CHAPTER XXVII.

HEADQUARTERS MOVED TO MEMPHIS--ON THE ROAD TO MEMPHIS--ESCAPING JACKSON

--COMPLAINTS AND REQUESTS--HALLECK APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF--RETURN

TO CORINTH--MOVEMENTS OF BRAGG--SURRENDER OF CLARKSVILLE--THE ADVANCE

UPON CHATTANOOGA--SHERIDAN COLONEL OF A MICHIGAN REGIMENT.

My position at Corinth, with a nominal command and yet no command,

became so unbearable that I asked permission of Halleck to remove my

headquarters to Memphis. I had repeatedly asked, between the fall of

Donelson and the evacuation of Corinth, to be relieved from duty under

Halleck; but all my applications were refused until the occupation of

the town. I then obtained permission to leave the department, but

General Sherman happened to call on me as I was about starting and urged

me so strongly not to think of going, that I concluded to remain. My

application to be permitted to remove my headquarters to Memphis was,

however, approved, and on the 21st of June I started for that point with

my staff and a cavalry escort of only a part of one company. There was

a detachment of two or three companies going some twenty-five miles west

to be stationed as a guard to the railroad. I went under cover of this

escort to the end of their march, and the next morning proceeded to La

Grange with no convoy but the few cavalry men I had with me.

From La Grange to Memphis the distance is forty-seven miles. There were

no troops stationed between these two points, except a small force

guarding a working party which was engaged in repairing the railroad.

Not knowing where this party would be found I halted at La Grange.

General Hurlbut was in command there at the time and had his

headquarters tents pitched on the lawn of a very commodious country

house. The proprietor was at home and, learning of my arrival, he

invited General Hurlbut and me to dine with him. I accepted the

invitation and spent a very pleasant afternoon with my host, who was a

thorough Southern gentleman fully convinced of the justice of secession.

After dinner, seated in the capacious porch, he entertained me with a

recital of the services he was rendering the cause. He was too old to

be in the ranks himself--he must have been quite seventy then--but his

means enabled him to be useful in other ways. In ordinary times the

homestead where he was now living produced the bread and meat to supply

the slaves on his main plantation, in the low-lands of Mississippi. Now

he raised food and forage on both places, and thought he would have that

year a surplus sufficient to feed three hundred families of poor men who

had gone into the war and left their families dependent upon the

"patriotism" of those better off. The crops around me looked fine, and

I had at the moment an idea that about the time they were ready to be

gathered the "Yankee" troops would be in the neighborhood and harvest

them for the benefit of those engaged in the suppression of the

rebellion instead of its support. I felt, however, the greatest respect

for the candor of my host and for his zeal in a cause he thoroughly

believed in, though our views were as wide apart as it is possible to

conceive.

The 23d of June, 1862, on the road from La Grange to Memphis was very

warm, even for that latitude and season. With my staff and small escort

I started at an early hour, and before noon we arrived within twenty

miles of Memphis. At this point I saw a very comfortable-looking

white-haired gentleman seated at the front of his house, a little

distance from the road. I let my staff and escort ride ahead while I

halted and, for an excuse, asked for a glass of water. I was invited at

once to dismount and come in. I found my host very genial and

communicative, and staid longer than I had intended, until the lady of

the house announced dinner and asked me to join them. The host,

however, was not pressing, so that I declined the invitation and,

mounting my horse, rode on.

About a mile west from where I had been stopping a road comes up from

the southeast, joining that from La Grange to Memphis. A mile west of

this junction I found my staff and escort halted and enjoying the shade

of forest trees on the lawn of a house located several hundred feet back

from the road, their horses hitched to the fence along the line of the

road. I, too, stopped and we remained there until the cool of the

afternoon, and then rode into Memphis.

The gentleman with whom I had stopped twenty miles from Memphis was a

Mr. De Loche, a man loyal to the Union. He had not pressed me to tarry

longer with him because in the early part of my visit a neighbor, a Dr.

