Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2: November 1863-June 1865

ory--No council of war--Qualities of his dispatches--Returns by Cumberland Gap--Longstreet's situation--Destitution of both armies--Railroad repairs and improved service--Light-draught steamboats--Bri

n in Dandridge--Sturgis's toddy--Retreat to Strawberry Plains--A hard night march--A rough day--An uncomfortable bivouac

d passed by, but it was still "zero weather" when he came: indeed he had waited in Knoxville for a little moderating of the temperature, but finding that it continued very cold, his desire to complete the inspection hurried him on. The corps and division commanders accompanied him in a ride through the camps that he might see

direction of a military discussion. Grant did not seem to desire further information, but was satisfied with what he had seen. He took no lead in conversation, and it was evident that he almost wholly lacked facility in that way. What he said was kindly; there was nothing like surliness in his manner; but he seemed to be without the faculty of drawing other people out and putting himself in easy accord with them. No doubt his interviews with General Foster had contained all that was necessary for

eyed. It was half-deprecatory in tone, with an air of shyness, and he had a way of glancing quickly from one to another, as if looking for signs of response to his venture into talk. As he went on, this wore off to some extent, and he laughed quietly over the reminiscences he was telling. He told very well a story of his experience in the riding-school, where the riding-master in his time was an amusing sort of tyrant. Grant's strong point was horsemanship, and the riding-master, whether seriously or as a joke, determined to "take down" the young cadet. At the exercise Grant was mounted on a powerful but vicious

g officer; but if we supplement it by a reading of the daily and hourly dispatches in which the clear practical judgment, the unswerving faith in final success, the unbending will, the restless energy and industry, the power to master numberless details, and a consciousness of

erland Gap, and form his own judgment as to the truth of the reports of the impassable condition of the roads. The weather had hardly moderated at all when he left us on the 4th of January, and this long and severe journey w

ad become very scarce in every part of Tennessee, and it was with great difficulty that the horses were kept alive in either army. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 817, 819.] To go into cantonments, sheltering the men as well as possible, to send all extra horses to the rear and wait for the springing of the grass and the settling of the roads when winter should be over, was the dictate of common-sense, as was clearly seen by everybody on the ground. It was not

shall not be my fault." He came, and saw that it was not Foster's fault, and that no more than Foster could he make a winter campaign with men in such a state of destitution. As I have already said, droves of beef, cattle, and hogs could be brought "on the hoof," in poor condition it is true, but fit to be eaten. Yet soldiers could not campaign on fresh beef and pork only, and bread stuffs and all vegetable food were practically not to be had; so of coffee, sugar, salt, and the small rations generally. This, however, was the least part of the trouble, for the condition of the army as to clothing and shoes was simply appalling. When many had not even rag

already dependent on it. General McCallum, the superintendent of military railroads, had gone west, and was inspecting the Nashville and Chattanooga Road, and carefully studying the problem of its possible capacity. [Footnote:Id., pp. 422, 444.] In consequence of this a change was made in the local superintendence, and Mr. Adna Anderson was put in charge of operating the line, while Mr. W. W. Wright was made constructing engineer. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 371, 372.] Under their energy and ability it was repaired and operated so that East Tennessee as well as Sherman's army in Georgia were abundantly supplied during the Atlanta campaign; but this is part of the history of the next spring and summer. To reduce the number of mouths to feed at Chattanooga, Grant sent portions of the Army of the Tennessee into northern Alabama, where they could be supplied by bo

iii. p. 483.] Pontoon bridges were prepared for use at different points on the river. Lumber was cut to rebuild the great railway bridge at Loudon and the long trestle at Strawberry Plains. The little train of "twenty-odd cars" which Burnside had captured was carefully guarded and kept running on the only bit of railroad in

make regular supplies possible. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 281 et seq.] Grant listened and suspended his judgment till he had examined the situation for himself. An accident to General Foster had increased the complication of affairs. He was occasionally suffering from lameness resulting from an old wound in the leg, and had found on his first journey over the mountains that he was in danger of being disabled by it. Within a fortnight after he reached Knoxville, his horse fell with him in passing over some slippery rock

