Fine Art.--Kansas and Missouri.--Settling Old Scores.--Depopulating the Border Counties.--Two Examples of Grand Strategy.--Capture of the "Little-More-Grape" Battery.--A Woman in Sorrow.--Frontier Justice.--Trial before a "Lynch" Court.--General Blunt's Order.--Execution of Horse-Thieves.--Auction Sale of Confiscated Property.--Banished to Dixie.

In May, 1863, I made a hasty visit to Western Missouri and Kansas, to observe the effect of the war in that quarter. Seven years earlier the border warfare attracted much attention. The great Rebellion caused Kansas and its troubles to sink into insignificance. Since the first election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, Kansas has been rarely mentioned.

I pa.s.sed through this young State in the summer of 1860. I was repeatedly told: "We have old grudges that we wish to settle; if the troubles ever break out again in any part of the United States, we hope to cross out our account." When the war opened, the people of Kansas saw their opportunity for "making square work," as they expressed it, with Missouri and the other slave States. They placed two regiments of volunteers in the field with as much celerity as was displayed in many of the older and more populous States. These regiments were followed by others until fully half the able-bodied population of Kansas was in the service. In some localities the proportion was even greater than this.

The dash and daring of these Kansas soldiers became proverbial. At Wilson Creek, two regiments from Kansas had their first experience of battle, and bore themselves most n.o.bly. The conduct of other Kansas soldiers, on other battle-fields, was equally commendable. Their bravery and endurance was only equaled by their ability in foraging.

Horses, mules, cattle, and provisions have, in all times, been considered the legitimate spoils of war. The Kansas soldiers did not confine themselves to the above, but appropriated every thing portable and valuable, whether useful or useless. Their example was contagious, and the entire army soon learned to follow it.

During General Grant's campaign in Mississippi in '62, the Seventh Kansas Cavalry obtained a reputation for ubiquity and lawlessness.

Every man who engaged in plundering on his own account, no matter to what regiment he belonged, invariably announced himself a member of the Seventh Kansas. Every countryman who was robbed declared the robbery was committed by the Seventh Kansas "Jayhawkers." Uniting all the stories of robbery, one would conclude that the Seventh Kansas was about twenty thousand strong, and constantly in motion by fifty different roads, leading to all points of the compa.s.s.

One day a soldier of the Second Illinois Cavalry gave me an account of his experience in horse-stealing.

"Jim and I went to an old farmer's house, and told him we wanted his horses. He said he wanted to use them himself, and couldn't spare them.

"'That don't make no sort of difference,' said I; 'we want your horses more than you do.'

"'What regiment do you belong to?'

"'Seventh Kansas Jayhawkers. The whole regiment talks of coming round here. I reckon I'll bring them.'

"When I told him that," said the soldier, "he said I might take the horses, if I would only go away. He offered me a pint of whisky if I would promise not to bring the regiment there. Jim and me drank the whisky, and told him we would use our influence for him."

Before the war was ended, the entire armies of the Southwest were able to equal the "Jayhawkers" in foraging. The march of Sherman's column through Mississippi, and afterward through Georgia and South Carolina, fully proved this. Particularly in the latter State, which originated the Rebellion, were the accomplishments of the foragers most conspicuously displayed. Our army left very little for another army to use.

The desolation which was spread through the Southern States was among the most effective blows at the Rebellion. The Rebels were taught in the most practical manner, that insurrection was not to be indulged in with impunity. Those who suffered most were generally among the earliest to sue for peace. Sherman's terse answer to the mayor of Atlanta, when the latter protested against the banishment of the inhabitants, was appreciated by the Rebels after our final campaigns.

"War is cruelty--you cannot refine it," speaks a volume in a few words.

When hostilities commenced, the Kansas regiments were clamorous to be led into Missouri. During the border war of '55 and '56, Missourians invaded Kansas to control the elections by force of arms, and killed, often in cold blood, many of the quiet citizens of the Territory. The tier of counties in Missouri adjoining Kansas were most anxious to make the latter a slave State, and used every possible means to accomplish their object.

The Kansas soldiers had their wish. They marched through Missouri.

Those who had taken part in the outrages upon Kansas, five years earlier, were made to feel the hand of retribution. If they had burned the buildings of free-State settlers in '56, they found their own houses destroyed in '62. In the old troubles they contended for their right to make whatever warfare they chose, but were astounded and horrified in the latter days, when the tables were turned against them by those they had wronged.

Along the frontier of Missouri the old system of warfare was revived.

Guerrilla bands were formed, of which Quantrel and similar men were the leaders. Various incursions were made into Kansas by these marauders, and the depredations were worse than ever.

They culminated in the burning of Lawrence and the ma.s.sacre of its inhabitants.

To break up these guerrilla bands, it became necessary to depopulate the western tier of counties in Missouri, from the Missouri River down to the thirty-eighth parallel of lat.i.tude. The most wealthy of these was Jackson County. Before the war it had a slave population of not far from four thousand, and its fields were highly productive. Two years after the war broke out it contained less than three hundred slaves, and its wealth had diminished in almost as great proportion.

This was before any freedom had been officially declared to the slaves in the Border States. The order of depopulation had the desired effect. It brought peace to the border, though at a terrible cost.

Missouri suffered greatly, and so did Kansas.

The most prominent officer that Kansas furnished during the Rebellion, was Brigadier-General Blunt. At the beginning of the war he enlisted as a private soldier, but did not remain long in the ranks. His reputation in the field was that of a brave and reckless officer, who had little regard to military forms. His successes were due to audacity and daring, rather than to skill in handling troops, or a knowledge of scientific warfare.

The battle of Cane Hill is said to have commenced by General Blunt and his orderlies attacking a Rebel picket. The general was surveying the country with his orderlies and a company of cavalry, not suspecting the enemy was as near as he proved to be.

At the moment Blunt came upon the picket, the cavalry was looking in another direction. Firing began, and the picket was driven in and fell back to a piece of artillery, which had an infantry support. Blunt was joined by his cavalry, and the gun was taken by a vigorous charge and turned upon the Rebels. The latter were kept at bay until the main force was brought up and joined in the conflict. The Rebels believed we had a much larger number than we really possessed, else our first a.s.sault might have proved a sudden repulse. The same daring was kept up throughout the battle, and gave us the victory.

At this battle we captured four guns, two of which bore a history of more than ordinary interest. They were of the old "Bragg's Battery"

that turned the scale at Buena Vista, in obedience to General Taylor's mandate, "Give them a little more grape, captain." After the Mexican war they were sent to the United States a.r.s.enal at Baton Rouge, whence they were stolen when the insurrection commenced. They were used against us at Wilson Creek and Pea Ridge.

At another battle, whose name I have forgotten, our entire force of about two thousand men was deployed into a skirmish line that extended far beyond the enemy's flanks. The Rebels were nearly six thousand strong, and at first manifested a disposition to stand their ground.