Smith, had called and, on being presented to me, backed off the porch as

if something had hit him. Mr. De Loche knew that the rebel General

Jackson was in that neighborhood with a detachment of cavalry. His

neighbor was as earnest in the southern cause as was Mr. De Loche in

that of the Union. The exact location of Jackson was entirely unknown

to Mr. De Loche; but he was sure that his neighbor would know it and

would give information of my presence, and this made my stay unpleasant

to him after the call of Dr. Smith.

I have stated that a detachment of troops was engaged in guarding

workmen who were repairing the railroad east of Memphis. On the day I

entered Memphis, Jackson captured a small herd of beef cattle which had

been sent east for the troops so engaged. The drovers were not enlisted

men and he released them. A day or two after one of these drovers came

to my headquarters and, relating the circumstances of his capture, said

Jackson was very much disappointed that he had not captured me; that he

was six or seven miles south of the Memphis and Charleston railroad when

he learned that I was stopping at the house of Mr. De Loche, and had

ridden with his command to the junction of the road he was on with that

from La Grange and Memphis, where he learned that I had passed

three-quarters of an hour before. He thought it would be useless to

pursue with jaded horses a well-mounted party with so much of a start.

Had he gone three-quarters of a mile farther he would have found me with

my party quietly resting under the shade of trees and without even arms

in our hands with which to defend ourselves.

General Jackson of course did not communicate his disappointment at not

capturing me to a prisoner, a young drover; but from the talk among the

soldiers the facts related were learned. A day or two later Mr. De

Loche called on me in Memphis to apologize for his apparent incivility

in not insisting on my staying for dinner. He said that his wife

accused him of marked discourtesy, but that, after the call of his

neighbor, he had felt restless until I got away. I never met General

Jackson before the war, nor during it, but have met him since at his

very comfortable summer home at Manitou Springs, Colorado. I reminded

him of the above incident, and this drew from him the response that he

was thankful now he had not captured me. I certainly was very thankful

too.

My occupation of Memphis as district headquarters did not last long.

The period, however, was marked by a few incidents which were novel to

me. Up to that time I had not occupied any place in the South where the

citizens were at home in any great numbers. Dover was within the

fortifications at Fort Donelson, and, as far as I remember, every

citizen was gone. There were no people living at Pittsburg landing, and

but very few at Corinth. Memphis, however, was a populous city, and

there were many of the citizens remaining there who were not only

thoroughly impressed with the justice of their cause, but who thought

that even the "Yankee soldiery" must entertain the same views if they

could only be induced to make an honest confession. It took hours of my

time every day to listen to complaints and requests. The latter were

generally reasonable, and if so they were granted; but the complaints

were not always, or even often, well founded. Two instances will mark

the general character. First: the officer who commanded at Memphis

immediately after the city fell into the hands of the National troops

had ordered one of the churches of the city to be opened to the

soldiers. Army chaplains were authorized to occupy the pulpit. Second:

at the beginning of the war the Confederate Congress had passed a law

confiscating all property of "alien enemies" at the South, including the

debts of Southerners to Northern men. In consequence of this law, when

Memphis was occupied the provost-marshal had forcibly collected all the

evidences he could obtain of such debts.

Almost the first complaints made to me were these two outrages. The

gentleman who made the complaints informed me first of his own high

standing as a lawyer, a citizen and a Christian. He was a deacon in the

church which had been defiled by the occupation of Union troops, and by

a Union chaplain filling the pulpit. He did not use the word "defile,"

but he expressed the idea very clearly. He asked that the church be

restored to the former congregation. I told him that no order had been

issued prohibiting the congregation attending the church. He said of

course the congregation could not hear a Northern clergyman who differed

so radically with them on questions of government. I told him the

troops would continue to occupy that church for the present, and that

they would not be called upon to hear disloyal sentiments proclaimed

from the pulpit. This closed the argument on the first point.

Then came the second. The complainant said that he wanted the papers

restored to him which had been surrendered to the provost-marshal under

protest; he was a lawyer, and before the establishment of the

"Confederate States Government" had been the attorney for a number of

large business houses at the North; that "his government" had

confiscated all debts due "alien enemies," and appointed commissioners,

or officers, to collect such debts and pay them over to the

"government": but in his case, owing to his high standing, he had been

permitted to hold these claims for collection, the responsible officials

knowing that he would account to the "government" for every dollar

received. He said that his "government," when it came in possession of

all its territory, would hold him personally responsible for the claims

he had surrendered to the provost-marshal. His impudence was so sublime

that I was rather amused than indignant. I told him, however, that if

he would remain in Memphis I did not believe the Confederate government

would ever molest him. He left, no doubt, as much amazed at my

assurance as I was at the brazenness of his request.