he said, "From the personal inspection made, I am satisfied that no portion of our supplies can be hauled by teams from Camp Nelson [Ky.]." He proposed, on the first rise of the Cumberland River, to send supplies by steamboat up the Cumberland to the mouth of the Big South Fork, in the hope that as this was a new route some forage for the teams could be got along it, and that wagoning would be possible by that line into East Tennessee. It did not turn out to be so, and the only relief we got

e the "veteran furlough" at this time to several more of the regiments which had re-enlisted. Trustworthy evidence showed that Longstreet was quite as badly off as we were, and that he was not likely to move unless, like us, he was forced to do so to find forage. Cavalry parties had reported to us that there were considerable quantities of corn in the neighborhood of Sevierville, and this was the inducement to send most of our troops to that side of the French Broad River. To avoid any appearance of retreat, it was ordered that we march from Strawberry Plains to Dandridge, which was a flank movement to our right, one day's march. There we should extemporize some sort of ferry to cross the French Broad and seek camps in regions which promised some supplies, but within supporting distance of our several detachments. Th

Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 102.] The march was nineteen miles to Dandridge, and our positions were about a mile in front of the village, on the hills covering it. Both the Fourth and the Ninth Corps had remained in their camps at Blain's Crossroads up to this time, and the Ninth now took my place at Strawberry Plains, covering Knoxville from that direction. It had less than 4000 men present for duty. [Footnote: Id., p. 292.] Our moving column consisted of Sheridan's and Wood's divisions of the Fourth Corps and parts of three brig

heast of us, locally called the Bend o' Chucky. A range of hills known as Bay's Mountain was the water-shed between the valleys of the Holston and the French Broad, and we expected the cavalry to cover the front on a line from Kimbrough's Cross-roads near the mountain to the Bend o' Chucky. This line would be nine or ten miles from Dandridge, and would communicate also with Mott's brigade of my command, which had been l

vision commander was not thought of as specially fitted for large and independent responsibilities. He was not considered cool enough for the broader duties of a commander, and indeed had had rather bad luck in the great battles of Stone's River and Chickamauga, where the qualities called for were those which enable a perfectly self-possessed officer to extricate his command from a perilous position. He has told me himself that he was slow in learning to have confidence in his own power to direct in such cases, an

l and so irritating that Sheridan's answer was to order him to keep his quarters in arrest. Their quarrel, however, dated from the battle of Missionary Ridge, where Sheridan accused Wood's division, and Hazen in particular, with usurping the honors of being first on the crest and capturing part of Bragg's artillery. Sheridan honestly thought his division entitled to the honor, but the official evidence seems to me to be against him. At any rate, it began a very pretty quarrel which never was wholly made up, and which had many queer little episodes, in war and in peace, on the Indian frontier and at Washington, for many years thereafter. Hazen was an officer of real ability, of brilliant courage and splendid personal presence. His fault was that he was too keen in seeing flaws in other people's performance of duty, and apt to dilate upon them in his official reports when such officers were wholly independent of him. This made him a good many ene

, had advanced upon information of the movement of our cavalry on the 14th. In doing this Longstreet had turned the position of the brigade of infantry left at Mossy Creek, and Colonel Mott retired on the 16th to Strawberry Plains in accordance with his orders. Toward evening the cavalry on our right were driven back in a lively skirmish, and those on the left were recalled to give them support. The whole were united and repulsed the enemy's horsemen, taking position for the night about a mile in front of our infantry camps. On the 17th the enemy's infantry advanced, and reached the posts of our cavalry in the afternoon. Longstreet now made a vigorous attack with hi

below the town was a shallow, fordable at an ordinary stage of water, and now about waist-deep for the men. In the low physical condition of our troops and their lack of clothing he very wisely thought it would not do to make them march through the river, but devised a foot-bridge by putting army wagons end to end and making a path over the boxes of the