On the 11th of July General Halleck received telegraphic orders

appointing him to the command of all the armies, with headquarters in

Washington. His instructions pressed him to proceed to his new field of

duty with as little delay as was consistent with the safety and

interests of his previous command. I was next in rank, and he

telegraphed me the same day to report at department headquarters at

Corinth. I was not informed by the dispatch that my chief had been

ordered to a different field and did not know whether to move my

headquarters or not. I telegraphed asking if I was to take my staff

with me, and received word in reply: "This place will be your

headquarters. You can judge for yourself." I left Memphis for my new

field without delay, and reached Corinth on the 15th of the month.

General Halleck remained until the 17th of July; but he was very

uncommunicative, and gave me no information as to what I had been called

to Corinth for.

When General Halleck left to assume the duties of general-in-chief I

remained in command of the district of West Tennessee. Practically I

became a department commander, because no one was assigned to that

position over me and I made my reports direct to the general-in-chief;

but I was not assigned to the position of department commander until the

25th of October. General Halleck while commanding the Department of the

Mississippi had had control as far east as a line drawn from Chattanooga

north. My district only embraced West Tennessee and Kentucky west of

the Cumberland River. Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, had, as

previously stated, been ordered east towards Chattanooga, with

instructions to repair the Memphis and Charleston railroad as he

advanced. Troops had been sent north by Halleck along the line of the

Mobile and Ohio railroad to put it in repair as far as Columbus. Other

troops were stationed on the railroad from Jackson, Tennessee, to Grand

Junction, and still others on the road west to Memphis.

The remainder of the magnificent army of 120,000 men which entered

Corinth on the 30th of May had now become so scattered that I was put

entirely on the defensive in a territory whose population was hostile to

the Union. One of the first things I had to do was to construct

fortifications at Corinth better suited to the garrison that could be

spared to man them. The structures that had been built during the

months of May and June were left as monuments to the skill of the

engineer, and others were constructed in a few days, plainer in design

but suited to the command available to defend them.

I disposed the troops belonging to the district in conformity with the

situation as rapidly as possible. The forces at Donelson, Clarksville

and Nashville, with those at Corinth and along the railroad eastward, I

regarded as sufficient for protection against any attack from the west.

The Mobile and Ohio railroad was guarded from Rienzi, south of Corinth,

to Columbus; and the Mississippi Central railroad from Jackson,

Tennessee, to Bolivar. Grand Junction and La Grange on the Memphis

railroad were abandoned.

South of the Army of the Tennessee, and confronting it, was Van Dorn,

with a sufficient force to organize a movable army of thirty-five to

forty thousand men, after being reinforced by Price from Missouri. This

movable force could be thrown against either Corinth, Bolivar or

Memphis; and the best that could be done in such event would be to

weaken the points not threatened in order to reinforce the one that was.

Nothing could be gained on the National side by attacking elsewhere,

because the territory already occupied was as much as the force present

could guard. The most anxious period of the war, to me, was during the

time the Army of the Tennessee was guarding the territory acquired by

the fall of Corinth and Memphis and before I was sufficiently reinforced

to take the offensive. The enemy also had cavalry operating in our

rear, making it necessary to guard every point of the railroad back to

Columbus, on the security of which we were dependent for all our

supplies. Headquarters were connected by telegraph with all points of

the command except Memphis and the Mississippi below Columbus. With

these points communication was had by the railroad to Columbus, then

down the river by boat. To reinforce Memphis would take three or four

days, and to get an order there for troops to move elsewhere would have

taken at least two days. Memphis therefore was practically isolated

from the balance of the command. But it was in Sherman's hands. Then

too the troops were well intrenched and the gunboats made a valuable

auxiliary.