er, but there was then no help for it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. i. p. 79.] It was impracticable to complete the bridge before morning, and it was doubtful if wagons enough could be got together. My own command was on the extreme left of the line, partly covering the road back to Strawberry Plains, and we had not been engaged. The fighting had been in front of the centre and right. I could therefore throw no light on the question of the enemy's force. The information from other parts of the line and from prisoners left no doubt that infantry had engaged in the attack late in the afternoon and that Longstreet was

duced a sugar-bowl and the toddy was taken. The conversation ran on a few moments, when, as if it were a wholly new suggestion, the same voice repeated, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy;" and again the attendant did the honors. Our orders were received and we were about ready to go to our commands, when again, with polite intonation and a most amusing unconsciousness of any repetition, came the words, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." The incident was certainly a funny one in itself, but I should not have cared to repeat it had not the official records of Sturgis's defeat by Forrest in the Tishimingo affair later in the year emphasized the mischief of lax habits

f me, but as they had not yet climbed the first hill, we found ourselves necessarily halted in the main street of the village. General Willich had prudently placed a tent a little to the right of the road where it leaves the town, and there he made his quarters until the column should completely pass that point. He could thus keep his division in their bivouac in support of the cavalry till he knew the rest of the little army had cleared the place and could secure some rest, whilst he was still in easy communication with both t

e time as well as the distance was thus trebled or quadrupled. In some instances more than twenty horses were thus hitched to a single piece, besides having infantrymen at the wheels as thick as they could cluster, pushing and lifting. The column which was halted thus waiting for the wagon trains and artillery to climb a hill, grew weary of standing. The men would break ranks and sit down in the fence corners, where they built little camp-fires, and, rainy as it was, they fell asleep leaning against each other in these little bivouacs. Then would come word from the front t

e assailed, but the enemy took no advantage of our situation, and I have always believed that as the meeting at Dandridge was a mutual surprise, by a similar coincidence both parties were retiring at the same time. Our cavalry moved off towa

should get across the Holston next day and reach our headquarters wagons. Better luck happened us, however. We found a deserted and unfinished log cabin which had a roof and a stick-and-clay chimney, though it had no floor or chinking. The snow drove through between the logs, but the roof was over our heads and we soon had a lively fire roaring in the chimney. Some bundles of corn-stalks were found in a field near by, and of these we made a bed on the ground in front of the fire, and began to think we might forget our hunger in thankfulness for fire and shelter such as it was. But still better was in store for us. One of our tired forage trains had gone into park near us, and the teamsters offered to share their supper with us. They had corn "pone," some salt pork, and for a rarity some newly arrived coffee. We sat on the corn-stalks around the fire with an iron camp-kettle in the midst containing the black coffee which we dipped out with battered tin cups, and we held in our hands pieces of the corn-pone and slices of fried pork, congratulating each other on the unexpected luxury of our supper. Hunger and fatigue were so good a sauce that it seemed really a

tion to it on a day's march, so that the camps were more cheerful than they had been in the intensely severe weather of the first half of the month. On the next day we continued the movement, passing through Strawberry Plains and three miles further on the road t

in force on Knoxville. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 109, 127.] The source of the information is not disclosed, but the news was stated with a positiveness uncommon with Grant. It reached Foster just as he had Parke's report of our having most unexpectedly met Longstreet's infantry at Dandridge and of our retreat on Strawberry Plains. The news was withou

ying more troops in East Tennessee made it useless to send reinforcements, and that he must keep between Longstreet and Thomas, retiring toward Chattanooga if necessary. Halleck complicated the situation by telegraphing direct to Thomas that he must aid Foster to any extent needed, and that the line from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap must be maintained at all hazards. [Footnote: Id., p. 130.] Foster reported to Grant that he had so greatly improved the defences and armament of Knoxville that it could not be taken, and that he would not retire further than this place unless it were explicitly ordered. [Footnote: Id., p. 138.] This was in accordance with General Grant's wish, and his confidence in the information as to Longstreet's reinforcement was such that he telegraphed Halleck on the 20th that