During the two months after the departure of General Halleck there was

much fighting between small bodies of the contending armies, but these

encounters were dwarfed by the magnitude of the main battles so as to be

now almost forgotten except by those engaged in them. Some of them,

however, estimated by the losses on both sides in killed and wounded,

were equal in hard fighting to most of the battles of the Mexican war

which attracted so much of the attention of the public when they

occurred. About the 23d of July Colonel Ross, commanding at Bolivar,

was threatened by a large force of the enemy so that he had to be

reinforced from Jackson and Corinth. On the 27th there was skirmishing

on the Hatchie River, eight miles from Bolivar. On the 30th I learned

from Colonel P. H. Sheridan, who had been far to the south, that Bragg

in person was at Rome, Georgia, with his troops moving by rail (by way

of Mobile) to Chattanooga and his wagon train marching overland to join

him at Rome. Price was at this time at Holly Springs, Mississippi, with

a large force, and occupied Grand Junction as an outpost. I proposed to

the general-in-chief to be permitted to drive him away, but was informed

that, while I had to judge for myself, the best use to make of my troops

WAS NOT TO SCATTER THEM, but hold them ready to reinforce Buell.

The movement of Bragg himself with his wagon trains to Chattanooga

across country, while his troops were transported over a long

round-about road to the same destination, without need of guards except

when in my immediate front, demonstrates the advantage which troops

enjoy while acting in a country where the people are friendly. Buell

was marching through a hostile region and had to have his communications

thoroughly guarded back to a base of supplies. More men were required

the farther the National troops penetrated into the enemy's country. I,

with an army sufficiently powerful to have destroyed Bragg, was purely

on the defensive and accomplishing no more than to hold a force far

inferior to my own.

On the 2d of August I was ordered from Washington to live upon the

country, on the resources of citizens hostile to the government, so far

as practicable. I was also directed to "handle rebels within our lines

without gloves," to imprison them, or to expel them from their homes and

from our lines. I do not recollect having arrested and confined a

citizen (not a soldier) during the entire rebellion. I am aware that a

great many were sent to northern prisons, particularly to Joliet,

Illinois, by some of my subordinates with the statement that it was my

order. I had all such released the moment I learned of their arrest;

and finally sent a staff officer north to release every prisoner who was

said to be confined by my order. There were many citizens at home who

deserved punishment because they were soldiers when an opportunity was

afforded to inflict an injury to the National cause. This class was not

of the kind that were apt to get arrested, and I deemed it better that a

few guilty men should escape than that a great many innocent ones should

suffer.

On the 14th of August I was ordered to send two more divisions to Buell.

They were sent the same day by way of Decatur. On the 22d Colonel

Rodney Mason surrendered Clarksville with six companies of his regiment.

Colonel Mason was one of the officers who had led their regiments off

the field at almost the first fire of the rebels at Shiloh. He was by

nature and education a gentleman, and was terribly mortified at his

action when the battle was over. He came to me with tears in his eyes

and begged to be allowed to have another trial. I felt great sympathy

for him and sent him, with his regiment, to garrison Clarksville and

Donelson. He selected Clarksville for his headquarters, no doubt

because he regarded it as the post of danger, it being nearer the enemy.

But when he was summoned to surrender by a band of guerillas, his

constitutional weakness overcame him. He inquired the number of men the

enemy had, and receiving a response indicating a force greater than his

own he said if he could be satisfied of that fact he would surrender.

Arrangements were made for him to count the guerillas, and having

satisfied himself that the enemy had the greater force he surrendered

and informed his subordinate at Donelson of the fact, advising him to do

the same. The guerillas paroled their prisoners and moved upon

Donelson, but the officer in command at that point marched out to meet

them and drove them away.

Among other embarrassments, at the time of which I now write, was the

fact that the government wanted to get out all the cotton possible from

the South and directed me to give every facility toward that end. Pay

in gold was authorized, and stations on the Mississippi River and on the

railroad in our possession had to be designated where cotton would be

received. This opened to the enemy not only the means of converting

cotton into money, which had a value all over the world and which they

so much needed, but it afforded them means of obtaining accurate and

intelligent information in regard to our position and strength. It was

also demoralizing to the troops. Citizens obtaining permits from the

treasury department had to be protected within our lines and given

facilities to get out cotton by which they realized enormous profits.

Men who had enlisted to fight the battles of their country did not like

to be engaged in protecting a traffic which went to the support of an

enemy they had to fight, and the profits of which went to men who shared

none of their dangers.

On the 30th of August Colonel M. D. Leggett, near Bolivar, with the 20th

and 29th Ohio volunteer infantry, was attacked by a force supposed to be

about 4,000 strong. The enemy was driven away with a loss of more than

one hundred men. On the 1st of September the bridge guard at Medon was

attacked by guerillas. The guard held the position until reinforced,

when the enemy were routed leaving about fifty of their number on the

field dead or wounded, our loss being only two killed and fifteen

wounded. On the same day Colonel Dennis, with a force of less than 500

infantry and two pieces of artillery, met the cavalry of the enemy in

strong force, a few miles west of Medon, and drove them away with great

loss. Our troops buried 179 of the enemy's dead, left upon the field.

Afterwards it was found that all the houses in the vicinity of the

battlefield were turned into hospitals for the wounded. Our loss, as

reported at the time, was forty-five killed and wounded. On the 2d of

September I was ordered to send more reinforcements to Buell. Jackson

and Bolivar were yet threatened, but I sent the reinforcements. On the

4th I received direct orders to send Granger's division also to

Louisville, Kentucky.

General Buell had left Corinth about the 10th of June to march upon

Chattanooga; Bragg, who had superseded Beauregard in command, sent one

division from Tupelo on the 27th of June for the same place. This gave

Buell about seventeen days' start. If he had not been required to repair

the railroad as he advanced, the march could have been made in eighteen

days at the outside, and Chattanooga must have been reached by the

National forces before the rebels could have possibly got there. The

road between Nashville and Chattanooga could easily have been put in

repair by other troops, so that communication with the North would have

been opened in a short time after the occupation of the place by the

National troops. If Buell had been permitted to move in the first

instance, with the whole of the Army of the Ohio and that portion of the

Army of the Mississippi afterwards sent to him, he could have thrown

four divisions from his own command along the line of road to repair and

guard it.

Granger's division was promptly sent on the 4th of September. I was at

the station at Corinth when the troops reached that point, and found

General P. H. Sheridan with them. I expressed surprise at seeing him

and said that I had not expected him to go. He showed decided

disappointment at the prospect of being detained. I felt a little

nettled at his desire to get away and did not detain him.

Sheridan was a first lieutenant in the regiment in which I had served

eleven years, the 4th infantry, and stationed on the Pacific coast when

the war broke out. He was promoted to a captaincy in May, 1861, and

before the close of the year managed in some way, I do not know how, to

get East. He went to Missouri. Halleck had known him as a very

successful young officer in managing campaigns against the Indians on

the Pacific coast, and appointed him acting-quartermaster in south-west

Missouri. There was no difficulty in getting supplies forward while

Sheridan served in that capacity; but he got into difficulty with his

immediate superiors because of his stringent rules for preventing the

use of public transportation for private purposes. He asked to be

relieved from further duty in the capacity in which he was engaged and

his request was granted. When General Halleck took the field in April,

1862, Sheridan was assigned to duty on his staff. During the advance on

Corinth a vacancy occurred in the colonelcy of the 2d Michigan cavalry.

Governor Blair, of Michigan, telegraphed General Halleck asking him to

suggest the name of a professional soldier for the vacancy, saying he

would appoint a good man without reference to his State. Sheridan was

named; and was so conspicuously efficient that when Corinth was reached

he was assigned to command a cavalry brigade in the Army of the

Mississippi. He was in command at Booneville on the 1st of July with

two small regiments, when he was attacked by a force full three times

as numerous as his own. By very skilful manoeuvres and boldness of

attack he completely routed the enemy. For this he was made a

brigadier-general and became a conspicuous figure in the army about

Corinth. On this account I was sorry to see him leaving me. His

departure was probably fortunate, for he rendered distinguished services

in his new field.

Granger and Sheridan reached Louisville before Buell got there, and on

the night of their arrival Sheridan with his command threw up works

around the railroad station for the defence of troops as they came from

the front.